Dad’s White Pontiac – Kory Reeder

Dad’s White Pontiac is a ‘tape’ piece, in that each sound here was originally recorded lo-fi and low-budget on a cheap cassette recorder I found for free on the Facebook marketplace. Each sound was then digitized and process to create the piece you hear now, transforming the quirks and strange artifacts in the clunky tape material into a modern soundscape. For me, working with these materials brought back so much nostalgia from when I was a kid playing with my dad’s music gear and listening to Van Halen tapes in his car. Although this was not the intention of the piece from the start, by the end of working on this I was unable to listen to the sounds, and particularly the ending, without having these flashbacks, but I’m glad to have a vessel to get into that headspace.

Kory Reeder (b. 1993) is a Graduate composer currently pursuing a master’s degree in music composition at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Currently studying composition with Mikel Kuehn, and music technology with Elainie Lillios, he is a former student of Anthony Donofrio and Darleen Cowles Mitchel, and holds a bachelor of music degree in composition from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Kory’s music investigates meditative and atmospheric qualities, unfolding slowly and creating their own sonic worlds in which they reside. His work experiments with compositional techniques found in visual arts and how they may be incorporated with music structurally or as a formal element. His music has also used structural elements found in nature and astronomy, as well as using historical timelines as proportional units in composition. Recently, his work has been focused on durations and proportions of time, particularly working in extended pieces such as his hour long ‘Liturgy’ for choir, percussion quartet, and string quartet. Kory has frequently collaborated with theater and dance programs, writing incidental music for Jack Garrison and the University of Nebraska at Kearney Theater productions of Euripides, Hecuba, Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, as well as writing for Dayna DeFilippis 2016 Dance Recital. Additionally, his music has been performed on the 2017 New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the 2017 New Music gathering, Composer’s Circle, The New Music Conflagration’s Traveling Tunes // Traveling Sounds, New Music on the Bayou, SCI Snapshot at Butler University, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, and has been selected and performed by the Bowling Green State University New Music Ensemble. His work for ‘Hecuba’ was awarded by The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival for achievement in Original Composition Music and Sound Effects, as well as residency at Arts, Letter, and Numbers in Averill Park, NY, and at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Nebraska. For more, please visit http://www.koryreeder.com

Xenakis’sche Grauwacke I – [ka’mi]

Graywacke designates a sedimentary rock that is mainly a conglomerate of other rocks which through the action of great movements of compression, results in a new kind of formation, in which still is possible to discern between the so-called cement and the minerals that were most resistant. The piece is part of a series of pieces that abide to no relationship between them other than the aesthetic approach and the techniques employed. This falls under the category of Eco-music since the main aesthetic position is one of recycling. It also concerns the concept of self-borrowing: I resort to samples of recordings of my own musical production. The samples can vary from a single sound to an entire piece. It may even include ‘unwanted’ sounds that occur during a performance this practice I take as the epitome of recycling and as an ironic technologically-based reaction to the overload and hype of the use of technology in itself.

[ka’mi] was born in Lisbon (Portugal) and lives in Vienna (Austria).
Graduated in Musicology by the UNL-FCSH (1996-2001) and Composition (2001-2006) with Christopher Bochmann, Luís Tinoco and João Madureira at ESML, Lisbon.
Attended Darmstadt Courses in 2004 and 2010; Emmanuel Nunes’ seminars in 2005 and IMPULS Akademie in 2011.
Post-graduate in Composition (Gerd Kühr and Pierluigi Billone) at KUG, Austria.
Scholarship from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia 2008-2011.
Work grant by Bundeskanzleramt Austria 2016.
Currently working on his PhD. thesis about Microtonality and the String Quartets of G.F. Haas at MDW, Vienna.

WireFires – Neil O Connor

To turn sounds that already existed in the world into music; to opposed to the formation of tunes from sounds created by instruments; to point out an opposition with the way musical work usually goes. The question to collect concrete sounds, wherever they came from, and to abstract the musical values they were potentially containing, is of core importance to this piece.
The source sounds connected in WireFires are deployed with a direct attachment to its source, helping generating a unique psychological and emotional response to an environment. Seia is in the mountains of Serra de Estrella, central Portugal. During the composition of WireFires, the area was rife with wildfires. Planes passing overhead, sirens in the background. These and other found sounds were recorded to assemble what you hear. Further to this, recordings of fire and water are textured with harmonic phrases generated in Max/MSP and improvisations on modular synthesiser, helps create and visualise tone and circumstance.

