I. ANAPHORIAN MUSIC IN THE 21st CENTURY
Our concern is with preserving and speculating on the untapped resources of ancient and exiled 'musical' technologies. On this page we try to provide some idea of our activities but preserve and present the most worthy work via physical medium or live performances. While only one feature of the music, the tunings reflect an uncanny synchronistic relationship with scales formulated by Erv Wilson. We do in all respect attempt to highlight these for those few interested in such matters. Please enjoy.
Anaphorian Music has been branded by one of its head witch doctors and media experts as "organic" "earth-friendly" "eco-aware" and "environmentally responsible". Also, the compositions are "vintage" and "rare" works performed upon "handcrafted" instruments with "recycled and/or sustainable" materials "painstakingly built to exact tolerances" that are "individual artworks of beauty" in themselves.
a:link to our Bandcamp page of Pre-Anaphorian work and the initial Anaphorian recordings
are available as well as the ongoing ensemble work of Clocks and Clouds .
STILL AVAILABLE -
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The Archives of Anaphoria is pleased to present its first release in 8 years IN A PENTAGONAL ROOM Recording produced by Eva Cheng IN A PENTAGONAL ROOM is the first CD of microtonal performance duo CLOCKS AND CLOUDS. The title refers to the unique five-sided reverberation chamber in which the recordings are made. The shape and surface of the room produce sounds and decays that last as long as 12 seconds enhancing the unique sounds of the duo’s specially tuned instruments. The interaction of harmonics produced by the Meta-Slendro vibraphone and organ is captured via a special five microphone setup, resulting in what will probably be considered the definitive recording of these instruments. The album is totally acoustic and free of overdubs or enhancement. Even equalization is by-passed in order to retain the high quality of the original sounds. |
2 Vinyl Releases available in the EU via INI.ITU LABEL
ANAPHORIA:ESCARPMENTS
- HEADWATERS,CASCADES, TORRENTS -
An extended except form Side B: for meta-slendro Vibraphone that reflects on the nature of water on the island of Anaphoria
ANAPHORIA: FOOTPATHS AND TRADE ROUTES
- ZEPHYROS -
2006 - A composition exploring a state of continuous beginning as if a new world is formed around every corner - for Solo Meta-Slendro Vibraphone. Originally Issued as the first track on Anaphoria: Footpaths and Trade Routes LP (approaching sold out status).
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THIS RECORDING IS TEMPORARY NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME DUE TO A TIME MORATORIUM REQUESTED BY ELDERS ANAPHORIA: FIRST CONTACT Digipak CD only. limited run of 300 Assembled by Banaphshu Tollan and Kraig Grady Thanks to the miracle of modern audio technology, both wire recordings and early tape recordings made by Richard Tollan, Anaphoria's first long term Western resident, are presented for the first time. The recordings offer a window into a dark distant past forgotten by other traditions on the island as well as more modern styles. Little is known of the context in which this music was created, but it still speaks for itself across time to change how we think and hear the music from Anaphoria. The utmost care was taken to preserve the often lo-fi quality of the originals. For this reason, it has been decided that mp3 or streaming formats would undermine the recordings and will not being offered at this time. This release serves as a prequel to the already existing discography from Anaphoria. These recordings were first heard publicly on Radio Nabu Congul FM on 11/11/2017 to commemorate the 25-year presence online of the Embassy of Anaphoria Island. |
CD and digital recording
OUR RAINY SEASON/NUILAGI
The most recent CD release [including sound samples] available here
Excerpt from BEYOND THE WINDOWS PERHAPS AMONG THE PODCORN
2005 - A composition designed for meditation for use by the composer. Excerpt of 55 minute composition with western instruments exploring the possibilities with a 6 note chord in Erv Wilson's Meta Meantone.
