Imposed Order is a more evolved execution of Closed System Potentials, with a greater emphasis on “automatic” solutions to the music. Analog tape recorders were a big part of achieving particular effects: speed and direction flexibility allowed the same material to be used in many different ways. In the interests of economy some sounds were used in a number of places throughout the record. For rhythmic parts, percussion patterns were authored on separate tracks with an Oberheim DMX and then run over one another at differing clock speeds. As a rule, audio elements were shared across the pieces: for example, many parts of “Three Forms of Decay” are essentially the same as those used in “Aspects of Order”. This idea – of using an inventory of harmonic parts at different intervals and rates of speed – reduced the compositional task to one more akin to arranging furniture in a room – imposing a variable order upon a selection of harmonically related material in a decidedly heuristic way.

Credits

All compositions by Kerry Leimer
Production and coordination by Dorothy Cross
Cover photography and video still by Tom Collicott, Seattle, © Tom Collicott
Recorded at Tactical, Seattle
Remastered at Ironwood Studios, Seattle, 1999
Music and Notes © Kerry Leimer