Music
This section of the site presents a taster of my work as a composer and musician.
All music is under copyright.
Sand and Rain
Sand and Rain starts with a Moorish piano solo before developing into a fully fledged Latin instrumental.
Sand represents Mike's love of heat, journeying, and distant cultures, the place his heart is most at home, while Rain represents the Northern European culture of his birthplace, the place his mind is most at ease.
Sand and Rain shows a number of influences in mike's music. The pianist, composer, and improviser Keith Jarrett, has been a major musical influence in Mike's musical output and the opening section of Sand and Rain is a homage to him.
Sand and Rain makes reference to the musical traditions of north Africa, Latin America, and Europe, and by so doing, reflects mike's own eclectic musical tastes
Extract (290kb):
Sand and Rain (full version: 3.19MB)
A Silent Movie
A Silent Movie, a complex and personal work, was composed between 1986 and 1988, runs to forty minutes, and is read and heard concurrently.
Mike's creative development by 1987 had led him increasingly to include written text as an integral part of his musical output. In 1988 he decided to embark on a work which would be highly ambitious in both content and style.
A Silent Movie contains a broad range of musical forms from acapello singing, jazz, classical, and spoken word, to the musical use of ambient sounds. A Silent Movie was to become the first 'audiotexs', and was technically very demanding as the advent of affordable digital audio had not yet arrived (all sound material was cut and pasted using traditional magnetic media technology).
A Silent Movie runs to forty minutes and is read and heard concurrently. Below is a short extract from the text of A Silent Movie, which appears towards the final stages of the work. A number of themes appear in this extract that are developed throughout the work: the life cycle, human cloning, and aesthetics.
Extract: 368kb:
A Silent Movie (extended extract: 924kb):
Listen Up
Listen Up was composed in an intense period of musical creativity when Mike laid hands on a powerful music sequencer for the first time in the late 1980's. His main goal was to create music using computer software which maintained the human touch and feel of swing. The challenge was to use the tools of technology to encourage, not disable instinct.
Listen Up (extract: 221kb):
On The West Side
This digital recording of On The West Side, was recorded during 1997, when digital technology first became widely available as an affordable option for musicians and composers.
Extract: 252kb:
On The West Side (full version: 2.56MB):
My Family
Songwriting is an instinctive process. Music and words develop hand in hand, one expression feeds the other.
My Family was written as a remembrance of times past. The song is about Mike as a young boy and reflects the confusion and contradictions of a young person's experience of family.
My Family (extract: 298kb):
Our Town
Our Town was a community arts project that ran throughout the year 2000 and consisted of: the exhibition Our Town, My Space; the Our Town 'audiotexs'; and the Our Town booklet. This and the following three tracks are taken from the music composition element of the arts project. An audiotexs is an audio recording of music, speech, and ambient sounds forming an integrated whole and where all elements are treated musically.
Mike began work on the audiotexs Our Town in December 1997. Over the following two years he interviewed hundreds of people for the project, and made thousands of ambient sound recordings. Our Town is a four movement work which runs to seventy minutes.
From infancy to old age, bankers and beekepers, mothers and fathers, rich, poor, happy, angry, sad. All are part of Our Town. Some tell of their passions, of those who have left and indelible mark on their lives, others of their journey as it nears its end. From morning to night, through sun, wind and rain, through every season of the year, you will hear sounds from familiar and unexplored places.
Our Town Opening (short extract: 502kb):
Our Town Opening (long extract: 2.92MB):
Not So Long Ago (extract: 110kb):
Where I Want To Be (extract: 292kb):
Where I Want To Be (full version: 2.17MB):
Full Circle (extract:272kb):
Full Circle (extended extract: 2.39MB):