PRESS RELEASE: DAN SIEGLER TAKES A BOLD STEP INTO THE FOREGROUND ON ‘MAINTENANCE OF WAY’
New York, NY – November 11, 2022
Cmntx Records is thrilled to announce the release of Maintenance of Way by New York-based composer and sound artist, Dan Siegler. His latest release is a comprehensive body of work that shows the established composer and sought-after collaborator stepping boldly into the foreground of a landscape shaped by his life and eclectic career in New York City.
Siegler’s work combines electronic and organic elements, incorporating references to jazz, blues, and folk. Strongly influenced by musique concrète, he employs a mixture of analog synthesizers, orchestration for concert instruments and glitch sound material, creating music that has been described as "luxuriously mercurial" by Artforum and “frequently haunting” by The New Yorker.
The album’s title is a railway term that describes procedures intended to keep rides navigable and clear and connects to Siegler’s daily New York City commute, as well as to the goal of remaining true to your ideals, i.e., ‘maintaining your way’ of doing things. In Siegler’s case this is a “sound first” approach—gathering field recordings and letting those dictate where the compositions will lead.
Maintenance of Way creates a space where ambient atmospheres and radical transformation coexist. Entrances and exits are pronounced and pointed. The listener is gripped by abrupt but organic shifts of rhythm and tone. Like a subway train emerging on the other side of a tunnel, or out into daylight, the sudden switches in musical surroundings create a feeling of illumination after stretches of darkness. That contrast creates a push/pull dynamic in which no one part can exist without the other.
“Spectator Sport,” the lead track and single, is a warped funk groove, propelled by drums, horns, strings and 8-bit sounds. It’s a vivid illustration of the artist’s disparate yet complementary sensibilities. On the album’s second single, “For Maike,” rippling, lush, arpeggiated synth clusters create subtle, hypnotic propulsion, evoking the late-night air of the city.
Siegler strives to locate beauty in dissonance, drawing influence from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, David Bowie, and the dense atonal sampling techniques of Wu-Tang Clan and Public Enemy. Steeped in the aura of his native New York City, the music conveys a feeling of disorientation and discovery, like finding a street you’ve never walked down in a place you’ve lived your entire life.
Maintenance of Way includes features by some of Siegler’s longtime friends and collaborators in the New York City music scene. The violin duo, String Noise (Pauline Kim Harris and Conrad Harris) performs on the expansive track, “Read the Following Before Playing.” a work composed specifically for them for the Interpretations Concert Series at Roulette. “Ghost Sentence” is a reworking of a piece composed for Siegler’s longtime collaborator, acclaimed choreographer Pam Tanowitz. “Not A Stable Pattern” is a live recording from a Composer’s Residency at Art Omi with an ensemble including Shruthi Vishwanath (Vocals), Ben Zucker (Trumpet), Sylvia Hinz (Recorder), Johanna Amaya (Drums), Shannon Barnett (Trombone), and Violeta Garcia (Cello).
Additional personnel includes Rob Heath (drums), Tomoko Omura (Violin) and Joe Ancowitz (Trumpet)
Maintenance of Way is a confident stride into unfamiliar ground. It emits the excited energy of moving beyond a passenger role with a newly defined direction, propelled by a feeling of necessity as if to say, “if not now, when?”
Maintenance of Way is available for purchase on Bandcamp and is streaming everywhere now. For more information, visit cmntxrecords.com/records/maintenance-of-way.
###
