Liz Durette
Delight is an album of suites, waltzes and free melodies, made by Baltimore based keyboard player Liz Durette.
“It’s not for me to express myself, it is for you all to enjoy”
Can you tell me, in your own words: what am I listening to when I listen to Delight?
Yes! This album is two short suites- side A and B, of waltzes and free melodies, all bell sounds, flutes, trumpets, clarinet sounds, through my funny keyboard. The keyboard is a polyphonic expressive keyboard, which means the playing surface is made of silicone and completely touch sensitive. It’s squishy and gestural. It goes through midi on the computer, which is new to me— until recently I was playing a Rhodes electric piano. So yes, a good amount of it is waltzes, and side B has some free freak outs for the heads. There are lots of melodies, and no singing.
“Psychedelic Classical”
What kind of album did you want to make with Delight?
Well, when I started recording I had just come back from living out in Colorado, which is a big state far out west in the USA, I was living in a very remote and rugged area in the Rocky Mountains. I’d been out there for a good part of a year, and driving through other parts of the US as well, and then came back to the east coast to Baltimore, a city in the Midatlantic region, not far from Washington DC. All that traveling did me good, especially the good high altitude and clear mountain air. It’s wonderful to live in a tent high up in the middle of nowhere. But, I couldn’t do my work where I was living— I didn’t have electricity— so when I came back home, and could record again, I was delighted to make music again, that’s why so much of it is very joyful sounding. I’m happy to share that feeling with everyone through the music— it’s not for me to express myself, it is for you all to enjoy.
Why is the album called Delight?
It seems like a lot of people are making some pretty gloomy music these days, I wanted to be clear that this is something different.
All your previous records had the word ‘improvisation’ in their title. Are these recordings improvisations too, or songs, tunes, compositions?
Yes, they are improvised. Compared to my previous recordings, this record has more structure relating to classical music, so in that way it sounds more composed, but I felt freer than ever while recording it, especially with all the melodies.
Why did you want to make a record on a keyboard? And why with only a keyboard?
Haha is it strange? To me, It seems like a reasonable thing to do, I’ve made all my music on keyboards. I play classical music on piano, it feels normal to think in suite or sonata form.
“I just try to be free and enjoy myself.”
What I enjoy about this album is that it has something playful, something light, naive, almost. Is that something you wanted to reach on purpose? Can one be naive on purpose, or is that impossible?
It’s a happy album, that’s for sure. But it’s not naive, since I know exactly what I’m doing, and I do it with total precision. The waltzes on the album come from practicing so much of Schubert’s dances on piano, and that is playful music for dancing. But yes, people tell me my music is insane, haha. I just try to be free and enjoy myself. Anyways, to answer the second part of your question, sure, I think one can be as purposefully naive as one wants, that’s just a paradoxical combination of words, there’s no need to worry about things like that. Everything is already happening in it’s own way, in action, before language, that’s what matters.
Because this is for an magazine called ‘It’s Psychedelic Baby’; do you see your music as psychedelic? And what would your definition of ‘psychedelic’ be?
Yes, I do call it “psychedelic classical”, actually! Not like the music genre psych, or the 60’s acid color swirly psych— Psychedelic, to me, means a state of awareness which is unbounded by the habitual obscurations of our minds. I’m not interested in drugs, they are destabilizing. I use meditation and Buddhist study and find that in this practice, daily life is the most psychedelic of all, in the most ordinary way. I’m not trying to trip out into strange states of consciousness or to blow my mind. I’m just trying to be in the world in an unmitigated way, at least as much as possible, that’s the work. That’s my experience of it. Of course this influences the music. If through my practice I can embody even a small sense of boundlessness and freedom, that will be in the music and maybe others can feel that way as well. That is my primary motivation, communicating joy and boundlessness, which is psychedelic.
– Joeri Bruyninckx
Liz Durette Official Website
Feeding Tube Records Official Website
