IN A LANDSCAPE

What's "In a Landscape"?

In partnership with my new distribution partner, Sounds Right, and NATURE the artist, I am writing an eight-movement dance suite that charts the rise and fall of civilization from its Edenic beginnings ("Elysium") to the regeneration of nature ("Aftermath").

So far I've released half of the album as singles. You can enjoy them below via YouTube links or click any of the buttons to stream them on your favorite service. The full album will be released in early 2026.

THE VIDEOS

Movement No. 1: ELYSIUM

In a Landscape leads off with "Elysium," which imagines a prelapsarian world before the impact of humans. The song is based on a simple I – V/V – I – vi – I progression that is intended to evoke a hymn, though it's an odd, Lydian progression that wouldn't be found in any hymnal. I was also trying to evoke some of the "American" sound of Aaron Copland from pieces like Appalachian Spring though we use slightly different progressions.

STREAM ELYSIUM HERE

Movement No. 3: IDYLL

This movement is about that moment when civilization has developed into a state of pastoral innocence, an idealized (and idyllic) moment when humanity had a fleeting balance in harmony with nature. This idea has long been an inspiration for artists and writers ("idyll" comes from the Greek word for "little picture" or "small poem"), so I've picked a number of idyllic landscape paintings to illustrate this video for the piece.

In order,* you see:

Pastoral Landscape by Asher Durand

The Hay Wain by John Constable

Extensive Pastoral Landscape by Marco Ricci

Noonday by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

De Molen by Rembrandt van Rijn

Pastoral Landscape (The Roman Campagna) by Claude Lorrain

The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Heart of the Andes by Frederick Church

The View of Toledo by El Greco

Homer and the Shepherds by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Le Concert champêtre by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Landscape with a Calm by Nicolas Poussin

Pastoral Landscape by Asher Durand (again, bringing us full circle) and, finally,

Great Northern Diver, or Loon, by John James Audubon

The imagery ends with a loon because that is the bird call you hear throughout the track. I recorded it earlier this year on a serene (you might say "idyllic") lake in Maine.

* if I didn't miss any....

STREAM IDYLL HERE

Movement No. 6: COLLAPSE

As the title suggests, "Collapse" is supposed to depict the moment when civilization has reached the point of no return. But rather than cymbals crashing and trumpets blaring, this collapse is actually quiet. Sure, there's some dissonance--especially in the insistent twin bassoon lines--but there's also a haunting and almost cheerful melodic strain that comes and goes throughout the piece. (That motif may appear in the second movement, "Mythos," as well -- I guess we'll find out when I write it!)

The gentleness of this piece is because when something collapses -- a person, an eco-system, a civilization -- it can happen so quickly and so quietly that we don't even notice. Until it's too late.

I'm fun at parties.

STREAM COLLAPSE HERE

Movement No. 8: AFTERMATH

What will the world look like after we are gone?

"Aftermath" is a meditation on a post-human world. To make the video, I fed a stanza of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" into a video generation software, which chose the following stock footage. (Except the last image--a lake in Maine--which is shot recently, and is the same lake that you hear in movement no. 3, "Idyll.)

Here's Eliot: "What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

STREAM AFTERMATH HERE