When you put on Kyle Bobby Dunn’s A Young Person’s Guide To, it won’t take long to fall into another realm of consciousness. Unspeakably sublime, New York based Kyle Bobby Dunn is a minimalist composer and sound artist with a faint cinematic sensibility that refuses to beg for attention. A Young Person’s Guide To is built from formal patterns with layers of melody, texture, atmosphere, and rhythm–but not in the way we normally know it and without the use of drums. Unidentifiable guitars, strings, and horns are synthesized with occasional field recordings sounding like audio samples of our galaxy from the last century and the next world. The work recalls impressionist and traditional classical music and one might mathematically graph the patterns of the twelve suites that stretch across two albums. Transcendent yet subtle, A Young Person’s Guide To will command repeat listenings to fully grasp, remaining a fascinating puzzle to contemplate and enjoy.
You can purchase A Young Person’s Guide To here.
This week Kyle Bobby Dunn drops by Kata Rokkar to answer the Kuestionnaire and reminds me how the Jurassic Park soundtrack is actually perfect roadtrip music.
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1. Could you state your name and what you do?
Kyle Bobby Dunn. I am a composer and performer. Big cheese and red wine connoisseur. Living in Brooklyn, New York.
2. How would you describe your sound?
Post-classical, romantic and post-romantic, droning, lethargically heartbreaking, yearning, soaring, muddying, sad, low, consciousness questioning, entrancing, boring, sharp, haunting, direct.
3. What is your favorite local band?
Oneohtrix Point Never at the moment.
4. Any concerts that blew your mind recently?
Seeing Nextworks Quartet perform Morton Feldman’s 6 hr String Quartet No. 2 at the unopened Issue Project Room, downtown Brooklyn.
5. Any non-musical influences you would like to mention?
Metaphysical, psychological, sociological, geographical, scientific, medicinal, food, people, places, weather, sleep, lost time, hidden voices. Failed relationships, traveling, wine and cheese.
6. If your music was to be the theme of a film/TV show, what would it be?
Probably something overly dramatic, bizarre and weird. Maybe one of Tarkovsky or Dreyer’s films.
7. What musician/artist would you like to collaborate with for a day?
Frances Marie Uitti or some other great world class string players.
8. What is the album you listen to on a cold rainy day?
Arvo Pärt – Te Deum
9. List four songs you would listen to on a roadtrip?
Antonio Carlos Jobim – The Red Blouse
Richard Wagner – Siegfried Idyll
John Williams – Star Wars or Jurassic Park themes
My Bloody Valentine – To Here Knows When
10. Where do you see yourself in 7 years?
Hopefully still alive, drinking coffee and getting paid for something.
11. What is the last book you read?
2666 by Robert Bolano
12. Is image a factor in music or is it a waste of time?
It’s a factor but probably a waste of time.
13. Any embarrassing moments on stage you would like to share?
Being on stage is a bit of an embarrassment to withhold and behold.
14. Any favorite tour locations?
Calgary, Los Angeles, Algonquin Park, Paris, Solvang, Trondheim, Latvia, Krakow, Rome, Madrid, Berlin.
15. Lastly, what is your present state of mind?
Pretty confused and lowly. And always great feelings of dread.
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[mp3] Kyle Bobby Dunn – Second Ponderosa from A Young Person’s Guide To… (2010)
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[mp3] Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal from Returnal (2010)