Shadow Economy

Blake Leyh

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 14, 2000)
• Original Release Date: April 14, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• ASIN: B00004T99I
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #489,058 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. The Old Rugged Cross

2. Fear of Silence

3. Still

4. The Big Spindrifter

5. Double Happiness?

6. Total Harmonic Distortion

7. Upriser

8. Adagietto

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Blake Leyh is best known for his work as Sound Designer and Composer for films. His sound credits include Titus, The Abyss, and Barton Fink. His feature film scores include SICK: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan Supermasochist, Star Time, Second Cousin Once Removed, True Crime, and The Serpent's Tale. He has received two Golden Reel Awards for his work on The Abyss and Barton Fink, and The Abyss was nominated for a Best Sound Academy Award. Leyh is formally trained in classical electronic music, and spent several years composing music for street theater groups in England. He had a solo operatic role at the age of 13, and sang with the Buckinghamshire Youth Choir.

Recent projects have included sound design for Julie Taymor's film TITUS, kung fu sounds for Ang Lee's CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, a collaboration with cello-diva Madigan Shive for Kill Rock Stars, and writing a soundtrack Canto-pop song for Hong Kong film star Jo Kuk. Leyh currently lives in New York City.

Band member: Andre Burke: Violin
Eugene Gearty: Guitar
Blake Leyh: Fretless Bass, Keyboards, Percussion, Electronics
Skip Lievsay: Sounds
Chris Muir: Guitar
Brian Salter: Saxophone, Clarinet, MIDI horn
Madigan Shive: Cello
Paul Urmson: Stick

Product Description

Shadow Economy is Blake Leyh's first solo release since 1993. The instrumental music is heavily string-based, and features violinist Andre Burke on six of the seven tracks. Acoustic instruments are mixed with electronics, improvisation is interweaved with complex composition, and traditional music from the past is re-interpreted in the context of an ultra-modern soundscape.

Opening with a New-New Orleans funeral march and ending with a deconstructed Mahler adagietto, the journey in between covers hypnotic violin minimalism, lush washes of extended-technique strings, a duet for fog horn and double bass, and dense landscapes of looped electric guitar, violin, cello, and fretless bass.