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Music by Percival
Time Zero. Bells in the Wind
New CD by Percival:
Time Zero. Bells in the Wind
CD Cover design: MediaCollage
CD Cover design: MediaCollage
Electroacoustic, vocal and instrumental music
Participants: Time Zero. Bells in the Wind
In the Amazonian rain forest of Ecuador.
Jungle Voices cover design MediaCollage
www.mediacollage.nu
Jungle Voices. Electroacoustic world music by Percival: drums, jungle sounds and a play of voices ...
Jungle Voices. Electroacoustic world music by Percival: drums, jungle sounds and a play of voices ...
Time
Plays Music by Percival
At the beginning of the composition
Civilization – a Purgatory,
a concrete
music happening performed by Percival, you hear distorted Swedish voices
talking about music, Pythagoras, and his idea about the harmony of the spheres.
The answer to that harmony is of course not the following music that describes
the purgatory that our civilization has created within and without the human
beings. But it is just a description. The music composed by the author and
composer Percival is the purgatory itself. Or at least an interpretation of
this purgatory in accordance with his experience. It is his first composition
and it was at that time (1965) the only way he could express the situation of a
creative outsider in a conservative environment full of life-threatening
devices. The composition ends with words taken from the long epic poem
Vents
(Winds) by the French poet
Saint-John Perse. “And the citizens in the town down below were surprised by
the scream, the piercing scream of the god.”
Meditation
is a
composition for metallophone and sea sounds. It might be compared to the
minimalistic music that was in its initial stages during the time of this
composition.
Junction at Sunrise
is
a text-sound-composition. The text can be read in Percival’s book Time Plays, published in 1999 and 2000
by Art Distribution, Askrikegatan 13, SE-115 57 Stockholm, Sweden. – The
elements have always been a source of inspiration to Percival, and of course
also to a poet like Saint-John Perse, who inspired Percival’s early writings. –
In Junction at Sunrise you can hear
the wind, electronic sounds, Tibetan cymbals, voices and a flute from Mexico
played by Percival. The title Junction at
Sunrise is in a sense inspired by James Joyce’s book Finnegans Wake, that in a mixed multi-lingual way shapes the
history of humanity and its great cycles. After the time of civilization – the
funeral – a new time of wholeness is born. The junction is seen as a
meeting-place at dawn, and the flutes of the composition At Daybreak are “calling all downs to dayne” (Joyce). The night of
corruption has ended and the Day begins again. The flutes are played by the
composer and two young musicians (Nadia and Leila) at the studio Art Distribution.
Information text (see above) © 2000: Art
Distribution, Askrikegatan 13, SE-115 57 Stockholm, Sweden.
Time
Plays Music by Percival.
Running time: 46.31.
1.
Civilization
– a Purgatory
(17:16) – Concrete music. Primitive instruments played by
Percival. Technical realization: Anders Lind, Studio Decibel.
2.
Meditation
(16:32) – Metallophone: Percival. Technical realization – including sea sounds
– Anders Lind, Studio Decibel.
3.
Junction
at Sunrise
(8:56) – Voice: Percival. The choir part: Percival and two
collaborators. Tibetan cymbals and Bolivian flute played by Percival.
Electronic sounds produced at EMS, Stockholm. Technical realization: Miklós
Maros, EMS (Electroacoustic Music in Sweden).
4.
At
Daybreak
(2:57) – A composition for three flutes and bird song. Flutes:
Percival and two young Art Distribution musicians (Nadia and Leila). Realized at Art
Distribution’s studio.
CD box photo ( the composer at Sion,
Switzerland, 1991).
First performance of the pieces mentioned
above: The National Swedish Music Radio (P2). Music and texts (including
information) © Percival, Askrikegatan 13, SE-115 57,
Stockholm, Sweden.
BIEM
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PLAYS 2000-2
All Rights Reserved
CD cover photo: TIME PLAYS MUSIC
CD cover photo: TIME PLAYS MUSIC
Time
Space Music by Percival
Time
Space Music
could be looked upon as invocations in order
to create a possibility for mankind to see its own true role in this earth
stage. The first compositions, Hommage a
Antonin Artaud I and II, are dedicated to Antonin Artaud, the French
theatre man (1896-1948) who tried to revolutionize European theatre, to raise
it up from a state of a so-called realistic entertainment to a dimension where
myth, incantation, breath, sounds, and movements could create a transfiguration
of man in his society. He visited the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico and was
inspired by the rites created by these Indians in Mexico and also by the dance
and music culture on the island of Bali.