WireFires was composed in Portugal at a residency programme at the Conservatory of Music, Seia in August 2017. Composer and Producer Neil O Connor has been involved in multi-media, experimental, electronic and electro-acoustic music for the past 20 years and has toured extensively in Ireland, Europe, Australia, Asia and the US. His work was been shown/performed at Resonances Festival @ IRCAM Paris, Kunsthalle, Berlin, Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, London and has held residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art, USA and EMS ? Swedish Institute of Electro-Acoustic Music, Stockholm, Sweden.

Banlieue Cuivrée – Nicola Fumo Frattegiani

Banlieue Cuivrée. Suburb brass. Crumbled concrete. The matter fragmentation, its chaos and energy, counterpoised to its implacable, pure and monolithic immobility. The cement shifted through the metal and the leather. The expression “Banlieue Cuivrée” comes from the will to represent the life of a cement magma with its morphed and dynamics fluctuations, its slackening and but also with its static poses sublimated in the urban architectonic context. Hence concrete. A specific matter. A “fact” surrounding our daily space. A rigid corporeality but that comes in liquid form. Concrete. Suburb. Banlieue. The colour grey. The composition has been built using exclusively concrete samples of metallophones and membranophones instruments. Brass is the dominant metal colour in the musical context, hence the second French term cuivrée. To this light a copper mass, alternating its breath in different ontological sound statuses, is the resulting terminological syntaxes.

Born in Perugia, Nicola graduated from D.A.M.S. (Academy of Arts Music and Show) at the University of Bologna, with a thesis on Luigi Nono’s work “Intolleranza 1960”.
Later he has advanced Master’s degree on “The musical cultures of 1900’s” at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, and a bachelor’s degree on “Electronic Music and New Technologies” at the “Francesco Morlacchi” Conservatory of Music of Perugia.
Currently Nicola is attending the Master’s degree of “Electronic Music and New Technologies” at the “Licinio Refice” Conservatory of Music in Frosinone.
Author and performer, his research deals with electroacoustic music, soundtracks of images, video, and in particular theatre. Since 2016, Nicola collaborates with Alessandro Fiordelmondo in several productions of live electroacoustic music, with whom he experimented many types of generation and manipulation of sound dimension. Both are part of the Ensemble A23, a research group in the field of sound installations.

Loading the Pride of Rotterdam – Sarah Dew

“Loading the Pride of Rotterdam” begins with Sarah’s recording of the “Pride of Rotterdam” ferry being loaded at Hull ferry port. The intention was to make an emotive piece that would convey leaving a place, a journey across the sea and arrival at a new destination. After introducing sounds of the ferry and the River Humber, strings creep in almost imperceptibly. In order to enhance emotive effect, a melancholy strings section follows, played by live musicians: violin (George Sztuka), viola (Anna Kent) and cello (Beth Nicholson). The sound of lorries going over the ramp into the ferry inspired a double drum figure for taiko and timpani, with a bell giving an industrial feel. The strings are reintroduced at the end of the piece to signify arrival, and the potential ambiance of a busking string quartet. The strings at the end sound slightly off kilter, signifying possible unease in finding one’s way in a new environment.

The ambiance of the piece is determined by the interpretation of the listener, as in all of her works.

Sarah Dew is a musician, song writer, composer, poet, field recorder, sound artist, music teacher and director. She is currently studying for a Masters in Music at Hull University.
She creates blends of sonic art, music and poetic narrative to inspire visualisation, conveying fictional journeys based on myth, magic and transformation. These works are set along the North Yorkshire coastline, having strong links with the sea. Sarah believes that capturing sounds and setting them within narrative and melody in the context of sonic art, is powerfully stirring.

Her compositional process usually begins with observational coastal walks, leading to notions which eventually coalesce into sound, music and poetic narrative. Both narratives and non-narratives begin by describing the ordinary, accompanied by field recordings and/or music. This opening technique gives the work a sense of place: people share coffee in a café; children listen to a bedtime story. The works then move into the realm of the extraordinary, intentionally taking the listener with them.
Notable recent acousmatic performances of Sarah’s works include: Bowhead Exhibition at Hull Maritime Museum; Sound+Environment 2017 Conference at Hull University; HEARO (Hull Electroacoustic Resonance Orchestra) at Hull University; NAISA (New Adventures In Sound Art) Deep Wireless festival in Ontario, Canada; Composer/Computer/Distance Conference in Sheffield.

Sarah is interested in further collaboration with film makers/animators. Her work is also very suited to artistic radio.

