Category: Music

Here’s a recording from 15 years ago. Craig Padilla was asked to make a soundtrack for a video to be aired on Redding’s cable access channel. Local video artist Namaste had edited video footage he had taken of stormclouds moving into the valleys and mountains of southeastern Oregon and the Mt Shasta area into a longform video for his abstract series titled Meditate On This. In the studio, Craig came up with a few sequence structures on his ESQ-1, and then we riffed on a few musical ideas together about how it should go. Then we just turned on the (analog) tape recorder. It was played live, one-pass. No edits.

I regarded the piece as a “throwaway” sort of one-off. In fact, I didn’t even listen to it after we recorded it. Later, after a few auditions, the music just seemed to grow on me. It’s spare and stark, like the video imagery, but it was a surprisingly appropriate evocation of the high desert and sky. I don’t have the video, and I think I only saw it once, but the music remains. An artistic and beautiful reminder of an era and an artistic endeavor. Craig ultimately thought highly enough of the music to make it the centerpiece of his first professionally produced CD on the See Peace label in 1996, where it became the title track. BTW. Of the two of us, Craig is far and away the one most responsible for this music. I played some parts, and it definitely wouldn’t be the same without my contributions, but this is truly Craig’s talent and inspiration in full glory. This CD is still in print. The photo is one I took in Lassen Park last year.

Eye of the Storm by SkipMurphy
A time capsule of indigenous music from 20th century Northern California. It’s ReallyRedding.

Dusted off the instruments and put up a new track. Reflecting on light surf I recorded on the NorthCoast. About 20 minutes of coastal ambience for meditation and study.
I am going to try and load more of my music at a page in the right sidebar. Hope you enjoy the listening as much as I did the creation.

Agate Beach

Agate Beach1 by SkipMurphy

Craig Padilla and his music was featured recently at the Sonic Immersion webzine from the Netherlands authored by our friend Bert Strolenberg. Whenever I read interviews with musicians, I am reminded of the old saying “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” For musicians, music is the form of expression. When you try to put things into words, something gets lost in translation. Be that as it may, it’s always interesting to see that appreciation for our local music crosses the Atlantic, and across all languages. Music is sort of a universal language in that regard. But if you care to witness this dance about architecture interview, click on the image below. Thanks Bert!

In case you haven’t see this viral video. It made my morning.

Not ReallyRedding, although it would be fun.

You can listen to ambient and space music free at the Earth Mantra website. Here’s a link to the latest collaborative release of a few friends of ours, and longtime fellow travellers, Jim Combs, Jez Creek, and Kevin Haller. It’s interesting and evocative music. Good for late evening reading and such, where the music finds focus in some other region of the brain. There is much other free music to be found at Earth Mantra. All worth exploring.

The Earth Mantra label was started by our friend Darrell Burghan a few years back, mainly to offer an outlet for space-ambient works that would probably not find a home elsewhere. We remember Darrell as the artist Palancar, from the old MP3.com days. A thoroughly decent chap, whom we hold in high regard. We applaud his work to keep this small but interesting genre of music vigorous and growing. The music is free, and can be used non-commercially under the Creative Commons license, which on a website looks like this:
So you can listen to this music, and share it, but not, oh say, use it for background music for your cool online photo slideshow, which you then post on a commercial, revenue generating website. Well, maybe you could use it that way, but you really should ask the artist for permission first. It’s just common courtesy, even if they work cheap, or even free. If you are interested in licensing the work of local starving ambient artists, or any of these unpaid Earth Mantra artists I’ve mentioned here for your local new media project, I can help put you in touch with them. It’s Really Redding.
PS Don’t miss listening to Silvercord – Symphony of Sighs. Perfect for writing.