[Compositions 2010]
Composition 2010.01 (Untitled)Composition 2010.01 is sparsely textured - and consists of a continually repeating tone and fading sounds - based on the tone-cell of C2 - A#2 - C3.
The composition is an example of ‘technological lessness’ - or what the American architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller called ‘post-industrial ephemeralisation’ - of doing more with less - ultimately of doing everything with nothing. The composition use a a reduced palate that emphasises minimalism and restraint. One of the aims of composing this music is the desire to touch upon the most basic essentials of existence.
Composition 2010.01 (Untitled) was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK - London - 25.05.2019
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two repeating sounds that fade in an out of each other. - separated by periods of silence.
[Compositions 2011]
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of short fading sounds suspended in silence. The composition explores the relationships between form and non-from - sound and empty space - and between something and nothing.
Bandcamp Album - Nothing Comes From Nothing
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM and granular synthesisIt consists of a pulsing drone element and fading sounds - and is based on a tone cell of C1 - C3 - D#3 - F#3.
BandcampComposition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht) was produced digitally using FM synthesis and a text-to-speech application. The components of the composition consist of a computer-based spoken word of the phrase 'Ich tanze nicht (I don’t dance)’; and two repeating sinewave-based sounds pitched at C1and C2.
In the first half of the composition - the digital voice utters a single phoneme of ’t’ - with the speech reduced to its single most essential element. The ’t' is the last letter of ‘nicht’ - and this becomes apparent when the full sentence of ‘Ich tanze nicht’ is heard later in the composition.
Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht) was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK - London - 17.11.2018.
Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht) was released in an album entitled Digital Voices by SonoSpace in 2019 - and reviewed by T.J. Norris of Toneshift later that year.
Review by T.J. Norris- Toneshift
Based on the spoken word comes Digital Voices, two extended pieces by minimalist composer Bernhard Living: Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht)’ and Composition 2015.07 (Ольгина история (Olga’s Story). I’m reminded of experiments from Meredith Monk, Jaap Blonk and the essence of Laurie Anderson as Ich Tanze Nicht opens with a short syllabic drawl, repeating, and at calculated intervals. The setting couldn’t be more sparse focusing on this sole variable until an as-low-as-you-go humming drone is added, becoming some sort of mesmerizing metronomic oddity. And I forget my previous references altogether.
Building on this one note atonality, after nearly eleven minutes one cannot help but feel subsumed into the constant repetition that has the effect of observing a Rorschach test, only audibly I begin to imagine being analyzed by the shutter speed of a mad scientist’s scope. Living plays with the tone-drone, shifting the pitch like a sonic sound wave being threaded through the needle of time. And he takes his sweet time to do so, eventually ending up at a blurry buzzing crescendo of distorted noise. At almost a half-hour in a voice speaks (and repeats): …”Ich Tanze Nicht” – which means “I do not dance.” It’s such an odd comment with such flat delivery (Stepford wife, fembot, digital assistant) that it comes off as a wry/wink critique on a cry for help, brainwashing, or something, or other. After forty minutes, will someone please release this lady from her trappings!?
[Compositions 2012]
Composition 2012.01Composition 2012.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of short fading tones - pitched at C3 - D#3 - A#3.
Bandcamp
Composition 2012.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2012.02 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of fading sounds separated by silence. The tone-cell for the composition is: C1 - C2 - C3 - C#4.
The early Greek philosopher Democritus maintained - paradoxically - that what does not exist is no less real than what does exist. That what does not exist is empty space. What exists are bodies - things - or objects - the things which occupy space - and move through its emptiness. For Democritus - empty space is infinite in extent - and bodies infinite in number.
[Compositions 2013]
Composition 2013.01 (Untitled)Composition 2013.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of fading sounds - pitched at C1 - C2 - C3 - and C#4.
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled) consists of short fading sounds - pitched at C1 - A1 - C2 - separated by periods of silence.