Parthenogenesis
,
which means Virgin Birth, is partly a happening that took place at a theatre in
Sweden and partly sounds from nature answering man’s call and behaviour by
earthquake and turmoil that finally are changing into peaceful sounds from the
sea and a bumble-bee. During a speech delivered at a theatre where the audience
became partakers, the Speaker-Composer says:
“The
Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries reappeared in a new form. Artaud reappears,
muscle after muscle, breath after breath, beat after beat. The masculine, the
neuter, the feminine, breaking clangs, infernal and celestial sounds,
provocative, cried-out screams – a whole world is waiting for its birth.”
A
world has come to an end and another is rising. People can once more greet the
sun by singing Hail Thee Oh Sun, and
finally Anno Domini opens a new
stage, a new world reality by organ music and bells.
Percival
has always been interested in multidimensional and polyrhythmic reality. His
realization of his intentions in a musical context has, at least to some
extent, been carried out in the compositions you can find on his compact discs
– Time Space Music, Time Plays Music, and
Dreams and Ballads – where sometimes you can hear rhythms on different
levels, and voice within a voice within a voice…
Time
Space by Percival.
Running time: 41:15.
1. Hommage à Antonin Artaud I (4:56) Flute:
Franciska von Koch.
Drums (Chinese and Tunisian): Percival. Tibetan
tuba: Stephen Frankevich. – Produced at Studio Art Distribution.
2. Hommage
à Antonin Artaud II (9:11) AUM-voices and flute: Bissa Abelli and Percival.
East African drums, Tunisian drums, and triangle: Percival. Tablas and
xylophone: Andrey Edelfeldt.
3.
Anornas framstötande fackeltåg
(4:00) The last poem in Glühende Rätsel
(Glowing Riddles) by Nelly Sachs. Translation from German into Swedish:
Percival. Drum and xylophone: Percival. The final lines (stanza) of the poem
sung by Bissa Abelli and Percival: “Rich I am like the sea/ of bygone times and
future/ and entirely out of death matter/ I am singing your song”.
4.
Parthenogenesis
(7:45) At the beginning: recitation by Percival from his book
Crosswords
. At a theatre: drums, voices,
screams… Foreground drum, flute and speech: Percival. Background drummer:
Christer Nygren. Shouts from crowds and nature sounds, including earthquake.
Technical realization and wind flute: Göran Freese.
5. Hail
Thee Oh Sun (3:16) Poem by Percival published in his book Words. Song: Franciska von Koch and
Percival.
6.
Anno
Domini
(14:50) Organ-player: Anders Hernqvist. Traffic sounds. Initial
voice and bells: Percival. Technical realization: Anders Lind, Studio Decibel.
First performance of the pieces mentioned
above: The National Swedish Music Radio (P2). Music and texts (including
information) © Percival, Askrikegatan 13, Stockholm,
Sweden.
CD box photo (Rhodes, a Mediterranean island) ©
Percival 1996
BIEM
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SPACE 2000-3
All rights reserved
Notes
Percival (first name and surname; no
pseudonym), who lives in Stockholm, Sweden, is a writer, artist, and composer.
He has exhibited his paintings and published books in Swedish and in English.
His music and some of his plays have been performed in Stockholm and elsewhere.
Information about his work:
For more information send an e-mail to: artdistributionstudio@gmail.com
CD cover photo: TIME SPACE MUSIC
CD cover photo: TIME SPACE MUSIC
Dreams
and Ballads by Percival
The ballad in
Dreams and Ballads
are
Hearsay
and
Life is a Field
(or:
Until One Day
). They are sung by
Percival and a Swedish actress called Soría – a name she used during a short
period at the beginning of her career. The ballads are poems songs) published
an Percival’s first book in English,
Words
.
In Hearsay, that could also be called Soon is the Day, there is a slight
allusion to a passage in James Joyce’s Finnegans
Wake, a book that has always inspired Percival in his own work in progress.
You can read more about that in his book Time
Plays, published in 1999 and 2000 by Art Distribution, Askrikegatan 13,
SE-115 57, Stockholm, Sweden.
