Pangaea Recording On Sale

I had such an amazing and exhausting show for the Pangaea premiere. Thank you to everyone who made it out and to all those that supported the KickStater and to the great cast of musicians, singers, designers and staff that made it possible. Thank You!

You can now purchase the studio recording of this 19-track opera at earSnake.com. The recording is available digitally in high quality MP3/FLAC/ACC, as a digipak CD or a deluxe edition which contains the CD and a 60 page of the lyrics, linear notes, story and drawings (see photos below).

Lots coming up in December, including pictures and video from the premiere.

Trinity Sun

Trinity Sun

So today is 11/1/11, 11 days until 11/11/11 what better day to download and check out the first chapter in the Pangaea saga, Trinity Sun.

http://mikronesia.bandcamp.com/album/pangaea-trinity-sun

This free EP is a spoken word tale recited by Solomon Slowburn with ambient music by Mikronesia. It tells the creation story of Pangaea and the fall of the first superhuman beings, The Stonemen (who play a crucial part in the Pangaea: When The Continents Were One opera premiering in two Fridays)

Tickets On Sale Now

We are almost three weeks away from the premiere of Pangaea: When The Continents Were One produced by earSnake’s own Mikronesia. In case you missed the last couple of emails Pangaea is a modern electronic/rock/chamber opera which will be performed by 11 musicians, 6 masked singers, puppeteers and VJs at the Rotunda on Novemeber 11, 2011.

There will be only one performance of Pangaea so don’t miss your chance to see the premiere. About 25 tickets have been accounted for under the successfully funded Kickstarter and tickets are going fast, so get yours today!

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE » http://therotunda.ticketleap.com/pangaea/

PANGAEA: When The Continents Were One
Friday November 11, 2011, 8:00pm
$10 online before / $15 at the door

Vocalists: Lillie Ruth Bussey, Megan Cauley, Brian McDermott, John Morrison, Steve Quaranta, Jalima Shani with Christian Rabin
Drums and Percussion: Jimmy Coleman
Strings: Carlos Santiago, Maura Diberardinis, Steve Heitlinger, Johnell Lawrence and Christine Mello
Horns: Adam Hershberger and Larry Toft
Flutes: Heather Fortune
Keyboards, Guitars and Electronics: Michael McDermott

Video: Nico Dominguez
Masks and creatures: Liza Goodell
Masks: Tigre Bailando

Recording of Pangaea made possible by American Composers Forum
Performance made possible by Kickstarter

Kickstarter Successful!

 

The last 24 hours were very nerve-wracking but we made our Kickstarter goal! Thanks hugely to my wife Megan who really emailed, texted and pressed the flesh hard on the final day to raise almost $1800 in 12 hours! Amazing.

To get this project funded by friends, family and patrons of the arts means so much to me. With such a huge group of dedicated people working to create this project, I wanted to make sure everyone was paid fairly for their efforts. Plus we have a lot of costs associated with producing an opera on our own. I simply could not afford to finance such a project on my own. Kickstarter has been such a great resource for funding all sorts of arts and music projects over the years and I’m glad I could be part of it.

I want to especially thank all the donors who funded this project. Special thanks to Dr. Pesha for his hugely generous donation towards the end of the day which catapulted us over the $3000 mark. To all the backers

  • Jason MacDonald
  • Meghan Haugh
  • Jonathan and Ellie Moniz
  • William and Hunter Clarke-Fields
  • Richard Baybutt and Jayashree Patel
  • Gene Coleman
  • Robin
  • Tom Gisondi
  • Steve Peltier
  • Kevin Brown
  • J. Makary
  • Brian Doyle
  • Steffan and Emily Shultz
  • Brian Wainwright
  • Carl Franke
  • Pearson Constantino
  • Joo Won Park
  • Michele and Brian Semple
  • Siobhan Lyons
  • Gary Dann
  • Deena Weisberg
  • Gina Renzi
  • Steven Bullack
  • Christine and Steve Farace
  • Duke and Bustock
  • Pat McDermott and Jack Malgeri
  • Thomas Fetterman
  • Bernadette and Chad Waters
  • Jan Shilling
  • Sheila Reynolds
  • Donald Silversmith
  • Karen Mauch and Diane Zilka
  • Frank Walter
  • Linda Marshall
  • Michael O’Brien
  • Lisa Steffanelli and Andrew Hawkes
  • Max Nomad
  • Nadia Botello
  • Steven Grise
  • John Colagioia
  • Dr. Lynn Rosenthal
  • Rebecca Klimowicz
  • Nick Karn
  • Gary Marshall
  • Kimberly Logan
  • Katie Goodrum
  • Jim Bear
  • Emily Sweeney and Bilwa
  • Johan
  • Brian McDermott
  • Melissa Franke
  • Meghann Waters
  • Jacob Troy
  • Susan and Ian Baybutt
  • Mary and Robert Niewood
  • Dr. Pesha!
  • RuthieRoots
  • Greenwind
  • Patricia and Mike McDermott
  • Bobby and Michele Niewood
  • John King
  • Bill and Florence Niewood
  • Becky Soll and Karim Olechea
  • Jason Niewood

This project wouldn’t be happening without your love and support. Thank You!