To find out more and to hear Sarah’s work visit: www.sarahdewmusicsoundword.com

LowCulture – Dominic Jasmin

Low Culture takes popular (and often frowned upon) musical genres such as Jazz, Techno, Vaporwave and Improvised Music and links them to the acousmatic idiom, using the potential of a fixed medium to perfectly shape the piece without alienating the emotional affect any listener may experience.

Dominic Jasmin is a young composer and improviser from Montreal, Canada currently studying electroacoustic composition at the Montreal Conservatory of Music. He explores the duality of fixed media and spontaneous composition, looking to bridge the perceived esthetic gaps between both practices.

His music is based on musique concrète techniques like looping, sampling and effects used in a freely improvised setting to create complex layers of sound which are articulated in response to one another in realtime, as free improvisers respond to the other musicians they are playing with.

His work has been played at the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium and at the Soundwich concert series in Montreal. ‘Deconstructed’ – Reduce something to its constituent parts in order to reinterpret it.

Deconstructed Kookaburra – Stuart Ankers

All sound elements were created from a single field recording of a Kookaburra. The original recording introduces the piece – the subsequent sound elements thereafter are manipulations of the original recording.

After graduating from Staffordshire University in 2013 Stuart has been working as a freelance Sound Recordist / Sound Designer in the film industry, working on award winning UK independent feature and short films that have been shown around the world. One of his main passions that stems from his work is recording sounds from everything that he encounters. Designing and re-designing new sounds to add to an ever-growing sound library. After spending six months travelling Australia and New Zealand, the most memorable and notable field recording was of the infamous Kookaburra.

Velocità Limite – Paolo Pastorino

This work is triggered by a consideration of the speed and amount of information which we are exposed to in each moment of our lives and of human actions. The problem clearly focuses on a very narrow temporal dimension (from the 1980s to the present) which includes technological, and consequently socially very important changes. The path taken by Western societies, ranging from pre-industrial to post-industrial age, seems to be characterised not by a linear trend but by a steep curve.
Speed is a central parameter in our daily life, but we must take into account the damage that this can cause to our consciousness. Our inner balance is at risk as mankind races towards the future reaching a limit speed, to which we are struggling to adapt; this leaves less time for important processes such as critical attention and thinking.

Paolo Pastorino (08/12/1983) is an Italian guitarist, sound designer, and composer.

Since 2006 he starts to work as sound engineer for some Rock, Industrial and Nu-Metal bands. He studied and graduated in computer music and sound technology at the Conservatory of Sassari and he is specialized in new music technologies at the Conservatory of Cagliari.
In his compositions, he uses electronic instruments and algorithms realized by software, as well as electronically elaborated traditional instruments and other concrete elements. So, his experience does not only regard traditional and electronic composing, but the implementation of control systems for live electronics and audio installations.

His works have been presented at OUA Electroacoustic Music Festival (Osaka University Of Arts), Dias de Música Electroacústica (Portugal), Homeostasis lab Biennale, Festival Contemporanea Acusmatica (Udine -Italy), Festival SpazioMusica (Cagliari – Italy), PLAY900 (Museo Novecento – Firenze – Italy), Festival MUSLAB (Buenos Aires – Argentina), Datscha Radio 17 festival (Berlin), Microtopies 2017 (Barcelona), Venice Electroacoustic Rendez-Vous (Conservatory of Venice – Italy), Elektro Arts 2017 (Romania), Klingt gut! International Symposium on Sound (Hamburg), Forum Wallis 2017 Festival International de Musique Contemporaine (Switzerland), Seoul International Computer Music Festival 2017 (Asia Culture Center, Gwangju), EX_NIHILO 2017 (Mexico), NSEME 2017 Louisiana State University (USA), San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2017 (USA), Mixtur 2017 (Barcellona), NWEAMO Festival (Tokyo), CIM (Cagliari – IT), EMUFest (Rome – IT), CIRMMT (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology – Montréal), 3ème Concours International de Composition pour un instrument acoustique et dispositif électronique (Bourges, France), Inter #6: experimental sound for loudspeakers (Glasgow – UK), DronesTruck Como (Midway Parkway St. Paul, Minnesota â€ USA), Galleria Comunale d’Arte di Cagliari (Italy).

Scilly 2017 – Doug Rouxel

Scilly 2017 is an audio portrait of the islands during the June of 2017.

