Video: Harris Ian Klahr, “A Clear Band Around the Universe”

Harris Ian Klahr, formerly of The Rapture and Q and Not U, releases and 30-minute composition of samba, jazz and beautiful jams, “A Clear Band Across the Universe”

December 10, 2013


The beginning of Harris Ian Klahr's 30-minute piece "A Clear Band Around the Universe" has a very light set of instructions: "Look and listen," "listen and don't look," "look and don't listen." Then a subway car glides by and we settle into something samba-like and beautiful. Klahr, formerly of The Rapture and Q and Not U, composed the piece and he says:

The videos and music were not conceived together but as separate entities. I had been developing this kind of long form self actualized "group" improvisational music in my studio and came to find that I was making music that very closely matched the duration of the landscape videos I had been collecting footage for over the last couple of years. Putting the two elements together really seemed to heighten both and suggested a new form(to me at least), of a video album ... Imagery that can play on while the music does, and can be interacted with in much the same way as traditional album art would have been. Studied in great detail or completely ignored. There is something retro futuristic about the concept, but it does seem right for the times and fits the spirit of the compositions which were conceived almost entirely for digital synthesizers (saxophone included).

The saxophone comes in late in the game and it's lush. "A Clear Band" is released via Klahr's New Editions.

Video: Harris Ian Klahr, “A Clear Band Around the Universe”