1993+30 After EP

After (1993) is an unreleased DIY concept album, which was originally created as the score to the dance show “Land of the Living,” performed by the McMaster Dancers under the artistic direction of Dave Wilson. The show was performed in Hamilton, Boston and Lyon. This opportunity resulted in my first trip overseas.

There are seven movements, the three middle ones presented here as After EP. In 1993, the influence of minimalism was at its strongest in me, and each movement explores a different variation on that style. In “Scorched Earth,” it’s industrial rock; in “Suspension,” spacy new age; and “In Seven,” electronic dance music. Additional overt influences include prog, new/dark wave, experimental/noise, synth/sophisti-pop, LA/Hollywood and possibly sui generis Kraftwerk, all absorbed in my adolescence.

The album was intended to have a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi theme. “Scorched Earth” refers to the more intense effects of global warming that are now widespread. “Suspension” refers to the musical technique and also to future beings in suspended animation on a deep space voyage. “In Seven” refers to its time signature of 7/8, and with its quick tempo depicts a spacecraft slipping into the gravity well of the seventh planet, Uranus, to help it accelerate to interstellar velocity.

I note here that these concepts were not related to those in the dance show. My focus while composing was on music that fit the required themes—the dances themselves had different titles than my own—and which honoured the choreographers’ intentions. Neverthless, in the way that music can reflect many narratives at once, my childhood sci-fi ideas were bubbling under as I worked on the score and wondered if that could potentially have its own focus.

The final two movements of the full suite (not presented here) are titled “Contact” and “Oort Cloud,” suggesting hopefully that we will one day communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence and leave the solar system to meet our neighbours.

Composed and recorded November and December 1993, Korg 01/WFD to
2023 24-bit transfer using the original 3½-inch floppy disks and data only
Unmastered audio

Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2023

By elmahboob

Bruce A. Russell aka Ibrahim El Mahboob (b. Kingston, ON, 1968) is a composer and self-taught pianist living and working in Toronto (Tkarón:to, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat). He studied at York University with James Tenney and Phillip Werren. He has composed music for Artemis Musicians' Society, Gryphon Trio, the Madawaska Quartet and Thin Edge New Music Collective. Interest in his work increased in 2020, with performances since then by Arraymusic, Prism Percussion, Second Note Duo, San Juan Symphony and Idaho Falls Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra, Regina Symphony Orchestra, and the Isabel String Quartet and the Mill City String Quartet. He was the composer, music director and keyboardist for writer/performer Ian Kamau’s live multimedia work Loss, which premiered at Harbourfont Centre for the Luminato Festival in Toronto. He was the host of Radio Music Gallery, and has written for Musicworks and I Care if You Listen. His interests are in 20th and 21st century concert music especially postminimalism, and music of the African diaspora.

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