[Compositions 2010]
Composition 2010.01 (Object World)
Composition 2010.01 (Object World) is an example of ‘technological lessness’ - and explores what the architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller called ‘post-industrial ephemeralisation’ - of doing more with less - of doing everything with nothing.
Composition 2010.01 (Object World was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK - London - 25.05.2019
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled) consists of a repeating tone plus number of overlapping fading sounds separated by periods of silence.
[Compositions 2011]
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled) consists of three layers; a short continually repeating sound pitched at C2; a medium-length sound that repeats five times; and five short fading sounds. Ring-modulation has been applied to create a level of harmonic complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM and granular synthesis - and consists of two layers: an unpitched pulsing sound with distortion and noise; and four sinewave-based fading tones pitched at C1 - C3 - D#3 -and F#3.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht)
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 C1 and 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 - and was released in the Digital Voices album by SonoSpace in 2019 - and reviewed by T.J. Norris of Toneshift later that year.
Available at SonoSpace
Review at 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) has a rarified texture - and is based on the tones C3 - D#3 - A#3 - with the sounds being separated by periods of silence.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2012.02 (Things Exist)
Composition 2012.02 (Things Exist) is sparsely textured - and consists of four short repeating sounds separated by periods of silence.
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.
Available at Bandcamp
[Compositions 2013]
Composition 2013.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of a repeating tone - plus three fading sounds - separated by periods of silence.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM synthesis. The components of the composition consist of three repeating sinewave-based tones - pitched at C1 - A1 - C2.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled) consists of an unpitched pulsing sound - and two repeating tones pitched at C3 and C#3.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.04 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.04 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of a number of short repeating tones - pitched at C1 - C2 - and C3 - separated by periods of silence. Ring-modulation has been applied to create a level of harmonic complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.05 (Object World)
Object World is a collection of four compositions produced over a ten-year period from 2010 to 2020. The compositions are a set of variations. They consist of shared material - with repeating elements - and are sparsely textured.
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) consists of three sinewave-based sounds with distortion. Two of these elements consist of Shepard Tones - which give the illusion of the sounds rising in pitch.
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled) was premiered at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK [off-site] - 07.04.2021
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled) Film
View at YouTube
Composition 2014.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM and analog modelling synthesis. The components of the composition consist two elements - one short sound - and a longer pulsing sound - with both sounds fading in and out of each other.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.03 (Untitled) consists of a number of repeating sounds - some of which fade in and out of each other. Distortion has been applied to create a level of timbral complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.04 (The Question Concerning Technology)
Composition 2014,04 (The Question Concerning Technology) is in the form of a technological meditation - and consists of continually repeating sound - plus three fading elements - rising first out of silence - coming to a climax - then returning to the void.
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’.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.05 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.05 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two layers; a short continuously repeating tone pitched at C2; and number of short fading sounds. All of the elements are separated by periods of silence - and ring-modulation has been applied to create a level of harmonic complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
[Compositions 2015]
Composition 2015.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.01 (Untitled) is sparely textured - and consists of four sounds of different lengths that slowly fade in and out of each other. Distortion has been applied to create a level of timbral complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.02 (Morton Feldman)
Composition 2015.02 (Morton Feldman) is based on two short processed samples from Morton Feldman’s Two Instruments for Cello and Horn (1958). In addition - there are two sinewave-based tones that slowly fade in and out of each other.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.03 (Untitled)
Composition 20215.03 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two short sounds - pitched at C0 and C3 - separated by periods of silence. Distortion as been applied to create a level or timbral complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.04 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.04 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM synthesis and aliasing distortion - and consists of three short sounds that fade in and out of each other.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.05 (The End of Days)
Composition 2015.05 (The End of Days) is based on an eight-note tone cell of C1 - F#1 - C2 - C#2 - F#2 - C3 - C#3 - F#3 - with the sounds slowly fading in and out of each other.
The Christian thinker Timothy of Ephesus was born in AD 17 to a Greek father and a Jewish mother - and so offers a link between the period of classical Greek philosophy and early Christian thought. HIs view of apocalypse - or what he calls ‘the end of days’ is not a description of the destructive power of a cosmic cataclysm - but of how human beings often mistreat each other at the level of the everyday.
‘But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.’ The Book of Timothy .
Available at SoundCloud
Composition 2015.06 (Empty Rooms)
Composition 2015.06 (Empty Rooms) is sparsely textured - and consists of two repeating tones - pitched at C3 and C#3 - separated by periods of silence.
Even empty rooms have cracks in the walls.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.07 (Ольгина история (Olga’s Story))
Composition 2015.07 (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 2015.07 (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.
'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.' - TJ Norris - Toneshift
Available at SonoSpace
Composition 2010.01 (Object World)
Composition 2010.01 (Object World) is an example of ‘technological lessness’ - and explores what the architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller called ‘post-industrial ephemeralisation’ - of doing more with less - of doing everything with nothing.
