My first solo album: a collection of ancient music played on modern instruments.
Released in January 2022, Falling Through Time: Music from the 1300s is the first album I’ve ever released under my own name. It’s a collection of late medieval music, interpreted with modern instruments and percussion.
This passion project has been a long time coming. I’ve been obsessed with this repertoire since I first encountered it at age 17. Back then I dreamed of becoming an early music scholar/performer in academia. (Yeah, I was a weird kid.) Life went in a different direction, yet early music remained in my heart.
When I was young my goal, as for most early music performers, was authenticity: How was the music created and consumed in its day? This is different — here I wanted to uproot this ancient music and transplant it into a contemporary music context. The results are surreal and often psychedelic.
My “rule book” was simple but strict: Play only the notes and rhythms the composers intended, but permit myself total liberty in terms of instrumentation, production, rhythm accompaniment, and octave transposition. This juxtaposition forced me to look anew at both ancient and modern music. Maybe it’s akin to staging Shakespeare productions that use the original dialog while staging the plays in modern settings.
I arranged, played, and recorded. Mikael ”Count” Eldridge mixed and mastered. And my bnrilliant graphic designer friend Gareth Walters helped me create a free booklet on the project.
Falling Through Time: Music from the 1300s is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, etc., under “Joe Gore.” I’ll be honored if you spare the time to have a listen.
Here are a few videos I made for this project.
Meanwhile, my friend Gretchen Menn (an astonishing virtuoso player you should know about if you don’t already) recently interviewed me about this project.