For by Maile Colbert

An album of graceful crystalline hum by Maile Colbert, a multi-media artist based in Portugal. The music is inspired by experiences of loss, but this is not oppressive or dark music at all. Rather, Colbert's assured tones take inspiration from the process of grieving and emerge as bright, reflective electronic music.

A collaborative track with Chubby Wolf, aka sound artist Dani Long, is presented here as a loving tribute after Long's untimely death. Pop/opera performance artist Klaus Nomi is remembered with a piece based on samples of his music. Colbert the film-maker dedicates a piece to Stan Brakhage, acknowledging the pioneering film-maker's impact on her own visual artwork. Elsewhere on For, Colbert finds depth in collaboration and partnership with her husband, the sound artist Rui Costa. Using analog and digital synthesizers, field recordings of children in Tehran, voices, cello, pipe organ, VLF recordings of space-weather activity in the magnetosphere, hydrophonic recordings and more, For is a moving statement about family, community, and friendship.

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"This album is for those we have lost, and those we have gained. For respect of the past and its guidance toward the future. For the present, especially for the present, no matter how elusive it may feel at times.

"'For' was created from 2007 to 2010 using electronic and analog instruments and recording techniques, often in collaboration with other artists of various disciplines. Each track was triggered by an event of loss and change, and inspired the complexity of these feelings. Loss and grief initially overwhelmed me as sad or frightening. However, though a change in perspective, through understanding and acceptance, through opening up and letting go, through the help of those around us to aid and support, and through the act of expression, this album was born. The heavy events, the big events, expressed emotively and brought to a place of delicacy and beauty. Such is life, and that is what I hope to be expressed within the work.

"Whether guided by a score or concept born out of similar thoughts, such as in 'Ice Thaw Chorus' and 'Her Light Dappled Upon', or the posthumous collaboration always intended with a dear and departed friend such as 'What Petal Released', I hope to transcend the dark through creation, collaboration, and dedication to this complex ride we are all sharing." - Maile Colbert, 2011

Former label for experimental-type music. Foolishly founded by Howard Stelzer in 1997, mismanaged for more years than necessary, and finally put out of its misery in 2012. This page exists to keep some titles available.