We’ll be seeing many of you whose pledge gift included two tickets to the premiere on 11/11/11. For everyone else you can buy tickets to this limited seating engagement at the Rotunda on UPENN campus in Philadelphia. Tickets can be purchased here - http://therotunda.ticketleap.com/pangaea/ 

One Week Left For The Kick Starter!

Almost three weeks ago we launched a Kick Starter online fundraising campaign for the multi-media opera project, Pangaea: When The Continents Were One. With only one week to go (as of Monday) we are about halfway to our goal of $3000.

If you’ve already given money to the Kick Starter, thank you! Supporting the arts is a wonderful thing. If you haven’t yet, or if you know someone who may be interested in donating to the premiere performance of Pangaea, please head to the Kick Starter and pledge today!

Remember if you were planning on seeing the show, or buying the album, this is a great way to buy tickets and CDs in advance and know that your money is going directly to the two dozen artists and musicians who are making Pangaea a reality.

For this final week of the Kick Starter we will be streaming the entire Pangaea: When The Continents Were One studio album, which will be released next month on earSnake. You can listen to the epic opera yourself and imagine what it will take to perform it live. Please repost and send to any arts patrons you may know.

Stream Pangaea

Thank you,
Michael and earSnake crew

Kickstarter Link - http://kck.st/oM8V0q 

Streaming Album Link - http://mikronesia.bandcamp.com/album/pangaea-when-the-continents-were-one

Pangaea Premieres November 11, 2011 at the Rotunda. More info and online ticket purchasing soon!

Singing Rocks

Here the second sneak preview from the Pangaea Opera. This is one sung by Daeon who uses the metal in rocks to resonate his tongueless voice.

Singing Rocks by mikronesia

Ancient Warning

After a marathon 10 days straight of mixing and editing the opera, PANGAEA everything is done and ready to be mastered. I wanted to share the first track we did vocals for from the brilliant Steve Quaranta. Steve was one of the first people I asked to be on the opera. He has such a unique and powerful voice, I knew he would be perfect to play the unsung hero of the opera, the wise shaman Snakegar.

Enjoy and please support the Kick Starter for the premiere on November 11.

Ancient Warning by mikronesia

Pangaea Recording

It’s been a busy and rewarding summer recording Pangaea tracks. An impressive list of musicians and singers have come through earSnake studios to record parts on the opera, including:

violin: Carlos Santiago
viola: Steven Heitlinger
cello: Eve Miller
percussion: Jimmy Coleman
flute: Heather Fortune
trumpet/flugelhorn: Adam Hershberger
trombone/baritone horn: Larry Toft.

Things are sounding amazingly epic. We’ll be finishing all the group vocals this week with:

Megan Cauley, Steve Quaranta, John Morrison, Jalima Shani Brian McDermott and Lillie Ruth Bussey

I can’t wait to share the Pangaea recordings with the world.

Only two months until the premiere as well!

This Weekend

I’ve got two exciting shows this weekend. First up Friday night Megan and I will be doing a duo set at Johnny Brenda’s. We’re opening for our neightbors and friends, Turning Violet Violet for their EP release party.

Although I’ve been saying this for years, starting this October, I am going to start official recording of Pangaea: When the Continents Were One (my long awaited opera). That being said, I plan to seriously scale back playing live and immerse myself in the studio to work on this life long dream project. You may see some solo Ghost Darling shows or shows the hot new project with Joe Hallman, Attita Taylor and Johnell Lawerence in 2010 and 2011, but for me it’s studio, studio, studio (Phil Collins style). So Gemini Wolf shows for the rest of the year and 2011 will be scarce. This may be your last chance to catch us for a while.

I’m also planning a special treat of playing my Fender Rhodes for this show. When I was a young man, I had no problem lugging the 100 pound beast up and down club steps at 2am on Tuesday night. Now that I’m old, I’ve been sticking to mostly portable MIDI gear. However, since this maybe my last rock club show in quite a while, I decided to bring the (new) Rhodes out for one last show.

The second show this weekend will be the Gears of Sand showcase at One Thousand Pulses in North Jersey. It’s been over four years since I’ve played with Bill and Ben from GoS and I’m really looking forward to this gig. It’ll be a great night of new drone, ambient and electronic with some subtle visuals. I’ve been hearing great things about the 1000 pulses series and am looking forward to heading up to play.

Trinity Sun


You can now download, read and listen to Pangaea Trinity Sun. In addition to setting the stage for the Pangaea opera, it gives a context for entire saga of my opera Pangaea (2011).

