Many Hands (Volume Two), by Brian Harnetty

Many Hands (Volume Two)

by Brian Harnetty

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Workbench, Words and Silences, Many Hands - The Complete Collection, Forest Listening Rooms, Many Hands (Volume Two), Many Hands (Volume One), Shawnee, Ohio, Ohio National Forest, and 5 more. , and , .

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1.	One 02:00	buy track
2.	Two 03:02	buy track
3.	Three 02:25	buy track
4.	Four 03:52	buy track
5.	Five 02:36	buy track
6.	Six 04:12	buy track
7.	Seven 02:07	buy track
8.	Eight 03:55	buy track

about

Careworn, delicate, intricate, tender, quiet: even the loud parts are gentle and under this spell. Many Hands is the second volume in a series of piano works for multiple players. If the first volume was inspired by the landscapes and labor of Appalachian Ohio, the theme of labor is shared here, with a special focus on “care labor”: the work done quietly and selflessly by unnoticed parents and nurses and social workers and teachers and artists, too.

This concern for care labor is not structurally built into the music; it was just on my mind at the time of composing. And it is on my mind now during the Covid-19 quarantine as I think of my own family, and of the work happening all over the world both out in the open of our hospitals and behind the hidden walls of our homes.

In fact, the image on the cover of the recording––of two hands, side by side––is of my hand and my father’s hand from around 1979, and it reminds me of the endless and overwhelming and grueling and honorable and magical work of parenting. It also reminds me of my father's once great physical strength, now tempered as he approaches 90, and how he is now counted among the most vulnerable in these times. Ideally, this is how I would love to see our society structured: with the most vulnerable placed at the center, protected and cared for, and the care would radiate out in circles and rings of strength and support.

Praise for "Many Hands" Volume One:
“4/5 STARS - Stripped to the bone, the music of Brian Harnetty both reveals its flaws and knows how to be welcoming. ...this record has the virtue of reminding us that contemplation is an active and encompassing process, far removed from reverie and torpor. ...To contemplate is to be one with the moment and the person who speaks to us." - Greg Bod, Benzine Magazine (France)

Past Critical Praise:
"5/5 STARS - 2019 UNDERGROUND ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Harnetty's delicate, keening chamber folk recalls Moondog, Charles Ives, and his old mentor, [Michael] Finnissy, yet retains a benevolent delicacy all of its own, gently reaching back into time and guiding these long-dead story-tellers into the light of the present day." - Andrew Male, MOJO Magazine (UK)

“Working like a novelist, [Harnetty] has immersed himself in an archive of field recordings – slices of past lives – and now emerges to create a new text, breathing new life into old chunks of sound by radically recontextualising them.”
— Clive Bell, The Wire (UK)

credits

released April 16, 2020

Performer: Brian Harnetty
Mastering: Keith Hanlon, Secret Studio
Image: Brian and Paul Harnetty’s hands, ca. 1979
Catalog #: WR 006

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Brian Harnetty Columbus, Ohio

Interdisciplinary artist using sound and listening to foster social change. Recordings on Winesap, Karl, Dust-to-Digital, Atavistic, and Scioto Records.

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