AL ALCORN INTERVIEW FREE

They had a large record collection which they listened to quite a bit, so I was surrounded by Mussorgsky, Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Ella Fitzgerald, the Mills Brothers, Duke Ellington, Al Hirt, Peggy Lee, Spike Lee, Acker Bilk and everything in between. My father mimed famous singers of his day at parties.

My mother played piano and had sung in the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra under George Szell. Susan Alcorn: My family was very musical.

With her latest album Touch This Moment out now on Uma Sounds, The Quietus was lucky enough to catch up with the delightful Ms Alcorn prior to her recent shows at London’s Vortex and Café Oto.Ĭould you give a little background about your childhood in terms of formative musical experiences? With releases on imprints such as Loveletter, Boxholder and Olde English Spelling Bee, Alcorn has exposed the pedal steel to diverse new audiences, while her work continues to attract favourable comparisons to the singular output of delta blues reductionist Loren Connors.Īlthough predominantly a solo performer, Alcorn has worked with other artists including Eugene Chadbourne, Jandek and Mike Cooper, as well as Pauline Oliveros whose “deep listening” philosophies profoundly impacted upon Alcorn in the early 90s as her music took on a more holistic approach.

AL ALCORN INTERVIEW FREE

Despite starting out playing in traditional country swing bands in her home of Texas, Alcorn’s explorations of extended technique and her love of free jazz and minimalist composition have seen her transport the pedal steel to unexplored pastures of improvisational innovation, while retaining a devastatingly and genuinely affecting sparseness far removed from the placebo poignancy of Nashville’s crumbling edifice. Susan Alcorn’s music dispels all such accepted wisdoms. Not trying to slag off or put down current/present games publishers/developers, they have come along way since the good old days, however as a consequence some creativity, skillsets and innovation has been lost, there is still a place in the present/current games design sphere for a games designer that actually can do the whole game (i.Brush aside any preconceived notions that you may have about the pedal steel guitar and its familiar association as the sonic stalwart of syrupy country corn. gfx/sound/game logic/engine and so on), whereas these days games design, sound/gfx and programming so on and so forth are different/separate disciplines within the games developing/publishing sphere, I'd like to see one of those that dissed Alcorn tackle games design, like it used to be done and lets see them come out with sommat like pong, pacman or star raiders He does have a point though, you don't need to throw money at a developer/publisher to come out with some kick arse games, new ideas and concepts in gaming don't cost a bean yet publishers/developers just aren't willing to invest or commit in that areaĪs for some of the comments later on, I don't think any of them have play a gaming system older then a ps1 or dreamcast etc, they just don't seen to grasp that games development and design (console/computer or coin op) was a totally different animal, in that unlike the games developing/publishing these days, the games designer was usually the person that did the actual programming and created the whole game (incl.

Al alcorn interview