Member Since: 2/14/2005
Band Website: rspearson.com/rsmusic.html
Band Members: RS Pearson
Influences: Classical music (Bach, Debussy, Satie, Rachmanioff, Medtner, Scarlatti, Rameau, Handel, Stravinsky, Partch, Glass, Vaughn Williams, Ginestera, Milhaud, Hovahness, Poulenc, Arvo Part, William Bolcom, -- and Stockhausen, Cage, Xenakis not always for their music but for their ideas). It's hard to list rock influences because there's sometimes something I don't like about certain artists, especially when you very varied tastes, but here goes: Progressive Rock (Yes, Kevin Ayers, Henry Cow, 5uu's, ELP, Magma, Eskaton (obscure French band), Early Genesis, Gong, Novalis (German band), Hoelderlin, King Crimson, Rick Wakeman, etc.), Stereolab, Field Recording. lowercase sound. John Coltrane. Sun Ra. Joni Mitchell. Marc Bolan. Colin Newman circa 1980's, Great fusion like Mahavishnu, Weather Report, Return to Forever. Polyartists or thinkers who work in different areas like Herbert Bayer, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, da Vinci, Goethe, Diderot, Benjamin Franklin, Brian Eno. Surrealists (Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Dali, Cornell, Matta, Harold Hitchcock). Conceptual art. Dada. Poetry (Tristan Tzara, ee cummings, Novalis, Billy Lamont, Andre Breton, Shelly, Keats, Edward Taylor, Wordsworth) literary authors (Olaf Stapledon, Mark Twain, Emerson), philosophers (Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Novalis again, Idealists, Romanticists, Post-Modernists, of course, Virtuists). Spiritual figures (Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Thoreau, St. Francis, Florence Nightingale (who also wrote a book of philosophy), Jesus, Solomon, the writers of the Philokalia, some Eastern philosophy). Antiquarian books. Great psychological works such as "The Obsessive Personality" by Leo Salzman and "The Anatomy of Hallucinations" by Fred Johnson. I believe in eco-psychology, which states by getting closer to nature and animals we become more whole, and if more people got involved in environmentalism, helping endangered species (by local zoo support), it would probably help things like depression, obesity and other problems. When people take interest in sustainable energy technology, animals and the environment, they may be surprised how well they are rewarded.
Nature by R.S. Pearson
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Sounds Like: I like to compose music that follows the classical tradition. I like to compose a music that is original sounding and gives the listening an exotic experience. I also try to create either a pleasant physiological response without simplification, as in some New Age music. Sometimes I look at some of my music as a musical Surrealism, as Surrealism visually and in poetry historically was not usually abrasive or scatological. I sometimes do generative music, which is something that Brian Eno does also. Mine is different, and developed in 1983 when I stumbled upon a keyboard called the Casio 1000P. On the 1000P was a very special "sequencer" which really wasn’t iust a sequencer at all. It enables one to play on the left hand intervalled sequences that you programmed, from 1-9 and 0’s for rests. The music then will change with the playing you do on the first two octaves. You can only estimate what it will do, a bit like the Surrealist’s frottage, or even Pollock’s drips. So, I tell everyone this just to prove that what I’m playing is really live music, even on recordings before there really was a lot of computer technology It’s me directing a pulsing numeric sequence. All my recordings except a very small fraction are live one tape events. I play in the Keith Emerson/Rick Wakeman style of multiple keyboards at once, usually two or three. I had classical keyboard lessons and was a early fan of prog rock as a child, eventually getting into Tangerine Dream, Tomita, Carlos and Synergy, and then the New Wave/Punk thing and a passing exposure to the depths of Industrial music starting in 1983 (it wasn’t my cup of tea for long but, like many others, helped in my development to manhood). I’ve had an interesting musical history here in Seattle, being a part of the first two or three years of the formal grunge movement. I never formally played in a grunge band, just in an experimental band that was a precursor to one of the widely acknowledged first grunge bands named Feast. That early experimental band did have a belated release a work on Al Margolis’ (If Bwana) label in 1987. My music shows this wide history, channelled in a modern classical way that at this time is only realized electronically. I hope that to change in the future and I’m working towards it. I have over three hours of mp3s at my site at www.rspearson.com
Record Label: I have released music privately/looking for labels
Type of Label: None