PAULSTEVENRAY.SPACE

UPCOMING:

Solo album

NEW RELEASE:

PARALLAX TRIO: CONJURE STEPS with Carmen Rothwell and Lesley Mok

New work:

DECELERATION 2 (part 2 of the DECELERATION TRILOGY)

WE KNOW NOW/AS CHILDREN WE KNEW THEN - Soundart

THE TICKING - meditations and such

SOME PEOPLE FLOAT - new solo work

https://paulstevenray.bandcamp.com/releases

in progress

DECELERATION 3:In The Dreaming Cloud(she was a sine wave) The third phase of a multimedia trilogy exploring a path away from the tumultuous, insistent chaos toward the meditative and ecstatic.

GUEST/GUARDIAN/INTERLOPER: Wordless Graphic/Sonic Strip
Collaboration with Sandy Pliego.

FLAG MUSIC: Sound/Performance art piece.

PAST PERFORMANCES:

DOUBLE NIGHT WAVE @ ShapeShifterLab Brooklyn NY

11/30 9:30PM

Debut performance of Paul Steven Ray’s new quartet with

Josh Scott-bass guitar, Lim Yang-double bass, and

Yuko Togami- percussion

At This Point In Your Trip@ Le Petit Versailles NYC

a sonic/poetic survey of individual to individual/individual to community microcosms for electric guitar, double bass, electronics, and video.

A survey to be answered silently in the mind while immersed in the sound emanating from the speakers. He will be joined by the dynamic experimental bassist Jeong Lim Yang and visual artist Sandy Pliego.

DECELERATION 2

A multimedia work for 3 voices, guitar, bass, percussion, digital/electronic sound, dance, visuals. Exploring a path away from the tumultuous, insistent chaos toward the meditative and ecstatic.

Center for Performance Research February 3, 7:30pm

361 Manhattan Ave. , Brooklyn NY 11211

Music/Words: Paul Steven Ray *

Visuals: Paul Steven Ray, Joyce Dade, Sandy Pliego

Choreography: Triniti Ernest

Vocals/Spoken: M Paul Steven Ray, Triniti Ernest

Dancer: Triniti Ernest

Instrumental Ensemble

Paul Steven Ray: Guitars/Digital Sound

Josh Scott: Bass Guitar

Lisette Santiago: Percussion

Directed by Paul Steven Ray

Solo guitar as a guest of Theresa Rosas’ Heart Songs and Sounds evening at Greenwich House 6/29/22 8:00pm

46 Barrow St. NY.NY

DECELERATION 1 @SuperSecretArtsSpace 5/1/22

The first part of an extended multimedia work navigating themes of fragility, premature departures, parallel realities, and protective love.to be presented in several stages.

Falling Hearts/Rising Hearts @ ShapeShifterLab:

A multimedia piece focused on perceptions of distance, size, and color with a simple box as the point of meditation. For guitars, electronics, percussion, voice, and digital sound.

https://youtu.be/HHrlxT_Zw1M

PAUL STEVEN RAY/SANDY PLIEGO:

I WISH YOU WERE THERE WHEN I WAS THERE

for WHITE NOISE V @ Il Giardino, Bed-Stuy Mansion

247 Hancock Street Brooklyn NY
October 16th, 2021 7:30pm

SOLO PERFORMANCE: an excerpt from OBSERVER/INTERLOPER/GUEST as part of the SWEET SONG of HARLEM event curated by Juan Puntes for WHITEBOX

09/13/21 6:30pm EST @El BARRIO ART SPACE PS109

215 E 99th Street NYC 10029

PAUL STEVEN RAY/SANDY PLIEGO:

I WISH YOU WERE THERE WHEN I WAS THERE

@ Greenkill Gallery Kingston, NY 10/08/21

LIVE STREAM at 8:00pm EST

BLUEBLACKDREAM LIVE @ SHAPESHIFTER LAB 6.11.21 7:00PM

COMPOSERS NOW FESTIVAL 2021

Thin Walls/Light Speed/Private Tongues

For String Instrument and Electroacoustic Instruments

Paul Steven Ray: Composer/performer

concert streams here Feb.19

Post concert conversation with James Bennett II, staff writer for WQXR streams here.

