Eric Hall

Eric Hall
(b. St. Louis, 1975)
Eric Hall is a composer, improviser, producer, and performer of electronic-based music, as well as an installation artist and DJ.
While it is not his only interest, Hall is very fascinated with exploring the musical and sonic analogies of cubism (the idea of viewing something from multiple perspectives and moments in time simultaneously) and mobiles (a singular structure with multiple actions happening independently of one another; extensions that pivot and swing at different rates, but all maintaining balance as a whole). To achieve this Hall uses several real-time samplers to shift events live within time and change pitch, speed, length, direction, and volume to create a kaleidoscopic vantage of the sound sources; whether that is his own sounds or that of his live collaborators. When performing solo, Hall mostly uses real-time samplers to manipulate field recordings, sine waves, and metals, then further treats the sounds with numerous effects processors (many of which are custom), as well as various radio receivers and transmitters.
Bands/Collaborations/Monikers:
- Grandpa’s Ghost (experimental alt-country psych-rock outfit started by Ben Hanna and Bill Emerson and includes Tobi Parks, Chris Dee, Jack Petracek, and several others over the years; and with whom Hall also collaborated extensively with Chicago-based video artist/filmmaker James Fotopoulos, such as for the performance/installation piece The Prairie Drone Refractions).
- Peanuts (Jeremy Brantlinger, Eric Hall, Nazeer Sadeeq Holmes) (improv electro-acoustic trio utilizing piano, drums, electronics, and real-time sampling and layering).
- Xenophobe (improv rock project with Jeremy Brantlinger, Jason Hutto, and James Weber jr. which came together as a tribute to the spirit of the boy in the Foreigner song Juke Box Hero and his riff-inspired epiphany).
- Damo Suzuki's Network/Detroit Sound Carriers (the former vocalist for kraut legends Can has been on a never-ending world tour and has developed a global network of collaborators through his travels that bring him into a different ensemble for each show. Hall traveled to play solo and then within Damo's band at Detroit's awesome Bohemian National House).
- Massamalgam (a genre-defying supergroup formed by San Francisco multi-instrumentalist and bazantar-inventor Mark Deutsch. Hall was a regular performer in and co-organizer of Massamalgam, which was an improvisational music ensemble with more than 30 members from around the world over the course of a couple of years, including NYC hornsmen Roy Campbell jr. and JD Parran, Last Poets co-founder Dahveed Nelson, photographer/filmmaker/poet Ira Cohen, Chicago percussionists Chad Taylor and Michael Zerang, Black Artists Group (BAG) member Shirley LeFlore, improv-genius drummer Gary Sykes, computer musicians Chris Smentkowski and Joseph Potthoff, Persian-born santur-player Alan Kushan, Chinese erhu-player Yang Ying, award-winning slam poet Zaire "Mama Blue" Imani, berimbau-player and percussionist Jason Finkelman, saxophonist Dave Stone, symphony percussionist Henry Claude, turntablist DJ Ses, and many more.
- Fatoush (improv quiet electro-acoustic duo with Jeremy Brantlinger).
- ll (electroacoustic folk/drone/psych improv duo with the extaordinary singer/songwriter Matt Dill).
- Stonechild & Straight-Up Cocoa Butter (improv instrumental hiphop duo with Jeremy Brantlinger).
- Spork and Poon (duo with Jeremy Brantlinger doing jazz standards and classics).
- dHHP (free-form jazz/noise/spoken word project with Ben Hanna, Roy Campbell jr. , Jack Petracek, and Chris Deckard)
- Tard Radish (a quartet with Jeremy Brantlinger, Ajay Khanna, and Ben West begun when Sadeeq couldn't make it for a Peanuts gig at the last minute).
- Dubtronics (a lackluster reggae band that Hall had fun in doing live dub mixing/processing, tape scratching, and, well, sabotaging... like cutting in Bobby Sue by The Oakridge Boys to make their phoney Rastafarian babble more entertaining to himself. Are you feeling irie? Yeah, I REally want to go home).
- DJ Like A Light Bulb!, an annual Christmas set, including one that featured The Kaucasian Kristmas Karolers (Jaime Gartelos, Jeremy Brantlinger, Nazeer Sadeeq Holmes, and Jason Hutto).
- DJ Lil' Daddy Reba McEntire (Hall's celebration of guilty pleasures via his all-original mash-ups and blends of pop and Top 40 songs; also appeared as DJYT & Tonto, Saber-Truthed Liar, DJ Breastmilk Latte, and DJ Warren Piece).
