river wind mountain sky- new music

 For decades now, I have been making music that comes from places— from mountains, waters, and sky; places outside, around, and inside me.  I don’t only hear this music; I see it, and feel it: texture, color, proportion, vibration; distance, scale, spaciousness.

I have used magnetic tape, field recordings, guitars, steel guitars, and digital processing to make these pieces, and it has been interesting to find, over the years, that despite the changes in tools and technologies the music has had a consistent sound and sense to it.

In the past two years I have become interested in expressing this music with orchestral string sounds, and with the help of string synth sounds–played on guitar– have realized a long work in four movements,  RIVER WIND MOUNTAIN SKY.

The four movements were composed and recorded during the winter of 2022-23. The music was conceived as consisting of two orchestral string ensembles, each located in space along a resonant horizon.   

-KMB

 

Morning Snow (High Country Wrangler)

  I paint and draw in part because I often need to get beyond words: to a feeling, a yearning; a resonant mystery thrumming in my heart. 

 That said, I have been trying to find the words to express what is at the root of my journey into the contemplative cowgirl paintings and drawings. It is becoming clear to me that I have a deep need to express a certain divine feminine energy as it finds confluence with the power of western landscape, weather, sky; to celebrate the toughness and relentless beauty of the natural world and the human heart. 

 “Morning Snow 3” took three months to make. Each version and iteration of the image seemed to ask for more: more snow, a fiercer storm, a more resolute and proud protagonist. As I approached that vision with colored pencils and paint on paper, I was surprised to find a streak of blue sky arriving and opening– even as the heavy snow swirled. That was when I knew I had found the story in my heart.

Paintings by Kevin Macneil Brown, watercolor, graphite, colored pencils, and gouache on toned paper, winter 2022-2023.