Darcy James Argue's Secret Society - Real Enemies (missed this last year)
Brooklyn-based composer-bandleader Darcy James Argue and his innovative 18-piece big band Secret Society will release their third album, Real Enemies, out September 30, 2016. Composed by Argue, Real Enemies is a 13-chapter exploration of America’s fascination with conspiracy theories; narratives behind the Red Scare, the Illuminati, Edward Snowden, and alien sightings are meticulously examined and interrogated through Argue’s dazzling score.
As befitting a journey into postwar paranoia, Real Enemies draws heavily on 12-tone techniques, a compositional system based on a tone rows — a sequence of all 12 pitches in the chromatic scale — devised by Arnold Schoenberg in the aftermath of World War I and embraced by American composers during the conspiracy-rich postwar era. However, Argue’s wide-ranging score exhibits a mischievous disregard for how those techniques have been traditionally deployed. Other musical touchstones include the paranoia-inducing film scores of Michael Small (The Parallax View) and David Shire (All The President’s Men), the revolutionary songs of Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy, the psychedelic space-jazz of Sun Ra, the FM synth-fueled grooves of early 1980’s LA electro funk-influenced hip hop, and much more. Significant pieces of spoken text from figures like JFK, Frank Church, George H. W. Bush, and Dick Cheney are expertly woven throughout the robust and provocative score, with a concluding voice-over narration provided by actor James Urbaniak. Real Enemies is an intense musical and sensory experience that spins and explores a web of paranoia and distrust, and resonates long after its last note.
Real Enemies Personnel: Dave Pietro - piccolo, flute, alto flute, bass flute, soprano sax, alto sax Rob Wilkerson - flute, clarinet, soprano sax, alto sax Sam Sadigursky - E♭ clarinet, B♭ clarinet, A clarinet, tenor sax John Ellis - clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor sax Carl Maraghi - clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone Seneca Black - trumpet, flugelhorn Jonathan Powell - trumpet, flugelhorn Matt Holman - trumpet, flugelhorn Nadje Noordhuis - trumpet, flugelhorn Ingrid Jensen - trumpet, flugelhorn Mike Fahie - trombone Ryan Keberle - trombone Jacob Garchik - trombone, tuba Jennifer Wharton - bass trombone, tuba Sebastian Noelle - acoustic & electric guitar Adam Birnbaum - acoustic & electric piano, FM synth Matt Clohesy - contrabass & electric bass, bass synth Jon Wikan - drum set, cajón, misc. percussion James Urbaniak - narrator on "Who Do You Trust?" and "You Are Here" reprise Darcy James Argue - composer, conductor
