Released November 4, 2022: Support our work by ordering on BandCamp
Artists
Featured works
Dante De Silva (b. 1978)
Shibui—a dirge in memory of my mentor, Deborah Clasquin (2009) for solo piano
Four Years of Fog (2016) for just-tuned piano
Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, piano
Katherine Balch (b. 1991)
& Katie Ford (b. 1975)
estrangement (2020) for voice and piano
Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano
Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, piano
Linda S. Fitz Gibbon (b. 1958)
Brainiac (2019), ceramic art featured on cover
Reviews
The program so sincerely produced on the labor of forgetting, the debut release from False Azure Records, reminds me of Pauline Oliveros, who once said, “Listening is selecting and interpreting and acting and making decisions.”
—Tyran Grillo, full review at Sequenza21
Notes on the album
Recording Details
Shibui and Four Years of Fog—
Recorded June 30th to July 3rd, 2018, in Barnes Hall Auditorium, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Session producer: Dante De Silva
Piano technician: Ken Walkup
Instruments: Shibui—Steinway & Sons “D” Concert Grand, New York, 1908 (“Kovner”), rebuilt by Jim Reeder, 1985, restored by Ken Walkup; Four Years of Fog and Shibui (reprise)—Steinway & Sons “D” Concert Grand, New York, 1958 (“Old Bailey”), restored by Ken Walkup, 2006
estrangement—
Recorded March 10th, 2022, in Barnes Hall Auditorium, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Session producer: Katherine Balch
Piano technician: Ken Walkup
Instrument: Steinway & Sons “D” Concert Grand, New York, 1908 (“Kovner”), rebuilt by Jim Reeder, 1985, restored by Ken Walkup
Audio engineering, editing, mixing, and mastering by Windowpane Audio
Acknowledgements
Deborah Clasquin in memoriam
Thanks to the following people for making this album possible:
Michael Brofman and Brooklyn Art Song Society for their work in commissioning estrangement;
the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards, which maintains the instruments used in this album;
Katie Ford, for her beautiful poetry and generous time proof-reading;
Laurel Gilmer and the administrative staff at the Cornell Music Department for their patient help with scheduling;
the National Endowment for the Arts for its financial support commissioning estrangement;
and Ken Walkup, piano technician, who really made these pianos sing.
Stats for Nerds
Microphones—
Shibui and Four Years of Fog : Microphone-Parts S12 matched pair (overheads, omni AB), Line Audio CM3 matched pair (piano close, subcardioid ORTF)
estrangement : Microphone-Parts S12 matched pair (overheads, omni AB), Microphone-Parts SDC matched pair (voice close, cardioid AB), Line Audio CM3 matched pair (piano close, subcardioid ORTF), LOM Audio Uši Pro matched pair (piano keytops, omni AB)
Preamps/conversion—
Sound Devices MixPre 10T
Cameras—
Lumix GH5 mk.II & S5
Lenses—
Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 S.S.C., Canon FD 80-200mm f/4 L, Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro
Non-linear editing platforms—
Reaper 6 & DaVinci Resolve 18
Post-production plugin suites—
Izotope Neutron 4 (channel strips), Izotope RX9 (audio repair and restoration), FabFilter Pro-R (artificial reverb), Ozone 9 (mastering)
False Azure Records 
Dear Ryan,
Really appreciate your post here. I found your album through Google, when I’m trying to understand and translate the “Tender Interval” into Chinese.
I really wish you could do me a favor with understanding the meaning of the “gray gaps”, “black beats”, as well as the “tender interval” itself.
Are they referring to some real objects or symbols used by pianist? Or just Nabokov’s literary expressions.
Look forward to your reply.
Thank you
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Hey Damon,
Thanks for reaching out. I read that quote as being a riff on Debussy’s famous words about music being the space between the notes. The I figure “tender interval” is a metaphor for silence, where “black beats” are the ink on the page and “gray gaps” are the paper itself. Ironically Nabokov didn’t really like music very much, or at best tolerated it, but the imagery is beautiful…
Best,
Ryan
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