John MacDougall Parker began his musical career relatively late, at the age of over 30. Does that mean he was lazy? Nothing like this! He was a hardworking, all-round successful man. He studied history, he received a Master of Fine Arts in painting (visual artist as eyekhan and gnitcelfer), he was an olimpic rower, many times a coach of olimpic rowers, and director of sport’s rower institutions… but… he was able to drop everything and, as an ambitious person, become an artist in one of the least appreciated and most demanding varieties – experimental music.
Musician but not as a St Celfer
As an experimenter, John used many pseudonyms relative to type of experiment. His first publish playing was as a Dj Taint with Djing in Spongeworthy and also he has been co-creating music in the He Goatan. Much more long musician manifestation were as jenghizkhan (2001 – 2022) and as earcon (2004-2013). As jenghizkhan he composed stylistically wide (often harsh and sharp) complex songs using many electronic instruments and other devices, sometimes with microphone. Earcon was more easy to listening to because the core of his songs were simpler rhythms made on a Elektron Monomachine. In my impression, jenghizkhan created songs more aggressive and menacing with many irregularities, earcon created songs more traditional, like music for party – more nice for common people.
Man From Planet Risk (as a proof)
In experimental music it is very difficult to assess quality and level, and that is why in most cases it is the professional musician who becomes the experimenter, because he does not have to “convince” that a given experimental piece has value. But… John Parker as Man From Planet Risk proved that he is a professional musician! In my opinion, a professional musician should create music that appeals to a simpler audience – music that is almost “made to order”, music that meets a given commercial goal. Album Escaping Chixalub were popular in New York and had a chance to promote themselves all over the world. On this album he combined elements of traditional styles such as trip hop, rock, punk and metal.
The reason of St Celfer (Step.4D instruments)
Much could be written about all of John’s collaborations and projects but the most interesting is his incarnation which has been for 2016 year. It was a time of inventing Step.4D – an instrument made from many musical devices like theremir, turnables and guitar pedal. He can play music life alone but sounds like group activity.
Review of StC Lives
These albums like: “Step.4D Symphony”, “StC Lives I: 51-61-74”, “StC Lives I I: 4BC” are St Celfer’s first steps with his instrument. For me, they are not just experiments where John wanted to push the boundaries of sound and music. He created very interesting but hard to understanding songs. When someone is stubborn – the tresure is to find many portamentos melodies with very untypical timbres changable in time. Next albums like “Step.4D Motifs” and “StC v earcon” were more traditional songs with many untypical elements.
Review of more traditional St Lives
In a next step, John composed a set of songs for performances. Among others (for example – the most “traditional”) songs: “Finale dois”, “Fifty one”, “Pink me Bjork” are almost typical songs but in a new – expanded aestetic “from the future” – teoretically they are very advanced avant-rock with classic but sounds very “cosmic”. John played them in many performances and everytime songs sounds different. It is a mistery of Music that every realisation of these songs are so different but despite everything, it’s the same music – in his concerts bonduaries of exceptable variations are very elastic.
Alcatraz Music Hour
For me this project – over dozen of around hour long tracks – are a symbolic escape from inner prison. This is a quintessense of an artistic John’s road. He had so many incarnations as the directions where he wanted to be over himself, over his ego, over his mind prisoned by language. What characterizes these songs are the fact that these sounds attract attention, are catching focus and they hypnotize. These are a kind of tauching of not easy percepting.
I thought U thought I
As a final stage of Alcatraz Music Hour, John processed his own conception to even higher artistic level. He cutted Hohm’s creations to small songs and he added descriptions with images. These comments are a kind of philosophical poetry, manifestations of art’s concept, abstractive conclusions about reality. This is impossible to define in one sentence what’s these text are but they force to hard thinking and meditation. These are a kind of tauching of not easy thinking. It’s almost impossible to prove, but I think these songs are the height of intellectualism – it may take several listens of an advanced listener to understand their “content”.