ALBUMS
Compline (2024)
Featuring Rob Hansen
August 2024 I had been binge learning Turkish for an upcoming trip. Rob Hansen(violin) and I often play together at Zion Lutheran in San Francisco. Thus this album is a snapshot of my last few months. Turkish study materials mixed with a compilation of recordings made with Rob. The final track is a live recording from Zion Lutheran Church in San Francisco May 1, 2022. Take care of yourself. Kendine iyi bak.
Rob Hansen, violin, Kyle Hovatter, piano, field recordings + processing
String Quartet April 2020
Featuring Friction Quartet
Shortly after the California lockdown in Spring 2020, my little brother became very ill. Though he lived alone, we could not visit him for fear of spreading the disease and his local unprepared hospital would not take him as they "needed to focus on those more at risk". His fever was very high, and he was often not able to respond to phone calls to check on him. In this time I, like many musicians, had an enormous amount of unwanted free time. I sat in an isolated room listening to the hum of appliances, fumbling my way through a mandolin beginners book, imitating those hums with this new instrument, and becoming more and more fixated on the fiddle tune "Devil's Dream". Eventually I focused my energy onto this piece for the Friction Quartet as self therapy and as a diversion. Thankfully, after two grueling weeks my brother did recover.
Spurfehler (2022)
Featuring Rob Hansen
During the pandemic, I reignited my passion for languages. I don't feel I have a particular talent for them but I can happily entertain myself by studying grammar and vocabulary. In January 2021 I decided to begin learning German and immerse myself in the language in as many ways as possible. I watch kids shows, read books, journal in German (looking up words constantly), and have switched my computer and all of its programs to German as well (again, looking up words constantly). When developing electronic music I typically enjoy overloading my program to the point of crashing it. The error messages show in German with "Spurfehler" or "Tracking Error" particularly common. It would be interesting to see how many people get into Ambient Music after having children. With now having three kids, this is the music I seek out, the music I wanted to hear. Here Rob Hansen's mandolin playing is particularly haunting. Thanks for listening.
LANDSCAPE GLITCH (2020)
Featuring Prism Percussion
Our world is defined by its inherent flaws. In art we often attempt to look past mistakes or strive to create with as few of them as possible, or at least that has been my norm. And yet 2020 has proven that life on Earth has its defects. There are systemic biases in how we treat each other. A “pneumonia of unknown etiology” can bring the world to its knees. A historical change is invariably a glitch from the previous norm.
Each track on this album was created in quarantine. In staring into audio blemishes, I attempted to make the overloading, the processing anomalies, or the compression artifact as the main idea. Each bug of a piece is expanded to a landscape. Hopefully the defects can be seen as beauty.
The Naughty Child (2020)
Featuring Slow Wave
Based on the lesser known poem by Langston Hughes "The Naughty Child"
The naughty child
Who ventured to go cut flowers,
Fell into the mill-pond
And was drowned.
But the good children all
Are living yet,
Nice folks now
In a very nice town.
Variations on Kate's Heartbeat (2019)
An album for my second born, Kate. For this collection we used an in utero recording of Kate's heartbeat as the launching point for many varied experiments.
Featuring tracks by
Gibsonik
Retrack ii (2016)
Commissioned by Adam Cockerham and Mutable Music. Recording from the Interpretations series at Roulette in Brooklyn May 5, 2016
Music for Alice's Room (2015)
In May 2014 Alice Danielle Hovatter was born. Celebrating, I asked a few talented friends if they would be able to make some "furniture" music in order to christen her nursery. The response was overwhelming! These 14 tracks are a compilation of music made for Alice's room. All proceeds will go directly to those friends that jumped at the opportunity to create beautiful music for little Alice's room.
Featuring tracks by
A Topic Avoided (2013)
This album is in memory of my grandfather Albert Sever. Each track is my own personal representation of a different approach to cope with his passing. Part notated ambience and part process derived descant, this is my best attempt at emulating the repercussions from losing a great man.
Featuring timbres ranging from handbell choir, guitar, melodica, train whistle, electric bass, recorders, piano, clarinet, flute, violin, cello, viola, spoken word, field recordings + processing