The
songs are easy to understand and still riddles as if they were dealing with
deep secrets within the history of humankind.
Innovation
is
a meditative and innovative prelude to the longest piece on this disc – Dreams. And Dreams is – you soon will realize – a shamanistic journey
into the deepest recesses of man’s mind. You just have to relax, forget about
time and start the discovery of an inner
continent where you might hear your own voices behind the drumming and the
xylophone sounds. It could be compared to a quest in a dream land where you
perhaps can find a key that opens a door to a consciousness man neds for hiis
survival on planet earth.
Before
creating Dreams the composer was
experimenting with certain rhythms until he finally sound the keynote and the
rhythms he needed in order to investigate the dream world.
Dreams
and Ballads by Percival
. Running time: 40:27.
1.
Hearsay
or
Soon is the Day
(2:10) – Drum:
Percival. Song: Soría and Percival. Produced at Art Distribution’s studio.
2.
Life
is a Field
(2:47) – Drum: Percival. Song: Soría and Percival. Produced at
Art Distribution’s studio.
3.
Innovation
(3:25) – Metallophone: Nadia and Leila, young musicians at Art Distribution’s
studio. Drums: Percival.
4.
Dreams
(32:16) – Xylophone and electroacoustic sounds: Percival. Tin barrels: Christer
Nygren and Percival. Technical realization: Thomas Hammar, EMS (Electroacoustic
Music in Sweden).
Note that
Hearsay
was first heard on the Swedish Radio during a programme where a short novel by
Percival describing the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten was read.
Dreams
was first performed
on the Swedish Music Radio at the end of August 1986.
CD box photo: Percival at Lindos, Rhodes,
October 1996. Music and texts (including information) © Percival, Askrikegatan 13, SE-115 57 Stockholm, Sweden. All right reserved.
BIEM
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DREAMS 2000-4
Note
Percival (first name and surname; no
pseudonym), who lives in Stockholm, Sweden, is a writer, artist, and composer.
He has exhibited his paintings and published books in Swedish and in English.
His music and some of his plays have been performed in Stockholm and elsewhere.
CD cover photo: DREAMS AND BALLADS
CD cover photo: DREAMS AND BALLADS
MUSIC PRODUCED BETWEEN 2001 AND 2006:
Play Time Music
by Percival
Percival says: “In
April 2002 a friend of mine (called Shanti) wrote to me: ‘Life in the world has
taken a more serious turn in the last year, and it becomes more essential to be
strong in one’s inner heart and also to play…’ – And I agree. You are playing a
part in a playing time that has no real beginning and no real end. You can play
time music. You can make a play of your playing during your playtime or just
play it any time.
“A word, a wind, a
world wind and a word wind… ‘A shaft of shivery in the act’ as James Joyce
writes in his Finnegans Wake. You play your time music and whirl in the
wind. You are the whirl wind and the whirl world, the whirl worlds.
“But to pass from
one world to another is of course not an easy task, and the old era’s war
mentality has not ceased and will probably not cease while you are passing, but
still you have to, yes, you have to play. Your time music is here. It’s your
hymn, you must play it. And while you are playing, meditating or dancing you may
be able to discover what the play is about, and then the whole time will become
your true play.”
Play Time Music
has been an idea
and a dream within the composer during a long time. This dream has now been
realized in a studio for electroacoustic music in Stockholm, Sweden, in the
year of 2002. Some inspiration has come from e.g. the sounds of the rainforest
in South America… The composer was in Peru in 1999 and in Guatemala in 1999 and
2000.
He has collected
instruments of different kinds during his travels in Africa, Asia, and America.
Some of these instruments have been used in this composition.
The singer Hanna
Hanski, who – like Percival – has been staying a long time in both Mexico and
Africa, has also been inspired by the jungle sounds and the musical expressions
of indigenous peoples in different countries.
But it must be
stressed that Play Time Music is not in any way trying to imitate
so-called primitive or indigenous music. It is a composition where the
instruments and the voices create an organic wholeness within and beyond all
cultures.
Female voice:
Hanna Hanski
Male voice:
Percival
The instruments
(drums from Africa, an Indian drum from Florida, cymbals from Tibet, and a
flute from Bolivia) are played by the composer.
Assistant drummer: Hanna Hanski.
