Philly-based drummer/producer/filmmaker Evan Chapman has just shared his kinetic new single “Fractions” alongside its captivating music video. Chapman has spent years immersing himself in the music he loves while refining his own voice with the percussion-trio-meets-rock-band Square Peg Round Hole. His upcoming album Reveries showcases influences like Son Lux, Floating Points, Moderat, and claire rousay.
Evan Chapman speaks about “Fractions”:
“’Fractions”’was the track that served as the initial spark to dive down the rabbit hole of my first solo full-length album of original compositions. The track was written and recorded exclusively in my home attic studio during the first few months of his daughter’s life, primarily in headphones during naps. The chopped vocal samples in the opening naturally fell into a cycle of 15 eighth notes, which, due to its timing falling just short of even groupings of 4, gave it a quality that felt like it could be looped endlessly – which is exactly how the writing process took shape. Various loops, melodies, and rhythms fade in and out against that 15/8 motif in different ways, evoking the sense of rhythmic free-floating created by minimalist composers such as Steve Reich. A number of the instruments used in “Fractions” overlap with ones I now share with my young daughter including children’s desk bells, pump organ, and a miniature vibraphone, to name a few.
“As a child of the 90’s, this music video’s concept was born out of a nostalgic love affair of old analogue CRT TV’s – and a new appreciation for how, 30 years later, they distort and warp what footage is displayed on them in exciting and unexpected ways. Instead of relying on modern software post-processing for the glitch effects, I went a more tactile route and fed my performance footage into a circuit-bent video synthesizer – using broken & bygone equipment connected by RCA cables in only standard definition. It was a surreal experience to be able to shoot this video at the abandoned Bethlehem Steel Mill building in Lebanon, PA, thanks to my friend Evan Reinhardt – though with a newly-secured $2.3 grant to develop the building into a small business incubator, artist space and cultural amenity, this is likely the last (and also maybe first?) video to have been shot there in its currently dilapidated state.”
Reveries is his long-awaited solo album offering something unmistakably his own: a fusion of emotive lyricism and glitchy complexity––all while obscuring the lines between acoustic and electronic, the human and the computer–– resulting in a stunning musical statement made from the depths of reverie.
What do you think of “Fractions”?
