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High Lonesome Suicide

by Andrew DiRemiggio Stoltz

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The tape sources for High Lonesome Suicide go back 20-25 years. The spoken text is of unknown origins: a cassette tape that was floating around in the Cleveland rock music scene erroneously titled “Rod Serling’s Suicide Note”. This is inaccurate for two obvious reasons: firstly, Rod Serling did not commit suicide but died of a heart attack in 1975 at the age of 50 and secondly, the voice on the tape is clearly not Rod Serling’s. It is also not known whether the person who made this recording did in fact commit suicide. It’s possible the tape could be the personal ravings of someone feeling helpless and the process of articulating these thoughts and feelings out loud was in and of itself, helpful therapy. Nevertheless, this recording has always captivated me for it’s poetic, raw and desperate stream of consciousness. I have never felt suicidal but I have struggled with depression (who hasn’t?) and I feel a strong connection to this expression of fear and isolation.

The second source is a sixty-minute improvisation from two of my fellow music students at Cleveland State University sometime in the early to mid 1990s: Chas Smith (piano/prepared piano) and Mell Csicsila (percussion). About ten years ago, Mell handed me a CD version of this old cassette recording and said “here, do something with this someday”. Chas was quite a bit older than me and had arrived at music school as a cancer survivor, former drug addict, veteran of the Cleveland punk scene and a promoter of all sorts of bizarre and esoteric ideas that I had never heard of before (Church of the Sub-Genius comes to mind). He was an artist in every sense of the word and those of us who were younger, looked up to him and sought his approval. He had a real gift for experimental rock motifs and moody dirges that dovetailed perfectly into avant garde classical music. I spent many moments with him discussing cowboy music and the lonesome Southwest landscape that we both loved. I would show up in the composition room and there Chas would be, working his way through a joint and playing an old familiar cowboy song in a different, unexpected mode. That kind of casual yet contemplative creativity made a huge impression on me. Chas passed away in October of 2007 at the age of 50 from HIV-associated pneumonia. While we were never very close personally, I consider him to be a strong early influence on me while I was learning about being a composer and an artist.

I approached the manipulation of these tapes very honestly. With the spoken text, I tried hard to stay out of the way, only editing a few sections out, cutting everything into a series of phrases and putting it back together in a natural yet spacious way, leaving time to absorb the impact of each thought. With the instrumental parts, I cut and organized everything into similar categories, picked the sequences that I was most drawn to and assembled them into a new form of loops and events that fit as a backdrop to the text.

credits

released January 1, 2018
Loops, electronics: Andrew Stoltz
Source material: Unknown narrator, Chas Smith & Mell Csicsila

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Andrew DiRemiggio Stoltz Austin, Texas

Andrew DiRemiggio Stoltz is an Austin, Texas-based composer, performer and recording engineer. Utilizing traditional and non-traditional instruments, composition and improvisation, his work celebrates the subtle, meditative and quiet moments.

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