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled) consists of a continuous pulsing drone and fading sounds pitched at C3 - C#3.
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.04 (Untitled)Composition 2013.04 (Untitled) consists of a continually repeating tone alternating with short fading sounds.
The use of repetition within the composition has an indirect connection to loop-based dance music such as techno. In some ways the composition could be considered as an evolved non-dance form of techno - but one that exists within a different cultural context - and along a different time continuum.
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.05 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.05 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of short fading sounds separated by silence. Ring-modulation was used to create a level of harmonic complexity.
The compositions an examples of ‘technological lessness’ - and explore what the architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller called ‘post-industrial ephemeralisation’ - of doing more with less - of doing everything with nothing.
[Compositions 2014]
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled)Composition 2014.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and is based on a tone-cell of C2 - D#2 - C3 - C#3. Shepard Tones were also used - which give the illusion of the sounds rising in pitch.
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled) was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK [off-site] - 07.04.2021.
Composition 2014.02 (Untitled)Composition 2014.02 (Untitled) consists of repeating sounds that fade in and out of each other.
Bandcamp
Composition 2014.03 (Untitled)Composition 2014.03 (Untitled) is sparse.y textured - and consists fading sounds separated by silence.
Bandcamp
Composition 2014.04 (Untitled)Composition 2014.04 (Untitled) is in the form of a technological meditation. It was produced using granular synthesis - and consists of a continually pulsing drone.
The Question Concerning Technology is an essay by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The question is asked ‘so as to prepare a free relationship to technology’ - and that the existential relationship with technology is one that is free and unbounded. Heidegger explores the wider meaning of technology - not just how it is perceived today - for example with new digital technologies - but in the broadener sense of ‘tekne’.
Composition 2014.05 (Untitled)Composition 2014.05 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of a repeating tone pitched at C1 - and fading sounds separated by silence.
Bandcamp
[Compositions 2015]
Composition 2015.01 (Untitled)Composition 2015.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of repeating fading sounds separated by silence.
Composition 2015.02 (Untitled)Composition 2015.02 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of fading sounds separated by silence.
Composition 2015.03 (Untitled)Composition 2015.03 (Untitled) consists of a continuously repeating tone - and a mix of different fading sounds separated by silence.
Album - Living in the Present Continuous
Composition 2015.04 (Untitled) Composition 2015.04 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two repeating tones - pitched at C3 and C#3 - separated by silence.
Composition 2015.05 (Ольгина история) [Olga’s Story]
Composition 2015.05 (Ольгина история) [Olga’s Story] was produced in collaboration with the Russian musician Elena Alekseeva - and is based on a sample that Alekseeva made of the Moscow metro. She also reads the text 'Я двигаюсь во времени и время движется через меня. (I am moving through time - and time is moving through me.)’ - which is repeated against a textured background of multi-layered voices and metro sounds.
Composition 2015.05 (Ольгина история) [Olga’s Story] was released in an album entitled Digital Voices by SonoSpace in 2019 - and reviewed by T.J. Norris of Toneshift later that year.
Review by T.J. Norris at ToneshiftОльгина история (Olga’s Story) operates in a different sphere altogether, something more like modern day field recordings, and it’s from a live recorded concert in London. Filled with low-end chatter (almost like bats nestled in a cave) it is a collaborative work alongside Russian musician Elena Alekseeva with a sound sample taken from the metro. Captured is the hollow underground atmosphere (hence my imagining of Chiroptera) in a pure whoosh of surging drone. A Slavic voice pops up only at very occasional points throughout (reminding me of one of those watermarked promo recordings sent by p/r agencies), otherwise this cyclone of “voices” and degraded murmur continue in agitation.
This has the constant flow of a cyclone, an avalanche, a babbling brook. It’s odd and fun trying to identify the potential scalability of what is rushing through the both speaker channels and into the auditory cortex. Just who is Olga? Wo/man or machine? Either way this channels something very much at the core of nature and its temporal effects on everything.'