Composition 2010.01 (Object World was first performed at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK - London - 25.05.2019
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2010.02 (Untitled) consists of a repeating tone plus number of overlapping fading sounds separated by periods of silence.
[Compositions 2011]
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.01 (Untitled) consists of three layers; a short continually repeating sound pitched at C2; a medium-length sound that repeats five times; and five short fading sounds. Ring-modulation has been applied to create a level of harmonic complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2011.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM and granular synthesis - and consists of two layers: an unpitched pulsing sound with distortion and noise; and four sinewave-based fading tones pitched at C1 - C3 - D#3 -and F#3.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2011.03 (Ich Tanze Nicht)
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 C1 and 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 - and was released in the Digital Voices album by SonoSpace in 2019 - and reviewed by T.J. Norris of Toneshift later that year.
Available at SonoSpace
Review at 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) has a rarified texture - and is based on the tones C3 - D#3 - A#3 - with the sounds being separated by periods of silence.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2012.02 (Things Exist)
Composition 2012.02 (Things Exist) is sparsely textured - and consists of four short repeating sounds separated by periods of silence.
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.
Available at Bandcamp
[Compositions 2013]
Composition 2013.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.01 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of a repeating tone - plus three fading sounds - separated by periods of silence.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM synthesis. The components of the composition consist of three repeating sinewave-based tones - pitched at C1 - A1 - C2.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.03 (Untitled) consists of an unpitched pulsing sound - and two repeating tones pitched at C3 and C#3.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.04 (Untitled)
Composition 2013.04 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of a number of short repeating tones - pitched at C1 - C2 - and C3 - separated by periods of silence. Ring-modulation has been applied to create a level of harmonic complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2013.05 (Object World)
Object World is a collection of four compositions produced over a ten-year period from 2010 to 2020. The compositions are a set of variations. They consist of shared material - with repeating elements - and are sparsely textured.
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) consists of three sinewave-based sounds with distortion. Two of these elements consist of Shepard Tones - which give the illusion of the sounds rising in pitch.
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled) was premiered at Corpora Aliena - IKLECTIK [off-site] - 07.04.2021
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.01 (Untitled) Film
View at YouTube
Composition 2014.02 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.02 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM and analog modelling synthesis. The components of the composition consist two elements - one short sound - and a longer pulsing sound - with both sounds fading in and out of each other.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.03 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.03 (Untitled) consists of a number of repeating sounds - some of which fade in and out of each other. Distortion has been applied to create a level of timbral complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.04 (The Question Concerning Technology)
Composition 2014,04 (The Question Concerning Technology) is in the form of a technological meditation - and consists of continually repeating sound - plus three fading elements - rising first out of silence - coming to a climax - then returning to the void.
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’.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2014.05 (Untitled)
Composition 2014.05 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two layers; a short continuously repeating tone pitched at C2; and number of short fading sounds. All of the elements are separated by periods of silence - and ring-modulation has been applied to create a level of harmonic complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
[Compositions 2015]
Composition 2015.01 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.01 (Untitled) is sparely textured - and consists of four sounds of different lengths that slowly fade in and out of each other. Distortion has been applied to create a level of timbral complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.02 (Morton Feldman)
Composition 2015.02 (Morton Feldman) is based on two short processed samples from Morton Feldman’s Two Instruments for Cello and Horn (1958). In addition - there are two sinewave-based tones that slowly fade in and out of each other.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.03 (Untitled)
Composition 20215.03 (Untitled) is sparsely textured - and consists of two short sounds - pitched at C0 and C3 - separated by periods of silence. Distortion as been applied to create a level or timbral complexity.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.04 (Untitled)
Composition 2015.04 (Untitled) was produced digitally using FM synthesis and aliasing distortion - and consists of three short sounds that fade in and out of each other.
Available at Bandcamp
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.05 (The End of Days)
Composition 2015.05 (The End of Days) is based on an eight-note tone cell of C1 - F#1 - C2 - C#2 - F#2 - C3 - C#3 - F#3 - with the sounds slowly fading in and out of each other.
The Christian thinker Timothy of Ephesus was born in AD 17 to a Greek father and a Jewish mother - and so offers a link between the period of classical Greek philosophy and early Christian thought. HIs view of apocalypse - or what he calls ‘the end of days’ is not a description of the destructive power of a cosmic cataclysm - but of how human beings often mistreat each other at the level of the everyday.
‘But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.’ The Book of Timothy .
Available at SoundCloud
Composition 2015.06 (Empty Rooms)
Composition 2015.06 (Empty Rooms) is sparsely textured - and consists of two repeating tones - pitched at C3 and C#3 - separated by periods of silence.
Even empty rooms have cracks in the walls.
Available at Bandcamp
Composition 2015.07 (Ольгина история (Olga’s Story))
Composition 2015.07 (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 2015.07 (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.
'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.' - TJ Norris - Toneshift
Available at SonoSpace
