Il compositore e sound artist portoghese Pedro Rebelo, nel 2017 si è ritrovato a poter seguire un gruppo di ricerca sull’applicazione delle nanotecnologie nell’ambito della sicurezza alimentare presso l’International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory di Braga, avendo cosi l’opportunità d’immergersi nel particolare panorama acustico offerto dai laboratori in cui questa avviene. Macchinari in fasi cicliche, stridori, sibili e riavvolgimenti, apparati di ventilazione, avvisatori acustici, camere di sospensione vibrante e frequenze fuori scala percettiva che la ciccia avverte. Segnali in allungo che si cercano e gradualmente trovano, nell’ambito di specifici percorsi, raramente esplorati dal punto di vista dell’ambiente sonoro. Bello nastro bello. Tanto.
“My essential concern, whether you can analyze it or not, is emotional; there’s an impact that I try to achieve by these means.†— Conlon Nancarrow
Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano were orchestrated for Pipe Organ, Disklavier and electronics by Øyvind Brandtsegg. The work with these compositions instigated further exploration of improvisation with these mechanic instruments in combination with improvisation software written by Brandtsegg.
As each Pipe Organ is unique, the orchestration is necessarily also unique for each instrument. Two concerts of this material – in Stavanger Concert Hall and the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim – show how differently the music is shaped to match the possibilities of these two instruments and venues. Nancarrow’s music requires a quite extraordinary degree of articulation due to the rhythmic passages and high tempi. Sometimes an individual adjustment of each single note would be required, due to slight differences in timing between organ pipes.
Algorithms and automation are ubiquitous in our modern society, and Nancarrow’s compositions allow an interesting perspective on automation and mechanization within an expressive aesthetic context. It also sheds light on the necessity of manual labour of implementation and adaption to make the algorithms matter for human communication.
The improvisation software is based on relatively simple algorithms and serial techniques. It comes to life in the interaction with the live performer, where data is continuously updated from the performer action.
“Deus sive Natura†is a latin expression later used by philosopher Baruch Spinoza to reflect upon the identity of God and Nature: “Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner†(Spinoza, Ethics, pt. 1, proposition 25, corollary).
This album results from a performance by Nicola Di Croce which closed an art residency developed in Viterbo (Italy) at the “Bullicame†thermal springs. The public springs were used by Romans and later by poets, writers and popes; the same natural crater was also cited by Dante as the access to Flegetonte, namely the infernal river.
The residency aimed at sonically investigating the aquatic environment of the area, and presented the results to the public through a quadriphonic performance realized beside the natural pools. The residency was curated by Serena Achilli within the framework of Algoritmo festival in August 2019.
Nicola Di Croce is a sound artist and scholar trained as an architect and a musician. He has a PhD in Regional planning and public policies and is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Università Iuav di Venezia (Italy).
His research deals with the relationship between Urban Studies and Sound Studies. In particular, he is interested in collaborative and participatory approach to urban policy analysis and design through methodologies emerging within Urban Planning and Sound Art.
Sound is central to his artistic and academic practice for he considers listening and field recording as pivotal tools to investigate urban atmospheres and social transformations. Through articles, lectures, compositions, performances, and installations he aims to foster sonic awareness and to empower institutions and local communities, exploring new potentials for local development.
In the last years, Meelkop has been mainly concentrating on live work, especially in collaboration with other musical artists, such as Jos Smolders, Machinefabriek, Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, and visual artists such as Marco Douma and Esther Urlus. We has also been involved in sound design for film and video. His studio practice has been given a boost by the discovery of modular synthesis, much to the credit of Jos Smolders, who introduced him to it. In this release, Meelkop combines recordings of modular sessions with field recordings, either from his archive or newly made.
Conlow Nancarrow “was an American-born composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. He became a Mexican citizen in 1956. Nancarrow is best remembered for his Studies for Player Piano, being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realizing their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation, and did not become widely known until the 1980s.” Brandtsegg orchestrated this piece for the Pipe Organ, Disklavier and electronics. It is a combination of “mechanic instruments in combination with improvisation software”. This cassette contains two recordings of this piece, in Stavanger and Trondheim. It would be great if I could say something about the original about this version, but sadly I can’t. I have very little idea about the working of classical music, that can’t be secret I would think, and so it is not easy to review this work. The seventeen pieces are in total some seventy-five minutes of music of highly rhythmic and dense church organ sounds, perhaps more so than I would think this is a work of software. The piano is replaced by the Disklavier and it is all very modern classical music to these ears. It is probably great music, but a bit too far outside the scope of Vital Weekly. (FdW)
Last heard SÃria with her 2018 solo cassetteCuspo, and she’s here today on the same label with a new tape called Boa-LÃngua (CRÓNICA ELECTRONICA 155-2020). Diana Combo created this work using much the same methods as before – her own voice being the most prominent feature, along with field recordings, sampled records, and found recordings, all processed in the studio according to her design.
This time around she’s pushing the envelope a bit, and the starting point was a bunch of informal recordings of her singing and improvising, which were never intended for release. She found it a liberating experience to do this, and wanted to see if she could repurpose these off-the-cuff experiments, with all their spontaneity and mistakes, into something more structured. At the same time, she’s doing cover versions of songs – well, sort of. At least four of the nine pieces here are songs that have been previously recorded or released by others, although the names in this particular list are mostly unfamiliar to me and may mean more to those steeped in contemporary Portuguese music, especially electronica. In any case these “cover versions†are also mixed up with samples and remix elements, and disentangling the strands of these mixed threads is not only next-to-impossible, it’s really not the point of the exercise. Diana Combo has managed to inhabit each work, and make it her own; every one of these nine tracks still carries the faint aura of menace and warning.
In this work, the warning applies to “obloquy, reproach, gossip, voluntary misunderstanding, etc.†and the hundred other ways in which we humans deliberately use language to evade the truth, either attempting to deceive others or (more likely) fool ourselves. The very title of this tape Boa-LÃngua is significant, as it translates as “good tongueâ€, the direct opposite of “malinguaâ€, which is how a Portuguese person would accuse another of telling tales out of school and speaking behind your back. At a time when “fake news†is a hashtag in every other tweet on your stream, what could be more timely? There’s a simplicity and directness to this music I do like, and I feel there’s something about Diana Combo’s outlook which I can trust, and even if some of the music feels a little unfinished, it also has a porous quality which is good. From 12th March 2020. Ed Pinsent
