Dutch Falconi

For me, Curious Fabrications is a fractured dream in black & white. Soaked in Scotch and probably partially drug induced, Curious Fabrications is discreet but high contrast. Set in the big, naked, cold city, the songs provide a kind of hazy roadmap for the intrepid listener to follow. Is it a crime you’re solving? Probably. Are there clues to point the way? Everywhere. Does it contain dangerous and sexy characters to encounter? I sure hope so.

Once inside the album, each track should function as a puzzle piece in the unfolding of a personalized narrative, one motivated by the fruitful ambiguity of the music and informed by the listener’s individual experiences. How much real fun you’ll have in listening depends on what you bring to the party. Right?

For all my music it’s my hope to cast the listener in the role of the central character. My ideal audience can relinquish enough control to the music to be both swept-up into it, and to actively use it as a soundtrack to enhance the daily intrigues of modern life.

In doing so, I tried to consider what a film director might need musically to support a hardboiled protagonist intent on unwinding a mystery. Overall, while shaped into “songs” for quasi-commercial purposes, I’ve tried to do as experienced film composers might suggest, and I believe musically I’ve asked more questions than given answers.

The pandemic of 2020 and the many months of sequestration dominate the context for the creation of this record. While constant political turmoil, economic evisceration, social upheaval and apathy toward the changing climate factor significantly in the ambient anxiety I feel/ felt during the making of Curious Fabrications, the precautionary isolation and its psychological effects were the biggest contributor to its creation. In my case, the pressure resulted in an explosion of new material. Being locked away, so to speak, is at human scale and nearly everyone can relate. At least, I hope.

Curious Fabrications is my “lock-down” album and it is almost entirely a digital mock-up, made with sampled virtual instruments. The pieces were made in total opposition to the multi-track recording magic of Bloom & Brimstone, where I performed practically every instrument myself. Here, nearly everything is synthetic and virtual with tiny tidbits of me actually playing a “real” air moving instrument. Still, they are 100% my original pieces and I’ve finessed every millisecond to try and make it “feel” like a human big band. The only human player is me and what I’m playing is the ensemble.