Marc Junker // Prepared Piano 1.0 TAPE

*We will appear at Tobira Instore Showcase on October 11th

This cassette was released in April 23 by neoclassical artist Marc Junker aka R2023X from Vancouver, Canada, on Doom Trip, an all-genre label based in LA, USA, in a limited edition of 4 copies.

Contains 10 neoclassical ambient to contemporary songs that use piano as the main source.

*If you would like a digital sound source, please feel free to contact us.

Below is a commentary by the label.

"Marc Junker, a composer based in Vancouver, Canada, has released his debut work "Prepared Piano 1.0" in the Doom Trip catalog. Marc Junker's music under the name R23X, Chicago-based artist, While his frequent collaborations with Equip explore the traditions of video game music and vaporous sample manipulation, his work under his own name emphasizes forays into film composition and orchestral composition. In fact, all of these disciplines are inextricably linked throughout his work, regardless of the name. Prepared Piano 1.0 combines the heart-tugging drama of film music with the dynamic dynamics of video game music. short stories and uncanny valley-like synthetic instruments clouded with bursts of hyper-digital electronic textures.

Marc Junker's use of the piano as a lead instrument often plays multiple roles within a single composition.Layered loops of consonant glitches spiral around the edges of the mix, lush melodic passages swell to cinematic grandeur, and dissonant insertions explode into a path that leaves the listener on a journey. and lead. Marc Junker cites influences from John Cage's prepared piano experiments and Hauschka's neoclassical piano sketches.These predecessors are evident in Marc Junker's repeated, curved piano shapes and the melodic structure of Hearts on Sleeves, as well as in the detour into atonality and the way the piano plays the same way it produces its notes. It also appears in the moments when it is treated as a live percussion instrument, valued for its textural abilities. Marc Junker creates miniatures with ``Prepared Piano 1,'' with 1.0 out of 10 songs under 6 minutes. Marc Junker packs enough twists into each mini-story to make them supple to withstand repeated loops, much like a video game composer prepares each track to loop endlessly during a game's runtime. It forms an arc.Like the work of game composers from the PlayStation era, Junker delights in toying with the possibilities of synthetic orchestral instruments.Vibraphone, music box, and violin passages take center stage, while the orchestral string section follows a chord progression backed by a network of piano arpeggios.Modern listeners are quick to associate particularly evocative songs with ``soundtracks for video games or movies that don't exist yet,'' but ``Prepared Piano 2'' resists that distinction.It exists as music for its own sake, and can flourish in the empty reminiscences of headphones as easily as it can conjure up scenes in our mind's eye. "

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Cassette in norelco case. Edition of 100. Full-color 5-panel J-cards.

Tracklist:

1. Arrangement 1112 03:27
2. Finding Your Way 03:56
3. Beyond 01:27
4. ~(crashed)~ 02:02
5. Maeve 01:10
6. Skeuomorph 01:44
7. Wind Theme 01:10
8. Pour You 03:03
9. Sea of ​​Clouds 01:34
10. Extremities 01:42

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Doom Trip:

"Vancouver-based composer Marc Junker presents his debut release in the Doom Trip catalog with "Prepared Piano 1.0," a collection of meticulously sculpted miniatures that foreground his varied piano performances against webs of high-fidelity sound design. While Junker's music under the moniker R23X , along with that project's frequent collaborations with Chicago-based artist Equip, find him exploring the traditions of video game music and vaporous sample manipulation, his work under his given name highlights his forays into film scoring and orchestral composition. In truth, all these disciplines are inextricably linked throughout his work, regardless of moniker. "Prepared Piano 1.0" welds the heart-string tugging drama of film music to the dynamic short-form narratives and uncanny valley synthetic instrumentation of video game music, all frosted with bursts of hyper- digital electronic texture.

Junker's treatment of the piano as lead instrument manifests in varied roles, often within the space of a single composition: tiers of consonant glitched loops spiral around the edges of the mix; passages of lush melody swell into cinematic grandeur; dissonant interjections burst through and steer listeners down divergent paths. Junker cites the influence of the prepared piano experiments of John Cage and the sweeping neo-classical piano sketches of Hauschka. These forebears appear in Junker's repeated curlicue piano figures and heart-on-sleeve melodic architectures as much as his detours into atonality and moments that treat the piano as a raw percussion instrument valued as much for its textural capacity as the notes it produces. Junker works in miniature on "Prepared Piano 1.0," with six of its ten tracks clocking in at less than two minutes. Like video game composers prepared for each morsel-sized track to loop endlessly during the game's runtime, Junker makes sure to cram each mini-narrative with enough twists to form a sinuous arc that can withstand repeated looping, but that can still keep us transfixed with just one playthrough. Like the Playstation-era output of video game composers including Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda, Junker delights in toying with the potential of synthetic orchestral instruments. Passages of vibraphone, music box, and violin take lead roles in his compositions, while orchestral string sections flow through chord progressions against networks of piano arpeggios While modern listeners can be quick to identify a particularly evocative piece of music as a “soundtrack to a video game or movie that doesn't exist yet,” "Prepared Piano 1.0" resists that distinction. It exists as music for its own sake , capable of flourishing in a vacuum of headphone reverie as easily as it can conjure scenes in our mind's eye."

Artist: Marc Junker

Label: Doom Trip