Micah Pick - Frameworks

Micah Pick is a composer, pianist, and producer from Bedford, VA. His music has previously appeared on Audiobulb Records with the album Brighter Than I Thought released in 2020.

Frameworks is an album that seeks to explore the emotional landscape of changing the lens of how you view the world. Studies have shown that most habits and beliefs are set by the age of seven. And yet, throughout life we sometimes undergo radical change. What does it mean to change the way you think? How does it feel to change the way you view the world? What does it sounds like to leave a part of you that you thought gave life meaning only to find a deeper and truer meaning. The tracks across Frameworks present a narrative arc of having a belief, relationship, ideal, or other foundational aspect of your life that is removed from your life. The album moves through the spaces of unease and tension, but ultimately finds itself in a new space of hope and calm.

The music of Frameworks is built on a piano tuned, not to the traditional 12 tones of equal temperament, but rather to Just Intonation scales of the composer’s devising. Some of these intervals are as close as a sixth of a tone apart. At the beginning of the album, these microtones are utilized to show tension and discomfort, but by the end the listening ear becomes acclimated to them, and they are recontextualized by the harmonies to sound warm and inviting. This serves to further the narrative of the album as a whole.

Throughout the album the piano is wrapped in granular processing, analog and modular synths, self-patched filters, and programmed beats.