Holbein's The Ambassadors is a complex work whose iconography remains the subject of debate.

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style. The word iconography comes from the Greek εἰκών ("image") and γράφειν ("to write"). A secondary meaning (based on a non-standard translation of the Greek and Russian equivalent terms) is the production of religious images, called icons, in the Byzantine and Orthodox Christian tradition; that is covered at Icon. In art history, "an iconography" may also mean a particular depiction of a subject in terms of the content of the image, such as the number of figures used, their placing and gestures. The term is also used in many academic fields other than art history, for example semiotics and media studies, and in general usage, for the content of images, the typical depiction in images of a subject, and related senses. Sometimes distinctions have been made between Iconology and Iconography, although the definitions, and so the distinction made, varies.

Iconography as a field of study[link]

Foundations of iconography[link]

Early Western writers who took special note of the content of images include Giorgio Vasari, whose Ragionamenti, interpreting the paintings in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, reassuringly demonstrates that such works were difficult to understand even for well-informed contemporaries. Gian Pietro Bellori, a 17th century biographer of artists of his own time, describes and analyses, not always correctly, many works. Lessing's study (1796) of the classical figure Amor with an inverted torch was an early attempt to use a study of a type of image to explain the culture it originated in, rather than the other way round.^[1]

A painting with complex iconography: Hans Memling's so-called Seven Joys of the Virgin - in fact this is a later title for a Life of the Virgin cycle on a single panel. Altogether 25 scenes, not all involving the Virgin, are depicted. 1480, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.^[2]

Iconography as an academic art historical discipline developed in the nineteenth-century in the works of scholars such as Adolphe Napoleon Didron (1806–1867), Anton Heinrich Springer (1825–1891), and Émile Mâle (1862–1954)^[3] all specialists in Christian religious art, which was the main focus of study in this period, in which French scholars were especially prominent.^[1] They looked back to earlier attempts to classify and organise subjects encyclopedically like Cesare Ripa's Iconologia overo Descrittione Dell’imagini Universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi and Anne Claude Philippe de Caylus's Recueil d'antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grècques, romaines et gauloises as guides to understanding works of art, both religious and profane, in a more scientific manner than the popular aesthetic approach of the time.^[3] These early contributions paved the way for encyclopedias, manuals, and other publications useful in identifying the content of art. Mâle's l'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France (originally 1899, with revised editions) translated into English as The Gothic Image, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century has remained continuously in print.

Twentieth-century iconography[link]

In the early-twentieth century Germany, Aby Warburg (1866–1929) and his followers Fritz Saxl (1890–1948) and Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968) elaborated the practice of identification and classification of motifs in images to using iconography as a means to understanding meaning.^[3] Panofsky codified an influential approach to iconography in his 1939 Studies in Iconology, where he defined it as "the branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to form,"^[3] although the distinction he and other scholars drew between particular definitions of "iconography" (put simply, the identification of visual content) and "iconology" (the analysis of the meaning of that content), has not been generally accepted, though it is still used by some writers.

In the United States, where Panofsky immigrated in 1931, students such as Frederick Hartt, and Meyer Schapiro continued under his influence in the discipline.^[3] In an influential article of 1942, Introduction to an "Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture",^[4] Richard Krautheimer, a specialist on early medieval churches and another German émigré, extended iconographical analysis to architectural forms.

The period from 1940 can be seen as one where iconography was especially prominent in art history.^[5] Whereas most icongraphical scholarship remains highly dense and specialized, some analyses began to attract a much wider audience, for example Panofsky's theory (now generally out of favour with specialists) that the writing on the rear wall in the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck turned the painting into the record of a marriage contract. Holbein's The Ambassadors has been the subject of books for a general market with new theories as to its iconography,^[6] and the best-sellers of Dan Brown include theories, disowned by most art historians, on the iconography of works by Leonardo da Vinci.

Technological advances allowed the building-up of huge collections of photographs, with an iconographic arrangement or index, which include those of the Warburg Institute and the Index of Christian Art at Princeton (which has made a specialism of iconography since its early days in America).^[7] These are now being digitised and made available online, usually on a restricted basis.

