The Music of Sean P Connaughty

Background:

Sean Connaughty started playing music at the age of 26, after having a vivid dream which involved playing music with friends. He sought out musical collaborators. in 1992 he found a collaborator in Erik Wivinus and they began to jam together and eventually other musicians joined the experience and the band Salamander was formed. Sean was particularly focused on capturing and sharing transcendental moments through audio recordings. In this pursuit, he made hundreds of recordings through various methods from four track cassette and occasional visits to professional recording studios. Salamander performed many shows in Minneapolis throughout the 1990’s and toured the east coast of the US with Tokyo band Overhang Party. Salamander reunited to play the Terrastock 6 festival at the Pell Chafee Performance Center, Providence, Rhode Island, 21 –23 April 2006.

in 1998 Sean began playing and recording the with guitarist Wes Morden and formed the collective group Vortex Navigation Company. playing and recording with numerous local musicians and friends leading to the release of the album Things Make Patterns as they Fall in 1998 on the Australian label Camera Obscura. The album included long form psychedelic rock improvisations with the occasional folk ballad. Sean left Minneapolis in 1998 to study painting in Savannah, Georgia.

After returning to Minneapolis in 2001, he moved into the Powderhorn Neighborhood and began to make some acoustic recordings of his lyrical/vocal improvisations on four track cassette from his apartment. During an artist residency at the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary, Connaughty recorded his first solo album Blacklock. After meeting his life long partner Melissa in 2003 the couple moved to an apartment in the Seward neighborhood in Minneapolis. There he began to work with Matt Zaun, making recordings and artworks collaboratively. In Sean’s attic studio, numerous recordings captured these improvisational musical sessions. Sean also created many solo recordings from 2004-2007. Matt and Sean developed and produced the artwork edition A History of the Earth, with Matt Zaun doing the design work and Sean compiling the content which was drawn from various artworks Sean created from 1984 to 2005, including conceptual works, photogravure prints, photographs, experimental audio recordings and videos. An edition of 13 was created. A History of the Earth was displayed in exhibitions in Hildesheim Germany, Minneapolis, MN and Los Angeles, CA, USA. One of the editions is in the collection of the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, MN.

Matt Zaun and Sean Connaughty developed the concept of the Bigloo recording space for the Art Shanty Projects on Medicine Lake in the winter of 2005-2006. These were snow shelters created on the lake for the purpose of utillizing the unique acoustics of snow as intimate performance and recording spaces. With a collective of friends to collaborate on these projects many subsequent Bigloo versions were created both in Minneapolis and in various places along the North Shore of Lake Superior. including Finland, MN, Fon Du Lac, and at the Walker Art Center in a collaboration with California based collective Machine Project. Many local musicians performed and recorded in these spaces including the well known band and friends Best Friends Forever. who produced an album using the recordings from the Bigloo. In November of 2007 Sean, Matt and Ryan went to Eau Claire Wisconsin on November 4th to attend a Black Eyed Snakes music show. After the show they returned to their hotel and in the morning Ryan and Sean discovered that Matt had passed away in the night. He died of a heart attack at the age of 32 due to a congenital heart problem. This loss affected everyone in the community and also marked a major shift in Sean’s work and thereafter he moved away from music to focus more on other creative endeavors.

DISCOGRAPHY

Sean Connaughty (solo):

2003 Blacklock  (Mutant Music)

2004 A History of the Earth (self released edition of 13)

2004 Five Hands Tall (Mutant Music)

2005 Lost God Ballads - Improvisations

2006 Transmission - Improvisations

2007 Garden - Improvisations

2008 Blossom

Salamander:

1995 Red Ampersand (Camera Obscura Records)

1996 Red Mantra (Camera Obscura Records)

2000 Live at the Soo Gallery (Mutant Music)

2000 Birds of Appetite (Camera Obscura Records)

2005 Bent Hemlock (Camera Obscura Records)

2004 Reclaiming the Language (Mutant Music)

The Vortex Navigation Company:

1998 Things Make Patterns as they Fall (Camera Obscura Records)

Above: Matt Zaun at Bigloo version 1, Medicine Lake, MN, USA 2006
Art Shanty Projects.