Stephen Mead

Published artist and writer, Stephen Mead began creating mp3 files somewhat by accident, or as an experiment. After receiving a note from Frank Moore of Love Underground Visionary Revolution Radio in regards to a few poems Stephen mailed him, Frank asked if I'd be interested in recording them on a tape for him to play on his show. At the time Stephen was just figuring out how to record his own voice and poetry as soundtracks for short collage-films he'd begun to make (http://www.indieflix.

om/filmmaker/26PTBXXG-21924/ ), yet the idea of using even a thirty minute tape for a number of poems seemed like wasting a lot of tape time. Thus StephenI got the idea of adding music to accompany his words. This eventually resulted in the CD "Love Lullabies", http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002G9U9CM Using his own singing voice as background for his writing, Stephen eventually worked up the nerve to attempt singing the poems entirely. Actually, since so many of my poems are narratives, Stephen often thought of them sort of as choral, operatic or folk pieces, feeling influenced by such works as ?The Umbrellas of Cherbourg? in addition to the librettists for John Adams and Phillip Glass. Stephen thought this would be yet another DIY project, (eventually entitled "Whispers of Arias"), but luckily came across Kevin MacLeod and his royalty-free music site, Incompetech.com. With his permission to use and play with samples from his site for this esoteric project, Stephen was fortunate to find a working collaboration.

"Whispers of Arias" has been released on 2 CDs via http://stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com/

Jonathan Penton of "Unlikely Stories" writes:

It's appropriate that Stephen Mead has named this double-album Whispers of Arias, because despite the layered, operatic music and big dramatic themes, these recordings, ultimately, sound very little like arias: The vocals are so tortured and quiet that one can't help but think of a ghost in a symphony hall, desperately trying to impress something upon the listeners, something dire, something unbelievably tragic. Stephen Mead sings his poems over Kevin MacLeod's complex and sophisticated classical interpretations, and the effect is transformative?on the rhythm of the poems, on the meaning of MacLeod's recordings, and ultimately, on the listener.

http://www.unlikelystories.org/11/mead1111.shtml

"Whispers of Arias" available via http://stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com/