Derek Kwan on March of the Covids
"Reflecting the swiftness of the virus’s outbreak throughout the world, March of the Covids by St. Celfer moves at a relentless brisk pace and is driven throughout nearly its entire eight minutes and forty-eight seconds by a clicky, sine-tone-like ostinato. Over this insistent rhythmic engine and the repeated, down-pitched sample of a voice intoning “Don’t stop it before I break down. You wouldn’t stop anyway”, St Celfer deploys a kaleidoscopic assortment of varied electronic textures with associated melodic motives in an free, improvisatory fashion, recalling landmark jazz fusion and minimalist albums of the late 1960s and early 1970s such as Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and Terry Riley’s A Rainbow in Curved Air. With prominent grooves throughout its duration strongly emphasizing the notes G and D, the tonal center of March of the Covids is firmly established at G. While DTMF (Touch-Tone)-like twirling gestures around notes A and B and singing, rubato meanderings around note groups C-G and G-D-E establish the piece’s major mode, hints of a minor mode darkness with the note B flat appear throughout the beginning and most prominently in repeated swells at the two minute mark."
Derek Kwan of Art Music Lit Space, Sacramento, CA
# march of the covids
- https://stcelfer.bandcamp.com/- 2:37 - flat 7s
- vocal sample
- beginning
- 0:18
- 0:40
- 1:00
- 1:50
- 2:36
- 3:05
- 4:25
- 5:12
- 5:30
- 6:30
- 6:55
- 8:10
- 8:20
- 8:30
- G lydian (with occasional flat 7s)
- 5:20 - slight break from lower 5thy riff
- high emphasis on root (comes back 6:15)
- 4/4
- 1:20 - 1:35
- groany synth first appearance
- middle register
- ends on 2nd
- 1:58 - 2:20
- groany synth 2nd appearance
- low register
- accomp with metallic synths on b7
- 3:20 - 3:25
- groany synths
- high register
- 3:41 - 4:00 - (mostly long held out note)
- groany synth middle register
- 4:45 - 4:55
- groany synth high register
- 5:50 - 6:02
- groany synth middle register
- 6:50 - 7:23
- groany synth low register
- 7:30 - 7:50
- groany synth middle register
- more drawn out towards middle
- 8:00 - 8:10
- groany synth high register
- quickly gets lost
- 8:30 - 8:44
- groany synth high register
- second to last layer
- mid-high synths driving force
- sine tone? but with percussive adsr
- brief pauses
- don't stop it before i break down, you wouldn't stop anyway
- down pitched
- reminiscent of terry riley - rainbow in curved air (title track) (68-69), persian surgery dervishes (71)
- tape loop based improvisations
- electric organ, electric harpsichord, doumbek, tambourine (rainbow) - most resemblance
- overdubbing
- electric organ (live from LA, persian surgery)
- more fixed in materials than rainbow in curved air, but similar kaleidoscopic rhapsodic feeling
- 3:30 laughy sorta synth