- Hall has done remixes for Bunnygrunt, Julia Sets, and Pat Sajak Assassins, and contributed to records by Cloister and Les Chauvinists.
- Hall has also performed numerous one-off sets with varied artists such as Jim Baltz, Dan Bitney, Cenozoic, Chris Deckard, Chris Dee, Mark Deutsch, Fred Friction, Bob Galloway, Tim Garrigan, Jamie Gartelos, Darin Gray, Jim Hagerty, Sharon Hall, Ben Hanna, Matt Harnish, John Herndon, Jason Hutto, Ajay Khanna, Matthew Lux, Man Igno, Michael Marwit, Rob Mazurek, Thollem McDonas, Blueberry McGregor, Shawn O’Connor, Andy Ortman, Jeff Parker, Tobi Parks, Joseph Potthoff, Joe Raglani, Tony Renner, DJ Ses, Chris Smentkowski, Aaron Smith, Dana Smith, Tory Z. Starbuck, Dave Stone, Stephen Thomas, Tiger Mountain, Brett Underwood, Nathan Warren, James Weber jr. , Ben West, and Western Robot.
Installations/Other Projects and Preoccupations:
- Hall created, curated, and performed in the annual installation series Ancora il Più Estinto (wherein a dozen or more performers are spread throughout a three-level bookstore all playing simultaneously and as softly as possible to create an interactive concert encouraging the audience to move about and listen closely).
- The St. Louis Symphony commissioned Hall to perform a solo electronic version of John Cage's First Construction (In Metal) , in which he used audio samples of metals from across the city; including the Arch, bridges, sculptures, and temple gongs.
- Hall has created several interactive environments and sound-sculptures for the St. Louis Art Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and White Flag Projects; such as Roomix, Untitled (Or Not) , Kidsound, Weathermix, An Automated, Real-Time Manipulation Of The Space's Sonic Activity, and Voice Costumes.
- Hall recorded The Phil Sessions for the St. Louis quarterly 52nd City's Sound edition. Hall's contribution was a 20 minute collage featuring a tour of St. Louis' sonic identity and vast artistic talent by way of impromptu public performances from Dave Stone, Fred Friction, Jeremy Brantlinger, Sunyatta Marshall, Brett Underwood, Jeremy Kannapell, Jason Hutto, Derrick Mosley, and himself.
- Hall created the generative installation piece Open Composition For Ensemble Acheta, Number Two (using treated field recordings, twenty-four hundred live caged crickets, and interactive electronics).
- Hall created the generative installation piece DJ Misnomer (using multiple record players, each playing spoken word recordings being electronically processed live to remove the words and create music from only the breaths, pauses, and surface noises on the records).
- Hall contributed to Chris Deckard’s audience-participatory food/music installation In Spite Of Sustenance at the Forum For Contemporary Art (creating two new works for the performance/CD, one using only the sounds of kitchen utensils being played and the second using only the sounds of Harvest’s chef Steven Gontram preparing and discussing the entrée he came up with as a response to his music).
- Hall performed as a foley artist, along with Jeremy Brantlinger, for The Mad Art Radio Hour, an ongoing series of radio plays performed before a live audience and broadcast on 88.1 KDHX St. Louis Community Radio.
- Hall performed solo and within an ensemble in the Plugged-In concert at Forest Park College, which focused on new and innovative approaches to electronic music, for which his solo piece was performed acoustically on an unplugged desktop computer by slowly taking it apart onstage and finding new sounds inside of it with mallets, bows, and brushes.
- Hall was co-founder, along with New York performance artist/painter/musician Michael Yoav Marwit, of The Third Lip Cabaret, a series of performing arts events combining most every type of music, spoken word, film, performance art, installation, food, and dance. Within this framework hundreds of artists were able to reach a wider audience and collaborate with other artists, often times of a different genre and medium. It was through this endeavor that Hall met many of his most valuable musical associates.
- Hall composed the multi-channel multi-media piece Freedom & Fear (commissioned by Forest Park College and using a six-piece ensemble playing to long tapeloops of themselves that were recorded throughout the performance, but the tapeloops would be muted when a player attempted to accompany them, therefor the playback of the recorded sounds only existed in negative space and were selected through inaction).
- Hall composed numerous works for Forest Park College’s annual outdoor multi-channel concert Digital Circles.
