Album Notes

Marco Oppedisano - Electroacoustic Compositions For Electric Guitar

OKS Recordings of North America is pleased to announce the release of Electroacoustic Compositions for Electric Guitar, our fifth major release. This CD-R is now available through cdbaby.com as well as Amazon.com, Los Angeles’ Amoeba Records, New York’s Other Music and Kim’s Underground. It will be available for digital download at iTunes, Napster, Yahoo Music and many other digital download services.

Marco Oppedisano is a composer, a classically trained guitarist and producer. Marco has worked with Oren Fader, Tom Buckner and Kevin R. Gallagher, and he has performed the music of Glenn Branca. Oppedisano’s music has been described by Time Out New York as “…mind-bending music for electronics and guitar…hear Oppedisano’s intricate roar.” Tokafi said, “…this is full-on, in-your-face and almost confrontational music…Marco Oppedisano's music goes straight to your heart.”

This collection chronicles almost a decade’s worth of Marco’s electroacoustic music. For Electroacoustic Compositions for Electric Guitar, Marco abandoned live performance and found a paradise that mixes extended technique, digital processing, and pointillist editing.
In some places he achieves a beauty that rivals a Fennesz style of ecstasy and in others a distorted abstraction that could be compared to Keith Rowe, but Marco’s inspired ability to shape shift his guitar into so many beasts is a unique twist that is all his own. Each of these pieces was primarily sourced from his electric guitar or bass playing
and finely tuned for months or years, much like the work of a sculptor or masterpiece painter.

In his epic Time Lapse, Marco’s sound palette covers a great deal of territory starting with deep tones that resemble a didgeridoo far more than any stringed instrument before turning into a garden of tapewarped squiggles that recall Tod Dockstader’s classic work. Karmicom is a powerful piece displaying some of Marco’s most fierce guitar work that ends in a swirl of operatic vocals provided by the only other musician to appear on this recording, Marco’s wife, Kimberly. The End is Near is a jump-cut distillation of the broad range that Marco is capable of, easily hopping from gorgeous soundscapes to Zeppelin-style riffing.

Recently, Marco has started an electroacoustic improvisational trio with OKSRNA label-mates Bill Byrne (The Painful Leg Injuries) and John Ibarra (El Plan De Aguavodka) called BIOS. They have recorded an album, Retiring to Palermo to Make Apple Whine, due in late 2007. Marco has had his compositional works performed by the Fireworks Ensemble, Glass Farm Ensemble, Morris Lang and The Brooklyn College Percussion Ensemble, and The Zyryab Guitar Quartet of Portugal. In October 2006 and February 2007, Oppedisano headlined concerts at Dominic Frasca's The Monkey NYC featuring his electroacoustic works for electric guitar and works for live electric guitar and CD playback.

This CD-R release marks the latest major release from OKS Recordings of North America, a label run by Bill Byrne and his longtime collaborator, Jonah Goldstein. OKSRNA specializes in artist-created CD-R releases that cater to the tech-savvy listener who is ready for new arenas of creativity for musical expression.

**************
ELECTROACOUSTIC WORKS FOR ELECTRIC GUITAR (liner notes)

The works here were composed between 1999-2005. All sound sources on this disc consist of electric guitar and electric bass samples, with the exception of the female vocal samples in KARMICOM. Sounds were either kept in their original state or were processed with effects. These works have no live performance aspect.

Track 1, “Frozen Tears” is also a depiction from Dante’s Inferno and Track 8, “Limbo” is from the Purgatorio. They were not composed at the same time as the original Scenes from Dante’s Inferno set.

Marco Oppedisano, electric guitar and electric bass
Kimberly Fiedelman, voice samples

photography and cover design - Bill Byrne

All compositions, Marco Oppedisano, 2007
Out Your Ear (ASCAP)

**************
Additional Notes

Steel Sky (2003), Frozen Tears (2001), Limbo (2000), The Dark Wood (1999), Eternal Lovers (1999), Monks in Dazzling Lead Cloaks (1999) and The Alchemists (1999) were recorded and mixed at the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music. Special thanks to George "Skip" Brunner, Franz Moore, Axel Dross and Hiromi Abe for their invaluable studio assistance.

***************

Marco Oppedisano is a composer, guitarist and producer with ample recording and performance experience as a guitarist in music ranging from rock/pop, jazz, hip hop, club/dance music, contemporary concert music, free improvisation, film music and musical theater.

Oppedisano performs with the BIOS trio and has performed with various contemporary music ensembles and musicians in the New York City area. He has had works performed by the Fireworks Ensemble, Glass Farm Ensemble, Morris Lang and The Brooklyn College Percussion Ensemble, The Zyryab Guitar Quartet of Portugal, and distinguished guitarists; Oren Fader and Kevin R. Gallagher. He has recorded for Capstone Records (Vox Novus 2003 60x60 project), performed in Glenn Branca's pieces for 100 guitars and in the US premiere of his Guitars D'Amour. Oppedisano also is featured with Tom Buckner on an electroacoustic composition titled, “Hoodlum Priest” by Noah Creshevsky (released on the Mutable Music label in 2003). In 2006 and 2007, Oppedisano held various concerts featuring his electroacoustic works for electric guitar and works for live electric guitar and CD playback.

Television appearances by Oppedisano include the Discovery Channel and CUNY TV. He has done radio interviews for Kalvos and Damian (www.kalvos.org), and had compositions programmed on WNYC "New Sounds," BBC 6 Music "Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone," CBC Radio 2 "The Signal with Laurie Brown," Contemporary Classical Internet Radio (live 365), and various other internet radio stations. Oppedisano has also performed live with Josh Weinstein on WOR710's Joey Reynolds Show in New York City and Vin Scelsa's long running radio program, "Idiot's Delight." In 2006, Oppedisano was featured in an online interview with Urban Guitar 'Zine and in 2007, a 15 Questions Interview with Tokafi.

Oppedisano work as a producer and assistant producer include projects, First Flight, a solo classical guitar disc by the prolific New York City based guitarist, Oren Fader. He has worked as assistant producer on an album called Dance Mix by the Fireworks Ensemble. His debut CD, Electroacoustic Compositions for Electric Guitar was released in June 2007 on the OKS Recordings of North America label (OKSRNA). CD releases in 2008 on OKSRNA include Tesla at Coney Island (with David Lee Myers) and The Ominous Corner. His works have been performed and heard in various areas around the world and are all published through Out Your Ear (ASCAP).

Oppedisano is a native of Brooklyn, New York. He holds a B.A in Music Composition from the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and an M.A in Music Composition from the Queens College Aaron Copland School of Music.