It was a month ago that we proudly released Chris Schlarb’s Twilight & Ghost Stories. It’s already turned up on a few Top 10 of 2007 lists, so Chris could have very well walked away from the table. But instead he’s been just as busy.
Some of this busy-ness involves interviewing his Twilight collaborators. Expect to see a number of those interviews strewn across the World Wide Web soon. For now, listen to a special akradio playlist curated by Chris by clicking on the akradio link above. You can also see some "scripts" from Twilight in a sidebar post here.
Click here to buy Twilight & Ghost Stories on CD for just $10, or here to read more about the album and download some free mp3s, and on the more below to see what Chris has been up to.
After sending out Twilight in quadraphonic sound to a variety of listening events across the country (see here for details), Chris played in Athens, GA for the always superb Next to Last Fest, and lived to write about it on his blog here, although barely: "I intended on using the original recording of rain and street sounds as the background for the live performance, just like the album. A funny thing happened on the way to Georgia though. I forgot it."
Twilight has received some strong review scores, but the most poignant thoughts about the album have come from listeners, not reviewers. On Amazon.com, Todd Ebert suggests that the album answers the question, "how would serious composers from decades and centuries ago compose their music given access to today’s plethora of recording, synthesizer, and computer technology?" Read that review here. And a Last.FM user going by "modernpilgrim" graciously took the time to really think about Twilight, and posted those thoughts as a dissecting review on Last.FM here. He writes, "As both a product of and a response to alienation, ‘Twilight and Ghost Stories’ maintains a uniquely spiritual capacity for evoking feelings of both hope and despair in its listener."
There are a couple interviews out there that shed light on the process of Twilight. Ian Peterson of All About Jazz delves with Chris into the psychological Id of Twilight and Chris’ work. "There’s no faster way to kill nihilism than to give the option to debate nihilism," Chris tells Ian, for example. Read that interview here. Meanwhile, Chris Ziegler at The District Weekly fishes out the influences for the album here.
Speaking of . . . Chris went with a fish theme (ask him, not us about that) for a Dusted feature that somehow incorporates Yes, Neil Young, and Arrested Development. Read that on Dusted here.
And finally, you can become a collaborator of Twilight yourself, by downloading either the Garage Band files or WAVs from Chris’ Variations project page here. Let us and Chris know if you come up with your own version.