About Hanna:
Hanna Hanski is a
communicator on many levels. She uses words, images, and music in her creative
work and takes a special interest in the expression of the human voices.
Hanna
has travelled through outer as well as inner landscapes, and the impressions
from her travels are often taking a manifest form through her playful vocal
improvisation.
Her aim is to cross
boundaries, inspire and contribute to the ever-ongoing process of the worldly
and spiritual transformation.
About Percival:
Percival (first
name and surname; no pseudonym) is a writer, artist, and composer who lives in
Stockholm, Sweden. He shares Hanna’s interest in the human voice and its
creative power. He has exhibited his paintings and published books in Swedish
and in English. His music and some of his plays have been performed in
Stockholm and elsewhere. Play Time Music is number six in his CD
production.
CD box photos
(front, back) and on the disc: © Percival. The photograph on the front cover:
the composer at Chichen Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico 1995. On the back and on the
disc: a cenote (a natural well) at Dzibilchaltún in Yucatán. See Percival’s
book
Letters to Shanti
(2002).
Technical
realization
: Daniel Eideholm, EMS (Electroacoustic Music in Sweden), Stockholm.
Production © 2002
Art Distribution, Askrikegatan 13, SE-115 57 Stockholm, Sweden.
BIEM
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PLAY 2002-2
CD cover photo: PLAY TIME MUSIC
CD cover photo: PLAY TIME MUSIC
The Waves. For Mary Magdalene
In Percival's books
Letters to Shanti
(2002) and
Time
Plays
(2000) you can find texts where Mary Magdalene is of utter importance
and is more than just a legendary biblical figure. She is here at this moment.
Percival
says: “Many of us feel that we are at the end of a very long human history, at
the end and at the same time in the beginning ... Have we already passed
Judgement Day, and do we now face an immense vastness that must be filled with a new creation?
“The common degradation is an
experience almost everybody shares, and who can save anybody? We know that the
Master in the New Testament was able to heal people in a respectful way, but
what happened to his companion Mary Magdalene after his resurrection? Did she –
as legends tell – come to the coast of Southern France in a boat without sails
and oars?
“Some
say she spent her last days in a cave on a mountain called Sainte-Baume in
Provence. Here she fulfilled her mission, but her real mission has of course
never ended. Her true time has finally entered, and the long history of man’s
degradation is also in some way her story that belongs to a past and present
human experience.
“Can
a new voice ... a new song ... or ... a new appearance ... hers ... and the song ... The Waves. For Mary Magdalene ... be a
healing for the listeners?”
In the composition
The Waves. For May Magdalene
the initial song is taken from
Time Plays
and the other song (written
in an almost new tongue) was first published in Percival’s first book in
English,
Words
. The introductory text
(before the song) is a new poem by the composer, who looks upon his composition
The Waves. For Mary Magdalene
as an
invocation opening a new Mary Magdalene time, the era of The Waves, M M, when
woman and man can play and create together without degrading each other.
Since
a very long time before the year 2000 Percival had the “waves composition” in
his mind and had notes of a medieval character (concerning the text Carina
sings at the beginning and at the end) but preferred that Carina put her soul
and heart into her own musical setting. This text forms a part of a sequence
of poems called “Natasha” – published in
its entirety in Time Plays.
The
Waves. For Mary Magdalene
by Percival
Female
voice
: Carina
Male
voice
: Percival
The drums played by the composer are from
various parts of Africa. A Tibetan bowl is played by the composer before the
somewhat “Joycean” temple text (“Ablalong”) sung by Carina and Percival.
You can read
Letters to Shanti
(Art Distribution 2002, see www.artdistribution.se)
if you want to know more about the “new” Mary Magdalene, and there is, as you
will realize when you listen, a secret story behind
The Waves. For Mary Magdalene.
Technical realization Pär Johansson and Daniel Eideholm, EMS
(Electroacoustic Music in Sweden).
About
Carina
:
Carina is a singer, a songwriter-composer, and
a dancer-choreographer trained in the performing arts since early childhood.
She has appeared on stage in her own song and dance performances with songs of
her
own, composed in a variety of musical
genres. She has a background in music and dance drama, and today she performs
mainly as a singer on stage – at music festivals, peace festivals, etcetera.
The Mary Magdalene song she sings
in this composition is her own musical setting of a text by Percival.
