This week's flourish comes to us through Baltimore dancer Steve Gester, and comes in response to a reader request for some less twirly flourishes, or flourishes for when you're twirled out. It's really neat because it uses the momentum of the follow but doesn't channel it into a twirl and still keeps the flow of the dance.

You, too, could have your flourishes featured! Send them our way!

Next week, Contra Syncretist catches up with Spokane Folklore Society board member Terra Price, who was the mastermind behind Spokane, WA's Deca-dance masquerade techno contra.

Happy Friday,

CS

Erratum, 7:30 A.M.: Corrected the spelling of Steve Gester's name.

_Back in September when I talked to Julie Vallimont (of Nor'easter and Double Apex), I learned that the other half of Double Apex, Brendan Carey Block, had been performing his own experiments with techno music. Like any curious person of the digital age, I consulted Google to learn more. What I found was not only that Brendan, the 2000-2001 U.S. National Junior Scottish Fiddle Champion, had recently parted ways with contra bands Annalivia and Matching Orange to pursue other projects, but that one of those other projects was DJing under the moniker Matt Blackfield. Further, earlier this year, The Matt Blackfield
Project was released for digital download.

The Matt Blackfield Project is a rather eclectic blend of folk flavoring and evocative electronic techno. All of the tracks create lush soundscapes, and if I was more inclined as a visual artist, I might have been reaching for some paint and a canvas (and created very different pieces to suit each track's mood).

To wit: the collection opens with a watery, echoey rendition of "Fingal's Cave," which the liner notes tell us is an ancient Scottish march with some modern treatment. The addition of the enigmatic, echoey spoken-word passage from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland made my inner literature geek smile and adds another dimension to the piece.

The sixth track, "Short Road, Long Journey," opens with a keyboard loop before introducing more mechanical effects and bells that sound a bit like a rushing crowd. It then shifts to a lower variant of the melody and then weaves a bunch of layers together before it fades out and leaves the distinct impression that the listener has just glimpsed a scene that will continue even
after it becomes inaudible.

My favorite track, however, is "Dark Field," which frankly to me sounds like a group of pixies decided to crash into the titular field and hold a rave; it opens with cricket-like noises and night sounds, then adds some sparse but reverberating keyboard and then a thumping beat and some steadier, higher-toned drums.

Interestingly, it isn't until relatively late in The Matt Blackfield Project's eleven tracks that we hear a lot of the fiddle playing for which Brendan has up until now been known. Both "Soda Springs" and "Leaving Lake Morey" are square (or nearly so) tunes that feature the fiddle heavily and remind me a bit of Perpetual e-Motion's work. For "Leaving Lake Morey," Brendan notes in the liner notes that it was composed "for [his] departure from the fantastic community at the lakeside Hulbert Outdoor Center" and the sense of farewell and longing in this piece is rather clear. "Soda Springs," on the other hand,
features some hot fiddle action with some equally hot guitar sounds and framed very well by a backing drum loop.  

While this is very much an electronic album, The Matt Blackfield Project still shows off Brendan's folkie roots (I was a bit surprised to figure out that about half the tunes are square, or exceedingly close to it) and provides for a foray into the full spectrum of the multidimensional, if somewhat disjointed, world this Project has created.

The Matt Blackfield Project is available for digital download at Brendan Carey Block's web site and is also streamable from his Facebook page and his Myspace.

Before I get to the Friday Flourish for today, I wanted to draw your attention to a post on caller and musician Jeff Kaufman's blog from earlier this week talking about a musician's POV when playing for a dance and how it differs from playing a concert, which I thought was especially interesting in light of my post from Wednesday about music's relationship to dancers from a dancer's POV. (For those of you who DJ crossover events, you might want to read that too, as I think there are some applicable tidbits to think about when planning set lists for a contra gig and it echoes some points  DJ Gaga made in Monday's article.)

Anyway, onward! This week's flourish takes the skaters' hold variant on a promenade that we discussed last week and pulls it into a swing variant. As one might expect, you can generate a lot of centrifugal force, so be prudent about doing this with people who have sore shoulders and the like.

You, too, could have your flourishes featured! Send them to me!

Also, as at least a couple of people have already found, Contra Syncretist is now feeding the blog posts to a Twitter account (@csyncretist) as well as the Facebook page.

Happy Friday!

Carry on Dancing,

CS

_A couple of weeks ago, Contra Syncretist talked to caller Ray Polhemus, who among other observations connected more "swingy," more flourishy dancing with the techno contra trend. Despite the inclusion of our Friday Flourishes, I'm not sure I see the same causal link between the two.