Cordell Klier - "sultry glacial honesty" (gracious series #444.1i)

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This work was inspired by an unexpected trip to the Walker Art Museum in MPLS during November 2006. At the gallery, as I walked thru the first section, I came into the room where Nam June Paik and Bruce Nauman's multimedia work was located. The subtle sounds of fan-powered TVs; the incessant thump of a man falling over-&-over into the corner of some anonymous room struck my ears, from the other side of the space as I was peering thru some of Yves Klein's transparent blue smudges.

The sound was so inviting that I was almost annoyed at myself for not realizing how amazing the two separate installations were “sound-wise” when heard together. And I'd been in that gallery space plenty of times for years. Why today I got the feelings I did, I'm not sure. But the feeling felt right. The fuzzy sound of the fans (Nam June Paik) with the slow dull thumps (Bruce Nauman) made me run and grab the Yves Klein exhibition flyer just to write down what I was hearing. It was like listening to a glacier. A romantic sound. An honesty earthy sound that I had to merge.

The process of getting started took almost 4 months. As the Klein flyer sat next to me day-in & day-out, I was lovingly haunted by the notion of merging these too brilliant installations together audibly, that I was almost afraid to start. I wanted to get it right. But more so I didn't want to use any of the sounds from the gallery nor did I want to recreate them like the cinema does with amazing movies 10 years post. Thus, I opted to create this work from the muse-point that all creative people do when inspiration strikes softly.

So I began to remember the other sounds of the space within the Walker. Subtle shuffling of shoes. The echo of the solid room. And a soft underbelly of white noise barely coming out of the ceiling. That was what I was going to recreate - the moment. Not the pieces, nor the sound of the pieces themselves but the whole experience.

In January, once I started and finished the first piece, I found that I needed to re-invent the two intentions as separates. Once, of the subtly of the first acknowledgement of the installation sounds, then secondly, of the environments in their entirety. Of course with one minor exception, I did not include the murmur of human voices. The sound of human voices within these pieces, I felt, too literal an interpretation of a gallery space.

Off I went to create & finish the two with great enjoyment. And by "finish" I mean that, as most people know about my work, rarely are they finished. In fact many of my releases are released unfinished. But this one felt different. I actually succeeded. This is as close to finished as I’d done thus far.

You'll also notice a few quiet high frequencies within the piece from time to time as well. I added these occasionally to shift the listener's attention back within the fuzzy static. This, to enable a "noticing" that the static isn't just random noise. There is a pattern in the static. And that pattern, for me, is very inspirational.

For you the listener, the artists I found inspiration from, and the Walker Museum for providing the space, I thank you all. Hope you enjoy this.

track listing:
01 sultry glacial honesty
02 (re-edit)

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