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this long

WOW, I cant believe how long it has been since my last post. anyhow things are going well now. I had some rough moments here because of my lupus condition. I am all better now thanks to my great doctor and the treament schemes that I followed. I foud some very good tips here also, this is if you are going through such a thing and are feeling that you need guidance.

TV11 current and upcoming points of interest: new piece for seattle symphony entitled "obituary birthday: a requiem for kurt cobain" premiering oct 18th. new piano piece for michael mizrahi entitled "computer wave" premiered sometime in the fall. new album in progress, hopefully to be recorded in early 2012. big huge new west african-inspired project in the works with a ton of awesome folks on the way in 2013. new website. new video. new everything. also, the color of rain, the last track from television landscape, was recently featured in the believer's annual music issue, alongside tracks by my newam co-directors judd greenstein and sarah kirkland snider. pick one up at your local uber-cool bookstore or here. above, a bad guy from the running man.

thanks to all who came out to the fantastic and fun roomful of teeth/tUnE-yArDs ecstatic music festival show.  some recent news: my "future shock string quartet" is being performed twice in april, both times out of town.  the first: 4.3 at the switchboard music festival in san francisco.  the second, 4.16 as part of the southern theater's string theory music festival in minneapolis. if you're in either of those happening towns, come on out to the shows, both events should be awesome. in also cool news, i've been commissioned to write an orchestra piece inspired by kurt cobain/nirvana as part of the seattle symphony's next season.  more info soon! in the meantime, here's a not-so-recent photo of joshua tree.

here's a hot new video for the feb 19th ecstatic music festival show featuring me, caleb burhans, and merrill garbus (tUnE-yArDs) with pan-stylistic vocal group roomful of teeth:

 

in the waning days of 2010 "television landscape" picked up some end of year nods, including being named #20 on emusic's best albums of the year.  they broke it down this way.

The result has the liberated feel of a rebel yell, and the music veers fluidly and seemingly unselfconsciously from Todd Rundgren-referencing lite-rock to sustained passages of string writing that recall French composers like Faure and Debussy. Then, there are wigged-out prog-rock solos that are equal parts The Soft Machine and, well, Styx. What holds the whole sprawling mess together — apart from the warmly pulsing, gorgeously analog sound of the production — is Brittelle's bone-deep understanding of and love for all the music he's referencing. When he writes a blue-eyed soul ballad like "Sheena Easton," he goes for it, bringing in a children's choir and crashing drums in and letting the whole thing throb with the earnest, corn-fed beauty the form demands; in all this genre-jumping, there is not a glib or disingenuous second. Which is a remarkable achievement. The album might tie itself in occasional knots, but like all the best overblown art-rock, it is held together at the edges by sheer fervor of its maker's belief.

the album was also an honorable mention in wnyc's new sounds listener poll, sixth best moment of the year on george grella's fine "the big city" blog, one of alarm magazine's "unheralded albums of the year", and one of the top albums of 2010 by the awl writer and newsweek contributor seth colter walls.

i am excited and honored to be a part of the mind-meltingly cool ecstatic music festival at merkin concert hall this winter.  my dear friend judd greenstein has done a stellar job curating the series. it's presented in association with new amsterdam records and wnyc.  my show with roomful of teeth, merrill garbus (tUnE-yArDs), and caleb burhans takes place on feb 19th. for more info, check this out.

new stuff.  news photos from beautiful late summer red hook in the new york city gallery to your right. new press from relix magazine, an interview in new jersey star ledger, and short features on fluxblog, and a few other blogs in the selected press quotes section. thanks to all who came out to montclair st. for the here there be dragons show (pics/vids on the way). hope it didn't take you as long as it took us to get home...

photo of mark dancigers by murat eyuboglu 

this is so funny because it kind of looks like he is having impetigo. here are a few pictures to make things clearer.

on september 11th, television landscape will be featured on the opening night of montclair st.'s widely acclaimed peak performances series.  the evening, presented by new amsterdam, is dubbed here there be dragons - a nod to term ancient mapmakers used to designate uncharted territories. the night will be a first for new amsterdam, as television landscape will be interwoven with performances with labelmates NOW ensemble and victoire. for more info about the event, visit the peak performances site here.

the show will include the world premiere of a brand new track entitled cheyenne autumn/spiritual robot. it's a multi-section jam with extensive guitar and sax solos, so please forgive the stiffness of the preview midi mock-up posted below:

listen to midi of cheyenne autumn/spiritual robot

i consider television landscape to be an "la" record (as opposed to an "nyc" record), so it was particularly exciting for me to be interviewed, along with my bff/newam co-director sarah kirkland snider, by the la times on the subject classical crossover. the resulting article/interview came out on thursday, and includes some kind words about television landscape, including this nugget of awesomeness:

"[Television Landscape] evokes an earthquake-weather mood along a painterly musical landscape of searing rock, shaded by tonal passages of strings and French horns, flutes and, in one emotional spot, a children's choir. You might wonder if Jane's Addiction had discovered the soul of Debussy."

you can read the full article here.

nice eMusic Spotlight interview with jayson greene up online now. here's the opening gambit:

"What happens when a bunch of classical nerds get together and try to build an AOR-Rock Masterpiece? It sounds like the setup to a rather obscure joke, and the scenario might sound deeply unpromising. But this is exactly what composer William Brittelle set out to do. His new record, Television Landscape, out on New Amsterdam Records, is the result of an overwhelmingly cerebral attempt to make visceral, anthemic power rock music as Brittelle knows and loves it from his youth. Brittelle, a dropout from the Graduate Center program in New York for Composition, couldn't bring himself to do this in the more intuitive way other bands might. His Epic Rock Album, perhaps unlike most others, began with a scaled, computer model with every single guitar lick, drum fill, and interlude completely notated. 

This might seem like trying to build a particle accelerator in order to grill a hamburger, but the shocking thing about Television Landscape is that it worked. Television Landscape is all the things one expects from an epic art-rock album: expansive, anthemic, all-encompassing, shot through with raw emotion. The warm, analog production feels bathed in cathode rays, and songs veer fluidly and seemingly unselfconsciously from AM-radio power-ballads to sustained passages of string writing that recall French composers like Faure and Debussy. And back again. "The idea was basically that I should just do everything that I think is awesome, all at the same time, all on one record, instead of compartmentalizing things," Brittelle laughs. Recently, he sat down with eMusic's Jayson Greene along with Lawson White, the record's engineer; Marc Danzigers, the guitarist on the record and a member of the NOW Ensemble; and several other players on the record to discuss learning to embrace pop culture, trying not be weirder than Kid A, and finding your secret music."

Click here for the whole thing.