The album, ‘Hammer Inventions’ by Lynda Arnold and Daniel Berkman features piano compositions and layered electronic orchestrations made entirely of sounds generated from the piano. From delicate and ethereal acoustic piano moments reminiscent of George Winston or Philip Glass to layered textural moments similar to Steve Reich, or Autechre, Lynda and Daniel create new pieces within the limits of piano-generated sounds. What emerges is a fresh take on the instrument, both as a collaborative, skilled piano duo and as seasoned electronic music production artists. Some of the piano sounds used include prepared piano (John Cage homage), plucked piano, bowed piano, toy piano, backwards piano, detuned piano and more effected and sampled expressions. The acoustic piano recordings where done at Broken Radio studios on George Winston’s piano in San Francisco with the help of engineer Matt Boudreau.
The project was born out of a spontaneous piano four-hand improvisation session and grew from there. After a dozen piano writing sessions, Daniel and Lynda went into the studio to start recording the compositions while at the same time dreaming up ways to incorporate other unique sounds like sticking screws and bolts in Lynda's Yamaha piano to create drum sounds, plucking the strings to make a sampler of plucked piano notes and a bowed piano library by Sonic Couture to add more sustained, string like sounds to layer the arrangements.
About Lynda Arnold
Lynda Arnold has been producing and performing for over 10 years as ‘Divasonic’,an ethereal,song driven electronic music project with multiple album and single releases on labels EMI,Clubstar (Germany),Cyberset (SF),Epiphyte (SF),Temple Music Group (SF) and her own imprint,Digital Bliss. As a multi-instrumentalist (voice,flute,piano,guitar and more),recording engineer and music producer,she has spent years developing her own sound, collaborating with other artists and touring in support of her releases. In addition, she founded Digital Bliss Productions to promote the music of up and coming as well as established female fronted electronic bands and music producers around the globe. Past projects include multiple sponsored events and fundraisers featuring DBP artists,two compilation releases Digital Bliss Vol. 1 & 2 in conjunction with Boutique Electronique Records and ongoing music production projects for clients in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lynda is also a seasoned music and audio production educator with a passion for developing the talents of others and encouraging students to develop their unique sonic voice.
About Daniel Berkman
Daniel Berkman is a San Francisco based composer,multi-instrumentalist,electronic musician,looper,producer and innovator of electro-acoustic music,specializing in the Kora (a 21-stringed West African harp) and the Gravikord. Daniel has produced three acclaimed releases of his music for Kora and electronic devices;‘Heartstrings’(1996),‘Feverdreams’(1998) and ‘Calabashmoon’(2005). The first two released were made entirely from sounds generated by the Kora,transformed electronically and then looped live or in the studio. In addition to writing for film, Daniel has also composed many dance scores for notable bay area choreographers and dance companies such as ODC, Kunst-Stoff, Sara Shelton Mann, Lizz Roman and Dancers, Dandelion Dance Company, Company Mechanique, Stacy Printz Dance Project, Heidi Schweiker, Janice Garrett and Dancers, San Francisco Ballet and many others. In 2009 Daniel released his debut electronic music album ‘Tape’under the moniker ‘Colfax’ and has been performing live as ‘Colfax’ since 2008. Daniel is currently putting the finishing touches on his upcoming follow up to ‘Tape’, a project called ‘The Jupiter Expeditions’ which is an impressionistic exploration of the planet Jupiter and it’s mysteries and was recorded entirely by hand on the infamous Roland Jupiter 8 synthesizer.
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