Doug Rouxel is a Music Technology lecturer at Staffordshire University and has been composing since he was an undergraduate in the early 2000’s. His works explore the spaces between, deconstruct and reconstruct the sounds of space and place and re-present them as formal composition.

Commute – Aiden Deery

The daily commute conjures notions of mundanity and obligation, creating a sense of something to be endured that is only obscured through submersion in technology. Attention drifts between sound worlds; real and imagined.

Commute combines recordings of different forms of transport with electronic interactions and subtle processing.

Aidan Deery is a Belfast-based composer and sound artist. Aidan completed a PhD in composition at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast, in 2014. Often making use of field recordings, Aidan’s output has included fixed medium compositions, works for instrument with electronics, as well as installations, and has had regular performances at a range of international festivals. Aidan has also collaborated with various artists including arts collective Mak9, sound art collective Umbrella, and works with Matilde Meireles to form the field recording duo bunú.

aidandeery.wordpress.com
bunu.tk

Talasgair – Dave Holland

Talasgair was made from recordings made in Talisker bay on the Isle of Skye. The main material is of recordings made of the sea and barnacles on the rocks at low tide. While much of the material has been transformed through processing, characteristics of the source sounds are present throughout, with the rising and falling of waves being a major theme of the piece. The sound of the barnacles is also a prominent feature with the intention of immersing the listener in “barnacle showers” that slowly transform into something more abstract towards the end. The piece was inspired by the grandeur and elemental rawness of the relationship between the landscape and ocean and is informed by memories of standing ‘on the shore where the great white mouth opens between two hard jaws’ (from Sorley Maclean’s poem Tràighean). It is an environment that evokes a feeling of timelessness and the repeating and evolving rhythms are explored throughout.

David Holland has a background in rock music but developed an interest in electroacoustic music when studying for a BSc in E-music at Coventry University, where he was awarded the Rolf Gehlhaar Award for electronic music composition. In 2010 he was awarded an AHRC scholarship for a Masters by Research at De Montfort University under the supervision of Leigh Landy. He then completed a PhD at De Montfort University in 2017 (funded by the AHRC as part of the Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership) in which he investigated whether heightened listening can be used as a pedagogical tool that can enable greater engagement with sound-based music through creative practice. In 2014 his piece “The Force” was a finalist in the Bangor Dylan Thomas Prize for Electroacoustic Composition at Bangor University. He currently teaches on Music Technology degrees at both De Montfort University (Leicester, UK) and Coventry University (UK).

“I Said Top-Top” – M.O. Abbott

The title of “I Said Top-Top” references a famous poker hand that occurred between eventual winner Jamie Gold and Lee Kort during the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas, during which Gold famously exclaimed “I said top-top!” Top-top is poker slang for top pair + top kicker.

“Top” is also the highest level of a piece’s structure in CMOD, the composition module of DISSCO (Digital Instrument for Sound Synthesis and Composition), the software used to compose “I Said Top-Top.” DISSCO was developed by Professor Sever Tipei at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

All sounds in “I Said Top-Top” were generated using digital sine wave additive synthesis. Aesthetically, the piece is an inquiry into DISSCO’s capacity for granular synthesis and the creation of “noise music”.

San Francisco Bay Area native M.O. Abbott began playing classical trombone at age 9, and initiated self-guided forays into music composition in his early teens. Today, M.O.’s creative foci include acousmatic music, computer-assisted algorithmic composition, microtonality and just intonation, and data sonification.

M.O. Abbott’s music has been performed by ensembles such as loadbang and Illinois Modern Ensemble, and esteemed new music performers such as Kevin McFarland, Caleb Burhans, Martha Cluver, Tomoko Ono, Melody Chua, Victor Pons, and Yi-Wen Chen. M.O.’s work has been heard at festivals and conferences such as ICMC, Diffrazioni Multimedia Festival, the SEAMUS National Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, NUNC! 2, Charlotte New Music Festival, and New Music on the Point.

M.O. Abbott holds a B.M. in Theory from Eastman School of Music and a M.M. in Music Composition from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is now pursuing a D.M.A. as the graduate teaching assistant administrator of CAMIL (Computer Assisted Music Instruction Laboratory) and CMP (Computer Music Project). M.O.’s primary composition instructors include Sever Tipei, Heinrich Taube, Scott A. Wyatt, Brian Belét, Janis Mercer, and David Liptak. M.O. has had additional lessons or master classes with Robert Morris, Elainie Lillios, Marcos Balter, Amy Williams, Ronald Keith Parks, and Ann Cleare, among others.”