Transcript for the Piece Audio version of CURIUM: E.E. CUMMINGS FRIED IN A HARD DRIVE

Music

:10
NO OFFENCE TO POETS, BUT IF YOU MENTION POETRY TO MOST PEOPLE, THEIR EYES WILL GLAZE OVER. TALK ABOUT POETRY AND MUSIC AND THEY FLEE THE ROOM.

:11
ES: Yeah, I have to completely agree with you there and I actually don?t really even like poetry, so um, I just find too much poetry just to be a formula and just never really resonated with me.

:13
THAT?S EVAN SORENSTEIN. HE RECORDS UNDER THE GUISE OF CURIUM AND IT?S A SURPRISE TO HEAR HIM SAY THAT, BECAUSE HE'S JUST PUT OUT AN ALBUM COMBINING THE POETRY OF EE CUMMINGS AND HIS OWN ELECTRONIC MUSIC.

MUSIC

:06
EE CUMMINGS IS AN EXCEPTION TO EVAN SORENSTEIN'S POETIC AMBIVALENCE.

:27
ES: He?s definitely comes from an era of, of simplicity. I don?t know too much of, of his contemporaries, but there?s sort of a Steinbeck approach to the way he wrote poetry, very sort of haiku. There was no wasted words and there?s very, sometimes very rough and very direct. ......His work was, was, was I think good for this process because I really appreciate his, his philosophy in life. He was an optimist, there?s ....there?s definitely era that is, that is sort of gone, that sort of objectivity and that sort of optimism.

:25
CURIUM'S "NOWEVER" IS NOT YOU TYPICAL POETRY AND MUSIC RECORDING. INSTEAD, IT MERGES THE WORDS INTO THE MUSIC, ALMOST TURNING CUMMINGS' POEMS INTO ANOTHER INSTRUMENT IN CURIUM'S ELECTRONIC ORCHESTRA. THAT MIGHT BE BECAUSE AT THE SAME TIME SORENSTEIN'S FATHER SAT HIM DOWN IN FRONT OF VOLUME OF E.E. CUMMINGS POETRY, HE WAS ALSO PUTTING 70S ELECTRONIC MUSIC ON THE STEREO.

:20
ES: ...Kraftwerk was a great inspiration to me and about the same time I started even reading E.E. Cumings, my father who introduced me to it also introduced, he would, for some reason he listened to the stuff, I had really never understood why, Kraftwerk and Klaus Schulze and Can and Tomita and Walter Carlos very influential to me.

MUSIC BITE KRAFTWERK

:06
HE WAS ESPECIALLY IMPRESSED BY KRAFTWERK'S PURE APPROACH TO ELECTRONIC SOUND.

:19
ES: it?s unexcused electronic sounding, which you know has always been a pleasure to me and something I?ve always worked on in, in school when I was way back in in electronic music of really not trying to recreate any normal sound, let the synthesizer express itself in its own way, because it?s a whole different sound canvas.

:10
SORENSTEIN USED THAT ELECTRONIC CANVAS AND PAINTED THE WORDS OF CUMMINGS ONTO IT. PART OF THE CHARM OF NOWEVER ARE THE RECITATIONS. HE DIDN'T USE ACTORS.

:14
ES: .....most of them are family and friends and, and associates and I really tried to get a really clear, just sort of, you know these are non actors, these are just people talking and I just try to get them to read them as normally and calmly and as themselves as possible.

:10
HE READ A COUPLE HIMSELF, BUT MOST ARE AMATEURS RANGING FROM A GRANDMOTHER TO 3 YEAR OLD OLIVIA COSEBOOM WHO READS THE POEM, "PLANT MAGIC DUST."

:36
ES: she?s three years old actually and her parents are musicians as well, and they were, they would read her the words and she would repeat it back to them in the vocal booth. Sometimes she?d get it, sometimes she wouldn?t, sometimes she?d just go with it. And so it was really quite an amazing recording piece to, to sort of piece together and set to music in this sort of fantastic way because she, you know, Plant Magic Dust, there?s this whole notion of sort of optimism again, you know E.E. Cumings sort of optimism so it was fun to get that going from, from a three year old?s reading of this poem.

Music "Plant Magic Dust"

:23
EVAN SORENSTEIN HAS TAKEN THE RECITATIONS, CUT THEM UP AND PROCESSED THEM ELECTRONICALLY, MAKING THE POETRY A PART OF THE MUSICAL FABRIC OF EACH PIECE. EE CUMMINGS WASN'T JUST A POET OF WORDS, BUT IMAGES. MANY OF HIS POEMS ARE GRAPHICALLY DESIGNED WITH WORD GAPS, LINE BREAKS AND INDENTATIONS. SORENSTEIN THOUGHT OF THAT IN HIS PROCESS.

:34
ES: ....So much of his poems were, were done very specifically to be looked at and to read on the page instead of, well I don?t know if it was instead of but definitely in addition to the way they were heard. .....And how it looked on the page really sort of helped tell the story so I think I tried to echo that with with the way I had pieced and then edited the text. There was one poem that I did for a, Track 3 is called A Great, A Great Man Is Gone. The poem gets really cut up a lot on the page and, and I echoed that in the way the piece is presented.

MUSIC "A Great Man"

:07
FOR EVAN SORENSTEIN, IT'S NOT JUST THE POETRY, BUT THE PEOPLE READING THEM WHO BECOME THE STORY OF NOWEVER.

MUSIC

:17
ES: This really was about these portraits, I wanted to use his material, his poems as these portraits for people because the first couple pieces I started were more of an experiment I started doing with my, my five year old nephew and this poem just, I found a poem and just said oh my god, I?ve got to use this for Zane.

music bite Who Are you Little I

:16
ES: So they started continuing more and more about these portraits about the people who were reading them, and that his work is more the vehicle for that. .....and I don?t see these so much as as a, a complete recitation of his poetry. It?s more of a sort of another step, another sort of usage of it.

MUSIC

:15
E.E. CUMMINGS IS DIGITIZED ON "NOWEVER" AN ALBUM BY CURIUM SETTING CUMMINGS'S POETRY TO MUSIC. I'M KIMBERLY HAAS.

MUSIC OUT

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