Looking for the Bells: MultiMedia collaboration with Visual Artist, Sandy Pliego @ Arete Gallery 11/14/19

Ray-Rosas Project with Theresa Rosas @ Greenwich House 6/12/19 7:30 NY, NY

BlueBlackDream with Lisette Santiago @Mirror in the Woods 6/15/19 575 Union St., Brooklyn, NY 11215

Looking for the Bells: MultiMedia collaboration with Visual Artist, Sandy Pliego at HOLO 2/13/19 7:00pm

BlueBlackDream@ ShapeShifterLab

Sept. 13,2018 8:15

Transport: Make Music Festival @ Le Petit Versailles June 21st, 2017 8:00pm

VS2@Knockdown Center March 10,2017 9:30pm Maspeth,NY

AQUIACONVERSE(AKA Ray-Rosas Project) - November 8, 2015/7:00pm at ShapeShifterlab.Brooklyn, NY

VERTICALSON @ TRANS PECOS - January 17, 2016/8:00pm

VERTICALSON @ SPECTRUM - April 1, 2016

THE GOOD NARROW NIGHT -for Soprano,electronics,digital media,guitar-

September 24, 2016 @ Crypt of The Church of The Intercession NYC

July 18, 2015 - What Whispers Ignite : collaboration with Eli Fountain and Kiori Kawai @Le Petit Versailles,NYC

July 9, 2015 - VERTICALSON @ ShapeShifterLab, Brooklyn, NY

October 3, 2014 SPLITROCK Opera/ VERTICALSON with Brandon Ross @ ShapeShifterLab Brooklyn,NY

Paul Steven Ray has been composing and performing in NYC since 1981. He has been heard in a wide range of venues including Issue Project Room, The Stone, ShapeShifterLab, Trans Pecos, KnockdownCenter, The Knitting Factory, HOLO, and Tonic. He has presented his work in such festivals as Noise Festival at Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theater, WHITENOISE V, the International Electro-Acoustic Festival, Cosmoson-Paris,CERF Festival, New York Jazz Festival, and the North River Music Series. Collaborations with other artists include Val Jeanty, Bora Yoon, Vernon Reid, Brandon Ross, Pheeroan Ak Laff, Nate Wooley, Lesley Mok, Reggie Sylvester, Josh Scott, Oblaat, Yuko Fujiyama, Cyro Baptista, Eli Fountain, Theresa Rosas, Nicole Jenkins, Ha Yang Kim, Lisette Santiago, and Kiori Kawai. His compositions for other media include work created for Laura Staton Dance(Judson Movement Research Series) and the score for Sikay Tang’s Phrases/s Lesson 5. He is the leader/composer of BlueBlackDream, VERTICALSON, NineNine, and partner with Theresa Rosas in the Ray-Rosas Project(AKA Aquiaconverse). He has composed four operas: Sally Distance(premiered by Bora Yoon at Galapagos Art Space), Sleeperhold(premiered at Issue Project Room), SplitRock(premiered at ShapeShifterlab), and most recently the Good Narrow Night(premiered at The Church of the Intercession Crypt. Ray’s BlueBlackDream released its debut album, MAPS in 2017. His poetic soundscape multimedia piece I Wish You Were There When I Was There, was performed at The GreenKill Gallery Kingston NY and for WhiteNoise V in Brooklyn in October 2021. DECELERATION 1, the first phase of his DECELERATION TRILOGY(multimedia) was performed at SuperSecretArts in Brooklyn in May of 2022. DECELERATION 2 was premiered at the Center for Performance Research February 2023. Paul has been awarded grants from NEW MUSIC USA and the FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS. He is currently working on a new opera, Lila’s Tattoo. He was curator of the experimental concert series PSYCHELOUNGE and continues to pursue his goal of bridging the various camps of creative artists in the city and elsewhere. Continuing through the pandemic lockdown, Paul Steven Ray released two solo recordings: The Ticking and Some People Float available on bandcamp. In May 2022, the album Conjure Steps recorded by his Parallax Trio was released. The DECELERATION 1, the first part of his multimedia DECELERATION TRILOGY was performed at Super Secret Arts in May of 2022. DECELERATION 2 was performed at The Center for Performance Research in February 2023. He has been awarded grants from New Music USA and the FOundation for Contemporary Arts.

Guitar is but a small part of Paul Steven Ray’s creative palette. Percussion, composing for various aggregations including operas, and video also provide outlets for his restless inventiveness. His latest recording MAPS, by Paul Steve Ray’s BlueBlack Dream (one of his many projects), includes guitar, both played and attacked, samples, Theremin, sung and spoken vocals. It is a work of texture and mystery inspired by a wide range of musical influences thoroughly absorbed.- Guitar Moderne

WORDS

FROM DECELERATION 2

I’m all eyes and ears.

