Portland-based multimedia artist William Selman’s 8 November 2024 album, The Light Moves Between, poses the question: “Can scenes from the Pacific Northwest of America connect us to entities in distant universes, or are we listening to William’s unique processing of his own surroundings?”
Various Kyma techniques can be heard on each track, with cross-synthesis emerging as Selman’s personal favorite. Here are a few details you can listen for on the album:
“Outshone the Sun”
Inspired by sunspots and electromagnetic interference reminiscent of the sounds of popping air bubbles that barnacles make during low tide, Selman used a frequency shifter in Kyma to modulate the Serge New Timbral Oscillator for the sharp droning tones near the beginning to match the character of the shortwave radio sounds. Much of the bed of textures in the second half of the piece is made by cross-filtering field recordings of barnacles against shortwave radio recordings.
“Kept in Banks and Vessels”
For the triangle and singing bowl sounds, Selman designed a Jaap-Vink-inspired feedback Sound in Kyma to create the drones. For the final section, he cross-filtered Serge sounds with frog sounds that he recorded in Hawaii. The warbly animal call sounds are made in Kyma with an Oscillator and a LossyIntegrator.
“Flutter at the False Light”
Here you can hear a Kyma frequency shifter modulating various electromagnetic field recordings made near the composer’s house. The bed of textures for the ambience are cross-filtered sounds from recordings made with contact mics in his studio space and on his windows.
“New Topographics”
The last track was inspired by American landscape photographers and photos of empty, non-places primarily in the American West. Selman recorded sounds such as birds, wind storms, electrical lines, and water wells in the Central Oregon high desert. He used a cross filter patch made by Pete Johnston and Alan Jackson during the Kyma Kata sessions, which he finds particularly useful for creating a stream of sounds that flow seamlessly from one into another. Other instrumental elements include a Serge synthesizer, organ, and bowed (and hit) vibraphone.
The Light Moves Between represents Selman’s return to visual work following a long hiatus — this time around, he is bringing his visuals together with his sound work. The first three tracks on the album were written to accompany three short films. Although the first one (“Outshone the Sun”) has been set aside, the second and third pieces are complete and can be viewed on Vimeo:
“Flutter at the False Light”: vimeo.com/1009701215
“Kept in Banks and Vessels”: vimeo.com/1009700845
Specially created Dolby Atmos versions of all four tracks are available via Apple Music.