THE STOLEN STARS (Final section)
A trio for 12 Bass Meru bars involving continually compressing rhytmic patterns in Meta-Slendro. Original CD edition of 1000 appeared on the Archive of Anaphoria Label
IL CORRAL 9-11
- Solo hammer dulcimer piece performed live at Il Corral on 9-11-2004. Always the instrument that pulls out emotional strains regardless of the paths taken. The instrument is tuned to Meta-Mavila. Erv Wilson's tuning inspired by the Chopi tuning of the Mavila village coming out of joint investigations. Originally issued on corralComp05 on the halfnormal Label. Recorded [gratefully] by Bob Bellerue
MINI REQUIEM
2008 - A comtemplation upon one of those minor skirmishes that fall upon the earth and quickly seem to disappear from the collective memory. Vocal parts recorded in Anechoic chamber in Meta Mavila Tuning
ORENDA
2005 - A 20 minute piece exploring the flows of vibrancy within these like instruments. For three Vibraphones in Meta-Slendro (warning-Level starts low but increases).
Originally issued as a 3" CDR in an edition of 200. 2 covers of 100 each, Archives of Anaphoria
GENDHING APTOS
2000 - A piece written for Lou Harrison and Bill Colvig in Meta Slendro. Bassoonist is Sara Shoenbeck. Originally appeared on Sound 2 produced by Sassas.
LANDSCAPES AND CONTOURS
for Meta-Slendro Pump Organ-live recording without electronic enhancement 2013-[25 minutes]
in live performance this is combined with a Meta-Slendro Metalophone part awaiting recording.
GENDHING CANRIGHT
2009 - midi-realization of a piece in progress using a meter of 108 in a variety of golden subdivisions
II. THE "OLDER STYLE" MUSIC
MUSIC FROM THE LAKE ALOE FESTIVAL
In the month of Zio (late
July-early August),
an annual festival is held around Lake Aloe, Anaphoria's largest. It is
a time of great rejoicing. Among the rituals performed is one in which
the island leaders are seated in a mud pit amid a sprinkling of orchids
while endless songs of ridicule are sung at them. A given leader's
reaction
to this annual indignity is the Anaphorian's most reliable barometer of
a leader's potential for greatness. Leaders who have tried to suppress
this ritual were killed. (Although not strictly a part of the creations
myths, the origin of this one has been reliably dated to Neolithic
times.)
OPENING BROADCAST IN CELEBRATION OF RADIO NABU CONGUL - BANAPHSHU
One of the most detailed records of the early mythology of Anaphoria 1/5/2010
The Anaphorian Creation Myth:
Part cosmological, part terrestrial, the island's
creation
myth is a complex web of interwoven tales of animals and battles and
intimate
love within which three events - usually referred to as "The Three
Frivolous
Battles" - have inspired an enormous body of music, both in the "Older
Traditional Style" and the more recent "Newer Traditional Style".
A favorite ending piece at concerts
in Anaphoria,
this particular composition has caused great consternation and misconceptions
among scholars, but it can only truly be explained away as a canonic
(at
the inversion) passacaglia incorporating rhythmic and melodic ideas
from
the evening's performance. The description of it as a "recapitulation"
misses
the mark; for Anaphorians it is a reminder of the ultimate source from
which all musical entities originate. It is as if we are hearing what
was
heard first, at the source, last.
III. THE "NEWER STYLE" MUSIC - 20-21th Century Practices
GENDHING BOEHME
Having developed their own tradition of alchemy,
Anaphorians
found uncommon parallels in the works of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624),
whose
formulations and treatises were translated into Anaphorian as early as
the 1930's and have continuing popular appeal to this day. Music plays
an important part in alchemy as it is traditionally practiced in
Anaphoria.
The most commonly played metric sequence is a 79 beat pattern
(subdivided
8-8-8-5-8-8-8-5-8-8-5), which just so happens to be, perhaps
coincidentally,
perhaps not, the atomic number of gold. This "gendhing"
(composition)
utilizes this basic 79-beat cycle with a nuclear theme limited to
tetrads (four notes for the four elements) intervened by counter-themes
relating to the octahedron (six notes formed as a result of combining
two
out of four elements). It must be said that the symbolism exists on too
many levels to be wholly coincidental.
BANAPHSHU REMEMBERS HER FATHER
DRONE 86
1986 - Written in the 7-limit Centaur tuning
THE SURROUNDED ANGEL
based on a 7-9-11-15 hexany (an uncentered 6 tone structure).
