1-3 STAGGERED STASIS
section 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . 16:43
section 2, with Santiago Villareal ... . 3:46
section 3, with Santiago Villareal . . 25:14
4 DURATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .23:16
5 SPEED DURATION . . . . . . . . ...2:29
total time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71:47

front cover photograph by Rachael Jackson

"Staggered Stasis" (1989) was commissioned by the Deborah Hay Dance Company for part 1, "The Navigator" in Hay's trilogy, "The Man Who Grew Common In Wisdom". Microtonal shifts in the coloring occur in a staggered fashion, traveling on an axis of Pythagorean intervals, (the circle of fifths). Chords created by stacking 3/2s, or fifths, are referred to as "suspended chords". There is a flatness in this drama, what I imagine it must be like in the middle of an ocean, continually moving yet appearing the same. The four part score was plotted on a timeline. Each track was recorded and performed by myself. An excerpt of Staggered Stasis was released on the Arial CD series.

"Duration" (1986) was composed as a 13-limit study for the Long String Instrument, in the key of C. The fundamental tone is continually sounded, under chords constructed with pitches from the overtone series. The intention of the piece was to listen to the variations within each chord, as it is sounded continually while the performer walked the length of the instrument. As the performer's position changes, one clearly hears a cascade of overtones. "Duration" was never previously released.

The original recordings were made direct to a PCM digital processor using a vintage AKG C24 stereo tube condenser microphone placed about 15 feet from the resonators.

For more information about Ellen Fullman, see: www.ellenfullman.com

a review from PARIS TRANSATLANTIC by Dan Warburton

Memphis-born drone queen Ellen Fullman's been getting some well-deserved coverage recently, notably in a fine piece written by Gino Robair for this autumn's Signal To Noise, but a lot of it has been directed at her ventures into the world of song on Ort, her collaborative album with Berlin's J?rg Hiller on his Choose label, which means that Staggered Stasis, documenting Fullman's groundbreaking work in the late 1980s, has slipped off the radar somewhat. Shame, because it's a splendidly recorded presentation of Fullman's work with her own Long String Instrument. (Further information on this splendid creature is available at Fullman's website - www.ellenfullman.com - though devotees of excited string music by the likes of Paul Panhuysen, Arnold Dreyblatt and Alvin Lucier will probably have had it bookmarked for ages already.) The three-part title track was commissioned by Deborah Hay's dance company in Austin, Texas, where Fullman set up her 100-foot-long monster in an unfinished office block from 1986 to 1989. Thanks to the harmonic configurations of the instrument as much as Fullman's chosen pitches, it's a fantastically rich piece - compared to the monastic austerity of Lucier's epochal "Music On A Long Thin Wire", "Staggered Stasis" is as dramatic and colourful as a Mahler symphony. In contrast, "Duration", the second piece, gives the C overtone series one of the best workouts it's ever had, and in case anyone's in a hurry, recaps the whole 23-minute process in just two and a half in the closing "Speed Duration". Why anyone would want to speed through this magnificent music is beyond me, though: as La Monte Young says, the best drones are the ones you can get inside, and that takes time. There's no point putting this baby on while you go jogging round the park or clean the bathroom floor - it's a sit down and pay attention affair.-DW