Category: Album

Over the course of 2020/21, composers and performers have been adapting to the constraints of the pandemic in various ways and inventing new paradigms for live musical performance. Composer Vincenzo Gualtieri has chosen to focus on one of the essential aspects of making music together: attentive and reciprocal listening.

Gualtieri’s work can now be heard on a new album: the (BTF) project, released on EMA Vinci Records: https://www.emavinci.it/lec/archives/1482.

“BTF” stands for feed-back to feed-forward, because of the extensive use of feedback principles in this work. In a deeper sense, though, BTF also stands for looking back to move forward.

Based on the premise of attentive and reciprocal listening, there is, in (BTF), an encounter between “electronic sounds” (processed in real time) and “acoustic sounds”. This interaction takes place within an environment of self-regulated feedback. The DSP system responsible for the digital treatment of sound metaphorically “listens” not only to the external acoustic energy state but also to its own own internal states. The same is required of the musical instrument performer.

As Gualtieri puts it, “Sound-producing systems – human and machine – create networks of circularly causal relationships and chains of self-generating (self-poietic processes), mutually co-determining sound events.”

Composing in this way requires an adaptation, a paradigm shift. If the digital processing of sound is linked to the acoustic properties of the environment, the quantity (and quality) of the generated sound events is no longer entirely predictable. Therefore the musical score asks the performer to take into account both the performance instructions and, at the same time, to continuously listen to the product of electronic processing and be freely influenced by it.

For (BTF) 1-4, Gaultieri worked in tandem with other musicians, with the composer managing live-electronics. Starting with (BTF) -5, he decided to perform the acoustic instruments himself. So, from (BTF) -5, onward, Gualtieri has automated the entire DSP process, resulting in two types of sound events: one managed by the digital system responsible for electronic processing (Kyma) and the other guided by music notation or word processing.

Capturing the spirit of invention inspired (and compelled) by worldwide lockdowns and isolation, Gualtieri writes:

La temporanea rinuncia a collaborare con altri musicisti mi ha permesso di concentrarmi diversamente
sull’esplorazione sonora e le sue forme organizzative.

– V. Gualtieri

(In English: “Temporarily giving up on collaborating with other musicians allowed me to focus differently
on sound exploration and its organizational forms.”)

An inspiring manifesto for what has and continues to be a challenging time for composers and performers worldwide.

What happens when you combine two unique and individualistic instruments (the Buchla 200 and Kyma) and one individualistic, experimental composer, fearlessly following the dictates of a bright and restless curiosity (Roland Kuit)?

Kuit’s new album, Nanophonic Similarities, is refreshingly raw and experimental.  It’s pure sound and the thrill of discovery!

Buchla 200 audio is used as a starting point, then algorithmically scrambled, granulated to create a new sono-language and rendered to the quadraphonic 24 bit Super Audio format.

Listen and order Nanophonic Similarities from the Donemus site.

Ready to be transmogrified at the micro-cellular-level? Premised on the proposition “that we are what we hear,” Cristian Vogel’s new album Polyphonic Beings seeks to expose each of our cells to musical qualities that will effect the deepest possible transformations.

Cristian once again employs Kyma to achieve his signature far-afield timbral explorations, surprising tricky silences, and trance-inducing slow timbre morphs. Eminently danceable, Polyphonic Beings transports you through the imaginary landscapes depicted in the cover art and deposits you safely in the serenely peaceful state evoked by the Society of Hands.

1. Exclusion Waves: The pilgrimage begins with pink noise waves breaking gently onto an indigo shore, with vocal-chants enfolded in the noise.
2. Mccaw’s ghost: Slow and easy, runs out of steam punk at the end
3. How many grapes went into that wine: Here, Vogel is in his element: pitchy cross-synth rhythms and his signature metric modulations paired with crazy pitch unwindings! Trance-inducing vocalesque timbres ride rhythmic spirals and a sudden break leaves you catching your breath to a humorous chorus of squeegee “la-la-las” that morph into synths.
4. Lost in the chase: Lovely liquidy sounds like hitting an open-mouth tube (or modal filters?) establish an ostinato  pattern that change every 8 bars until a gorgeous smooth disintegration into gentle noise & silence.  But wait, there’s more!  An over-the-top metallic plate reverb with metallic hits finishes out the track.
5. La Banshee 109: (or is it LA Banshee?) Sounds of metal rigging wiggling in a stiff breeze and trying hard to settle into a groove.  It finally settles into a liquid pattern as reverse attack brass-like timbres create a heart beat pulse which evolves into conga-like plucky patterns with unstable frequency swoops.  Once again a lovely dissolve and disintegration.
6. Forest Gifts: One thing about the forest is, it’s full of insects!  A delightful buzzy buggy intro blurs and then comes into focus as a fast groove of buzzy shakers with an overlay of creatures encoded into the northern lights and luxurious harmonic sweeps. Filtered noise, like distant boat horns, peacefully resolves into a misty forest dawn with delicate violin tremolo.
7. Society of hands: Exquisite slow machine room gradually morphing into an icy wind rattling the vents, against slow delicate piano chords with reversals gradually working their way from high to low. Landing in a raspy Japanese vocal and peaceful filtery suspensions.  You’re left feeling serene and elevated.

Order online and then get your tickets for the 22 November launch party in Berlin. (with Vogel and SØS on the bill, prepare yourself for a transformative experience).