Biography
Horses is a collection of songs by instrumentalist/composer Robert Stillman. Stillman uses an eclectic sonic palette consisting of saxophones, clarinets, old pianos, pump organs, and drums to create short musical narratives that exist on their own, but also work together to create a vivid, self-contained world echoing the composer’s interest in all things mysterious.
Though Horses is Stillman’s debut recording as a leader, he is no newcomer to the music world. His woodwind-arrangements and piano playing can be heard on friend and labelmate Luke Temple’s recent release, Hold A Match for a Gasoline World. Robert also lends his drumming skills to the New York rock foursome The End of The World and continues to make his presence felt as a saxophonist on the improvised music scene throughout the U.S. and Europe.
In December of 2004, Stillman and a group of his closest friends from Maine and New York holed up in Seattle’s Avast Recording Company with engineer Troy Tietjen (The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie) to record the Horses repertoire for Mill Pond Records, emerging a little over a week later with the seven beautifully haunted-sounding tracks that comprise Horses. From one listen it is clear Stillman took full advantage of the recording studio’s resources to shape a production that is at once delicate and urgent; the sounds on Horses seem to live and breathe as distinct characters in a wordless musical narrative. One would be hard pressed to pin the music down in terms of genre; though the shrewd listener may be able to pick out hints of Stillman’s variant musical influences, (among whom he counts Kurt Weill, The Band, Milton Nascimento, Miles Davis, and Maurice Ravel). It’s clear the music on Horses exists on its own terms, a detailed musical territory unto itself.
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