Patrick Grant's A Sequence of Waves

Back in the Eighties I knew a guy who was a student at the Art Center School of Design in Pasadena. He was working on an animated film of abstract shapes and colors dancing to music. It was extremely intricate and precise and I was duly impressed. About fifteen years later I bumped into this guy again at a party and asked how his film turned out and if it led to a career in the Animation or Film Industry. He said it took him ten years to finish it and the first time he used it as part of his demo reel to try and find work in a film studio the exec he had just screened it for turned around the iMac sitting on his desk to show him its screensaver which was pretty much the same thing as his animated film. In the time it took him to finish his masterpiece technology had rendered it passe.

 Lonely Ride Coney Island by Patrick Grant

I get a similar feeling listening to Patrick Grant's new CD, A Sequence of Waves as I do thinking about that animated film. If this CD had been released in the Seventies it might have made Richard Branson a millionaire but now I wonder if the word "Sequence" in the title refers to computer sequencing of sound files (Wav files?) to create this music rather than human hands playing real instruments. In the long run I suppose it really doesn't matter. All that really matters is the pleasure you get from the melodies, rhythms, textures and dynamics and where in your own head this music sends you. In A Sequence of Waves the listener is definitely send on a journey. It can be ominous, beautiful, exhilarating or adventurous depending on the movie the sounds create inside your own head. Even some sound effects added to the instrumental album help score this film which ultimately has to be a different and personal experience for everyone listening.

For those without much of an imagination and needing comparisons I would say John Weyton era King Crimson (minus Weyton's voice), or The Mahavishnu Orchestra, or The Trans Siberian Railroad in their off-season, or Brian Eno, or Tubular Bells. And I suppose I should mention that A Sequence Of Waves claims to be the work of actual, flesh and blood musicians such as Patrick Grant, a member of Robert Fripp's Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists for five years and a professor at the NYU Film School where he undoubtedly wrote some film scores, on guitar, viola, piano, keyboards and percussion, John Ferrari on drums, Dan Cooper on bass, Lynn Bechtold on violin, Dan Barrett on cello and playing the guitar solo on the track Primary Blues, Nick Didkovsky.

I tend to think that as Americans our sense of Classical Music is limited to John Phillip Sousa marches, Aaron Copland and motion pictures scores. A Sequence Of Waves has been described as Indie Classical and I like that description but only in the sense that it does have enough standard song structure to seem like a movie soundtrack to an Indie Movie. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it ultimately becomes, if it isn't already. I will say listening to it makes me want to see the movie and as a filmmaker and writer myself, I guess I already have. In my head. 

Ironically, despite all the talk about how "cinematic" and "visual" this instumental music is the only graphics I could find to help illustrate this post is the Youtube video for his song Lonely Ride Coney Island which was used on a soundtrack of a documentary on Coney Island.