For Mary Magdalene
It is as if you were
A memory in a world
I’ve never known,
a legend in a time
of silence...
A wave, and all history is gone...
No voice can be heard in this place
except your song – as a
far-away reminiscence...
(
A poem
by Percival, read at the beginning of this CD
)
About
Percival
:
Percival (first name and surname; no
pseudonym), who lives in Stockholm, Sweden, is a writer, artist, and composer.
He has exhibited his paintings and published books in Swedish and in English.
His music and some of his plays have been performed in Stockholm and elsewhere.
CD box photos (front, back) and on the disc: c Percival
The photograph on front cover shows
the Sea of Galilee
Back cover: Morning at Tulum, Yucatan, Mexico.
Production (c) 2002 Percival, Art Distribution, Askrikegatan 13, SE-115 57 Stockholm, Sweden.
BIEM
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WAVES 2002-1
Eternal
Voices
by Percival
Percival says: “Eternal Voices is
a composition and a song and sound meditation that has been a work in progress
since time immemorial. There is naturally no end to these voices, and no
beginning. I know some people have other ideas, but as far as I can see, you
can see beyond all limits and all borders. And I don't belong to the Big Bang
believers.
“In ancient Egypt initiated
men and women saw a picture of eternity when they saw the pyramids. And when
they listened deeply enough they heard the pyramids sing an eternal song. They
took part in this song that filled their lives with holy spirit. The eternal
song is a gift many peoples on earth have felt, acknowledged and realized.
“You pass away and you turn
back. You transfigure and transform. You are always here. And you sing: ‘I am a
Builder, Sun is my name …’
“We have heard and we hear our
time’s disturbances. But we also have an inner voice keeping on singing in
harmony with the unheard song of the universe that can be felt in every living
cell.
“Ramses II and
Nefertari
knew. And of
course pharaoh Akhenaton knew this when he reigned c. 1370 bc. He saw the Sun mirroring his true
self and said: ‘I am a Builder, Sun is my name.’ Nefertiti, his consort, did
the same. – And all peace people (on all continents) joined in the song. It is
still going on. It will never end.”
In Eternal Voices Percival is
singing together with three voice artists: Aishling De Cléir, Hanna Hanski
Grünewald, and Torun Wilderwind. Whispered words from
Percival’s
book Time Plays – poetry, plays, and prose – are
heard at the beginning and at the end. Listen carefully, you will be surprised.
All the universe is full of singing voices – heard and unheard.
About the singers in
Eternal Voices
Aishling De Cléir
, a soul-warming
singer/songwriter from Dublin, Ireland, now enthusiastically calls Stockholm,
Sweden, her home. She enjoys visits to her birthland to hold workshops and
share her music and always embraces her return to the land of pines and
northern spirit. What she loves most is reaching people’s hearts through her
creativity and sparkle H H H.
Hanna Hanski Grünewald
is a painter, a poet and a singer/songwriter
who has performed her songs e.g. on Hawaii,
and in Mexico,
Scandinavia and Africa.
She is a free-flowing spirit who likes to experiment with her voice and her
other means of expression.
Torun Wilderwind
is a fairy-tale singer. Untamed, unframed, she
channels the everlasting wild stream of songs and stories glowing forever,
flowing from within all … Bringing “well-fairy” … she loves to turn darkness
into light.
Percival
(surname and first
name) is a poet, playwright, and composer. His interest in the human voice
shows e.g. in one of his speeches: “The Solar Consciousness Era and the Human
Voice” – delivered in Ecuador 2002 during a conference when he also had voice
workshops. He has published books (plays, poetry, novels, essays, etc.) in
Swedish and in English. In 2004 he staged his musical choreo-drama “The Waves.
For Mary Magdalene” at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt. – Information about
his works (CD compositions, books, plays …): www.percival.nu
Instruments in the composition
(organ,
keyboard and bells) are played by Art Distribution musicians.
CD box photos (front, back) and on the disc: © Percival.
The photograph on the front: a solar ceremony on the top of a Mayan
pyramid, Uxmal, Mexico 1995. On the back and on the disc: the temple of Nefertari,
Abu Simbel, Egypt.
Technical realization and producer:
Lars Åkerlund, EMS (Electroacoustic Music in Sweden), Stockholm
CD cover photo: ETERNAL VOICES
CD cover photo: ETERNAL VOICES
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