All compositions by David Leon (Davidleonsmusic, ASCAP)
A Night For Counting Stars incorporates poetry from “Night of Counting Stars (별 헤는 밤)” by Yun Dong-ju (윤동주)
Palmetto references “You Don’t Know What Love Is” by Don Raye and Gene De Paul

Recorded at Oktaven Audio on November 15, 2022
Engineered and mixed by Ryan Streber
Mastered by Eivind Opsvik, Greenwood Underground

Packaging design by Mike Dyer, Remake Design

My deepest thank yous to Lesley and Doyeon for their trust in me and the process, and for their dedication to finding something true. A special thank you to Kris Davis and to so many who have helped us along the way: Fernando Ulibarri, Anna Webber, Kalia Vandever, Adam O’Farrill, Tal Yahalom, Manley Lopez, Justin Beroz-Kim, Olga and Mandy Leon.

——-

I began learning to play Afrocuban folkloric music right around the time I started to write the music for Bird’s Eye. These pieces drew from the counterpoint I found so captivating in Cuban music—its vibrant presence, supple beat and fluid groove, the feeling of autonomy in each part. The calls from the Other Side. At the same time, I was becoming increasingly curious about microtonality and the enormous weight that its intervals and resonances seemed to carry. DoYeon’s training in Korean traditional music brought a nuanced understanding of how these malleable resonances could function in a folkloric context and beyond; I’d always admired Lesley’s wide beat and gestural poetry at the drums, their thoughtful investigation with time and how to bend it. It became quickly clear that this band could be a vehicle to explore all the musical bits I was curious about at once: a search for the notes between the notes. We rehearsed an enormous amount. We shared even more meals together, an unofficial tenant of our process. Our goal was to learn to intuit some collective macro beyond our individualism, to swoop in/out of gesture together, to blend more than to mix, to form constellations with our sounds. After some thousandth hour of searching and softening, the music began to congeal. Bird’s Eye is a reflection of our time with one another—a period of amalgamation more than combination, more gazpacho than ceviche.

—David Leon, Brooklyn, August 29, 2023

www.davidleonsmusic.com
www.pyroclasticrecords.com