chris rainier

the wheels of commerce grind to a halt
the album the mechanical eye - a live concert recording with electronics guru ollie olsen and drummer mathew watson- is now (september '07) available on itunes (and currently emusic.com) for global download. please click on the itunes button below...
this album will also soon be available to order in hardcopy, through righard kapp's new distribution venture (www.intentiondeficit.co.za), for all things sonically weird and wonderful.
the album the humming of wires - a dobro and live electronics collaboration with south african producer de wet van der spuy - is (as of november 2006) available for download on itunes, as well as on emusic, tunetribe, bleep, yahoo! music, amazon mp3, rough trade digital and playlouder. please click on the itunes button below...
the cover photograph for this album is «godspeed» by fernando lopez de victoria.
he has a page online at http://flickr.com/photos/pixelstains/
you can download my debut solo album from 2005 the universe is a long time by clicking on the itunes button below. this album features my electric lapsteel, played through various processing devices and using multiple loops. it is also available through napster, djdownload, rhapsody, rough trade digital, karmadownload, bleep, juno, emusic, tunetribe, ministry of sound downloads and playlouder. thank you for listening and buying...
forthcoming releases for 2008!: a live recording with de wet van der spuy, recorded at st. george's cathedral in cape town, south africa in march of 2006. also in the pipeline for this year - an experimental folk (whatever that means) album under the moniker two wolves and an album of interplay between my beloved 1930's valve trautonium, and mat watson's 70's ems synthi aks.
a track from the album the humming of wires is featured on the 2-disc compilation string theory, released by zac keiller's melbourne-based dreamland recordings label in september 2007. you can order this release directly from him by clicking on the album cover above.
the track moon, swallowed by the sun, from my debut solo album, has been included on a french ambient compilation - abstract boundaries vol.1 - produced by the music production company cinetiks, and was released in may '07. please click on the album cover above.
here know evil, see no evil
click on the film still below to watch hans richter's great film from 1928 ghosts before breakfast (vormittagspuk). for the moment, you should be able to link the track on the myspace player with this silent film, but i will be upload a synced version shortly. enjoy!
click on the film still below to watch ole sturm's great video for the track "tears for a dead ocean" from my album the universe is a long time. all the footage consists of his personal 16mm footage from the 1960's.
one raised eyebrow
if you have an (a) aversion to using your credit card to download music, (b) an objectivication-fetishist relationship to jewel cases, digipaks, vinyl (and other packaging formats) or (c) a strong belief in the inherent deficiencies of the frequency spectrum of internet-sourced compressed file formats and the digital/binary world of encoded sound, but you would like to purchase any of the above releases or tracks, please feel free to contact me and i'm sure we can sort something out. necessity is the mother(s) of invention.
biography
chris rainier is a lapsteel player & trautonium devotee, composer and instrument-builder based in melbourne, australia. he has performed with musicians from around the world (australia, south africa, indonesia and india), performing in a variety of styles, from north indian classical music and bluegrass on dobro to experimental and improvised music on electric lapsteel. his playing has also been featured on various recordings, radio stations (abc radio national, rrr, pbs-fm, triple j, fbi), television (abc & sbs) and film. in 2002 he graduated with a master's degree in composition from the sydney conservatorium.
in australia, chris has performed at the melbourne fringe festival, darebin music festival, great escape festival (sydney), sonic connections (university of wollongong), various venues around melbourne (loop bar, make it up club, horse bazaar) and the national gallery of victoria's guggenheim exhibition.
his instrument designs include the xenophone, a 66-key microtonal metal percussion instrument influenced by the designs of american composer harry partch and mexican theorist augusto novaro. in 2002 chris re-constructed (with clive cooper) a replica of partch's adapted guitar 1 and performed the australian premiere of the original (1941) version of barstow. in 2006 he constructed a replica of the trautonium, one of the first electronic musical instruments, invented by friedrich trautwein in germany in the 1930’s.
currently chris is also rehearsing and writing songs for a band co-founded with mat watson called fading fires. they recorded a four-track demo in 2007 (engineered by robbie adams), and in may 2008 completed recording and mixing their debut ep (entitled "the cruel divide") in warrandyte with reggie bowman.
for more information, visit www.myspace.com/thefadingfires