scaffolding (digital, 2020)

Scaffolding is, essentially, a digital private release. Files for downloading, listening and distributing are below:

album mp3
album flac
torrent mp3
torrent flac
pdf

Scaffolding was recorded in March and April of 2019, while the building we live in was being repainted. Green netting gauzed our view and shaded our interior. Work was not regular: some days the temporary structure would be busy, weeks would pass without work being done. Some days work would be relatively quiet, others days quite loud.

We had been living in San Francisco for a little over one year at this time and my creative practice was still nding new balance with life, so this work presented a unique intrusion that I could accommodate or resist. I attempted the former, preferring to favor my ongoing impressionistic tendencies working with electronic material and field recordings. Throughout this period I let my recorder run through the afternoons, recording long, repetitive sound from my synthesizer.

The weather and light was generally pleasant through these months, even through the netting and noise. Scaffolding continues my general focus on exploratory listening material for articulation of a listeners own experience – your own language inevitably describes better what you hear in these works, it contains the poetry of your own perception and feeling. I will not tell you how to feel or what to experience while listening, I hope to provide the tools for a poetic experience worth discovering again.

Editing and composition took place through the rest of the season, with ongoing work in 2019 and 2020. Both the field recordings and synthesizer material are left mostly as they were recorded, with edits for clarity and pacing, touches of EQ and dynamic processing, some light flourishes added in the mix.

An earlier edit of Scaffolding was shared privately in 2019.

Scaffolding is being distributed via Soulseek and BitTorrent. I ask that you continue to share this material, as downloaded, via these means. If these resources do not work for you, I welcome requests for a download link.

I am using Scaffolding to conduct a small experiment in the distribution and reception of “this kind of music” in 2020. This experiment may continue with more releases in the future. This is not “against labels,” or “quitting Bandcamp” – it is for something else. I am thinking of you, of us. This is something I want to try.

I want to emphasize the relationship, the exchange between myself and a listener, our perceptions and expressions, our understanding. I want to remove the mediated space of the website, the algorithm, one’s retail trail and the immensity of machines keeping our purchases online, the bloodless code handling ourselves as metrics. The mirror of prestige in the working of capital.

This is an imperfect plan, and a porous perspective. This is what I was inspired to do. I wanted to take a step to engage the reception of my music differently, and taking that step is all I can do.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for reading and participating in this with me.

Billy Gomberg
San Francisco, California
February 2020