With the arrival of computing, the Iconclass system, a highly complex way of classifying the content of images, with 28,000 classification types, and 14,000 keywords, was developed in the Netherlands as a standard classification for recording collections, with the idea of assembling huge databases that will allow the retrieval of images featuring particular details, subjects or other common factors. For example, the Iconclass code "71H7131" is for the subject of "Bathsheba (alone) with David's letter", whereas "71" is the whole "Old Testament" and "71H" the "story of David". A number of collections of different types have been classified using Iconclass, notably many types of old master print, the collections of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and the German Marburger Index. These are available, usually on-line or on DVD.^[8][9] The system can also be used outside pure art history, for example on sites like Flickr.^[10]

Brief survey of iconography[link]

A 17th century Central Tibetan thanka of Guhyasamaja Akshobhyavajra.

Iconography in religious art[link]

Religious images are used to some extent by all major religions, including both Indian and Abrahamic faiths, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition.

Iconography in Indian religions[link]

Central to the iconography and hagiography of Indian religions are mudra or gestures with specific meanings. Other features include the aureola and halo, also found in Christian and Islamic art, and divine qualities and attributes represented by asana and ritual tools such as the dharmachakra, vajra, dadar, chhatra, sauwastika, phurba and danda. The symbolic use of colour to denote the Classical Elements or Mahabhuta and letters and bija syllables from sacred alphabetic scripts are other features. Under the influence of tantra art developed esoteric meanings, accessible only to initiates; this is an especially strong feature of Tibetan art. The art of Indian Religions esp. Hindus in its numerous sectoral divisions is governed by sacred texts called the Aagama which describes the ratio and proportion of the icon, called taalmaana as well as mood of the central figure in a context. For example Narasimha an incarnation of Vishnu though considered a wrathful deity but in few contexts is depicted in pacified mood.

Although iconic depictions of, or concentrating on, a single figure are the dominant type of Buddhist image, large stone relief or fresco narrative cycles of the Life of the Buddha, or tales of his previous lives, are found at major sites like Sarnath, Ajanta, and Borobudor, especially in earlier periods. Conversely, in Hindu art, narrative scenes have become rather more common in recent centuries, especially in miniature paintings of the lives of Krishna and Rama.

Christian iconography[link]

Christian art began, about two centuries after Christ, by borrowing motifs from Roman Imperial imagery, classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art - the motif of Christ in Majesty owes something to both Imperial portraits and depictions of Zeus. In the Late Antique period iconography began to be standardised, and to relate more closely to Biblical texts, although many gaps in the canonical Gospel narratives were plugged with matter from the apocryphal gospels. Eventually the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the Nativity of Christ.

After the period of Byzantine iconoclasm iconographical innovation was regarded as unhealthy, if not heretical, in the Eastern Church, though it still continued at a glacial pace. More than in the West, traditional depictions were often considered to have authentic or miraculous origins, and the job of the artist was to copy them with as little deviation as possible. The Eastern church also never accepted the use of monumental high relief or free-standing sculpture, which it found too reminiscent of paganism. Most modern Eastern Orthodox icons are very close to their predecessors of a thousand years ago, though development, and some shifts in meaning, have occurred - for example the old man wearing a fleece in conversation with Saint Joseph usually seen in Orthodox Nativities seems to have begun as one of the shepherds, or the prophet Isaiah, but is now usually understood as the "Tempter" (Satan).^[11]

In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ, Mary and saints and other subjects were developed; the number of named types of icons of Mary, with or without the infant Christ, was especially large in the East, whereas Christ Pantocrator was much the commonest image of Christ. Especially important depictions of Mary include the Hodegetria and Panagia types. Traditional models evolved for narrative paintings, including large cycles covering the events of the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin, parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular saints. Especially in the West, a system of attributes developed for identifying individual figures of saints by a standard appearance and symbolic objects held by them; in the East they were more likely to identified by text labels.

