Biography

‘Tom Fahy’ (pseudonym: Quinn McCarthy) is an assemblage of musicians headed by multi-instrumentalist, composer and author Tom Fahy. Core members include Jiang Dan, Rachael Eisley, Zhang Li, Liu Kaige, and Emer Mulholland, while other players, including Alvaro Macaya, Thomas Byrne, Vicente Labarca, and Marco Falabella, are drafted for the requirements of particular pieces.

Aestrid Byrne (11 August 1968 – 24 December 1998) was a composer, pianist and originating member of the group from Galway, Ireland, as well as the lifelong partner of Tom Fahy. Byrne recorded from and made her home in Cerro Concepción, Valparaíso, Chile.

Jiang Dan (born Jiang Daoming), an only child, was born in Honolulu on 12 June 1971. A master stone-mason, Dan did not assume the role of chief percussionist with Tom Fahy until 1999. However, with his mother, a classically-trained pianist, Dan studied counterpoint, music theory and harmony throughout his childhood. The self-described avant-garde drummer utilizes custom-modified Pearl drum kits.

Rachael Eisley, (b. 17 July 1971), is the only child of Lionel William, a Swiss national, and Vera (née Spence-McDougall) Eisley. She was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, but spent her early years in Montreal, Quebec, where her father was a financier with Wegelin & Co. When Eisley was four years old, her father died of a heart attack while driving in a car with his wife and daughter. After his death, her mother worked as a school teacher. In 1986, when her mother remarried, the family returned to their native St. John’s.

As music was an early passion of Eisley’s, Vera encouraged her daughter to experiment liberally with many instruments, and so it is little wonder that Eisley developed proficiency with the guitar, keyboard, French horn and harp. Eisley cites Lonnie Mack, Link Wray and Duane Eddy as early influences on her development as a guitarist. It was chiefly as a guitarist that Eisley approached Fahy; later, emphasis was placed on her synthesizer work.

Zhang Li, (b. 1 September 1976), a first-generation Chinese-American, is the daughter of inventor Sammo Li. Upon graduation from the University of Hawai’i in 1999 where she was studying archaeology, she began her collaboration with Fahy, writing parts for bass, electric xindi, oboe, flute, zither and upright bass. Like Dan and Eisley, Li is a self-trained musician.

Liu Kaige, (b. 8 April 1968), a San Francisco native, not only plays the bass cello, violin and gehu, but also serves as the group’s chief technologist and sound engineer. Kaige, once a renowned North Shore pipeline surfer, was introduced to Fahy through his cousin, Jiang Dan. It was Kaige that developed the group’s first sound-stage in Haleiwa on Waialua Bay. There, the group in its infancy began to flesh out the sounds that would inform their later works.

Classically-trained Stag Records session musician and Galway native Emer Mulholland joined Tom Fahy in 1991 as a lead guitarist. In 2008, Mulholland returned to Galway where she runs Bookmakers Studio East. She married bandmate Alvaro Macaya in 2009. Mulholland is not only the group’s transcriptionist-elect, but leads her own self-titled troupe, The Emer Mulholland Group.

The group records from their Conception Bay studio (Bookmakers Studio West, Portugal Cove), approximately 20 minutes north of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and from Bookmakers Studio East, Galway, IE.

Players, Producers & Crew

Tom Fahy: Piano, Trumpet, Saxophones, Lead Guitars, Software Development, and Graphic Design
Aestrid Byrne, 1991-1998: Piano
Liu Kaige: Bass Cello, Violin, Workstations And Gehu
Jiang Dan: Percussions And Theremin
Zhang Li: Bass, Electric Xindi, Oboe And Zither
Rachael Eisley: French Horn, Harp, Synthesizers And Rhythm/Lead Guitars
Emer Mulholland: Acoustic and Electric Guitars; Bass
Thomas Byrne, 1991-1992; 2010-Present: Percussions
Alvaro Macaya, 1991-1998; 2005, 2010-Present: Lead, Prepared Guitar, Percussions, and Saxophone
Marco Falabella, 1991-1998; 2005, 2010-Present: Bass (Upright and Electric)
Vicente Labarca, 1991-1998; 2005, 2010: Lead and Rhythm Guitar
Eoghan Wyndham, Corbin Byrne & Christopher Barry: Production
John Sprague: Co-Production
In-House Critic: Aaron Desmond (An unprofessional music critic since 1989, Aaron Desmond, founder, editor and publisher of Snide Magazine, has met and/or has known; or has had a friendship with and/or has had a close association with; or has interviewed and/or has written about Tom Fahy, Aestrid Byrne, Liu Kaige, Zhang Li, Jiang Dan, Rachael Eisley, Emer Mulholland, Thomas Byrne, Alvaro Macaya, Marco Falabella, and Vicente Labarca, many of whom, if not all, are or will be featured on this website.)

The Mt. Pearl String Cabal is Donna Voight, Ed Chamberlain, Stephanie Malveaux, Tim Sweeney, Jim Rough, Larry Enterbridge, Josh Hammonds, Liz Channing, Scott Rye, Margaret Worth, Ian Adair, Jennifer Driscoll, Dag Halse, Kip Raymer, Liza Shuck, Tom Winchel, Ann Breese & Laurie Burr.

Cover Girls

“Charlene” (Nylon, Maude, I.), “Heidrun” (Op.6, Nos. 18-25), “Valeria” (Nashira) and “Rachael” (Dominoes: An Orchard Park Press Sampler, Kilbridge Girls)

Software

Tom Fahy developed two suites of software: Progressive Recursion (PR) and Timbretronics. Although the PR software remains a crucial component of music-development within the group, the source-code for the Timbretronics Suite was lost during a mishap at Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in 1998. Timbretronics was abandoned* altogether in 1999 in favor of Progressive Recursion.

Progressive Recursion

Progressive Recursion (PR): A fully-working software application with which the group is able to effectively simulate the harmonics and sonic anomalies characteristic of a symphony or full orchestral arrangement with limited initial sonic input. By exploiting the principal of progressive recursion, perhaps best exemplified by the recursive phenomenon generated by two mirrors in parallel, the group affects a desired sonic end approximating the natural sound of several instruments without enlisting the support of an ensemble.

How does it work? Following a deployment on what the group refer to as ‘learning machines,’ the software replicates each sample sound progressively, then re-pitches each of the successive sub-samples in a scalar way, effectively simulating the sonic qualities produced by a battery of instruments. Special attention is paid to the generation of acoustic variance in an effort to simulate the perceptual differences that can be discerned from one instrument to another in a traditional performance.

Adaptive Mimetics

Adaptive Mimetics (AM): The group incorporates Adaptive Mimetic algorithms into its Progressive Recursion software, whereby a so-called ‘learning machine’ imitates a hum or randomized auditory artifact with the sonic qualities of a selected instrument. In this way, initial compositions are often accomplished by humming alone; the output then undergoes replication, pitching and rearrangement through PR.

Interactive Evolutionary Computation and Non-ECC Deterministic Algorithms for Composition (Evolutionary Computing Series – Progressive Recursion) ♣

* Zhang Li still produces music with Timbretronics. See: Munroe!

My true friends are products of my imagination. And the upper-limit of ‘true friends’ that I can administrate effectively is roughly forty. I have counted. —George Irwin