This piece, Trinity Sun, is the creation story of the land of Pangaea. It tells the story of a perfect race of men who lived in the oceans of Pangaea. The mother god, Aeou created them to be timeless and present. Her children gods, Soren, the god of thought, Kot the god of time and Muta, the god of matter, began dabbling in the stone menâs affairs ultimately courupting them and driving them out of the sea. Over the years, these stone men because the ancient race of man that lived on the super continent Pangaea before it split. The story and sounds are by Mikronesia and the text and narration are by Christian Rabin. This is a free release by earSnake. It can be downloaded and streamed over at archive.org, where it is hosted or here at earSnake..

Download the ZIP file of Pangaea Trinity Sun with words, image and music.

Ok here I am for my monthly update. I know, it’s been a while. I’ve mostly been in the studio working on the Gemini Wolf album with Megan, as well as some studio stuff. I’ve also been shedding on classical composition skills studying with James Guglielimo. We’ve been working on the Gemini Wolf album since December, we’ve recorded strings, horns, percussion and lots of electronics from Megan and myself. So far it’s sounding quite different than Josiah. Just minutes ago we confirmed the album will be released around the third week of July, with a album release party at Johnny Brenda’s on July 18! As a I prepare to come out of my winter studio hibernation, I’ve got a few performances coming up you can read about. They’re within blocks and days of each other in March. The next couple of weeks we’ll be finishing up the Gemini Wolf album and I’m working on three or four Mikronesia recording projects that have been slowly evolving in three separate directions: a dubby beat album, grainy ambient soundscapes and an electronic deconstruction of a string quartet I wrote and the recorded version of Pangaea: Trinity Sun.
View Separately

Ok here I am for my monthly update. I know, it’s been a while. I’ve mostly been in the studio working on the Gemini Wolf album with Megan, as well as some studio stuff. I’ve also been shedding on classical composition skills studying with James Guglielimo.

We’ve been working on the Gemini Wolf album since December, we’ve recorded strings, horns, percussion and lots of electronics from Megan and myself. So far it’s sounding quite different than Josiah. Just minutes ago we confirmed the album will be released around the third week of July, with a album release party at Johnny Brenda’s on July 18!

As a I prepare to come out of my winter studio hibernation, I’ve got a few performances coming up you can read about. They’re within blocks and days of each other in March.

The next couple of weeks we’ll be finishing up the Gemini Wolf album and I’m working on three or four Mikronesia recording projects that have been slowly evolving in three separate directions: a dubby beat album, grainy ambient soundscapes and an electronic deconstruction of a string quartet I wrote and the recorded version of Pangaea: Trinity Sun.

Nexus Radio

Happy New Year. I’d like to take moment to thank all the musicians and artists I was able to work with in 2008. Last year was a tremendous year of growth for me as as a composer, a producer and an artist.

2009 is here and is looking to be an even more exciting and action packed year than 2008!

People close to me have been hearing me talk (and joke) about my “rock opera” Pangaea for years. It’s been something I’ve been kicking around for almost 15 years now! Last year I sat down and wrote out the story and I’ve sketched out about 3/4 of he music on piano. Last year, I was planning on performing it late this year and maybe early 2010. However, with the amount currently slated for Gemini Wolf, earSnake and other solo work, I would be rushing to get it done in a year. I’ve waited 15 year, so what’s another year or two?

I want to take time, get some funding, meticulously craft the score and recording, and make it the best production I’ve ever done. Therefore, I’ve decided to make the opera premiere and recording release Pangaea: When the Continents Were One on November 11, 2011. I’ve always been a fan of patterns with number, an an opera about one unified super continent seems like it should happen on 11/11/11 (plus it’s a Friday).

This will also give me some time to premiere some supplementary narrative and artistic work to help contextualize and tell the mythological tale of Pangaea, which bring us to this Saturday.

This Saturday, Solomon Slowburn (earSnake MC/Poet/Musican) and I will be premiering Pangaea: Trinity Sun on air for NEXUSradio. Trinity Sun, is an epic poem of the creation myth of Pangaea in the vein of Judaeo-Christian story, Genesis, or the hundreds of other Creation Myths out there. The idea came from Christian (Solomon Slowburn) to make the first chapter in the Pangaea story the myth that the tribes on Pangaea belive, which gives them a moral and spiritual guidance in their lives.

This will be the first in a series of smaller scale Pangaea performances leading up to the opera in 2011.

The performance will be Christian reading the text with orignial ambient music I wrote and will perform on air at NEXUSradio. In December 2008 and January 2009, Nexus Gallery has been turned into a low powered AM station for the comminity in North Philadelphia. If you’re in Philadelphia you can tune in to 1650 AM or drop by the gallery. The performance will be around 5 PM on Saturday January 10. From noon until 6 PM that day is earSnake day with performances by some intrumental / experimental earSnake artists. Check earSnake.com for details.

After the performance, we’ll record the piece and post here and on the forthcoming Pangaea website.

[Image credit (croped image) NASA/JPL-Caltech]