Patrick Liddell [ontologist] is a music composer and video artist currently living in the San Fransisco Bay Area. His music and video art is a postmodern blend of all styles and genres. He has regular collaborations with bands such as Hotel Eden (Oakland), Maurice (Chicago), Outshine Family (London, Melbourne), Silences Sumires (Chicago), Vox Novus (New York), Tomorrow Music Orchestra (Chicago), and many solo artists from around the world.

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He has six solo albums to date, all available from Canzona Records, and all are available to purchase here on this site. You can also listen for free on Spotify, Pandora, SoundCloud, BandCamp, and many other internet players.

 

 

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Arrow To The Sun, a dual CD/DVD box set, is a story of a boy in search of his family and his identity. The ten tracks include Third Coast Percussion Ensemble and prog-rock outfit Maurice of Chicago.

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The Book Of Lists, the second ontologist full-album release in April 2011, features 16 tracks of eclectic design and mind-bending genre exploration. Featured artists include Friends Of The Gamelan, L'etenebre, The Wayward Sisters, James Davis, and many more. 

 

Exit, his third release in December of 2014, continues the dream/thought experiement of the previous album, different in scope but similar in intent. Featured soloists include Caroline Davis, Charles Gorczynski (of Clarity Trio, Redwood Tango), Tommy Faulds, Matthew Nicholson (of Outshine Family), and many others.

 

Pauli's Dreams, released August 2017, delves even deeper into the subconscious and our tenuous hold on reality. A whole new cast (with a few old favorites), this particular chapter is helped told by Darren Johnston, Danielle Flax, and Mark Clifford, Stephen Parris, The Mynah Gamelan 'Mas Mulyo", and so many more. 

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Cantor's Comb, the final installment in the 4-album arc, was released in February 2021. About fractals, infinite mathematics, and the human desire to bifurcate our Universe, it is a fractal in itself. Plus the incredible conclusion of a decade of music told through a spectrum of sounds and feelings. Featuring Jenna Mammina, Kugelplex, Jyun Jyun, Gamelan Encinal, the Berkeley Synthesizer Museum, and many more fantastic musicians. 

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Cantor's Jam's is a bonus installment from the Comb Cycle; 14 remixes of the "hidden gems (jams?)" from all 4 albums. Remixed and then mastered by Kevin Peterson at The Mastering Palace, NYC. 

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He has received his doctorate in music composition from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Download his teaching CV here for compete documentation of works and education. His dissertation discussed his use of postmodern ideas as a compositional tool. Download the dissertation by clicking here.

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Here is his Wikipedia entry, detailing some of his better-known works.

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PRESS:

 

"Liddell is exploring the divide between reality and the mimed version of that reality we encounter through media." - Switched.com

 

 

"Sound artist ontologist has ... ended up with one of the more elegant pieces of video art around on the web. ... It’s also the first time I’ve ever seen someone use the Youtube platform itself to create an artwork. I dig it." - Tomas Ford Blog

 

 

"Is this guy rad or what? I love how somewhere among the crazy streets of Chicago an artist I never knew existed is sitting in his room putting together unpredictable sounds and images and sending them our way through cyberspace..." - Daniella Jaeger, Kickstarter