You got to get up early in the mornin’ muthafucka.

I got five different walks. Many different talks. Dreams stacked from youth. Liminal truth.

The corner store where speakers fell. How the liars tell once you’re gone.

Sampled song. Half book. Stolen look. Many mirrors record my dreams.

I move like a glitch escaping the posse into hyperspace.

Dizzy and fatigued am I. Dizzy and fatigued am I. Dizzy and fatigued am I.

Dizzy and fatigued am I. Dizzy and fatigued am I.

All my dear delusional ones have fallen by the wayside

Dizzy and fatigued am I.

When my mother was a girl,

She and her sister were chased home by a Russian wolf hound

To a child, a Russian wolf hound is like a mythological monster

You know they were moving fast

Learning early about necessary distance

which becomes quite useful in later years.

You could be running from the law

Or into a brick wall

You could be running for ages

And through different planes

Awareness. Like a rabbit’s pricked ears

Space shapes time and mass shapes space after all

All my dear delusional ones have fallen by the wayside

Dizzy and fatigued am I.

Parallel

I knew a girl named Early. Her parents were rootsy and fundamentalist. They were disappointed that she was not born a boy. Everything she did was sin. The way she walked. The way she talked. Who she hung out with and where. Early became more experimental as years passed. She was like the embodiment of found poetry. If you picture a osychedelic styled rush of air, you’d be wrong. She wore inconspicuous khaki and white with ProKeds. She could outsing the pop divas of her day, but never raised her voice above a whisper. That was then. I imagine now she’s the odd but cool old lady in the neighborhood. The only older person the kids gravitate toward.

GHOST RAP

You don’t believe in ghosts? I believe in them. I believe in them.

You can feel a ghost even when you can’t see em. You can sense them. Smell them. Phantom smell.

Phan-tos-mia(3x). ____ Then, bam! You wake up on the floor 15 minutes later.

_____If a ghost stops by, your skin tingles. And even if you don’t. Can’t. Won’t. ___ Anyway, there’s other ways. Forms. _____ You got ghost bikes. Ghost guns. Ghost notes. _____ You can hear ghost notes.___ No that’s not true. You can’t hear them, but you feel the effect. That’s why they’re ghost notes. __ You can get ghosted. Holy ghost. Ouija Ghosts, Hungry Ghosts, possessed dolls suspended. Suspended from trees you float by on the canal.___

Ghosts in the machine. __ They’ve bounced that one around. Ghost in the Shell. ___ Bad ass Motoko.

I was walking down by the pier. Observed many zombies there. Wandering, murmuring, slow dancing solo up into the hood. Screaming into the pavement. Hiding from the sky. Sirens pass by. Night voices disregard the resolution of a dawn.

I hear a third voice in my sleep these days. I’ve been used to two.

They all sound like me, but they feel like you.

I hear a third voice in my sleep these days. I’ve been used to two.

They all sound like me, but they feel like you.

I hear a third voice in my sleep these days. I’ve been used to two.

They all sound like me, but they feel like you.

________________________________________

FLEX WORDS

AH HA Ah HA

Burnin

Burnin and grindin

Paranoia face up all across the table

AH HA Ah HA

Burnin

DON’T WASTE THE WARNING

THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID TO ME.

YOU SAID THERE’S ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY OUT.

YOU WERE SCREAMIN LIKE A KILLER.

SWINGIN WILDLY IN THE DARK.

A LOST SOLDIER

ON THE LONG MARCH

BUT, THE WIRY GIRL JUST KEPT THE BEAT

WITH TOTAL DISREGARD

PAYING NO ATTENTION TO THE VIOLENT RAIN.

YOU CAN’T ESCAPE THE MAP

YOU’RE TRAPPED LIKE A FROZEN RAT

BOUNCIN AROUND YOUR BURNIN BRAIN

FINALLY TRULY EMBRACE THE NO FUTURE REFRAIN

COMES WITH THE TERRITORY PEOPLE

THERE’S REALLY NO WAY AROUND IT

DON’T ASK QUESTIONS THAT I CANOT OR DO NOT INTEND TO ANSWER

CARINA NEBULA

Carina Nebula take my hand

Obliterate and rewrite the plan

Bring the blue gray season to its end

Pull Us up and make us thin

All it is is what it was

Dancing on newer soles