Frank Garvey - House of the Deafman - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

House of the Deafman is a musical-dramatic dance-ritual about the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. The action takes place in a magical, endless night during which Goya gets drunk and contemplates suicide. His nightmarish Black Paintings come to life in the play in the form of OmniCircus robots and virpets (virtual digital puppets), and the painter is visited by the ghost of his great love, the Duchess of Alba. Review by James A. Gardner, All-Music Guide What is the sound of a mind disintegrating? If you could wire yourself somehow to record the sounds of your brain, badly impaired by alcohol and depression, it might sound like House of the Deafman. Especially if you were a brilliantly gifted artist who was being visited by the dark visions he has committed to canvas ... and the ghost of his lost love. There are whispers, chants, echoes, voices that seem to materialize out of the shadows and dissipate into the mist. Disturbed and disturbing. Chilling. Rich in aural imagery. Place yourself in a dimly candle-lit room, drink enough to cross over from euphoria to despair, and listen to this dark, haunting sonic journey through an anguished mind. And when it's over, House of the Deafman lingers like the nightmare that wakes you in the dim pre-dawn hours. When the music ends, put the CD in a Quicktime-enabled computer (and I recommend watching the multimedia presentation last, so as not to color your experience of the music). The sinister robotic puppet show of the OmniCircus is as unsettling as the Lady in the Radiator from David Lynch's Eraserhead. And I mean that as both an endorsement and a caution. It is evocative and memorable. Garvey's CD is a remarkable realization both of his troubling artistic vision and of the capabilities of audio-visual media. This is deeply creepy, and highly recommended. Review by François Couture, All Music Guide Subtitled 'A Robotic Scabaret,