SonoSpace Album - Digital Voices
Composition 2010.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2010.01 is sparsely textured - and consists of a continually repeating tone and fading sounds - based on the tone-cell of C2 - A#2 - C3.
The composition is an example of ‘technological lessness’ - or what the American architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller called ‘post-industrial ephemeralisation’ - of doing more with less - ultimately of doing everything with nothing. The composition use a a reduced palate that emphasises minimalism and restraint. One of the aims of composing this music is the desire to touch upon the most basic essentials of existence.
Composition 2010.01 (Untitled) was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK - London - 25.05.2019
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two repeating sounds that fade in an out of each other. - separated by periods of silence.
[Compositions 2011]
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of short fading sounds suspended in silence. The composition explores the relationships between form and non-from - sound and empty space - and between something and nothing.
Bandcamp Album - Nothing Comes From Nothing
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM and granular synthesisIt consists of a pulsing drone element and fading sounds - and is based on a tone cell of C1 - C3 - D#3 - F#3.
Bandcamp
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM and granular synthesisIt consists of a pulsing drone element and fading sounds - and is based on a tone cell of C1 - C3 - D#3 - F#3.
Bandcamp
Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht) was produced digitally using FM synthesis and a text-to-speech application. The components of the composition consist of a computer-based spoken word of the phrase 'Ich tanze nicht (I don’t dance)’; and two repeating sinewave-based sounds pitched at C1and C2.
In the first half of the composition - the digital voice utters a single phoneme of ’t’ - with the speech reduced to its single most essential element. The ’t' is the last letter of ‘nicht’ - and this becomes apparent when the full sentence of ‘Ich tanze nicht’ is heard later in the composition.
Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht) was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK - London - 17.11.2018.
Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht) was released in an album entitled Digital Voices by SonoSpace in 2019 - and reviewed by T.J. Norris of Toneshift later that year.
Review by T.J. Norris- Toneshift
Based on the spoken word comes Digital Voices, two extended pieces by minimalist composer Bernhard Living: Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht)’ and Composition 2015.07 (Ольгина история (Olga’s Story). I’m reminded of experiments from Meredith Monk, Jaap Blonk and the essence of Laurie Anderson as Ich Tanze Nicht opens with a short syllabic drawl, repeating, and at calculated intervals. The setting couldn’t be more sparse focusing on this sole variable until an as-low-as-you-go humming drone is added, becoming some sort of mesmerizing metronomic oddity. And I forget my previous references altogether.
Building on this one note atonality, after nearly eleven minutes one cannot help but feel subsumed into the constant repetition that has the effect of observing a Rorschach test, only audibly I begin to imagine being analyzed by the shutter speed of a mad scientist’s scope. Living plays with the tone-drone, shifting the pitch like a sonic sound wave being threaded through the needle of time. And he takes his sweet time to do so, eventually ending up at a blurry buzzing crescendo of distorted noise. At almost a half-hour in a voice speaks (and repeats): …”Ich Tanze Nicht” – which means “I do not dance.” It’s such an odd comment with such flat delivery (Stepford wife, fembot, digital assistant) that it comes off as a wry/wink critique on a cry for help, brainwashing, or something, or other. After forty minutes, will someone please release this lady from her trappings!?
[Compositions 2012]
Composition 2012.01
Composition 2012.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of short fading tones - pitched at C3 - D#3 - A#3.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp
Composition 2012.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2012.02 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of fading sounds separated by silence. The tone-cell for the composition is: C1 - C2 - C3 - C#4.
The early Greek philosopher Democritus maintained - paradoxically - that what does not exist is no less real than what does exist. That what does not exist is empty space. What exists are bodies - things - or objects - the things which occupy space - and move through its emptiness. For Democritus - empty space is infinite in extent - and bodies infinite in number.
[Compositions 2013]
Composition 2013.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of fading sounds - pitched at C1 - C2 - C3 - and C#4.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled) consists of short fading sounds - pitched at C1 - A1 - C2 - separated by periods of silence.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled) consists of a continuous pulsing drone and fading sounds pitched at C3 - C#3.
