AGF: TRAINEN FLUSS 9:46
Composition by AGF for violinis. cello. piano. moog and voice
| This piece is meant to challenge your inner dream producer to lose itself and generate excitement and inspiration while you travel through landscapes, crossing rivers and tears. I travel a lot on ordinary trains and use the time to escape and recover. Therefore I need to break free from the sonic pollution and noise terror which come with travelling: For that, I use closed headphones. One of my favourite pieces is Ives & Carter’s Unanswered questions. Sometimes I listen to it for hours on end in a loop while I fly. It’s comforting and inspiring at the same time. Trainen Fluss invites you to dream away. Yours. AGF |
COH: KI-NETIC 6:31
| «KI-NETIC» is a reference to the internal, invisible aspects of travel: an attempt to describe a journey in terms of kinetic energy transformation, including the processes within; for example, a steam engine and the distribution of motion further through gear mechanisms. Keywords: travel, motion, propagation, transformation, evolution, energy, ki (qi). |
Florian Hecker: Inverted Henon Map III/Double Scroll 20:21
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«Computer music is intricately linked to mathematics: All computer action is conditioned by mathematical logic. However, most computer composers tend to «humanize» their algorithmically produced sound material and time structures through manual ‘post-processing’.» (1) After my previous work using Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis for sound generation (2), I was intrigued to use non-linear differential equations to generate chaotic signals. Although complex equations are frequently used in algorithmic composition to define pitch or note selection criteria, their use as a source for direct sound synthesis is rather unpopular. The first part of this recording is based on the Henon map function. Sonification of this equation offers a wide spectrum of sounds ranging from simple sine waves to colored chaotic noises. These are different from «classical» noise such as white, brown or pink noise due to their features of non-linearity and feedback. The second part is a monophonic recording of a custom-built "»Double Scroll Attractor» circuit, routed through a Buchla Music Easle. The piece was realised at the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology at the University of California in Santa Barbara. I would like to thank Lance Putnam for his collaboration and the implementation of the Henon map as part of the SuperCollider Programming Language, Curtis Roads and Stephen Travis Pope for their hospitality and precious input during my research, and Dan Slater for his thoughts and notes on chaotic sound synthesis using analog systems. References: (1) P. Hoffmann, Mapping Mathematics to Sound: The Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis by Iannis Xenakis, 1998 (2) F. Hecker, Stocha Acid Vlook, Vienna Secession, 2001 |
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Ilios: Kandy 95 12:06
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As I waited for my train for Kandy to leave Colombo train station back in April 1995, I was surrounded by all the elements of a sonic journey: The black crows on the rooftops, the tension in the crowd, the hum of the engines, the ticking of the clock, the barking of dogs and the tooting of horns, all in a passive formation. A passive tension on a white canvas. The mind travels fast, dissolving memories into a blurry mass. The digits processed in the computer re-create this blurry mass, and the interface reproduces these sounds as new signals without any intention of re-creating the memory: The new signal is just – once again – the monster which stands on the top always staring at the eternal void; the monster which waits in every corner. |
Jasch: probe 16:46
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This piece deals with time on a multitude of levels. The duration presented might be regarded as an arbitrary window onto a larger continuum. Sonic material is taken from real life and processed through algorithmic signal processing structures and autonomous processes. This piece presents a textured complexity which lies partly outside the domain of human intervention. Compositional decisions are mostly applied on a structural (macro) level, thus giving the piece a form, rather than at a sonic (micro) level, shaping the sounds themselves. Real-time tools are used to shape the sonic gestalt of the piece in an intuitive, almost instrumental fashion. Superposed layers and grids of sound particles and repetitions with slight shifts permit the perception of subtle nuances in the material and space. «Probe» refers to a path through a compositional and sonic mass made up of controls, a limited amount of raw materials and some very rudimentary synthesis techniques, as if scanning its immediate surroundings with impulses and fragments, building a map of an imaginary terrain, measuring ridges and troughs, using echolocation to determine the features of a terra incognita. This piece was composed during an artist residency on the island of Elba in Italy in August 2004 only using recordings made on site. Many thanks go to the Thyll-Dürr Foundation for making this possible. |
Marcus Maeder: Od kraja do kraja: Snapshots; Lower, Distant. 11:12
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The Croatian word «kraj» has two meanings: end and conclusion or area and landscape. The phrase «od kraja do kraja» means «from one end to the other», and I have used it in this work as the headline title for three partial compositions – three stages or variations of transformation of the same recorded base material for a prepared and unprepared piano. «From one end to the other» refers to the crossing of what could be the greatest possible topographical distance or an unimaginably small or non-existent one. A current «topographical» concept in computer music is «soundscape». I interpret this concept in my composition as a sound landscape located between those two ends, more specifically as work in tonal macro-areas. «Snapshots» consist of micro-fragments of the mentioned recording. The actual recording is shortened in such a way that it cannot be identified, and a new reality is created through the arrangement of these fragments. «Lower» descents into the basement – the lower a sample is transposed, the more the aliasing (digital quantization) generates structure, background noise and overtones. Like an epilogue, «Distant» refers to a basic condition of departure (for crossing) and perhaps also artistic work in general: longing. Od kraja do kraja is highly contaminated by: Ruinen des Denkens, Denken in Ruinen (Ruins of thinking, thinking in ruins) by Norbert Bolz and Willem van Reijen, Suhrkamp, 1996 Haunted Weather by David Toop, Serpent's Tail, 2004 |