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Includes unlimited streaming of After The Rain / The Mysteries
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Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
In 2007, I began a most introspective journey of capturing my childhood into musical statements as sort of a time capsule, a backwards glance for myself, one that was yearning to be released and be set free, into the world. Unable to and not being interested in taking on such a task since my own earliest days of first venturing into the world of musical expression during the 1980’s, the time had now come to spread my wings. This existential result was Crossing Of Shadows, an album that I will forever be proud of and had been fortunate to have produced and will forever be at peace with. Later on I realized that this metaphysical journey I was embarking on might also serve as a window for those I had known in my own life as well as for those not yet known, who might have somehow had a similar journey for themselves and would welcome the opportunity of a backwards glance, one that had been long forgotten or a deliberate attempt to suppress was previously made. The second statement in this very personal journey resulted in the release of Instant Light years later. Windows of other times, other lifetimes, future lifetimes. An embrace of light as well as the shadows between the rays of light. For each cannot exist without the other.
Although this all would be ultimately impossible for others to fully grasp since we are all unique and have been formed throughout the years with the essences of each of our distinctive pasts, our joys and accomplishments and scars that have been left upon our individual souls.
This past year, for all of us, was one of intense introspection, yearning, sadness, disbelief, anger, darkness. I made the conscious decision very early on that I, as well as all that were around me would not be stilled, fallen, darkened, that I would expend as much positive energy as my mortal being could muster in order to guide myself and hopefully others that have touched my heart towards a light. A light that was intentionally being held from all and still is to some. Beginning in March 2020, and unable to realize my travel plans, I returned to working at night, sometimes all night long, in order to translate my thoughts through spontaneous improvisation directly to hard drive. Coupled with my voracious appetite for reading ancient texts, mythology, theosophy and world history by day and trying (as much as I possibly could) to avoid the deluge of negativity from the American political, moral, ethical and cultural collapse.
The death of Genesis P-Orridge in March of 2020 who I had been lucky enough to have crossed paths with was the impetus and strength to finally finish A Guide For Reason’s ‘Amerika (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised)’, which began in early 2018 and with Gil Scott-Heron’s lyrics from 1971 eerily forecasting the events of our times. The freshly-painted mural of Scott-Heron on the side of a bodega I came upon one sunny Summer morning on Avenue D in Loisaida gave the initial inspiration. It is Genesis and Gil that the release is dedicated to. Thus began a new musical chapter for me, one that I had no idea how would manifest itself and one which I had no intentions on directing its course.
The A Guide For Reason project began as music sharing between myself and Peter Christopherson during the last days before his untimely passing, whilst he was just forming the X-TG project, as we had connected through MySpace, at the time, the only digital platform that allowed totally unfettered musical expressionism between like-minded artists, unfortunately ending too soon and before our present day musical state of total self-gratification and its lack of grassroots musical communities, all caused by intentional materialistic corporate social media currents as we now have. My long time love for the COIL project and all that were connected to it has and always will be a guiding force for AGFR so long as I decide it will continue as a vehicle for personal expression.
Shortly afterwards in the Summer of 2020, my focus returned to the orchestramaxfieldparrish project with the result of completing and releasing the 6 volume Guitar Improvisations set. Enveloped within the midst of the pandemic, with skyrocketing manufacturing and postage costs, with no where to play live and the growing trend for listeners to streaming services and away from traditionally collected musical formats due to increasing worldwide unemployment and despair, it was impossible to release this box set on CD or LP even though elaborate artwork was created for both formats and preliminary orders were established for manufacturing (thinking that this incredibly dark chapter for us would be ending soon) all ultimately abandoned. Instead releasing it on USB drive (a platform that Peter had embraced) with the addition of a printed book, I felt that that would be adequate at the time, albeit a poor substitute for my original intentions.
Being purely guitar based and having decided that this sprawling collection was a healthy enough statement for my own solo guitar expression, I once again returned to other instruments, treatments and processing to incorporate into guitar generated statements, as was the case for Crossing Of Shadows and Instant Light. The result was not one, but two volumes: The Mysteries and After The Rain. Both improv based but grounded in the Neo-Classical and most importantly, centuries-old Devotional musical traditions of several past ancient cultures, particularly relying on heavy use of silence and dynamics. Again, being mired with pandemic consequences for independent artists to release music on hard formats and with After The Rain resulting in a double LP of music, I made the decision to release these two volumes as digital editions with a limited edition compilation planned for double CD for those that still wish to have music in this format.
Thus, The Mysteries and After The Rain continue my original concept I had envisioned back in 2007. A quadrilogy or tetralogy so to speak, at least for now.
“Follow your bliss. Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it.” - Joseph Campbell
Mike Fazio
NYC
credits
released May 28, 2021
from Vital Weekly:
ORCHESTRAMAXFIELDPARRISH - AFTER THE RAIN/THE MYSTERIES (2CD by Faith Strange)
Mike Fazio is a busy bee. I am sure I uttered such words before. Maybe I also remarked that Fazio uses various names to release his musical products and that I am not always sure what the differences are. The previous two releases from him (Vital Weekly 1282) were under the guises of ÆRA and A Guide For Reason, now it is time for orchestramaxfieldparrish, with a double CD of recordings from last year.