- Hall has performed at clubs, arts events, and festivals around the country on bills featuring a broad range of artists, including All, Astro (Hiroshi Hasegawa of C.C.C.C.), Fontella Bass, Chicago Underground Duo, Axel Dörner & Josh Abrams, Expo '70, Golden Arm Trio, Grand Ulena, Isotope 217º, Kool Keith, Mad Professor, Madlib, Megafaun, Nautical Almanac, Panicsville, Peanut Butter Wolf, Timothy Prudhomme (of Fuck), Kurt Ralske & Lukasz Lysakowski (both of 242.pilots), Jason Roebke, Keith Rowe (of AMM) & Toshimaru Nakamura, Rope, Mike Shiflet, Mark Shippy (of U.S. Maple), Skeletons And The Girl-Faced Boys/Kings Of All Cities, DJ Spooky, Tigersmilk, TV Pow, and Jason Zeh.
Discography:
Various Artists- Opened: The Third Lip Cabaret Live Recordings Vol. 1 (Hall: co-production on all tracks, all sounds on track 5, and improvisation with Mark Deutsch, Dave Stone, and DJ Ses on tracks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 13; Third Lip Records LIP001).
Dubtronics- …Meets The Mad Professor At The Firehouse (Hall: live dub mix/effects, samplers, and tape scratching on all tracks; bootleg).
Various Artists- In Spite Of Sustenance (Hall: all sounds on tracks 1 and remix of Chef Steven Gontram on track 13; Penny Records).
Eric Hall- Live At Washington University 2.22.02 (Hall: all sounds on all tracks; Third Lip Records LIP002).
Julia Sets- Songs Of Protest (Hall: electronic sound manipulation on track 7).
Cloister- The Blue Tile (Hall: bowed metals and treatments on track 5).
Xenophobe- Xenophobe (Hall's remix of Foreigner’s "Jukebox Hero"; one track promotional; Third Lip Records LIP003).
Les Chauvinists-Goddess Behold (Hall: co-engineer, electronic sound manipulation, synthesizer, and treatments on tracks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 10).
Bunnygrunt- Karen Haters Club (Hall: remixes using only Karen’s vocals on track 8 and 11- CD version only; Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records HHBTMR059).
Grandpa's Ghost- Music From The Fotopoulos Projects (Hall: electronics on 6, 7, 11, and 12; Phosphorus Recordings CD001).
Eric Hall And Jeremy Brantlinger With Nazeer Sadeeq Holmes And Darin Gray, Thollem McDonas, And Joe Raglani- Fatoush / Peanuts / Avocados (Hall: various instruments and toys and some electronics on all tracks, recording; limited edition CD-R).
Eric Hall- Live Solos One And Two (Hall: all sounds on all tracks, recording; limited edition double CD-R).
Various Artists- 52nd City: Sound (April issue of the magazine comes with a CD which includes "The Phil Sessions: Guerilla Recordings Of St. Louis Artists In Public Spaces." Concept, recording, and editing by Hall; featuring Dave Stone, Fred Friction, Jeremy Brantlinger, Sunyatta Marshall, Brett Underwood, Jeremy Kannapell, Jason Hutto, Derick Mosley, and Eric Hall. 52nd City 005).
The Pat Sajak Assassins- Soundtracks For Superheros (Hall: electronic and radio manipulations on Juan Dunno (Radio Edit), a 24 minute remix of their track Don Guano; self-released)
Peanuts (Jeremy Brantlinger, Eric Hall, Nazeer Sadeeq Holmes)- A_BIM_CS_FS_C_B_P_BTR (nearly 4 hours of live electro-acoustic improv recorded across the city and includes a remix by Precious Movements (Jason Hutto). Hall: electronic and acoustic objects, recording, and mastering; Echolocation Recordings Document 001, 3CD-R)
Grandpa's Ghost- The Prairie Drone Refraction (There Is No Time) (Hall: concept, electronics, field recordings, and acoustic objects; Echolocation Recordings Document 002 in association with Phosphorus Recordings CD-R EP)
Grandpa's Ghost- Harry's Passion / Painted Skull And Other Fun Songs (Hall: some drones on Harry's Passion; Phosphorus Recordings 2CD-R)
Grandpa's Ghost- Bardot / The Void (Hall: electronics and radios on The Void; Phosphorus Recordings 2CD-R)
Grandpa's Ghost- Anesthetize The Dissonance Of Your Cranium (Hall: electronics and radios on hour-long improv The Scene Of The Crime (disc 3), bowed snow sled and manipulated field recordings on Holly Jolly Christmas (disc 4), and all electronics and processing on The Colour Red (disc 4); Phosphorus Recordings 4CD-R)