"A special-project disk in which Kline created, out of extravagant electronic means ... an audio-visual feast that balances hipster zen with the seriousness of Bach and Wagner."
– The New Yorker

"A set of sensational études."
– New York Magazine

"Very noteworthy ... an electro-acoustic DVD extravaganza."
– The Washington Post

Commissioned by Starkland specifically for high-resolution surround sound, Phil Kline’s major, 65-minute Around the World in a Daze, debuted – and can only be heard – on this DVD.

Daze opens with the multi-channel ambiance near Kline’s home in New York City’s Lower East Side, begins a “long journey” performed by Ethel, peaks with a massive climax of hundreds of thousands of “falling pennies” that dramatically explores the psychoacoustic possibilities of surround sound, shifts to the soaring violinistics of Todd Reynolds, and concludes by placing the listener inside multiple layers of 15,000 African gray parrots.

Along the way, listeners are also seduced by swirling, hyper-sampled Wagner, a weird madrigal about bitterness and bees, a Bach prelude eerily processed into a Zurich train station, and a mournful, multi-tracked “wailing wall.”

Offered in a custom-designed package, this double-DVD release includes an Extras DVD, highlighted by a 34-minute interview with Kline. The two DVDs contain a total content of 110 minutes.

The main disc offers Daze in several formats to accommodate a variety of home playback setups. The music can be heard in the common Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround format that is standard on all DVDs, as well as the higher quality DTS 5.1 and high-resolution audiophile DVD-Audio surround formats. This DVD also offers a version in stereo. Playback of Daze is accompanied by over 80 images shot by Kline.

“Our always adventuresome friends at Starkland have outdone themselves this time."
– Sequenza21

"Mr. Kline, the electronic experimenter who deploys fleets of boomboxes to achieve his preferred textures, is hard at work."
– The New York Times

"This adventurous music ... ranges widely from ambient recordings that are surprisingly musical, to complex constructions that emerge as lyrical ... The accompanying DVD offers ... a fascinating interview with Kline."
– Stereophile

The first section of Daze is the mysterious, haunting “The Housatonic at Henry Street,” in which the initial ambient sounds were recorded by Kline hanging microphones outside his windows overlooking a street corner in New York City’s Lower East Side. Adding more material, he then replayed the new mix through multiple boomboxes spatially deployed on that same intersection and recorded this new generation of sounds. Finally, he mixed all of these together “to create an imaginary landscape where past and present hang out together in asynchronous multitonal harmony.”

Kline describes the lovely “Svarga Yatra” as the “beginning of a long journey.” Performed by the string quartet Ethel, this flowing piece pulls the listener into Daze’s overall arc. Kline explains “the members of the quartet were recorded as an ensemble and overdubbed individually, with a surrounding halo of boombox tape players echoing some of their parts.”

The eerily pensive “The Maryland Sample” contains the first vocals in the overall composition, performed by Kamala Sankaram and Kline. The composer comments that this “madrigal about love and science, bitterness and bees” is a “setting of a poem by my best teacher, David Shapiro.”

Interviewer John Schaefer comments that the following, longest section of the entire work, the “stunning” 18-minute “Pennies from Heaven” is “in many ways is the centerpiece of Around the World in a Daze.” Schaefer adds, “Here the psychoacoustic possibilities of surround sound are most tellingly explored … in the wider perspective of surround sound, the ear is able to distinguish the individual threads in what turns out to be a complex but elegant aural tapestry.” He comments that the densely layered, but differentiated lines “reminded me of Conlon Nancarrow and Trimpin.” Based on a simple bell sound representing the penny, the piece builds to an astonishing, otherworldly climax, containing over 80 tracks comprising over 300 voices. Kline notes “I actually tried to calculate how many pennies we were hearing at once – it’s hundreds of thousands at one point.”

"The Starkland label has a treat for you. There's plenty to enjoy in this piece for your standard audio consumer, but for the audiophiles in the crowd, the real fun is in sitting immersed in this mash up of street noise, music clips, music boxes, bug zappers, and many other bits of sonic detritus."
– New Music Box

"New music fans will salivate over this."
– Lucid Culture

The massive “Pennies” is followed by two shorter sections. “On the Waterfront” offers a subtly manipulated realtime recording of a couple sensually enjoying themselves during a thunderstorm. Kline explains, “I folded time over itself into an altered perspective … it is reality and a little bit of origami.”

The next section, “Luv U 2 Death” alters reality in a different way, via a telescoped, hyper-sampling of Wagner's famed "Liebestod" from Tristan Und Isolde, the familiar music swooping and swirling around the listener in an unsettling whirlwind.

The seventh movement of Daze is the mesmerizing “The Wailing Wall,” where layer upon layer of multi-tracked vocal loops all lead to a richly mournful peak, which then slowly subsides into a distant echo in the rear speakers.

“The Grand Etude For The Elevation” features violinist Todd Reynolds in a work that reinforces the arch-like structure of Daze, recalling the earlier “Svarga Yatra” performed by Ethel. Commenting on the music’s ethereal, floating climax, Kline notes, “There’s definitely a sense of building and soaring. It’s as if you’ve gotten to the mountaintops, you’re in the clouds, you’re alone, now it’s quiet, and you just see into the vast distance.”

Moving toward the end of Daze, Kline titles the penultimate section “Prelude.” He begins with an ancient recording of a Bach prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, which he processes and cross-fades through a broad array of plug-ins, mixing in an ambient recording from a Zurich train station.

The final section of Daze is the densely layered “The Housatonic at Dzanga.” The core of the piece is a field recording at a famous watering hole at Dzanga, where hundreds of elephants come to drink. At dawn, the listener is immersed in a surrounding, steadily increasing carpet of chattering from about 15,000 African gray parrots. By varying the playback speed and compiling a thick layer of these, Kline creates a constantly evolving surround environment which beautifully echoes the opening section “The Housatonic at Henry Street.”

The second DVD offers over 44 minutes of Extras. Kline added the music video MEDITATION (run as fast as you can), which features both pulsing surround-sound electronica and a handheld video shot by the composer. The composer comments the piece is “based on a unified camera movement” which he describes as: “You’re in New York, hold the camera, and run!”

The Extras DVD also features new music radio personality John Schaefer interviewing Kline about Daze. In Schaefer’s thoughtful, probing 34-minute discussion conducted in Kline’s home studio, the composer discusses this major commission, thoughts on his overall concept, studio techniques, and surround-sound influences ranging from performing in a rock band in a junior high gymnasium to his love for the music and spatial experiments of Charles Ives. Finally, the Extras DVD contains a montage of related production photos, including studio shots where most of the music was performed, created, and mixed.

Schaefer also wrote the Introduction in the 24-pg. booklet, describing Daze as a “wide-ranging, remarkable musical journey.” He concludes, “what Phil Kline has done is unprecedented.”