2021: Wrapping it up

This year marked another one in pandemic life. More highs and lows to live through where at times so many aspects of life seemed to overlap. Last year, I used music as means to process and respond to the world around me. It was a tool to survive and so now music feels a part of me in a way it never has before. It feels embodied and truly who I am. Paradoxically, I found myself feeling stuck and wrote a song about that which was released on a compilation by UK Label Beached Records.

Like many, looking back on this year is like watching a slow car crash - it feels like January 6 was ages ago. That was the moment I realized how trivial and damaging the last four years had been - hoards of white people storming the castle (I hope you know this reference lol) and we’re still waiting for some accountability. I responded with a piece and it was documented on a Livestream performance for the Colorado Modular Synth Society. That was a lovely way to connect with people during a significant spike in the pandemic.

Livestreams have been an interesting way to connect with an entirely different audience being able to connect with folks from all over the country into parts of Europe. Another livestream I performed at was closer to home. I was asked by my colleague and friend Marc Kate to play at Gray Area’s Patch Pulse series. Gray Area decided to create as many ways for people to connect and create immersive experiences in their space, film it and then stream for the world to see. I had the privilege of connecting with visual artist Anum Awan who created this amazing visual world for me to be immersed in. It was an amazing experience and one of the first times I was able to collaborate safely with others in person again.

My long-time collaborators RAWdance asked me if I wanted to be included in a proposal they were making to pitch a dance film to be projected on Salesforce Tower in San Francisco. Artists have been projecting visuals on that building for the past few years, but none have included an audio element to it. While the visuals moved in a ten-minute loop from 12 am-1 am every night for the month of May, viewers could click a link on their smartphones and listen to a ten-minute loop of music synced to the visuals. It was surreal to witness and continue a great collaboration of doing site-specific pieces with this dance company. I will be releasing an edited version of the audio for the piece in 2022!

I was able to collaborate with dancers two more times this year - one was a piece for Noah Wang. They are a SF-born NYC-based dancer and choreographer. Noah directed a dance film that premiered at the ODC Theater Festival. The other collaboration was a tour de force live performance in the parking lot of the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts. The piece was called Radius and premiered as part of the annual Counterpulse Festival. 32 dancers and 5 electronic musicians improvised together through a series of movements that were frantic, evolving, and often times cathartic. We were outdoors, masked and creating something together after being away from each other for so long. What was truly magical was being able to connect and create sound with the 5 musicians I performed with: Marc Kate, Nihar, Chris Duncan, and Amma Ateria. Most improvisation has to do with listening and presence - it felt as if we had been playing with each other for a long time.

Last but definitely not least was the release of my latest album Empathy. I had a random thought early this year wanting to release a tape: I had begun looking into duplication and the production differences for prepping a tape to be released. Chris Duncan who runs the Oakland imprint Land and Sea asked me if I wanted to put out a tape with them. It felt so right - this led me to begin crafting the album and thinking about it as two sides. The first being the Empathy suite (I-IV) resolving with Full Moon. Side B is meant to rest. I realized this even more when I performed at my record release - I created live loops that slowly changed over time. Visuals I made were projected and the two together provided a space for deep listening. I’m hoping to do another long-form event like that in 2022.
The way the album has been embraced really means a lot.

So what’s to come? I scored a short documentary that I hope will be released sometime in 2022. I also have an album to be released in early summer that I’ll be making an announcement about very soon. Keep it moving!

New album EMPATHY coming in October 8

I'm really excited to share that I'm releasing a new album, EMPATHY, on October 8th. It will be available as a limited edition cassette and digitally through Bandcamp. I'm honored as it is being lovingly released by Oakland imprint Land and Sea. This album is a personal one and deeply meaningful to me. A bit about the album:

"The creation of this music was a balm for my depression and anxiety of constantly seeing America fail to reckon with its original sin. These songs were a way to create a world I could live in and create for myself - not as an escape but a safe place to be. It's my hope that this album gives you a place to be. It is my deep wish that communities of empathy continue to be created outside of the shadow of white supremacy. Beyond the gatekeepers of identity, beyond the righteousness of narcissism, beyond the Twitter fingers, beyond the ego of cancellation, beyond the ease of black mirror activism, beyond the indifference of your comfort, beyond the need to be perfectly understood, beyond the need to be a man."

The album is available for pre-order on Bandcamp and will include a download of the album's first track Empathy I, the first of a 4 part meditation on empathy. This track is a taste of what's to come as I'm so excited for you to hear the rest of the album. If you are interested in purchasing a pre-order of the tape, email christopherrobinduncan@gmail.com. You'll be hearing from me soon!

“Collected Breath”

I love collaborations that evolve over time and after working with someone enough, things just start to fall into place and there is an ease of ideas that occur. That’s how it’s been with my friends and colleagues RAWdance. We just premiered another piece “Collected Breath” together but it debuts in a very different way: over 11,000 LEDs lit across the highest building in San Francisco, the Salesforce tower. What’s unique about this piece is that if you’ve lived or visited San Francisco in the last few years, you will have noticed these projections while looking out at the building after midnight. This is the first piece that has incorporated sound and it’s synced with the images in a 10 minute loop so you have 6 chances to watch it each night. What I most love about the piece is that it mimics the way we breathe: sometimes slow or fast, other times breathing is a labored. Breathing can even be euphoric…

The majority of the piece was written on my modular synthesizer and then edited and arranged in Ableton Live. A few days before I sent over the music, I got some footage from one of the tests they were doing at the tower. When I dropped the music in, I was so pleased how it flowed. The music really does come to life when you see it moving in tandem with the visuals. You can see a small example of it in a recent post I made on Instagram.

I am forever grateful when I get to work on projects of this scale. They are once in a lifetime and an absolute dream. You can learn all about the piece here.

Still here just not here

Y’all it’s been a while haven’t really been blogging lately. But this past year I’ve released a bunch of music on Bandcamp played a live stream and I’m continuing to work on new projects and will have a few more releases this year. For better or for worse I’ve been spending a lot of time experimenting with visuals and pairing them with sketches of music on Instagram so if you’re looking for up-to-date news and music please find me there. As always, I’ll always be using this page to document my work! xo

It's been a minute....

Hi - if you’ve found yourself here, welcome. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve had a lot of work this year and want to direct you to my Projects page which has a lot of new work up to check out! Hope you are staying safe and sane.