Fanatic is a music marketing company established by Josh Bloom in 1997 to build fan-to-fan connections between artists and the media. For 25 years, Fanatic has continued to help launch careers through the strategic advocacy of creative talent.
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Instrumental bass guitar & vibraphone duo CLIFFWALKER “casually skirts past math rock, jazz, and minimalist classical like ships in the night” with “Calm Sea” video, streaming now.
“Gloriously mesmerizing” sound compared to
sci-fi thrillers, spy movie chase scenes; RIYL John Carpenter, Tangerine Dream; Tortoise, Philip Glass; “Painted Gray Sky” debut EP out
now.
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CLIFFWALKER (L-R): Cliff Hayes, A. Walker Spring.
Photo credit: Cliff Hayes, A. Walker Spring.
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CLIFFWALKER | In The Press
“Feels like it could be the
score of an 80s sci-fi thriller.” — Glide Magazine
“Produces the experience of
a spy-movie chase scene.” — Independent Clauses
“Gloriously mesmerizing.” — Treble
“Edgy, pulsating... Compelling
and progressive.” — Ghettoblaster
“The vibraphone… It’s here
in its glassy and funky finest.” — Higher Plain Music
“A breath of fresh air and a
deeply nostalgic look into the 1960’s aesthetic,” says
music discovery website Fecking Bahamas about the “Calm Sea” music
video by Portland, Oregon-based “crime jazz” duo, CLIFFWALKER. “Comparisons
to espionage composers like John Barry or Lalo Schifrin... The
duo casually skirts past math rock, jazz, and minimalist classical like ships
in the night.”
About the cinematic clip, CLIFFWALKER’s
Cliff Hayes explains, “Kyros Papavassiliou, the co-writer and
director of the film ‘Impressions
of a Drowned Man’ is a dear friend, and I admire his work as an artist
and filmmaker. The film has many ties to water and I see it as highlighting two
things: Living your life with intention and care, and being content with the
choices you make.”
Papavassiliou gave his blessing for the use of clips from ‘Impressions
of a Drowned Man’ to form the “Calm Sea” video. Of the film itself, Papavassiliou
adds, “The film is about the responsibility towards the preciousness of life,
and about the responsibility of offering without waiting for something in
exchange, i.e. the function of poetry and art in general that is almost
forgotten in our times.”
See
the music video for “Calm Sea” by CLIFFWALKER at Fecking
Bahamas or the link above.
Stream “Pulling
Threads” by CLIFFWALKER at the
links above or here.
CLIFFWALKER, the Portland, Oregon-based instrumental duo of Cliff Hayes (Bass, Keys) and A. Walker Spring (Vibes, Drums, Keys,
Guitar), released its debut EP “Painted
Gray Sky” on June 24.
“When it came to making this
video, I thought that Walker’s vibraphone gave the song a bit of a ‘Dance
of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ feel,” says Hayes. “Combined with my
microsynth-fueled bass line, the song approaches something like an electronica
ballet.”
Hayes further comments on the concept saying, “I was at
lunch with some co-workers one afternoon when one of them brought up ‘gloving’
from the rave scene. Inspired by gloving, I realized I could buy neon strings,
put them on the bass, wear white gloves and perform under UV light to get a
somewhat similar effect. We focused on our hands (or mallets) to get interesting
shapes and perspectives of our performances.
“It just worked out that our
instruments filled up the frame while cutting off our heads and that was
perfect because I wanted the focus to be on our hands not our faces. The
homemade ‘I'm hiding from the cops’ shirt is what Walker chose to wear
when I came over to film her.”
Hayesrecently
chatted with Ghettoblaster Magazine about what comes next for CLIFFWALKER.
Read
the in-depth full interview here.
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CLIFFWALKER | About
CLIFFWALKER is not just a cool name for a band. The Portland, Oregon-based instrumental duo of Cliff Hayes (Bass, Keys) and A. Walker Spring (Vibes, Drums, Keys,
Guitar) are just lucky to be named that way. To take the serendipity a step
(sorry, had to) further, the sound of the pair’s upcoming “Painted Gray Sky” EP (out June
24, 2022) is also edgy. We can dispense with the puns now, let’s talk about
the music: It’s like if a sexy Kraftwerk had joined in on the sessions with jazz legend Don Cherry and composer Ron Frangipane scoring Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Holy Mountain.” Or maybe they picked up John Carpenter on the way to Tangerine
Dream’s studio to make the music for Michael
Mann’s neo-noir heist action thriller “Thief.” The repeating riffs of minimalist composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry
Riley are also touchstones, and for those born more recently, Hayes and Spring suggest that the instrumentation on “Painted Gray Sky” is in the vein of Tortoise, but driven by bass lines a la Death From Above 1979. Either way, the 1970s are coming in hot, no matter
what! Skipping forward a half-century, CLIFFWALKER came to fruition under the gray skies of the Pacific
Northwest as Hayes was constructing
a “library of bass riffs” (“Cliff’s Riffs!”) “My toying with riffs started to morph into learning
cover songs and then trying to cover these songs entirely on bass,” Hayes explains. As it turns out, the “library of bass riffs” further
morphed into “Painted Gray Sky,” as
the melodic bass work of Hayes laid
the foundation for Spring’s hypnotic
vibraphone, guitar, and synth lines. As well as playing in Portland’s beloved indie rock
outfit Point Juncture, WA since
2004, Spring has co-hosted a weekly
songwriting podcast since 2020 called “Honest
Jams,” where she’s honed a diverse set of arranging skills, which are given
free rein on “Painted Gray Sky.” From Classical, through to Jazz and post-Rock,
instrumental music is not novel. It’s not Pop either, but here, CLIFFWALKER manages hooks without the
aid of vocals. This quality lets the natural rhythms of CLIFFWALKER’s songs shine without distraction. And all of these references to musical genres count as
influences in the CLIFFWALKER sound. While Hayes
was working to become a top-notch Jazz bassist in his early college years by
“practicing a lot of scales and arpeggios and reading a lot of charts,” he was
also immersed in all kinds of music as a record store employee, the guilty
party in so many musicians’ burgeoning career paths. “Nearly all my waking moments were spent playing,
listening, or learning about music,” he remembers. Hayes relocated to Portland in 2005 and some years later,
via fleeting meetings at the gigs of mutual friends, found himself in a
conversation about artificial intelligence (in 2014!) with a producer friend of
Spring’s. “I was discussing how AI could be created to produce
music by feeding it a library of riffs to train itself,” Hayes says. Soon after, Hayes
started recording his riffs at home with this idea in mind, and eventually
wondered if Spring might be
interested in playing drums with him on some material. “Before I left that first session, we had already
started recording the basic bass, drums and vibes that are on the final EP.” “Painted
Gray Sky” by CLIFFWALKER is out now. Members of CLIFFWALKER
are available for interviews. Contact Josh
Bloom at Fanatic for
more information. +++ CLIFFWALKER | Links ASSETS : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : BANDCAMP +++ Josh Bloom at Fanatic
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