Echochroma XXI

Spent is an exploration of deconstruction, abstraction, and assemblage of sounds to create a series of shifting spaces and contexts. Through the manipulation of a single sound source, I aimed to create a wealth of sound material with which I could piece together to create a new and evolving soundworld, with allusions to both real and abstract spaces and materials, free of all original context.

Step 1 Record the acoustic joy of rattling a screwdriver along a gate.

Step 2 Appreciate this, then Scrrrape everything for source material.

Step 3 Arrange material.

(No GRM tools were used in this process)

Created using the sounds of a tree, foxglove explores perspective, and degrees of extrinsicity versus abstract material representative of processes pertinent to the source material. Much impetus for the focus on perspective in this piece arises out of the recording process. Recording manipulations of a tree (specifically the trunk, root, leaves, internal sap and flesh, and dirt in which it is potted), proved to be a technical challenge, with much of the noises made being incredibly quiet. This necessitated a centimetre close X/Y pair of cardioid microphones which, due to their proximity effect, resulted in an exaggerated sense of magnitude and scale imposed on these otherwise small sources.

Lucid void is a seventh order ambisonic composition, realised with synthetic voice, found sound and modular synth. It’s a narrative work, originally derived from James Tiptree Jr’s 1978 novel Up the Walls of the World, that attempts investigate the tension between human originated events and naturally occurring phenomena; for example, the so called rational order of things, embodied in text (taken directly from the opening section of the novel), is problematised through chance and random events, but also quantised and reassembled into a more traditional “melodic” assembly by digital means. It is also a meditation on the point where something that is superficially the work of human agency breaks down and becomes a natural process. Finally, it’s an act of playfulness where object a free to move and rotate in a three-dimensional space, partly through their own volition (generativey), and partly through my own shallow and selfish whim.

The title chosen for its onomatopoeic qualities and its direct references to landscape types, as well as geological spatial structures and processes — reflects the sound world of the work. Karst, a particular topography, is created by the dissolution of soluble rock types from their contact with acidic rain water. A microlevel chemical process characterizes the morphology of entire landscapes and results in complex networks of small-scale — micro-space — features and textures like fissures and rillenkarrens. Karst Grotto was realized at the studios of the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics Engineering of the Technological Educational Institute of Crete (Greece) and the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) of the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK ) in Zurich (Switzerland), between July 2016 and January 2017, and premiered on November 4, 2017 during the Sound Junction concert series in Sheffield (UK). The work was awarded the 1st Prize at the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis, Leuk (Switzerland, 2018), 2nd prize in the electronic music category at Computer Space (Sofia, Bulgaria, 2018) and a Special Mention at the 10th Biennial Acousmatic Composition Competition Métamorphoses (Belgium, 2018).

Continuing my creative exploration of the relationships among diametrically opposite sound characters this work develops an abstract musical narrative by repeatedly cutting and re-instating the continuous in timbral and tonal development. The edges transform with formal attraction and reveal qualities both charming and sharp.

Alan Turing had a brilliant mind who changed history. This guy was not like everyone else, because he lived off mathematics. His great passion led him to great discoveries and to combine calculations with the model of the mind. His studies led him to become the "father of computer science" and his test became the basis for the creation of artificial intelligence.

I have interpreted the code as a form of communication. The idea was therefore to insert sounds that can evoke and suggest the context within which Turing operated: noise of an analogic machine, sounds of an old typewriter and sounds of an old telephone.

During the sound manipulation I created soundscapes that belong to mechanical analogic noises and, referring to the context of the war in which Turing operated, of planes and pilots' voices. The central rhythmic part intends to re-propose the birth of the computer. This piece has been organized in three main sections: A-B-A' with a bridge between B and A'.

The image I uploaded has a codex in it (Codex if|do|next-derived from the book of Turing and from computational thinking) and inside the composition I have inserted an encrypted code. But that is another story...

The invention of the tape machine changed the landscape of music making forever. From the sound of air raid sirens to the church bells of Coventry, Delia Derbyshire exploited the new capabilities of audio manipulation to recycle and recontextualise the sound of everyday life, in doing so unpacking her most salient memories, and instilling her works with a sense of childlike wonder.

In an age removed from analogue music making, Sound House aims to reclaim the tape machine as a token of a time of intense auditory development, using this premier radiophonic instrument as the material with which to interrogate the dual malleability of both medium and memory.