Media & Company, ARTS4U.COM proudly presents: "WET SIGNALS" Reverb as Melody, a Todd Merrell CD Music Production. Created in correlation with David Va'lyou, Sculptor/Painter. Both Artists were represented in an exhibition called "CLEAR" which involved Merrell's "Wet Signals" music and Va'lyou's mixed media art installations.
What can be said about an artist whose career has taken the many forms of channeled new age composer and pianist, punk rocker, art-punk rocker, post-punk Jamaican dub musician and producer, proto-electronica and acid house producer, funk keyboardist, punk bass keyboardist, sound collage DJ, jazz vocalist, soul vocalist, short wave radio player and composer, folk singer, ambient producer, omposer of contemporary chamber and orchestral music for traditional and nontraditional instruments, techno producer, and downtempo electronica producer? What could these ridiculously divergent roles possibly have in common? What knotted thread could begin to course through such alarmingly incongruous themes?
TRANSFORMATION, SYNTHESIS, and INTEGRITY.
TRANSFORMATION of homemade sound, found sound, borrowed or just beautifully played musical concepts and needs. Always giving what I felt was needed at the time, aesthetically, rhythmically, zeitgeist reacatingly, and musically. TRANSFORMATION of role as dictated by the needs of the times. Who needs to hear which perspective now? Which audience needs to become aware of which globally impacting cultures and events, news and newness, and coming of evolving consciousness? How can this be done without being didactic nor narrative, and without needing notes to explain it? These are my materials.
SYNTHESIS of all that I have come to learn. I need to be all of these performers and composers in order to become ecumenical, and to synthesize this knowledge into currently relevant musical cross-pollinations of the underrepresented yet worthwhile, wrought in a tastefully informed yet innovative form that would speak to an audience greater than fifteen people without being commercial. SYNTHESIS of many cultures, ancient, and fifteen seconds ago. SYNTHESIS of the remedies for the hunger of body, mind, and spirit.
INTEGRITY. The work isn't programmatic - no instruction or manual is needed. It's even more than what it is intrinsically. It's what the work itself creates! My work has been concerned primarily with organic and germane compositional processes. Not unlike West African polyrhythmic music, Balinese Gamelan music, minimalist works, or any good jam session, my music involves the evolutionary development of cellular structures or isomelodies and isorhythms, contrasting simultaneous phrases that repeat yet whose repeat points are not simultaneous (thus obscuring the bar line), highly developed syncopation and some form of call and response or hocket or klangfarben, and pandiatonic, modal and non-functional harmonies.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
Todd Merrell studied music composition and voice at Berklee College of Music and with composer James Sellars of the Hartt School of Music. In 1998 he produced Jake Bell's debut album "Synjase: Return of the Vortex" on Whirlybird Records, the label created by Silver Apples founder Simeon Coxe. Todd recently completed a compact disc recording of his own work to accompany David Va'lyou's mixed media art installation "Clear" at the Hoppin Gallery in Farmington, Connecticut. He makes his home in onnecticut and New Hampshire.
Collaborated on unreleased tracks with: · Brian Transeau (better known as BT) · Dave Ellis and Eleazar de la Garza · Dan Graham · Eddie Martinez · John Haydon · and most prolifically, Patrick Jordan, as · as Hands of Manipula · Future Perfect · X-Men · Ikon · The Single Side Band · and Twee Armada · Produced many solo projects of previously unreleased material as: · Dreamtank · Supertonic · Brawny Prawn · and toggle.
Written pieces for: · Pianist Yvar Mikhashoff · Double Bassist Robert Black and Percussionist Amy Knoles · and had works premiered by: · Jan Williams' percussion ensemble at SUNY at Buffalo · Pianist Charis Bean Duke · Percussionist Steve Butters · Flautist Tim Lane · Harpsichordist Paul Ciennewa · and Chicago A Capella · Performed at: · Berklee Performance Center, Boston · The University of Connecticut, Storrs · The Hartt School of Music, Hartford, Connecticut · Club Lower Links, Chicago · Café Voltaire, Chicago.
Performed and been interviewed at: · WBEZ Public Radio, Chicago · WFMT Classical Radio, Chicago · WWUH and WRTC, Hartford, Connecticut · Public Radio, Anchorage, Alaska.
Influences include, but are by no means limited to: Bach, Stevie Wonder, Stravinsky, Marvin Gaye, Erik Satie, King Oliver, Thomas Dolby, The Spinners, Perotin, Louis Armstrong, Thomas Tallis, Isaac Hayes, Francois Couperin, Laurie Anderson, Palestrina, Earth Wind and Fire, Steve Reich, Fats Waller, John Cage, Barry White, John Adams, Bob Marley, Philip Glass, Peter Tosh, Richard H. Kirk, Fila Brazillia, Baby Mammoth, Bullitnuts, Moss, Solid Doctor, Leggo Beast, Delta-T, Fretless AZM, Universal Being, Brian Eno, Augustus Pablo and West African, Jamaican, Balinese, and English music. An extensive, although hardly complete discography and list of works is available - not for the faint of heart.
All copyrights reserved, Todd Merrell, Media & Company, 2000