Singles – Cinematic

 

Bare White Bones

 

Bare White Bones composed by Wally Gunn
Co-commissioned by flute and percussion duo Caballito Negro
(Tessa Brinckman + Terry Longshore)

 

 

Releases April 27, 2024 (International Crow & Raven Appreciation Day) on Bandcamp

The text of this wild, haunting piece comes from the Scottish ballad ‘The Twa Corbies” (translated to Latin by James Gunn) where two crows recite how they will “perch on his pale face…nest in his golden hair….peck out his beautiful blue eyes… through his bare white bones the wind will blow forever…” Gunn describes himself as “from a dreary rural town in Australia’s southeast”, where he learned this poem at a bleak “Australian Gothic” school. Re-reading it as adult he was struck by its lack of sentimentality. The poem is “… a literary version of those extraordinary Rococo vanitas paintings of flowers, food, candle flames, and skulls… Irresistible!…Crows, ravens…are my favorite birds; so striking to look at, so interesting to observe, so intelligent…I chose to translate the poem into Latin because it is now a dead language, but was used during the Enlightenment… a conduit for profound and secret wisdom in science and philosophy.”

During the pandemic in 2021 Caballito Negro collaborated with film-maker Christopher Lucas to create a wild, haunting music video poem for “Bare White Bones”, using this recording. Lucas evokes this pitiless ballad through shadow puppetry, gorgeous drone photography, plague masks, crows, and macabre humor, linking our modern-day environmental crises.

While the video can be seen on its own terms, Caballito Negro also perform “Bare White Bones” live, with the video in the background.

Tessa Brinckman – flute
Terry Longshore – percussion
Recording engineer – Sean McCoy
Recorded at Broken Works, Ashland OR, 2021

 

Hüzün Nar: The Gorgon Cycles

Composed + performed by Tessa Brinckman – alto flute and fixed media
Soundtrack to the award-winning animation The Gorgon Cycles, co-directed by animators Miles Inada, Devyn McConachie and Tessa Brinckman
Recorded and mixed by Sean McCoy @ Oregon Sound Recording (2019)
Recording at BrokenWorks Productions, Ashland OR
Audio recording © 2023 Tessa Brinckman. All rights reserved
Animation “The Gorgon Cycles” © 2023 Tessa Brinckman, Miles Inada, Devyn McConachie. All rights reserved.
Cover art: Miles Inada
Images: Miles Inada + Devyn McConachie
Released April 7, 2023 on Bandcamp

 

Below

 

“Below” music & video – for contrabass flute + soundscape

Available for purchase at www.tessabrinckman.bandcamp.com
Video – Diana Lehr – www.dianalehr.com
Composer – Alex Shapiro – www.alexshapiro.org
Contrabass flute + vocals – Tessa Brinckman – www.tessabrinckman.com
Humpback whale song – unprocessed from original recordings
Electronic soundscape mixing and production – Alex Shapiro
Recording – BrokenWorks Productions, Ashland OR
Mixing of live + pre-recorded track – Sean McCoy, Oregon Sound Recordings
Released June 8, 2020 – World Oceans Day
© 2020 Tessa Brinckman, Diana Lehr, Alex Shapiro. All rights reserved.

That Which Colors The Soul

Composed and performed by Caballito Negro – www.caballitonegro.com
Available for purchase at caballitonegro.bandcamp.com/album/that-which-colors-the-soul
Tessa Brinckman – hybrid flute, bottles
Terry Longshore – tabla, Roland Handsonic, bottles, waterphone, bols
Backing track – Caballito Negro
Recording – BrokenWorks Productions, Ashland, Oregon
Mixing of live + pre-recorded track – Sean McCoy, Oregon Sound Recording
Released January 1, 2021
© ℗ 2021 Tessa Brinckman, Terry Longshore. All rights reserved.