CiNeMa fOr ThE eArS

Aethenor – “Deep in Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light”

http://rapidshare.com/files/220951299/Deep_In_Ocean_.rar

Above is the link to an album I have been listening to a lot in the last couple of weeks that I have found to be very enjoyable. Its blends industrial clatter of improvised/composed pieces that are seamlessly edited together invoking a dark, meditative deep listening experience. It’s full of Squealing hinges, droning guitars, rustling chains and bells banging up against concrete and wood. The Four untitled tracks of this album explores a subliminal sound sculpture, that gets rather disturbing in places. I particular enjoy the beautiful minimal drones and surreal glitchy haze that run throughout the tracks. This is an album that has opened my eyes to the kind of depth and spatial awareness that can be created thought sound and has already made me very excited about composing my second piece of Acousmatic music.

Reflecting from my one minute performance last week i have decided i need to think more about my approach to sound spatialization. Below is a link to a to a very interesting paper  that outlines the technical and aesthetic approaches to sound spatialiation.

www.james-mooney.co.uk/research/sound_diffusion/ES-JM-ICMC09.pdf

THis week I have been listening to Jonathan Harvey’s album ‘From Silence, Nataraja, Ritual Melodies’ (1993) & Chris Watson’s album Stepping Into The Dark (1996). Both very different from each other. As always, bellow are the download links for these albums:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FOG7FGYZ

http://rapidshare.com/files/309672074/chris_watson-_steppng_into_the_dark__v0_.zip.html

My main focus of this week has been collecting and transforming my own material for my first composition. I have decided to limit myself to the sound of Middle Eastern instruments and the atmosphere from live performances of Middle Eastern ensemble. Lots of interesting sound can be made from these instruments that are not necessarily familiar to the western ear. I am able to create rather haunting and foreign sounds to create essentially a rather dark composition.

This week we had the task of creating a one minute composition using only one sound source. For this I chose to use the sound of a nay (a type of flute) that sounds both beautiful and mystical.

I learnt how to use the software ixi-quark, which Julio recommended in his podcast to manipulate the sound.

http://www.ixi-software.net/content/software.html

I have found the software very useful; you are able to break the sounds source down to the smallest of grains.

In my one minute composition I have tried to create a good balance between natural and artificial sounds, while building up a swell of tension that finally realises in to the natural sound of the nay. I need to improve on blending sound together and the use of silent’s in my work.

Nate

This week I decided to listen to Barry Truax’s album ‘Sequence of Earlier Heaven’ (1985).

Below is the Download link for this album and a link to his liner notes:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zztgndmn0yg

http://continuo.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/btruax-back-cover-m.jpg

I have found this album the most enjoyable so far from all the Acousmatic music I have listened to and highly recommend it.

East Wind (1981), Nightwatch (1982) and Wave Edge (1983) are all based on processed sounds from acoustic instruments, intertwined with the instrumentist’s live recording. I love the balance between natural and artificial sounds that ‘Truax’ has achieved. Definitely something I am going to focus on in my own compositions. Another aspect of this album I have really enjoyed is the way each sound seem to flow naturally. Nothing is hurriedly delivered or pushed forward which I have found in other compositions I have come across. Every sound feels as if it has space to breathe and naturally develop by themselves. Again this is another aspect that I wish to include within my own composition.

All four of the composition on this album has a specific cluster of sound sources and are not crowded with sounds that are unrelated. Every sound feels as if it belongs. In other composition I have felt too many sound sources had been used that don’t seem to jell together.

This week i have been listening to Francois Bayle’s album ‘Erospre’. Below is the download link for this album and very interesting program notes that include pictures of his stage set up:

http://rapidshare.com/files/259437360/Francois_Bayle_-_Erosphere__INA-GRM__1990_.rar

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mdnd4ucg0vm/Bayle.pdf

I laid and listened to the entire 53 minutes in one sitting. It took me somewhere else; it was like a different world full of sonic sounds. At times it was rather disturbing with the amount of tension and swelling building up. But in contrast there were times that were very pleasing with the sound of warm humming as low frequency floated around.

‘Erospre’ opened my eyes or more correctly my ears on how a single sound can be broken down to the smallest of grains. Frequencies and texture that can provoke feelings and moods that have not been felt before.

Nate

This week i looked at Robert Normandeau, specifically his album ‘Tangram’ (released 1999). Below are the links to Download the tracks from the album:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/lzo0mggnzlz/Tangram 01 Bédé.mp3

http://www.mediafire.com/file/lzo0mggnzlz/Tangram 02 Éclats de Voix.mp3

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dnj4mi0itz2/Tangram 03 Spleen.mp3

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4n5hzo5eq1q/Tangram 04 Tropes.mp3

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4n5hzo5eq1q/Tangram 05 Tangram.mp3

The entire album explores a different world of sound through the voice of an eleven-year-old child. It sounds haunting and builds tension that only has slight release when the sound tentatively touches the real world from time to time. The original sound sources are hardly recognizable most of the time, this particularly interests me because in a way the original sound sources acts as consonance, it is a release from the tension of sounds that are unfamiliar.

I also like the way Normandeau has highly rhythmic aspects in ‘Spleen’ (1993), ‘Tropes’ (1991) and Tangram (1992). He presents several sound sources then combines them together to create a rhythm. He takes simple sound elements and forms complex structures from them.

I also spent time considering ways in which I could move sound around the room in a smooth circular motion when diffusing material.

If I was to work with mono sound sources I would have to move the four fader’s separately in a snake like motion, this technique being particularly hard to do smoothly as I found out last week.

If I was to work with stereo sound sources I could use automation to pan the sound from left to right prier to live diffusion. This option means I could move the faders in pairs, Front left and Right channels being a pair and Back left and right channel being the other pair.  This could however be harder to do as timing would have to be exact.

http://www.mediafire.com/?gjzdmz2jiil – EQ by jonty Harrison download

Above is the link to download EQ the compostion della and i presented on friday the 12th.

Its the third in a series of works that feature saxophone:

Q (1976) for soprano saxophone, string trio and electric organ.

SQ (1978-79) for saxophone quartet.

EQ (1980) for soprano saxophone and tape (perhaps more accurately described as a tape piece with soprano saxophone obbligato).

What interested me in this piece was the way in which acoustic sounds from the sax were blended so well with the tape sounds. This is somthing i would like to look into further for my own compostion.

I also like how the contrasting section are framed in silence.

It was fun having a go at diffusing the piece in real-time, i was able to experiment with short, energetic, fast moving gestures from sounds of the sax. And in contrast Slow moving, static, hums from the tape. In this session i realised how hard it was to make thing move round the room smothly.

Francis Dhomont – Forět Profonde http://rapidshare.com/files/271836378/dhomforet.zip

Robert Normandeau – Tangram http://www.megaupload.com/?d=50IBSJ07

Two Album i have been listning to, link provide for download.

Both Dhomont and Normandeau have different approaches in there compositions. I particularly like the way Dhomont blends static sounds with Piano in his composition ‘Chambre d’enfants’, as well as the use of background noises (children chatting, playing, birds) staying in the background of the mix with white noise in the foreground.

Nate