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The Yellow House

by Vir Unis - Christopher Short

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Sergey Lenkov
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Sergey Lenkov Great space ambient album!
If you like electronic space ambient and missed album by Vir Unis & Christopher Short - listen to it immediately!
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Stormy Seas 08:46
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Starry Night 26:00

about

Recorded at the Victorian Mansion John was living at during that time. Yellow House was culled from two improvisations between Vir Unis (John Stratehootman) and Christopher Short. One in the evening and one in the morning.

The improvisations were actually recorded during breaks for another session (the music of which has yet to see the light of day).

Two friends getting together having a musical conversation and a good one at that.

The improvisations were taken by Christopher and edited down, arranged and overdubbed. John did the final mastering.

****

Moments in time...

Life can get crazy sometimes, events internally and externally can work together in ones life, pushing one to great successes while simultaneously pushing one to the brink of destruction.

Late summer in August of 2001 was such a time for me. I had only recently decided to leave my job of seven years to go full time into music, that Autumn on September 11th 2001, nineteen individuals thought it prudent to shower a rain of terror from the skies.

Later that month on September 22nd 2001 the Autumnal Equinox occurred and on that same day, the Chicago Art Museum opened a show called Studio of the South that was a retrospective focusing on the time from October 23 1888 through December 26th 1888 where Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin's time together when they spent living and working together in Arles France, which included the famous incident of Van Gogh cutting part of his ear off. Vincent called the studio the "Yellow House".

I attended that show with my sister Michelle and was amazed at how packed it was, there were so many people, one had to wait in line to see the paintings up close. John had also seen that show and we
discussed how interesting it was and how it paralleled our own collaboration on our Imaginarium album we did together a few years earlier. Through those conversations we decided another collaboration was in order and agreed on a session date.

Friday, October 5th 2001, I arrived in Peoria Illinois for a weekend recording session at Vir Unis's (John's) Victorian mansion. The atmosphere was amazing, we set up in the main room of the house,
complete with an ornate fireplace, Persian rug on the floor and high ceilings with ornate plaster work. The actual session wasn't actually until Saturday afternoon, however went ahead and set up my guitar rig getting it ready to go for the following day. After dinner, at sunset John and I decided to have a little jam session that lasted until after midnight. The following morning as the sun rose we had our coffee and recorded another long
improvisation.

The actual recording session included two other musicians and as far as I know the music hasn't ever been released, at least not in the form we originally recorded it in. We decided to split up the weekend's recordings, I took the improvisations between John and I and John took the improvisations between the four of us.

Over the next few months I took the recordings and worked on creating arrangements from the initial improvisations, then added overdubs to create the final masters.

Reflections on the music:

Even before the completion of the music, John and I decided the Yellow House was to be the title and conceptual theme of the album. While working on it the images of not just the paintings but of the artists themselves working together ran through my mind, along with the recent events in my life.

Starry Night was painted in June 1889 from Vincent's east facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an idealized village.

Of all the pieces on this album, Starry Night proved the most difficult. Balancing the themes of beauty and madness, of reflection and redemption proved challenging. Note the voices that occur, were from a guitar pedal I was using to do overdubs for Starry Night and suddenly started receiving some weird radio broadcast, the shift and change in the music at the 13:50 mark represent the completed vision of the stars and the radiant open skies, of heaven and the bliss beyond. Vincent, from his tiny cell gave us a vision of such wonder, yet he had to go through such trials and tribulations to get to such a vision.

Excerpt from the article The Radiant Child - Rene Richard - Rene Richard

Everybody wants to get on the Van Gogh boat. There's no trip so horrible that someone won't take it. The idea of the unrecognized genius slaving away in a garret is a deliciously foolish one. We must credit the life of Vincent Van Gogh for really sending this myth into orbit. I mean, how many pictures did he sell, one? He couldn't give them away. He has to be the most modern artist, but everybody hated him. He was so ashamed of his life that the rest of our history will be contribution to Van Gogh's neglect. No one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another like Van Gogh. In this town, one is at the mercy of the recognition factor. One's public appearance is absolute. Part of the artist's job is to get the work where I will see it. I consider myself a metaphor on the public.

I am a public eye, a witness, a critic. When you first see a new picture. You don't want to miss the boat. You have to be very careful. You might be staring at Van Gogh's ear.

What is it about art anyway that we give it so much importance? Artists are respected by the poor because what they do is an honest way to get out of the slum using one's sheer self as the medium. The money earned, proof, pure and simple, of the value of that individual, the artist. The picture a mother's son does in jail hangs on her wall as proof that beauty is possible even in the most wretched. And this is a much different idea than fancier notion that art is a scam and a ripoff. But you can never explain to someone who uses God's gift to enslave, that you have used God's gift to be free.

René Ricard, “The Radiant Child”, ArtForum International, December 1981

credits

released March 18, 2002

Vir Unis - Synthesizers, Shortwave.
Christopher Short - Guitartronics, Shortwave, Treatments

Production, arrangement, sonic treatments and final assemblage: Christopher Short

Label Cosmicdreamscapes: CDS-004

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Cosmicdreamscapes Christopher Short Guitartronics Roan Mountain, Tennessee

Dream Listener, please support us in our mission to continue to create this wonderful music. If you stream to listen, consider buying an album or two! :-)

Guitartronics might be more accurately defined as "musique concrète with guitar being the main sound source. It is focused on environments, meditative states, and atmospheres. Great for drawing, reading and other activities that require focus.
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