Interviews & Essays

Notes on Emperor of Daffodils by Agostino de Rosa

"The Haunted World of Joe Frawley"
by Vincent Nielaender

Some Assembly Required interview

Sound Projector magazine interview

Orange Alert interview

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For latest developments:  Joe Frawley Music News blog

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Artist's Statement

I am a pianist, composer, and sound collage artist whose work falls between the cracks of several musical genres. My approach is to combine original music with found sound samples, both processed and arranged electronically, to explore subconscious states, such as dreams, trances, auditory hallucinations, involuntary memories, etc. The found sounds are appropriated from a variety of prerecorded media and include voices, sound effects, or musical samples, as well as original field recordings. I particularly enjoy recontextualizing speech samples (a favorite source being public radio interviews) and recombining them with other sounds to create new meanings. I aim to place the spoken word on equal footing with music, thereby calling attention to the musical qualities of speech, also taking advantage of the mood or tone the words evoke to augment the musical effect. Due to the prevalence of spoken word samples, the resulting work tends to suggest a narrative, however I try not to impose a particular story upon the listener, preferring instead the individual and subjective interpretations of imaginative minds. Other interests include creating and photographing found object assemblages, and experimenting with video montage (still image/video gallery).

Frawley blurs traditional distinctions between music and sound art. Like his mysterious hypnotist, he plays with the power of suggestion, layering fragments of speech and story on top of a recurring piano phrase. Meanwhile the voices break through the melodic surface, but no real ‘character’ emerges, and I’m unsure who is being hypnotised. Is it me?"
-- Stacey Sewell, furthernoise.org

"Sounding like a slightly more classical version of The Orb, the music comes from that place between waking and sleep, snatches of speech only adding to the barely glimpsed mystery, the sounds beautifully mixed for maximum impact. Throughout, the piano is delicately poised a soft rain of notes that are filled with emotion and blessed with gentle grace."
--Terrascope Online