“Taken individually, the six pieces on Chronology dispense small-scale hits of gorgeousness. In tandem, the tracks cohere to form a compelling suite of pieces that can subtly undermine expectations for ambient-influenced composition”
— Pitchfork
“Naqvi borrowed a malfunctioning Minimoog Model D from a friend in 2016 and made this elegant series of sketches. As Naqvi said, “the synthesizer was broken as fuck and its mechanical dementia spoke volumes as far as sound.” The Model D is monophonic, so you get no chords and no washes. These are traces of electricity, sometimes multi-tracked, often just solo, nestled in the cups of silence. As much pause as attack, Chronology pulls you back into the moment you’re already sitting in.”
Perhaps “abstract modern composition” best describes Preamble, a record perfectly suited to its title. Composed by Dawn Of Midi’s Qasim Naqvi and realized by the Contemporary Music Ensemble of NYU, Preamble is a thrilling, sonorous maze of conservatory gestures that stops just short of cohering into anything continuous or definitive.
Grouped, these carefully carved mini-movements confound one another like opposing weather fronts, swinging through moods without quite resolving into a full-fledged schizophrenia. But impressionism is hardly a crime, and the disappointment of Preamble is its brevity; half an hour is hardly long enough to truly get lost in the drift on o ffer here."
—Raymond Cummings / Magnet Magazine
credits
released November 13, 2015
Composed and Conducted by Qasim Naqvi
Performed by the Contemporary Music Ensemble of NYU under the direction of Jonathan Haas
Recorded by Aaron Roche at the Church of the Advent of Hope, Manhattan NY
Mixed and Mastered by Andrew Munsey
This is a creative venture- well really a small pandemic project that has turned into a design project and t-shirt line. If you’d like to see more designs and purchase one, please find my shirt gallery on Instagram @justbeqas