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Mike Scheidt Announces Collaboration with Composer James Romig The Complexity of Distance

I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be familiar with James Romig‘s work prior to this. Believe it or not, I just don’t run in the circles of compositional/classical academia, but when it’s YOB guitarist/vocalist Mike Scheidt playing what would seem to be a massive, nearly-hour-long work for solo drone guitar, chances are I’m going to check it out. Titled The Complexity of Distance — the advent of ‘plague era’ titles is amazing; someone get a listicle going — there’s no set release date yet, but maybe by the end of this year it could show up? I don’t know that either and while I’m not feeling like pretending, I won’t pretend I do.

It’s cool to see Scheidt talking about taking lessons and learning new elements of his craft in order to interpret Romig‘s composition though. That kind of thing can have an impact of course on Scheidt‘s own work as well, and one wonders if it might. I recall when dude learned finger-picking, it was like a bomb went off in my brain. Kaboom.

Scheidt posted thusly about the collaboration on social media:

James Romig and Mike Scheidt The Complexity of Distance

I haven’t posted much here in awhile. Time to post some news I’m pretty excited about!

In 2018 I was lucky enough to meet a composer by the name of James Romig. He’s a classical composer and music professor at Western Illinois University. One of his recent compositions for solo piano, “Still”, was a Pulitzer finalist in 2019. Around that time he asked me if I’d be interested in performing and recording a new piece that he’d compose for me for solo distorted guitar, somewhat in the vein of Sunn O))), but really its own thing. My answer was yes, of course!

After receiving the score I spent the better part of 2021 taking lessons with my friend and fabulous guitarist Jake Pavlak, learning how to read Romig’s composition, how to count the beats, and how articulate the 20+ different chord voicings. In October I walked into Gung-Ho Studio to work with Billy Barnett (who’s worked on 6 out of 8 of YOB’s albums) and together with James (remotely), Jake Pavlak, and Billy, we recorded “The Complexity Of Distance.” It turned out great!

It’s monolithic, clocking in at 58 minutes. Romig’s website is https://www.jamesromig.com/tcod.html for a more detailed look at his work (he’s also on Instagram and Facebook). There is also a sample of the new piece on Youtube (a link is in the comments). I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to work with James! We do not have a release date as of yet, but I’ll have more to share on that front this year. Maybe soon. Until then, much love to you and yours. Cheers!

https://www.facebook.com/MikeScheidt
https://www.jamesromig.com/tcod.html

James Romig & Mike Scheidt, “The Complexity of Distance (sample)”

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