Auditory Sculpture / Photo by Juliana Tobon
Keith Schreiner is one of our busiest composers and performers. If you aren’t aware of that, it’s ok with him. Much of the time he doesn’t even use his name, preferring Auditory Sculpture instead. Here’s where you know him from. He was part of Dahlia, the much-loved Electronica band which used to pack Ohm every single Tuesday night for years.
He was the force behind Stephanie Schneiderman’s new sound and her breakthrough album Dangerous Fruit, as well as performing and touring with her. He has remixed Storm Large. Was one-half of Suckapunch. Led a huge band which used to play at the Tiger Bar. Is the guiding light for Oracle, writing their tunes and performing with them. He has played for years, on and off, as a solo at East. He made Jazztronica a breakthrough Jazz/Electronica fusion album with trumpeter Derek Sims.
There’s more, but Schreiner makes his bread and butter writing music for film, commercials and similar lucrative projects. He has worked for Fila, Autodesk, EA Hockey, Safeway and many others.
Like many of the most successful musicians in Portland, he makes his money elsewhere, while enjoying a happy life with his wife and daughter.
His new project is called Lagom and it’s under his Auditory Sculpture name. He wrote, produced and arranged everything on the album. In a reversal of his usual film work in which he is given the film to write music for, he wrote these first and gave the tunes to filmmakers to make films around.
They will be screened at the Hollywood Theatre on Tuesday, September 13 at 7:30pm. He will perform live. I talked with him on a flowery summer’s day:
Here’s their “teaser reel:”
I have had a lot of experience using Schreiner’s music in my own work. Here’s the opening to Robert’s Story: Dying with Dignity, a documentary on assisted suicide directed by me and Greg Bond.
On the first day of shooting, realizing what we had, I went to the Tiger Bar and asked Keith, while he was performing, if he was interested. He said, “I’m all over it.” A few days later, he gave us the title music without ever having seen a frame of the piece. So yes, we edited to his music.
Here’s a story Greg Bond and I did on Dahlia in 2000, at the height of their popularity:
Tom is Editor-In-Chief of Oregon Music News. He has worked in network and local TV as a producer/reporter including Oregon Art Beat and Inside Edition. He has written for national magazines and many newspapers, most recently Huffington Post and The Oregonian. He has network and local radio experience and currently hosts a show every Wednesday from 2-6pm on KMHD .
bob priest on Oregon Symphony’s Carin Miller Packwood discusses the crazy reed-making process for bassoons
RSS Feed
Facebook
Twitter
Newsletter
Great article, Tom! It really captures just how much Keith is a creative force to be reckoned with. Really looking forward to the premiere event at the Hollywood on Tuesday!