Frederick Moore

Lives of the Saints Frederick Moore

Frederick Moore is a composer, poet, and producer who lives and works in Los Angeles. He first gained attention in the early 90's as a producer of successful new music concerts during a time when very little new music was being produced in Los Angeles. As a composer, Moore is well grounded in the technological innovations of both the avant garde and academia, yet he has a way of utilizing these in contexts which are coherent and decidedly nonacademic. As a poet, his varied influences include existential philosophy, popular media, and beat poetry. At times he poses as a teller of stories, while other times as a declaimer of nonlinear meditations which drift in a stream of obliquely related themes. In recent years Moore has worked almost exclusively as a recording artist, producing Sons of Friction, Lives of the Saints, An Obscure Presence, and 13th Idiot Blessed. In the late 80's and early 90's I was composing a great deal of music for various instrumental ensembles and chamber combinations. At the same time I was also quite active in the studio. The pieces that comprise Lives of the Saints belong to the latter category. Given the frustration I felt regarding the inadequate performances most of my instrumental works received at the time, these studio compositions provided me with a badly needed sense of independence. Still, even in the studio I wasn't always alone. Haruna Aoki, Elizabeth Saunders, Anna Homler, Jan Abell, and Cinthea Stahl helped me out with voice tracks. Flautist Asuncion Ojeda and saxophonist Timothy K. Taylor joined me as well. And of course my "technology guru" Phil Calvert helped me out with production. The emphasis here is often on formal complexity. Harmonically, my microtonal system, which had been evolving for some years, is heard in it's mature form for the first time. (check out tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8) Reviews: "Full of multiple implications and shadowy shades of meaning... charged with religious and spiritual insinuations. Saints, angels, demons, the primal, urban eccentrics touched by something otherworldly, the blessed, and the haunted populate the landscape of Moore's wandering/ wondering composition/text pieces." ? Titus Levi, Keyboard Magazine "Radio theatre as Brian Eno might have conceived it. I'll be hanged if I understand any of it, but I like it ........ more substantial than Robert Ashley. It is indeed a pleasure to encounter a recording that's as unique and interesting as the hype claims"? Michael Bloom, Boston Rock" 'Against backdrops, musically evocative and varied, Moore tells Brautiganesque stories alive with an uncritical love of language."? John Henken, The Los Angeles Times "Moore is a master of building tension. Complex timbres and textures slowly evolve from simple passages and then suddenly resort back to simplicity with a focus once more on the text . . . (He) captures the alienation of urban life in a nondescript American metropolis"? Rodney Oakes, Journal SEAMUS "Quietly lyrical and surprisingly erotic."? Laurence Vittes, The L.A. Reader.