Album Notes

Erik Spangler (a.k.a. DJ Dubble8) is a composer/DJ working within a wide range of musical cultures and listening environments. Areas of recent activity include chamber and orchestral concert works, ritual theater music, hybrid electronica, turntablist performance, and works combining a solo instrument or ensemble with live electronic mixing. His acoustic compositions have been performed across the United States and Canada, by ensembles including the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, International Contemporary Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, and the yesaroun' duo. Dubble8's hybrid electronic compositions blend samples from his pieces written for the concert hall, along with other source material, in the context of hip-hop, dub, or drum&bass rhythms. Collaborative performances as a turntablist include the multimedia concert "whatWALL?" at the University of Michigan with Brian Sacawa (alto saxophone) and Jonny DeKamm (layered video projection); a concert at Harvard University with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project; regular improvisations with DJ canGURU at the Lost Dog Lounge and the ABC Cafe in Ithaca, NY; music commissioned for Ithaca College's First Year Reading Initiative remix, entitled "Dismantling War: World War II, Vietnam, Iraq", in collaboration with renowned video artists Art Jones and Simon Tarr, historian/director Patty Zimmerman, and the Human Studies Film Archive of the Smithsonian Institution. Recent production projects include a collection of tracks for experimental/trip-hop singer Du Yun, to be released by Tag Team Records; the debut Dubble8 album, entitled "Tompkins County Organic: homegrown beats, vol. I", containing 16 tracks spanning from acid jazz to hill-hop (a blend of bluegrass and hip-hop); second album "Fourth World Nyabinghi"; a remix project for Thousands of One, an Ithaca-based Afrobeat/soul/funk/hip-hop group (I-Town Records); upcoming score for "Chalk Outlines" by filmmaker Joe Zohar, Moving Box Productions. Erik received his formal musical education at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (B.Mus.) and Harvard University (Ph.D.). He has taught composition and theory at as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard, and as a Lecturer at Ithaca College. He currently resides in Gainesville, Florida.