photo by Hiroyuki Ito for the New York Times

Thirteen Near-Death Experiences is an art-pop song cycle about hypochondria performed by Corey Dargel, with amplified chamber ensemble–an additional six performers on flute/alto flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, piano, violin, cello and percussion/drum set.  It comprises the first CD of Dargel’s critically acclaimed double-album Someone Will Take Care of Me.

“Dargel spins quirky, lyrical tales of dysfunction and delusion… Imagine Franz Schubert composing a song cycle about hypochondria after listening to AM radio Top 40 and studying Thelonius Monk…” -eMusic Editor’s Pick, review by John Schaefer

“…wryly witty and often hilarious, crafted with a charming, angular lyricism, the deft lyrics recalling the best work of Warren Zevon and Randy Newman… What lifts these songs from merely comic throwaways is their graceful charm, mixing a lyric delicacy with an unsettled rhythmic line that reflects the hypochondriac’s nervous tension… Dargel’s scoring for sextet shows great skill and ingenuity.” - Chicago Classical Review

“These songs are peopled by twelve-year-old alcoholics; a Ritalin-stunted child who feels no emotions… I saw [Corey Dargel] perform selections from this album the other night, and was impressed with the balancing act he pulled off; he was playful, but never tipped completely over into mean-spiritedness; he was empathetic, but not manipulative; he made people uncomfortable, but didn’t seem interested in empty provocation.” -Jayson Greene at 17dots

New York Times review of the premiere performance featuring Dargel performing with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and David T. Little (drums) at Performance Space 122.

Thirteen Near-Death Experiences can be presented by itself as a short concert (approx. 50 minutes). For a longer concert, it can be paired with any of Corey Dargel’s other projects.

Photos from the premiere performance:

Every Day Is the Same Day is a quirky and strangely heartwarming set of songs about clinical depression scored for voice, violin, digital looping, and drum machines, performed by Corey Dargel and Cornelius Dufallo.  Dargel and Dufallo have performed various incarnations of Every Day Is the Same Day in New York City at Joe’s Pub, The Stone, and BAM Café.

“spare, earnest, and–dare we say it–charming songs about depression” -Time Out New York

“Corey Dargel’s… involved, delicately refined instrumental writing…is offset by his arch, cabaret-tinged vocal style and the quirkiness of his texts…and, typically, he ma[kes] the grisly seem oddly charming.” Allan Kozinn, New York Times

“Dargel’s fierce ruminations on death are accompanied by the ecstatic violin loops of Cornelius Dufallo, a truly wonderful eight minutes of music. It’s Kafka Fragments for the SoHo crowd.” -Will Robin, Seated Ovation

“a bite-sized work of art that will get lodged in your brain for the next year” -Daniel Stephen Johnson

Every Day Is the Same Day is approximately 27 minutes in length.  It can be paired with Cornelius Dufallo’s Dream Streets for an evening-length concert, or it can be paired with any of Corey Dargel’s other projects.

Cornelius Dufallo (composer/violinist) is an innovator at the forefront of the American contemporary music scene.  The New York Times praises his “alluring” performances and “imaginative” compositions.  Dufallo plays acoustic and electric violin and moves seamlessly from classical to pop and jazz styles.  His debut solo album, Dream Streets, is a collection of his own compositions for violin.  Time Out New York calls it “a beautiful, evocative disc of electroacoustic soundscapes.”  Dufallo directs the ensemble Ne(x)tworks and performs with the string quartet ETHEL.  He has toured throughout the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and recorded for Mode, Tzadik, Cantaloupe and Innova.

Hold Yourself Together

“The six songs of Mr. Dargel’s Hold Yourself Together matched his cool, measured vocals and vulnerable or rueful lyrics with Wil Smith’s playfully Baroque synthesizer lines and James Moore’s mannerly guitar. Strongly fashioned and lyrically direct, this was one of Mr. Dargel’s most instantly relatable creations.” -The New York Times

“Dargel’s phrases and the range of his accompaniments keep slowing extending and expanding, to good effect. The music is at times blippy, at times crunchy, with some baroque filligree in “Your Profound Self-Doubt,” while Dargel croons out jaundiced but still optimistic lyrics. His songs are about the miscommunications of modern life, both inadvertent and deliberately used by couples to misunderstand each other. Ultimately, and with a sweet and almost regretful tenderness, they accept and embrace love, possibly and actually.” -The Big City on Hold Yourself Together

On her blog kleineKultur, Meg Wilhoite has posted the following video of excerpts from the premiere performance at Issue Project Room (Brooklyn, NY) on November 12, 2010:

Hold Yourself Together is approximately 28 minutes in length.  For an evening-length presentation, it can be paired with one of Corey Dargel’s other projects.

Removable Parts is a theatrical series of love songs about voluntary amputation.  Performed by Corey Dargel with pianist Kathleen Supové, Removable Parts comprises the second CD of Dargel’s critically acclaimed double-album Someone Will Take Care of Me. Removable Parts won the 2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Best Performance-Art Production and was nominated for Best Solo Performer (Corey Dargel) and Best Director (Emma Griffin).

