Today I’m introducing you to American composer Jacob Pavek and his latest album NOME. Jakob lives in Minnesota and mainly composes for piano and strings, and has a pretty big collection of pianos (11 pianos is a lot, isn’t it?).
The album NOME was released earlier this year.
Hi Jacob! Tell us something about the album!
After my previous album Illume, I was involved in a number of various music projects that occupied most of my time. I wasn’t focusing on writing an album until I had the opportunity to open for Johann Johannsson, where I realized I should have some better pieces to play at the show. In particular, the track Love/Marriage came from this catalyst. I ended up writing about 15 pieces over the course of a year and whittled it down to 8 for the album. I performed the piano on the same Steinway I used on the last records, located at the University of Wisconsin. However, I did something a little different on this one by sampling my wife Katy and my best friend Travis’ vocals and including them. I had them sing each note of a scale in the largest range they could and ended up using them to help texturize the music. You can hear Travis on 2040 and Katy on Pulse.
Tell us something about one of the tracks from the album!
I wrote NOME about 3 years ago, kind of by accident. I was brushing my teeth getting ready to go to bed and I walked by the piano, laid my right hand down and played that beginning theme. I stayed up and wrote the chord progression and knew it would be perfect with strings. I wrote the parts for violin and viola, performed by Joshua Misner. As the origin of this piece was mainly from the sub-conscious (or just luck), I focused on keeping it void of any particular subject matter so that the listener is free of bias and can feel whatever they want from it. The title NOME itself is purely for aesthetics.
Thank you for this wonderful record Jacob!
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