From the Romanesque period sculpture on churches became increasingly important in Western art, and probably partly because of the lack of Byzantine models, became the location of much iconographic innovation, along with the illuminated manuscript, which had already taken a decisively different direction from Byzantine equivalents, under the influence of Insular art and other factors. Developments in theology and devotional practice produced innovations like the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin and the Assumption, both associated with the Franciscans, as were many other developments. Most painters remained content to copy and slightly modify the works of others, and it is clear that the clergy, by whom or for whose churches most art was commissioned, often specified what they wanted shown in great detail.

The theory of typology, by which the meaning of most events of the Old Testament was understood as a "type" or pre-figuring of an event in the life of, or aspect of, Christ or Mary was often reflected in art, and in the later Middle Ages came to dominate the choice of Old Testament scenes in Western Christian art.

Robert Campin's Mérode Altarpiece of 1425-28 has a highly complex iconography that is still debated. Is Joseph making a mousetrap, reflecting a remark of Saint Augustine that Christ's Incarnation was a trap to catch men's souls?

Whereas in the Romanesque and Gothic periods the great majority of religious art was intended to convey often complex religious messages as clearly as possible, with the arrival of Early Netherlandish painting iconography became highly sophisticated, and in many cases appears to be deliberately enigmatic, even for a well-educated contemporary. The subtle layers of meaning uncovered by modern iconographical research in works of Robert Campin such as the Mérode Altarpiece, and of Jan van Eyck such as the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin and the Washington Annunciation lie in small details of what are on first viewing very conventional representations. When Italian painting developed a taste for enigma, considerably later, it most often showed in secular compositions influenced by Renaissance Neo-Platonism.

From the 15th century religious painting gradually freed itself from the habit of following earlier compositional models, and by the 16th century ambitious artists were expected to find novel compositions for each subject, and direct borrowings from earlier artists are more often of the poses of individual figures than of whole compositions. The Reformation soon restricted most Protestant religious painting to Biblical scenes conceived along the lines of history painting, and after some decades the Catholic Council of Trent reined in somewhat the freedom of Catholic artists.

Secular Western painting[link]

Secular painting became far more common from the Renaissance, and developed its own traditions and conventions of iconography, in history painting, which includes mythologies, portraits, genre scenes, and even landscapes, not to mention modern media and genres like photography, cinema, political cartoons, comic books and anime.

Renaissance mythological painting was in theory reviving the iconography of the ancient world, but in practice themes like Leda and the Swan developed on largely original lines, and for different purposes. Personal iconographies, where works appear to have significant meanings individual to, and perhaps only accessible by, the artist, go back at least as far as Hieronymous Bosch, but have become increasingly significant with artists like Goya, William Blake, Gauguin, Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Joseph Beuys.

Iconography in disciplines other than art history[link]

Iconography, often of aspects of popular culture, is a concern of other academic disciplines including Semiotics, Anthropology, Sociology, Media Studies and Cultural Studies. These analyses in turn have affected conventional art history, especially concepts such as signs in semiotics. Discussing imagery as iconography in this way implies a critical "reading" of imagery that often attempts to explore social and cultural values. Iconography is also used within film studies to describe the visual language of cinema, particularly within the field of genre criticism.^[12]

See also[link]

• Christian symbolism
• Cultural icon
• Gay icon
• Halo (religious iconography)
• Logo
• Meme
• National emblem
• Pop icon
• Symbolic anthropology
• Symbology
• Symbolism (disambiguation)
• Iconography of the Buddha (Thailand and Laos)

Articles with iconography studies on individual works[link]

• Castelseprio frescoes
• The Flagellation by Piero della Francesca
• The Wilton Diptych
• The Mérode Altarpiece by Robert Campin
• The Magdalen Reading by Rogier van der Weyden
• St. Jerome in His Study by Antonello da Messina
• Two Venetian Ladies and St. Augustine in His Study by Vittore Carpaccio
• Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer
• Marie de' Medici cycle by Rubens
• William Hogarth paintings and prints

References and sources[link]