“Removable Parts is …almost perversely pleasurable… but also desperately sad and layered with other meanings… Amputation, especially when it’s self-imposed, is a loaded and problematic metaphor. Mr. Dargel and company handle it with an intelligent grace that is as moving as it is impressive.” -Claudia LaRocco, New York Times

“[Removable Parts] is at once uproarious and harrowing; one moment Dargel is prancing gawkily about in a style that might be called Weimar Village People, the next he is curled up in self-inflicted agony.” -Alex Ross, The New Yorker

“…an amazing work… an intense, heartfelt, funny, emotional piece of contentious individuality and somehow without any hint of sarcasm…” -Parterre Box

“Dargel deals with these dark topics… with unflinching directness but also with grace and empathy… Dargel’s light tenor is well-suited to the songs, which in some ways could be heard melodically as fairly conventional, but whose accompaniments… are wittily skewed enough to situate this music in the realm of the very odd.” -Stephen Eddins, All Music Guide

Removable Parts can be presented by itself as a short concert performance (approx. 50 minutes). For a longer concert, it can be paired with any of Corey Dargel’s other projects.

Photos from the premiere performances:

Kathleen Supové is one of America’s most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists. She regularly presents a series of solo concerts entitled The Exploding Piano, in which she has performed and premiered works by the world’s leading composers as well as countless emerging ones. The Exploding Piano is a multimedia experience that employs theatrical elements, vocal rants, performance art, staging, electronics, and collaboration with artists from other disciplines. Supové has appeared with The Lincoln Center Festival, Wordless Music, The Philip Glass Ensemble, Bang On a Can Marathon, Music at the Anthology, The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and other venues, ranging from concert halls to theatrical spaces to clubs. Her most recent CD is Infusion, released on the International Classics label, which features music for solo piano and electronics. In August, 2010, she is releasing a new solo CD on Major Who Media, entitled The Exploding Piano, featuring multimedia piano works by Missy Mazzoli, Anna Clyne, Michael Gatonska, Daniel Becker, and Randall Woolf.

Other People’s Love Songs — performed by Dargel and NOW Ensemble — is based on a unique concept: all thirteen songs were commissioned by individuals as gifts to their significant others. Dargel interviewed the couples and learned all about their histories, personalities, quirks, private jokes, and emotional lives. He spun this tender data into music and lyrics that encompass a wide range of feelings. There’s not only gratitude, as one would expect from songs written as gifts, but also generous measures of wistfulness, longing, frustration, and pride – and in some cases, regret, sadness, and resignation. The real-life subjects of these songs range from celebrities to the “couple next door.” Newlyweds, long-marrieds, gay couples, siblings, daughters, mothers, and others stepped forward to commission these songs. On the CD, Dargel sings to the accompaniment of self-produced electronic tracks, but for concert performances, NOW Ensemble performs the “lively, ingenious accompaniments” (-17dots) in Dargel’s arrangements, augmented by accordionist/singer Kamala Sankaram.

“Dargel sings in a modest, sweet-toned, conversational way, and writes songs whose lyrics and melodies are at once wistful and wry, tender and irreverent… giving voice to the lives and relationships of his subjects.” -Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

“ingenious nouveau art songs” -Russell Platt, The New Yorker

“Dargel [plays] the role of a sardonic-hipster Cyrano, translating… tangled and intense feelings into artful, sophisticated pop songs… Part of the pleasure of last night’s concert was watching Dargel turn this deeply unlikely material into effortless art-pop. He has an incredibly fine-tuned ear for lyric-setting and a knack for writing melodies that twist unpredictably… This is an incredibly unique project.” -Jayson Greene, 17dots

Other People’s Love Songs can be presented by itself as a short concert (approx. 50 minutes). A longer concert can include other pieces from NOW Ensemble’s repertoire or any of Corey Dargel’s other projects.

Hailed as “a deft young group gaining attention” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) and “a smart young chamber group that straddles a line between contemporary classical music and indie rock,” (John Schaefer, WNYC), NOW Ensemble is a collection of performers and composers dedicated to making new chamber music for the 21st century. With a unique instrumentation of flute (Alex Sopp/Andrew Rehrig), clarinet (Sara Budde), electric guitar (Mark Dancigers), double bass (Logan Coale), and piano (Michael Mizrahi), NOW Ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with a blend of musical influences that reflects the diverse backgrounds and listening experiences of their members. NOW has premiered over 60 works, including those by composer-members Patrick Burke, Mark Dancigers, and Judd Greenstein, along with many more by a cross-section of the top young voices in contemporary composition, such as Ryan Brown, David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, and dozens more. NOW Ensemble has performed at a wide variety of venues, such as the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Festival Internacional de Chihuahua, Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge, the Carlsbad Music Festival, Sarasota’s New Music New College, Wordless Music, and Look & Listen; in New York, they can regularly be heard at diverse venues such as Le Poisson Rouge, Joe’s Pub, Galapagos Art Space and the Chelsea Art Museum, as well as on WNYC radio. Their first album, NOW, was released in 2008 to rave reviews around the country, including on AllMusic.com (five stars): “a first-class debut…more of this is demanded, not requested.” Newsweek‘s Seth Colter Walls wrote, “NOW… imports a catchy inflection to classical forms… Striking a balance between the old and the new has rarely sounded this good.”