Composer & Percussionist Chris P. Thompson to Release 'Stay The Same' Album

Composer and percussionist Chris P. Thompson will release his new album, Stay the Same, on April 4, 2024. Shortly before the release of the album, contemporary classical chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound will give the New York premiere of Thompson's work Hanabi, at Carnegie Hall in Zankel Hall (57th St. and 7th Ave.) on March 26, 2024 –– Tickets available now.

Stay the Same features a thoughtful and nuanced blend of electronic and microtonal music –– two styles that greatly influenced, informed, and shaped Thompson's four earlier albums: 2021's Red Folder, 2020's True Stories & Rational Numbers, 2019's Everything Imaginable Comes True, and 2017's Lot Hero (EP). Thompson explains: “Stay the Same integrates the two [musical approaches] in a way that feels super natural to me as a continuation of my own story, and yet the juxtaposition is also likely to feel quite unexpected to the rest of the world.”

In addition to Thompson's emphasis on blending two musical styles, each of the tracks on Stay the Same contributes to an overall presentation of symmetrical contrast throughout the album –– an aspect that is especially appreciable in the album's vinyl format. For each track on Side A, its corresponding track on Side B serves as both mirror image and flip side of the coin. Meanwhile, extreme contrasts in energy level from one track to the next paint a picture of emotional swings: anxious and manic highs versus paralyzed lows.

The first five works, which make up Side A on vinyl –– Stay the Same, Mirror, The Help You Need, Different Pressures, and Sculpture Garden –– ride a breathless spiral of inwardly-focused psychological tension to its breaking point and ghostly aftermath. The second half of the album, or Side B –– Selfie, Wall, Changes, Philip Thinking, and UV Garden –– holds up a mirror to a narcissistic external world, escapes its grasp, and floats through the ashes after it self-destructs.

Thompson says: “This music lives in cycles of misguided self-help, and the irony of purchasing a cure from the same doctor who sold you the disease. It grew from a very personal realization that in the end there are no solutions, no answers, and no destination. There is only the path that leads in a new direction, or the one that circles right back to where you started.”

Thompson released his fourth solo album True Stories & Rational Numbers in October 2020. A nine-movement work sequenced as electronic music but also fully scored for four keyboardists, it represents Thompson's investigation of just intonation and the natural mathematics of rhythm and harmony, his search for a performance practice to incorporate these into live contemporary music, and his personal fan-fiction about physicist Hermann von Helmholtz and his second wife, writer Anna von Helmholtz. True Stories & Rational Numbers received its world premiere live performance at the Barbican Centre in London in November 2021. Red Folder, a collaboration with playwright Rajiv Joseph for the Steppenwolf Theater's STEPPENWOLF NOW series was released in early 2021. Following the release of that project, Thompson worked with the same team on a follow-on educational program, The Red Folder Project, which reached over 5,000 young people in 70 different schools.

Thompson's first two records, the LP Everything Imaginable Comes True (2019) and EP Lot Hero (2017), draw heavily on the high-energy sound world of modern drum and bugle corps, while incorporating luminaries of the New York City contemporary classical music scene in both familiar and unexpected capacities. Thompson has also had the opportunity to work both as a performing percussionist and arranger on a wide variety of projects with a diverse range of composers and performers.

Chris P. Thompson describes the inspiration and methods behind each track on Stay the Same:

Stay the Same (A1) & Selfie (B1)

Both tracks make unconventional use of TTS (“text to speech”). As a pair, they liken the brain's relentless and often abusive inner dialogue to a scrolling stream of algorithmically-generated content. I sample the output of the TTS generator and then do detailed rhythmic and pitch editing to create vocal performances with an AI-flavor… one you're not sure you can trust to be real. Both tracks also use high energy marching percussion as beat material. The result is that while Stay the Same is an inwardly-focused “before” picture: messy, imperfect, and melodramatic, Selfie is the externally-focused “after” picture: polished, dispassionate, ridiculous.

Mirror (A2) & Wall (B2)

Mirror is self-examination under duress. Breakneck speed and subtle adjustments to the tuning of the pianos create harmonies that glow with mania and desperation. While that propulsive forward motion gives an impression of trying to move through, the stacked harmonic structures of Wall seem to shoot up vertically, blocking movement in every direction. The music fights relentlessly upward in a Sisyphean struggle to climb over.

The Help You Need (A3) & Changes (B3)

A confused and disoriented brain can be extra susceptible to the promises of grifters. The Help You Need wearily receives their bit-crushed voices as if being assaulted with unsolicited advice… in an overheated room through a 2400-baud modem. It also makes use of a unique recording and playing technique to create the impression of a drumline composed entirely of clones of myself. Having escaped outside into the cold, Changes sheds its synthetic skin and walks through the destruction – broken pianos and smoldering machines – into the unknown with a sense of awe and ultimately an eerie but resonant joy.

Different Pressures (A4) & Philip Thinking (B4)

In Different Pressures, a white-knuckle grip on control rapidly turns desperation into panic. Conversely, Philip Thinking accepts cycles of anxiety and sadness as waves that swell and recede, giving them license to run their course. The piece is also a mini-homage to Philip Glass, and has been remixed as a bonus track by organist James McVinnie.

Sculpture Garden (A5) & UV Garden (B5)

Both pieces use microtonal piano to different effects. Sculpture Garden creates moments of intense stasis, as in the permanence of stone figures. Objects appear locked in place while the world moves by. Every major chord in the piece is “justly” tuned — a subtle but significant adjustment of pitch giving the impression of freezing time. A solitary observer of the busy and faceless outside world –– like a ghost. UV Garden employs a combination of just intonation and melting quarter-tone piano harmonies to create the sound of organic change –– like surreal, slinky, constantly growing organic matter. It's imperfect, messy, strange, and gross — but transformed.

Chris P. Thompson: Stay the Same

Grin Agog Music | Release date: April 4, 2024

[1] Stay the Same [3:14]
[2] Mirror [4:05]
[3] The Help You Need [3:42]
[4] Different Pressures [1:45]
[5] Sculpture Garden [4:04]
[6] Selfie [2:40]
[7] Wall [3:46]
[8] Changes [3:11]
[9] Philip Thinking [3:21]
[10] UV Garden [5:51]

About Chris P. Thompson

A composer and percussionist, Chris P. Thompson is a 20-year veteran of the New York City contemporary music scene and 15-year member of the contemporary classical chamber orchestra, Alarm Will Sound.

Thompson's work is influenced by a childhood spent in California's Silicon Valley during the the 1980s and 1990s, as well as by the New York City contemporary music scene of the 2000s and 2010s. Each contributed to Thompson developing work that draws equally from electronic music, marching percussion, and contemporary classical music.

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