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled) consists of a continuous pulsing drone and fading sounds pitched at C3 - C#3.
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.04 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.04 (Untitled) consists of a continually repeating tone alternating with short fading sounds.
The use of repetition within the composition has an indirect connection to loop-based dance music such as techno. In some ways the composition could be considered as an evolved non-dance form of techno - but one that exists within a different cultural context - and along a different time continuum.
Bandcamp
Composition 2013.05 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.05 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of short fading sounds separated by silence. Ring-modulation was used to create a level of harmonic complexity.
The compositions an examples of ‘technological lessness’ - and explore what the architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller called ‘post-industrial ephemeralisation’ - of doing more with less - of doing everything with nothing.
[Compositions 2014]
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled) was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK [off-site] - 07.04.2021.
Composition 2014.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.02 (Untitled) consists of repeating sounds that fade in and out of each other.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp
Composition 2014.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.03 (Untitled) is sparse.y textured - and consists fading sounds separated by silence.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp
Composition 2014.04 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.04 (Untitled) is in the form of a technological meditation. It was produced using granular synthesis - and consists of a continually pulsing drone.
The Question Concerning Technology is an essay by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The question is asked ‘so as to prepare a free relationship to technology’ - and that the existential relationship with technology is one that is free and unbounded. Heidegger explores the wider meaning of technology - not just how it is perceived today - for example with new digital technologies - but in the broadener sense of ‘tekne’.
Composition 2014.05 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.05 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of a repeating tone pitched at C1 - and fading sounds separated by silence.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp
[Compositions 2015]
Composition 2015.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of repeating fading sounds separated by silence.
Composition 2015.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.02 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of fading sounds separated by silence.
Composition 2015.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.03 (Untitled) consists of a continuously repeating tone - and a mix of different fading sounds separated by silence.
Album - Living in the Present Continuous
Composition 2015.04 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.04 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two repeating tones - pitched at C3 and C#3 - separated by silence.
Composition 2015.05 (Ольгина история) [Olga’s Story]
Composition 2015.05 (Ольгина история) [Olga’s Story] was produced in collaboration with the Russian musician Elena Alekseeva - and is based on a sample that Alekseeva made of the Moscow metro. She also reads the text 'Я двигаюсь во времени и время движется через меня. (I am moving through time - and time is moving through me.)’ - which is repeated against a textured background of multi-layered voices and metro sounds.
Composition 2015.05 (Ольгина история) [Olga’s Story] was released in an album entitled Digital Voices by SonoSpace in 2019 - and reviewed by T.J. Norris of Toneshift later that year.
Review by T.J. Norris at Toneshift
Ольгина история (Olga’s Story) operates in a different sphere altogether, something more like modern day field recordings, and it’s from a live recorded concert in London. Filled with low-end chatter (almost like bats nestled in a cave) it is a collaborative work alongside Russian musician Elena Alekseeva with a sound sample taken from the metro. Captured is the hollow underground atmosphere (hence my imagining of Chiroptera) in a pure whoosh of surging drone. A Slavic voice pops up only at very occasional points throughout (reminding me of one of those watermarked promo recordings sent by p/r agencies), otherwise this cyclone of “voices” and degraded murmur continue in agitation.
This has the constant flow of a cyclone, an avalanche, a babbling brook. It’s odd and fun trying to identify the potential scalability of what is rushing through the both speaker channels and into the auditory cortex. Just who is Olga? Wo/man or machine? Either way this channels something very much at the core of nature and its temporal effects on everything.'
This has the constant flow of a cyclone, an avalanche, a babbling brook. It’s odd and fun trying to identify the potential scalability of what is rushing through the both speaker channels and into the auditory cortex. Just who is Olga? Wo/man or machine? Either way this channels something very much at the core of nature and its temporal effects on everything.'
SonoSpace Album - Digital Voices