References

Sources

• Białostocki, Jan, Iconography, Dictionary of The History of Ideas, Online version, University of Virginia Library, Gale Group, 2003 [1]
• Cook, Pam and Mieke Bernink, eds. 1999. The Cinema Book. 2nd ed. London: BFI Publishing. ISBN 0-85170-726-2.
• G Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, Vol. I,1971 (English trans from German), Lund Humphries, London, ISBN 853312702
• Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), Artemis Verlag, 1981-2009 [iconography of ancient mythology]

External links[link]

Look up iconography in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iconography

• Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East (Project of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the Universities of Zurich and Fribourg)
• Web site for European Sacred Mountains, Calvaries and Devotional Complexes
• Sacred Icons in Modern Era about the Cult of Great Mother
• LIMC-France—iconography of ancient mythology.
• Christian Iconography
• What iconographers do - case study

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2011)

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (August 2011)

Max Richter (born 1966) is a German-born British composer.

Early career[link]

Richter studied composition and piano at University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music and with Luciano Berio in Florence.^[1] After finishing his studies, Richter co-founded the contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus.^[2] He stayed with the group for ten years, commissioning and performing works by Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe and Steve Reich. The ensemble was signed to Decca/Argo, producing five albums.

In 1996, Max collaborated with Future Sound of London on their album Dead Cities, beginning as a pianist, but ultimately working on several tracks, as well as co-writing one track (titled "Max"). Richter subsequently worked with the band over a period of two years, also contributing to the albums The Isness and The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness. In 2000, Richter worked with Mercury Prize winner Roni Size on the Reprazent album In the Mode. Richter produced Vashti Bunyan's 2005 album Lookaftering^[3] and Kelli Ali's 2008 album Rocking Horse.^[4]

Solo work[link]

[edit] Memoryhouse (2002)

In 2002, Richter released his solo debut Memoryhouse, an experimental album of "documentary music" recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, which explores real and imaginary stories and histories.^[5] It combines ambient sounds, voices, and poetry readings. The album went out of print several years later, but was re-released in 2009. Four tracks—"Europe, After the Rain", "The Twins (Prague)", "Fragment", and "Embers"—were used in the six-part 2005 BBC documentary Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution produced by Laurence Rees.^[6]

[edit] The Blue Notebooks (2004)

On his second album The Blue Notebooks, released in 2004, actress Tilda Swinton reads from Kafka’s Blue Octavo and other "shadow journals".^[7]

[edit] Songs from Before (2006)

In 2006, he released his third solo album, Songs from Before, which features Robert Wyatt reading texts by Haruki Murakami.^[8]

[edit] 24 Postcards in Full Colour (2008)

Richter released his fourth solo album 24 Postcards in Full Colour, a collection of 24 classically-composed miniatures for ringtones, in 2008.^[9] The pieces are a series of variations on the basic material, scored for strings, piano and electronics.

[edit] Infra (2010)

Richter's latest album, Infra, is an extension of his 25-minute score for a ballet choreographed by Wayne McGregor which was staged at the Royal Opera House.^[10] Infra is composed of music written for piano, electronics and string quintet, the full performance score, as well as material that subsequently developed from the construction of the album.^[11]

Film and television work[link]

Richter has composed numerous film soundtracks. He executed the score to Ari Folman’s Golden Globe-winning film Waltz with Bashir in 2007,^[12] supplanting the standard orchestral soundtrack with synth-based sounds. Max Richter also composed music for the independent feature film Henry May Long, starring Randy Sharp and Brian Barnhart, back in 2008. Richter wrote the music for Feo Aladag's film Die Fremde (with additional music by Stéphane Moucha).^[13]

In 2010, Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth" was remixed with Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" for the Martin Scorsese film Shutter Island.^[14] In July 2010, "On The Nature Of Daylight" and "Vladimir's Blues" featured throughout the BBC Two two-part drama Dive, which was co-written by Bafta award winning Dominic Savage and Simon Stevens. "On The Nature Of Daylight" was also featured in an episode of HBO's television series Luck.^[15] Richter also wrote the soundtrack to Peter Richardson’s documentary, How to Die in Oregon,^[16] and the score to Les Impardonnables (2011) directed by André Téchiné.^[17] An excerpt of the song "Sarajevo" from his album "Memoryhouse" is used in the international trailer for the Ridley Scott film Prometheus. Films featuring Max's music which go on release in 2011 include French drama Elle s’appelait Sarah by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, and David MacKenzie's romantic thriller Perfect Sense. Richter is currently composing the score to Ari Folman’s new film The Congress which is set for release in 2012-13.

