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Lake Nonlinear

by Killick

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1.

about

Since moving to Georgia in 1995 I've heard many times "we're going to the Lake this weekend"...I've never known which Lake as there are multiple contenders, but I'd like to think it's capitalized like going to the Club. The Lake/Club dynamic is something I balance in my work if abstractly: Naturalistic (serenity, stillness, reflection, stasis, solitude). And Social (rhythm, motion, expansion, development, participation). Now in 2020 patterns, systems, and groupings have been upended for everyone worldwide. When I found out about the University of Georgia's Willson Center Shelter Projects micro-fellowship, I applied and am very grateful I was chosen as one of 34 fellows. I was so excited that I immediately jumped on it. I created a long-form musical work that was performed live with guitar and computer using nearly every cable I have and off-piste signal routing in Rube Goldberg fashion. The result is something I am very glad to have the opportunity to present among such excellent company. I can't fully describe how the improvisational process works since I don't fully understand it; in a time with such harsh concrete realities I more deeply relish the divine process of spontaneous artistic creation and the hope it furthers. This has me drawing a line through my initial guitar musings at age 12 and the 47 year old iteration. It's quite the same. Some aspect of self/nature/nurture/mystery factor wants to share unfiltered information in the name of increased understanding and commonality. I've learned to honor this accompanist who knows when to turn the page. Here's my application:

Three primary threads inform my artistic life. Performing Appalachian Trance Metal*; composing collaborative settings; producing in both the modern and classic senses. Increasingly I am humbled by the subtleties of design-craft advanced through countless unnamed creators across time pursuing a material/spirit amalgam without limits…riding this wave of musical innovation is a gift I honor with the entirety of my soul.

Last year I created my first vinyl LP, a collection of preordained miniatures in the style of improvisation, plausibly performable in a single pass. It is a meditation on difficult-to-extract information from the vibrating strings of my instruments coupled with extensive poetry on the jacket sleeve and insert and it is called Stay-At-Home Monk. I didn’t realize how prescient the title and concept would be through the lens of 2020. So much of my practice has involved long stretches of solitary activity, the woodshedding a necessary component of eventual public display; and now nearly everyone, musician and otherwise, is confronting mutual shared interiority. At the same time as very real suffering and hardship there is a chance for growth and renewal, a fresh flexibility to “givens.”

The work I’ve undertaken in 35 years of making music is a look at the parameters of an aesthetic situation (perceived or concrete) and how to achieve escape velocity beyond them. It is often expanding the timbral possibilities of guitar with implements and microscopic amplification and typically involves a blurring of genre confines. Hand-in-hand is a nonlinear recontextualization of words to highlight the semiotic qualities within and beneath. I start with specific inspiration (my proclivities and home of Athens, Georgia) and attempt to universalize, minimizing the me about it in favor of us. All of this is in service of pointing towards a path of open dialogue and curiosity, hopefully edifying in even small amounts.

Although much of my output is at least nominally solo, collaborations are a cherished component of my artistic life. I’ve been fortunate to create with hundreds of intrepid souls across many disciplines over the years. But the distinction between solitary and group creation is porous. Solo indeed is never really solo, as it requires the labors and support of family, friends, programmers, luthiers, airline pilots, galleries, among many others, and, most importantly, it is only possible because of kind listeners everywhere.

A few weeks ago I returned home from a Northeast tour just as the severity of the coronavirus situation here had become fully apparent. Wrestling with new realities I fell into a fitful sleep and experienced what at any other time I would have thought a dream, but it was much more visceral and pressing: a visitation by a certain unfortunate knowledge that I was not immune, and could not stave off illness or death if they so chose to act. This full spectrum realization is something I would like to process through the combined media of sound, speech, words, and visuals. The intersection of naturalistic dynamics and our societal interface with them is at the fore in what I’m imagining. That we are all having a simultaneous formative reckoning of our systems, our patterns, our interactions is a source of strength. There are many unknowns to fear, though our creative capacity for transcendence is fully intact. I am grateful to work in this commonality, and for the chance to be a Shelter Projects micro-fellow. Thanks for listening.

*a.k.a. Piedmont Shaman Rock, a particular openness or open particularness

credits

released May 12, 2020

recorded live, mixed, & mastered by Killick Hinds at H(i)nds(i)ght Studio, Athens GA, 5.9.20
cover design by Killick Hinds
generously sponsored by Willson Center Shelter Projects micro-fellowship through UGA and Flagpole

Killick Hinds- Demishodashamopus, Symbiote, Vo-96, Harmonic Isolator, Ergo, & computer

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