All three projects deal with atmospheric music of some kind, and if anything, I'd say that as orchestramaxfieldparrish he
works with a more experimental set of sounds, or at least with a more experimental outcome of his ambient work. Here he uses field recordings, a variety of louder drones, may be generated from the guitar, but I can just easily imagine these to processed field recordings or synthesizers. Most likely is a combination of all of this. Sometimes the music has a drone-like character, but there is also room for percussion (in 'Like A Pagan Priestess Reads Aloud Sing-Song From The Thick Babylonian Dream Book'; this on the second CD, 'The Mysteries', where all six pieces have such long titles as opposed to the first disc, where it is all quite short) and strange abrupt changes within the music. Also, Fazio uses 'other' sorts of rhythm, a drum machine, perhaps, right from the start in the title piece of the first disc. This sounded like a stripped-down/deconstructed piece of techno music. Maybe I am reading too much in the use of the word 'orchestra', as being a part of the band name, but I
think there is also an orchestral feeling to the music, and that Fazio uses samples of orchestral passages, spun out like a mighty drone.
The music on 'The Mysteries' form altogether some sort of narrative, or at least, that I what I believe to hear. At thirty-six minutes I wouldn't have minded this to be longer. The first disc has pieces that stand by themselves, rather without a thematic approach or story running through them. As you can see, orchestramaxfieldparrish goes in many directions, and yet, maybe, strangely enough, this works well within the overall picture of the album. This is throughout an excellent album of the experimental side of drones and atmospheres and bouncing off in various directions; as such, it is an album for people who like to take a risk. (FdW)
from textura.org:
orchestramaxfieldparrish: After The Rain / The Mysteries
Faith Strange
In an artist's statement accompanying the latest orchestramaxfieldparrish collection, Mike Fazio reflects on a long musical journey that culminated in a most challenging year that invited any number of possible responses, from despair and denial to stoicism and anger. True to his nature, Fazio chose to funnel his energy into creative work and not let his focus be derailed by the pandemic. One of the greatest things about his project is that it grants limitless creative possibilities to its NYC-based creator. Anyone familiar with his output would likely realize that his follow-up to the six-volume Guitar Improvisations set issued (on USB drive) last year wouldn't be more of the same, and sure enough the double-CD collection After The Rain / The Mysteries is unlike its predecessor. Whereas the earlier set features relatively unadorned, real-time solo guitar pieces, the new material was created with guitar, synthesizers, and percussion, and various treatments and processing were also called upon in the production process. Initially released as distinct digital editions, the two volumes, one recorded in September 2020 and the other a month later, now appear in a six-panel gatefold package in a limited run of 100 copies. Fazio has smartly merged the releases into a cohesive design while at the same time retaining visual elements from both releases to individuate them on the package and CD faces.
Sequenced first is After The Rain, whose eight pieces range from two to twenty-one minutes; never shy about acknowledging inspirations, Fazio dedicates two to Alice Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix. With elements fluttering like birds' wings and with near-subliminal synth enhancements woven into the arrangement, the title track quickly distances itself from the largely treatments-free approach adopted for Guitar Improvisations, and the impression's instantly established that After The Rain will be adventurous and unpredictable. Adding to the track's impact is Fazio's careful positioning of elements within the sound field, which sees them darting rapidly between channels. Whereas “Walk Gently Through the Gates of Joy” works everything from aggressive electronic convulsions and peaceful, organ-laced sequences into its twelve-minute time-frame, the set's deepest plunge is “Vale of Bliss,” a wide-ranging excursion whose ambitious reach befits a piece honouring Coltrane. Dazzling constellations of stars and bells surface alongside sprawling synthesizer washes and guitar textures, after which “Ribbons of Euphoria Bold As Love” pays affectionate tribute to Hendrix with six minutes of billowing, clangorous psychedelia.
In contrast to After The Rain, The Mysteries uses lengthy track titles for its six settings, with the opening piece representative: “To Return Is Impossible and to Talk About It, Forbidden. How It Was Filled With Bliss, That Heavenly Garden.” Interestingly, at fifteen minutes the softly rumbling dronescape (later submerged in a furiously churning water bath) is the volume's sole extended track, with the others weighing in at five minutes or less. They boldly venture into exotic realms, with gong strikes, cymbal rolls, and other percussion textures prominent in “Like a Pagan Priestess Reads Aloud Sing-Song From the Thick Babylonian Dream Book.” and reverberations giving “Beneath the Jasmine A Stone Marks a Buried Treasure. On the Path, My Father Stands. A Beautiful, Beautiful Day.” the feel of a walking tour of a palace's hallways. Elsewhere, jittery pulses and uplifting intimations of recovery surface before the elegiac ambient meditation “All That Might've Occurred. Like a Five-Fingered Leaf. Fluttered Into My Hands, but It Isn't Enough.” brings the project to a close.
Each experimental setting on these volumes is sculpted with fastidious attention to detail and sensitivity to timbre, space, and silence. In creating the material, Fazio draws upon his extensive command of production strategies to bring the explorations to fruition. In that aforementioned statement, words by Joseph Campbell appear as an epigraph, and fittingly they could stand for a manifesto for the orchestramaxfieldparrish project: “Follow your bliss. Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it.” No one listens to and respects his muse more than Fazio, and long may he do so.
June 2021
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