Collaborations[link]

Richter wrote the score to Infra as part of a Royal Ballet-commissioned collaboration with dancer Wayne McGregor and artist Julian Opie. The production was staged at the Royal Opera House in London in 2008. In 2010, Richter's soundscape The Anthropocine formed part of Darren Almond’s film installation at the White Cube gallery in London.

Solo discography[link]

• Memoryhouse (BBC, 2002)
• The Blue Notebooks (Fat Cat Records, 2004)
• Songs from Before (Fat Cat Records, 2006)
• 24 Postcards in Full Colour (Fat Cat Records, 2008)
• Infra (Fat Cat Records, 2010)

Film scores[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

• 2008: European Film Award – Best Composer, Waltz with Bashir
• 2008: Cinema Eye Honors – Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition, Waltz with Bashir
• 2008: Annie Award – Music in an Animated Feature Production, Waltz with Bashir (Nomination)
• 2008: International Film Music Critics Association Awards – Breakout Composer of the Year, Waltz with Bashir (Nomination)
• 2010: Preis der deutschen Filmkritik – Beste Musik, Die Fremde

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Max Richter on Myspace
• FatCat Records Artist page
• Max Richter Facebook
• Max Richter Twitter
• Two and a Half Questions with Max Richter on Headphone Commute (Oct, 2008)
• Review of Infra in Tokafi Magazine
• Review of Infra in Nowness magazine

Keep of Kalessin
Live at Devilstone Open Air festival in Anykščiai, Lithuania on July 17–19, 2009
Background information
Origin	Trondheim, Norway
Genres	Black metal (early) Melodic black metal, melodic death metal (later)
Years active	1993–2000 2003 2005–present
Labels	Nuclear Blast Candlelight Tabu Indie
Associated acts	1349, Aptorian Demon, Antares Predator, Gehenna, Gorgoroth, Mayhem, Satyricon, Tormentor, Subliritum
Website	www.keepofkalessin.no
Members
Obsidian C. Thebon Wizziac Vyl
Past members
See below

Keep of Kalessin is an extreme metal band from Trondheim, Norway formed in 1993.^[1] The group's early lineup consisted of Ghash on vocals, Obsidian C. (the group founder) on guitars and keyboards, Warach on bass, and Vyl on drums. They released two albums under this lineup: Through Times of War in 1997, and Agnen: A Journey Through the Dark in 1999, before splitting up.^[2] Obsidian C. then toured with Satyricon, but revived the Keep of Kalessin name for a 2003 EP, Reclaim. In 2006 he reconstituted the group with a new lineup and released a third full-length, Armada). They toured with Behemoth and Dimmu Borgir early in 2008. Their fourth album Kolossus was released on June 6, 2008. They take their name from Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series of books, where Kalessin is the name of the arch-dragon who is the bearer of the Earthsea world. Keep of Kalessin was nominated for a Spellemannprisen in the metal category in 2008.

Biography[link]

Unlike most black metal bands, Keep of Kalessin is in its harshness still melodic and technically oriented. In contrast to traditional Norwegian black metal, Keep of Kalessin also make use of other instruments like the piano, keyboards and synthesizers. They started experimenting with a new sound which gave Keep of Kalessin its new character after Obsidian C. recruited the new band-members Thebon, Wizziac and Vyl for their album Armada in 2006, the follow-up after the Reclaim EP in 2003. Before Reclaim, the band had a much darker and colder character because of the different line-up they had back in the days. The line-up split in 2000, though Obsidian C. still wanted to make something of the band and the split-up wasn't the end of the band yet. He wanted to give Keep of Kalessin a unique character and develop its music, and improve himself too as a musician and lyrics writer, but the band still needed a drummer who could keep up with his riffing and he couldn't find one in Trondheim. After nearly 3 years, the band Satyricon was in the need of a guitarist and Obsidian C. participated in the auditions and "played the ass off" some other 30 guitarists who also had applied for the job. He made it to the band and came in contact with Satyricon's drummer Frost.

