Dan Ake - Melophobia

Wyoming 79' (track #1)
Location: Cirque of the Towers, Wind River Mountains, Wyoming
Principals: Dan Ake, John Kopa and Pete Vigil
Date: August 1979

We spent one month in this region with the intent to use this six square mile area at 10,500 ft. in elevation along the Continental Divide as our studio. We brought in a number of Art and document making materials including steel piano wire. Our initial thought was to string wire across a wide expanse of space and see what kind of sound image we could produce. It proved technically impossible. Next step was to scale it down. We found large granite boulders that formed acoustic chambers and strung wire throughout them. The resulting sounds are some examples of what we came up with.

Moose Sighs (track #2)
Location: Galleria Center, Downtown Denver, Colorado
Principals: Dan Ake, Perry Lancaster and Pete Vigil
Date: June 1980

Sebastian-Moore Gallery in Denver sponsored this project. We told them we wanted to create a musical landscape using steel wire in an urban environment. They came up with this space for us that had exceptional acoustical qualities. A Galleria like domed area several thousand square feet in size with steel structures on both sides. We strung wire across this area and not only performed publicly but invited the public to perform as well. We started at dawn and finished at dusk. The resulting sounds are samples of a collaborative effort over a fourteen hour period.

Sojurn in the Cirque (track #3-12)
Location: Cirque of the Towers, Wind River Mountains, Wyoming
Principals: Dan Ake, Perry Lancaster and Pete Vigil
Date: July 1991

Having been fully seduced by our first experience making instruments out of granite boulders and steel wire we had always wanted to return to revisit and explore the idea more fully. It took twelve years. So what. This time we came prepared with better recording equipment, DAT recorder, PZM mics, four track mixer, etc. It was heavy to carry but worth it. We went to work scouting out an area and over an eight day period we created about eight hours of raw material. What you are hearing is a studio mix of that material. This work is dedicated to the memory of Pete Vigil.

Studio SF (track #13-19)
Location: Studio, San Francisco, California
Principals: Dan Ake
Participation by Perry Lancaster, Pete Martin and Ronnie Camaro
Date: 2004-2005

The sound of steel wire based instruments is very distinctive. Throughout our earlier work there is a very consistent sound quality that emerges from these instruments.

Question- What would happen if we built instruments in a controlled studio environment? Besides it's a long way to Wyoming. Marine grade plywood boxes replaced granite boulders and more tunable anchoring devices replaced climbing hardware and turnbuckles.

Staying true to the improvisational methods of playing these instruments I performed some of these pieces solo and also invited other musician friends over to play and to hear what we could come up with.

What you are hearing are stereo recordings of those sessions.