Glissando bin Laden: Drone Level Orange
I’m writing to tell you about an album [sic.] that my band Glissando bin Laden and his Musichideen has just completed. It’s called Drone Level Orange.
Glissando bin Laden is a group of musicians with whom I have been playing for almost three years. They are other musicians I met while teaching at The Walden School, a summer program in New Hampshire for young composers. They are Carrie Mallonee, Alex Ness, Sam Pluta, and Meighan Stoops, and they are four of the finest musicians I’ve ever met. They are also some of my favorite people in the world. Our instrumentation includes two violins, bass clarinet, electronics, and vocals. We have recorded several pieces together, collaborating as composers, arrangers, and performers. The pieces include elements of different traditional, classical, and experimental musics, and hopefully reflect the fact that this music is so fucking fun for us, that we usally play with big dumb grins on our faces. We would love for you to listen to this album at the Carrier Records website.
It is our plan to mainly distribute this music electronically, because we can’t really afford to print a bunch of plastic things that nobody buys.
The title of the album, Drone Level Orange, comes from an after-rehearsal session at our after-rehearsal bar, in which we discussed the possibility of putting together a European tour. We are all amusedly concerned with the obstacle that our band’s name may create, and the fact that planning and undertaking this tour may be detected by an overeager NSA email-reader and result in some sort of heightened security situation.
With regards to subjects like printing CDs and traveling places and bail, we would very much appreciate if you can afford to fund your download by donating to our band via the easy to use Carrier Records website, although it is also available for free. We are all happy to invest our time in this music, and your choice to invest in the music as well will make it easier for us in the future to share it with you and other people. Obviously, please feel free to put the tracks on your mixes, portable devices, radio shows, podcasts, playlists, blogs, etc. In fact, if you enjoy the music, please try to share it with someone else who you think might like it. We’d love to begin expanding our community of listeners!
We’ll be playing our last show in New York City for a few months on June 20th, at Monkeytown in Williamsburg. We’ll be playing music along with a live video improviation by Sam Pluta. If you’re in town and have some time, please come by!
Saturday, June 20, 7:30pm
Glissando Bin Laden with Dan Iglesia, Pradeep Ratnayake, and The Draftmasters
58 N 3rd St
(btw. Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211