Obsidian C. didn't give up on Keep of Kalessin and as soon as Frost heard its material, without hesitation, he immediately said yes when Obsidian C. asked him to do the drumming on his new EP. As the band's new guitarist, Obsidian C. also toured with the band and this made it possible to recruit Attila Csihar for his EP to do the vocals. This new line-up recorded Keep of Kalessin's new EP Reclaim and sky-rocketed the band into the elite black metal scene of Norway. But the line-up did not last and fell apart because of the distances between the band members. Still, this would not stop Obsidian C. and he was more and more determined to bring Keep of Kalessin to the masses. As part of Satyricon he toured a lot with the band and understood that touring is a must to promote a band. Not much later he teamed up again with Vyl, who was a part of the band before the breakup in 2000. Now the band still needed a vocalist and preferably a bassist as well. This is when Thebon (vocals) and Wizziac (bass guitar) became part of the band.

Together with Torstein Parelius – the lyric writer from their EP Reclaim – the new line-up spent 2 years preparing to record their next album entitled Armada. This elevated the band to a higher place in the elite black metal scene of Norway and the band finally had a line-up which could last and made the band even more promising than before.

This same line-up recorded in 2007 the new album Kolossus, released in the summer of 2008, demonstrating the band improved their sound after the well received and highly acclaimed release Armada in 2006 which even got some good attention from the more mainstream media in Norway. This resulted in a nomination for the Spellemannprisen in the metal category in 2008. On Kolossus they started to experiment more with different instruments and the band indeed created a unique character for Keep of Kalessin.

In 2010, Keep of Kalessin entered a song in the Melodi Grand Prix, the annual competition to select Norway's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, which was hosted by the country due to its victory in the 2009 content, becoming the first heavy metal band to vie in the competition.^[3] The band performed their new song, "The Dragontower", in the first of 3 semi-final rounds and advanced to the Gold Final round,^[4] where the band finished in 3rd place overall through a combined viewer and jury vote.^[5][6]

Obsidian C. announced in the Studio Report 4 video of Kolossus that they're already working on some new songs for the next album.

Discography[link]

Studio releases[link]

• Through Times of War (1997)
• Agnen: A Journey Through the Dark (1999)
• Armada (2006)
• Kolossus (2008)
• Reptilian (2010)

Extended plays[link]

• Reclaim (2003)

Demos[link]

• Skygger av Sorg (1996)

Band members[link]

Current members[link]

• Arnt "Obsidian C." Grønbech - guitars, keyboards, bass, backing vocals (1993–present)
• Torbjørn "Thebon" Schei - vocals (2005–present)
• Robin "Wizziac" Isaksen - bass, backing vocals (2005–present)
• Vegar "Vyl" Larsen - drums, guitar (1996–1999, 2005–present)

Session members[link]

• Oli Beaudoin - Drums - (2011)

Former members[link]

• Ghâsh - Vocals - (1996–1999)
• Warach (Øyvind A.Winther) - Bass - (1996–1999)
• Attila Csihar - Vocals - (2003)
• Frost (Kjetil-Vidar Haraldstad) - Drums - (2003)
• Cernunnus (Tor-Helge Skei) - Guitars (2003)
• Kesh - Bass (2003)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Keep of Kalessin

• Keep of Kalessin Official Homepage
• Keep of Kalessin on Myspace

Travis Dickerson is an American musician and producer, best known for his work with Buckethead and Viggo Mortensen. He also runs TDRSmusic, a recording studio with its own record label that has recorded and released albums by Bill Laswell, Jethro Tull, Linda Ronstadt, and Vince DiCola. Dickerson can be heard playing keyboards on many albums he recorded or produced.

