MC Debris
Morristown, New Jersey, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2010 | SELF
Music
Press
"The only complaint to be lodged against the Tosca String Quartet's world premiere performance of Jack Stamps's fascinating String Quartet No. 2, May 4 in Ruth Taylor Recital Hall, is that we got to hear it only once.
Granted, it was a busy night for the excellent and enterprising Austin-born ensemble, which had already that evening given the world premiere of S. Beth May's "Witch Hunt" and the U.S. premiere of Dimitar Ninov's "Mountain Stream." The string players got to rest while baritone Timothy Jones and pianist Mark Alexander delivered the world premiere of David Heuser's "Arrows," set to three Tony Hoagland poems about living with "one of those diseases known by its initials." The concert was organized by the Composers Alliance of San Antonio, and all four composers are based in San Antonio or Austin.
In strictly musical terms, the Stamps quartet, dating from last year, had the strongest profile. It lives in two very different worlds, represented verbally by its traditionalist title, String Quartet No. 2, and its Dada-esque subtitle, "sketches from a fakebook landfill." An introduction and two later episodes dubbed "landfill music" are notated unconventionally, with odd graphic devices, as fragments to be played randomly (the introduction) or in a more directed if somewhat open-ended way to sound like a semi-determined chaos, if that term makes any sense. But the bulk of the piece reveals a remarkable compositional discipline -- Mozartean clarity, Brahmsian contrapuntal intricacy -- and a very subtle ear for weaving hints of American pop and jazz idioms through a fresh, vibrant modernist canvas.
Stamps is a San Antonio native who started out in the "alt-rock" field and moved into more-formal composition in 2001. He's now pursuing a doctorate at UT-Austin. If that experience doesn't ruin him, this string quartet promises an important new voice.
One could interpret the two aspects of the Stamps quartet as two different points of view about order rather than as a chaos-order opposition. Somewhat similarly, Hoagland's poems step back from polarities and play with point of view." - Mike Greenberg
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
MC Debris is the alt-pop persona of composer-producer, Jack W Stamps.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Stamps has devoted a lifetime to pursuing a variety of musical outlets. He was a founding member of the perennial San Antonio alt-rock band, The Robertsons and spent 10 years, starting in 1987, writing and singing songs with them.
In 1997, he began work as a solo artist under the name Pelon and has recorded numerous collections of alt-pop songs. In 2001, he turned a portion of his attention to composition and since, has sought to synthesize a relationship between classical music and his alt-pop background.
He has written for a variety of different ensembles and has been performed in the US, South America and Europe.
He lives happily in Morristown, NJ and teaches music tech and composition and Seton Hall University.
His influences include Frank Zappa, The Beatles, Igor Stravinsky, Michel Chion, They Might Be Giants, Paul Lansky, XTC, Captain Beefheart, Luciano Berio, Kurt Vonnegut, Mario Davidovsky, Bob Mould, Maurice Durufle, Mouse on Mars, Francis Dhomont, Thelonius Monk, Benjamin Britten, Momus, JS Bach, REM, Peter Sculthorpe, David Byrne, Harry Partch, Pink Floyd, Oliver Messiaen, Alfred Schnittke, Elliott Smith, Pat Metheny, Josquin, Beck, Ella Fitzgerald, George Crumb, Matt Groening, Claude Debussy, Afghan rebab music, Harrison Birtwistle, Donald Barthelme, Anton Webern and more...
He also enjoys trail running, Belgian ales and graphic design.
Band Members
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