SOUND BYTES
Sound Bytes is the first of many future EPs that contain stray music, compositions, or experiments that don't fit into a major release.
This one features works from as far back as 2016 and up into 2020. A majority of them were commissioned for the Electric Pizza Commissioning Project, a project at the University of Central Oklahoma which paired composers with musicians and paid them to have works created and performed for a concert.
Sound Bytes is streaming everywhere now!
This was part of the first wave of the Electric Pizza Commissioning Project for the University of Central Oklahoma. The track was largely inspired by the YouTube live stream, "lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to". In conversation with Ryan Kyker, the violist for whom the piece was commissioned for, we discussed the sounds in that live stream, and it was my opportunity to make a "lo-fi hip hop beat to relax/study to", since I had been wanting to anyways. The viola part is not in the track you will hear. After making the instrumental, a completely finished track, the viola part came as an afterthought. Imagine a student that was supposed to be practicing viola but instead improvises a theme and variations on top of the track, getting progressively more passionate until they realize that they should get back to work. But in that moment of freedom, they experience peace... for a moment.
Originally performed on March 2nd, 2020, with Ryan Kyker on viola at the UCO Jazz Lab.
The oldest track of the EP, this track came about when I was taking music composition lessons with Patrick Conlon at ACM@UCO during my undergrad. At the time, my now-wife and her parents were out of town, and I was house-sitting, so I had a limited music creation setup. All I had was my laptop and a Korg padKONTROL, which forced me to think outside of the realm of a keyboard and play the music with a 16x16 grid. With some suggestions from Patrick and some more tweaking, "Mirage" became an experience entirely within itself, and is one of my favorite things I've ever made.
Originally released on my SoundCloud on September 17th, 2016, and has been subsequently performed at Electric Pizza concerts with Power Cycle.
During my master's degree, Dr. L. Keith White helped form Power Cycle, an experimental electronic trio of composers - J.R. Edwards, Breck McGough, and myself, Santiago Ramones. Since all three of us were graduate composition majors studying electroacoustic music with him, Dr. White had us collaborate and create a series of concerts called "Electric Pizza". Each month, Power Cycle would make a concert's worth of new electronic music to be performed at the UCO Jazz Lab, each with a theme or idea to guide our composition and experimentation. For the April 10th, 2019 concert, the theme was "With a Little Help from Our Friends", which was to encourage collaboration with musicians outside of the trio. Quickly and somewhat randomly (I think at Dr. White's behest), I put together "A Voyage" to be a background electronic track for other musicians in the audience to come on stage and improvise with us. I didn't think much of the track until I started looking through tracks to put on this EP, and so I shortened the track and added a bass line, and here you go. It does not have the live instruments from that concert.
Originally performed on April 10th, 2019, at the UCO Jazz Lab, titled "With a Little Help from Our Friends", and featured live improvisation from Michael Blanton on bass guitar, Keegan Darrow on drums, J.R. Edwards on cello, Dr. Steve Hansen on electric guitar, Dr. Brian Lamb on trumpet, Dr. Samuel Magrill on piano, Julia McConnell on voice and poetry, Breck McGough on piano, Stephanie Peñate on synthesizer, Santiago Ramones on electronics, and Dr. Tess Remy-Schumacher on cello. You can watch the video of this performance on Power Cycle's YouTube channel.
Imagine: You're floating through space, admiring the vastness and beauty of the void all around you, without a space suit, after being forcibly shot out of the ship's airlock. This was partly inspired by a piece from J.R. Edwards called "I Want To Go Home", involving a robot all alone in space. This piece is similarly space-themed. It was originally written for alto saxophone for the Electric Pizza Commissioning Project but was never performed due to COVID-19 restrictions. Instead of alto saxophone for this track, I modified the lead synth sound used on "Mirage" to make it match the sound of the track.
Another Electric Pizza Commissioning Project piece, this time for voice. It was inspired by Björk, Darren Korb, and the trauma that drone pilots experience. This is the instrumental for the track. If you listen closely, you can hear the vocal melody.
Originally performed by Gilda Parlatto-Lire on March 2nd, 2020 at the UCO Jazz Lab.
Lyrics:
The unreal nature of it
The hyper-reality
The one team using live rounds
Then suddenly are gone
The proxy war continues
The prosperous remain
The digitization of trauma
The drone follows the dead
The “welcome home” of selfies
The next explosive tour
The 21st cent’ry A-list
For honorable pyrotechnics
The corporate brand endorsements
The camo superheroes
The new celebrity status
For successful high-degree murder
The blurry, dark red spray
The hazy aftermath
The white of exposed bone
The freshly blackened flesh
The consequence of buttons
The aftermath of pings
The chorus of the drones
The hum of the machine
Enjoy the fancy meals
The livestream interviews
The first name recognition
The gifts sent to the doorstep
The lavish, stupid parties
The scantily clad ladies
The expensive, fast cars revving
The open-concept mansions
The wide windows to see the view
Of the world turned to ash
Another Electric Pizza Commissioning Project piece that was never performed due to COVID-19 restrictions. This one is for piano. It's inspired, in part, by recent events regarding police brutality in the United States. It's not quite *the* protest piece I wanted to write, but it is *a* protest piece. The right hand chords ascend and descend, like breathing. The chords become more complex and dense as the piece goes on, as the breathing becomes more labored. And even though a harmonic struggle continues, the piece is somewhat repetitive. Much like current events regarding protests, we've been here before, and regardless of how much tension gets added, the same message persists, even though the protests are not being heard.
credits
Composed, produced, written, recorded, and mixed by Santiago Ramones. Mastered by Connor Carroll at Red Water Media Group.
Album art by Santiago Ramones.
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