Muted Tones was an online sound and music series curated by Joshua Dumas. Each month, musicians and sound artists were encouraged to produce new, original, ten minute recordings and document their process, progress, and thoughts. Remarkable individuals created absolutely remarkable things, from drone-scapes to found sound collages to folk songs to avant-garde improvisations to chamber music.
Casey Meehan and the Delta Still
Casey Meehan — vocals, piano, guitar
Scott Cedro — baritone saxophone
Joshua Dumas — bass
Ben Gray — drums
Mark Benson — drums
Allison Stanley — clarinet
Sarah Renée Bertsch — vocals
Andy Wagner — guitar
All songs composed by Casey Meehan.
Produced one recording Violet, available soon at Rock Proper.
filed under sound
the Notes and Scratches :: 48 Hour Project
website
A marathon session in which which six songs were written and recorded over two 24 hour periods.
Joshua Dumas — vocals, most instruments, engineering
Anika Balaconis — trumpet, vocals
Domenico Ferri — bass
VJ Hyde — guitar, percussion, vocals
Casey Meehan — vocals
Steve Quantock — violin, vocals
Words and music by Joshua Dumas
This experiment lead to the creation of the current Notes & Scratches group.
filed under sound
the autumn-waking
Kirk Bravender
website
A noisy lovely art rock group.
Allison Stanley — drums, xylophone, vocals
Joshua Dumas — guitar, noise, vocals
Renee Bertsch — organ, vocals
Anika Balaconis — trumpet, percussion, vocals
Music composed collaboratively, words by Joshua Dumas
Produced three recordings, the loudest birthday ever (2002), the Edgewater EP (2003), and Down to Marshes (2004, unreleased).
filed under sound
the Tundra Survey
Nora McComiskey
website
A post-rock garage chamber group.
Mary Claire Kueber — cello, vocals
Andy Wagner — flute, xylophone, vocals
Emily Frank — viola, vocals
Tom McGettrick — bass, vocals
Joshua Dumas — guitar, vocals, engineering
Composed collaboratively.
Produced two recordings, the Poloroid 7” and Cracked Radiator, Bum Transmission.
filed under sound
Weatherman
website
Weatherman is minimal, experimental pop by pianist/vocalist Annie Higgins, drummer Jason Toth (Daniel Knox, The Handsome Family), with electronics by composer Joshua Dumas (Quarter Mile Thunder, Mending). Their first three singles are available via La Société Expéditionnaire.
Peaks
Sarah Cameron Sunde & Joshua Dumas
Peaks is an ongoing, cumulative video work in which Sarah Cameron Sunde and Joshua Dumas reuse the detritus of the built environment to construct brief cinematic moments suggesting iconic mountainous vastness. The mundanity of the material is sometimes unrecognizable in its transformation to surreal landscape. Peaks investigates our relationship to scale, to awe and beauty, to human ecological impact, and explores cycles of transformation and elevation and corruption.
Becoming Ocean
website
When climate-change journalist Eiren Caffall was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, she realized that, like the planet, she was slowly drowning. But instead of allowing the nearly invisible effects of her condition to overwhelm or paralyze her, Caffall uses her illness as a lens to look at the crisis of climate change.
Directed: Scott K. Foley
Written: Eiren Caffall
Music: Joshua Dumas