Dedicated to Brian McLaren
THE FIFTH MESA
1989 - This is the very first composition and instrument in which Meta-Mavila was realised in. The phasing effects heard on the reed organ at the time of release was assumed that of an electronic synth. It is in fact a totally acoustic recording.
Note: The following pieces are not available due to certain taboo restrictions
THE TOTTERING OF THE SPINNING WHEEL
The First Frivolous battle (Village of Lipari)
The primal goddess Aunan, spinning on a celestial spinning wheel, created the cosmos as a great harmonious web, but three of her company of deities (Sant, Cerdo and Belili) became jealous of her abilities and conspired to steal and destroy her wheel. In the battle for the wheel, it was the cosmic spiders, Marpessa and Chapalu, who held the assailants at bay, though not without damage to the axis of the wheel, which ever after spun off-kilter.
It should be noted that two recent studies (LaCoste, 1977 and Mota, 1989) conclude this is a more recent version of an older myth and both see in it an explanation for the "Precession of the Equinoxes". Neither, however, explains just how Anaphorians might have perceived this shift, but both call for a re-evaluation of traditional scientific bias against astronomical knowledge in so-called prehistoric societies.
THE GHOSTS RETURN TO THE SQUARE
Second Frivolous Battle (Town of Derketo)
Marpessa and Chapalu later weave the earth and all its living creatures out of the dew (i.e. stars) that has collected in the web of Aunan. Meanwhile, Sant, Cerdo and Belili, determined to take revenge on Marpessa and Chapalu, were able to enlist aid from the Macha people. The Anaphorians were protesting the presence of the Macha in the square of the circular town of Derketo when the Macha attacked and either (a) "ruthlessly slaughtered" or (b) "magically scattered throughout all the world" all those present. Within a month, the Anaphorians left on the island regrouped and planned a counterattack, which at first appeared quite hopeless due to their relatively small number. However, on the very eve of their planned attack, "the Ghosts of Derketo" fell upon the square, so frightening the Macha people that they not only fled the town but returned to their own kingdom. This myth is often referred to in other Anaphorian legends in which heroes/heroines "return" from where they have been scattered. In other stories, it is their descendants who miraculously reappear in times of travail. Certainly, this is one of their primal myths, and undoubtedly it has shaped the attitude toward strangers that modern researchers find so bizarre. It is a widely held belief in Anaphoria to this day that Marpessa and Chapalu will continue to intervene in the lives of their "children" until they are all returned home. As a direct result of the Great Missionary Influx of the 18th century, the story received a popular revival that is now widely believed to be responsible for the Great Missionary Expulsion of 1823.
THE BIRD'S REINSTIGATION OF THE BATTLE OF TREES
Third Frivolous Battle (City of Ravenna)
In a time when the main body of the priesthood appeared on the verge of gaining complete political control for their own selfish ends, the following event is said to have taken place. During a religious ceremony in the provincial capital of Ravenna, a lone, talking bird entered the temple, reciting the Anaphorian alphabet, but in an apparently jumbled order. The people recognized this as a sign, especially after the priests panicked and attempted to kill the bird. After several attempts in which the bird repeatedly eluded and continued to heckle them, an elderly woman rose to her feet and announced that the "gibberish" the bird was spouting was, in fact, a very old and secret sequence of the Anaphorian alphabet that had once been common knowledge but had long ago been suppressed. Failing in their effort to rid the temple of the bird, the priests themselves abandoned the place. (It has since, of course, come to be the renowned Center for the Study of Alphabetical Sequencing, and people still make the pilgrimage to the Center from all over the island bearing clues to the riddle.) Since most of these new notions were counter to priestly dogma, the priests, still maintaining a strong, though tenuous, hold over the people, resisted. Thus occurred the Great Schism, which, sadly, continues to the present. And while the bird's alphabetical sequence is now widely, even commonly, accepted throughout the island, there remains to this day a hard-core group of alphabetical reactionaries (21% of the population) who refuse to use it at all.