Life and work[link]

Travis Dickerson was raised in Michigan, where his father, Burton Dickerson, was an arts teacher at the Central Michigan University. When Travis was ten years old, his father exchanged a painting for an old piano and Travis got it to work again.

Together with his brothers he early made some musical experiments, first recordings and later moved to Los Angeles where he met the punk band X. In his new studio in Chatsworth a bunch of the band's releases as well as some solo projects were recorded. Singer Exene Cervenka introduced Dickerson to Viggo Mortensen, starting a long friendship. Nearly all of Mortensen's albums since then were recorded or distributed by TDRS.

In 1994 Dickerson played keyboards on County Fair 2000, an album by Phil Alvin (of The Blasters) and in 1998 he appeared on Shocking Pink Banana Seat by singer–songwriter Susan James. He also wrote the liner notes for the anthology Beyond And Back by X in 1997.

Buckethead and Dickerson met in San Francisco, and Buckethead being disappointed of major record labels found a new home for his many releases in TDRS. Dickerson played keyboards on several Buckethead recordings and in 2001 they formed Thanatopsis, a band combining jazz and rock styles. Released as a Buckethead album, Population Override likewise featured a large contribution from Dickerson in both composition and performance in 2004. Chicken Noodles, a series of jazz-influenced jams, followed in 2006. Additionally Dickerson remastered the early Cornbugs albums, a fun project Buckethead ran with actor Bill Moseley and played on the last two recordings of the band before they split up.

In 2009 Travis released his highly anticipated solo album which has been said to have been in the works for years. On one of Buckethead.tk's annual Binge Support Days, Travis included a special CD with two unreleased tracks, one of those two tracks will be released on this album under the name of Legerdemain. Some participating artists include Buckethead, Bryan "Brain" Mantia, and Cameron Stone.

Discography (partial)[link]

Solo[link]

• 2009: Iconography
• 2012: The Owl Dives Through The Crescent Moon

Collaborations[link]

• 1994: County Fair 2000 - Phil Alvin
• 1997: One Less Thing to Worry About - Viggo Mortensen
• 1998: Recent Forgeries - Viggo Mortensen
• 1998: Shocking Pink Banana Seat - Susan James
• 1999: The Other Parade - Viggo Mortensen
• 1999: Tunnel - Death Cube K
• 1999: 13th Scroll - Cobra Strike
• 1999: One Man's Meat - Viggo Mortensen
• 2000: Cobra Strike II - Cobra Strike
• 2001: Thanatopsis - Thanatopsis
• 2001: Somewhere Over the Slaughterhouse - Buckethead
• 2002: Funnel Weaver (album) - Buckethead
• 2003: Axiology - Thanatopsis
• 2003: Pandemoniumfromamerica - Viggo Mortensen
• 2003: The Other Parade - Viggo Mortensen (re-issue)
• 2004: Please Tomorrow - Viggo Mortensen
• 2004: Carry Me Away - Lindy Dickerson
• 2004: Brain Circus - Cornbugs
• 2004: Donkey Town - Cornbugs
• 2004: Population Override - Buckethead
• 2004: This, That, and The Other - Viggo Mortensen
• 2005: Gorgone - Gorgone
• 2005: Intelligence Failure - Viggo Mortensen
• 2006: Anatomize - Thanatopsis
• 2006: Crime Slunk Scene - Buckethead
• 2006: 3 Fools 4 April - Viggo Mortensen
• 2006: Chicken Noodles - Buckethead & Travis Dickerson
• 2007: Chicken Noodles II - Buckethead & Travis Dickerson
• 2007: Time Waits for Everyone - Viggo Mortensen
• 2008: At All - Viggo Mortensen
• 2008: Running After Deer - Alix Lambert & Travis Dickerson
• 2008: The Dragons of Eden - Buckethead, Brain and Travis Dickerson
• 2008: Albino Slug - Buckethead
• 2010: Left Hanging - Travis Dickerson, and Buckethead

Sources[link]

• Interview with monkeybe, December 2003
• Interview with Veruca Salt, Juni 2007
• Interview of Buckethead with Riffage, 1999

External links[link]

• Website of TDRS Music