Esprit Flottant

This week I received the copies of the new release by Kaon. I composed the music based on the field recordings of Cedric Peyronnet. Recordings of the river Taurion. Good recordings, nice recordings. I really liked working with them. Today I relistened for the first time in a year to the composition. To my astonishment I was at first a bit taken aback by what I heard. It sounded alright but somehow the 'rhythm' or cadence of the work was not what I had expected. I played it a second time and then remembered how I conceived this composition as a circular work. It starts with the end and then works its way towards the end again. That way it feels alright if you replay it again and again. The second session was much better. I was adapted to the pace of the work and the coming and going of sounds and the transitions felt much better. Pheww!! So, I advise anyone to listen at least twice. Thanks to Cedric for making this production available.

please visit [ Kaon ].

Other than that, I have been working on several projects, as usual. I also have been preparing my live show in Cologne on June 9. More details will follow shortly.

I will also be present in a performance by the great Arturas Bumsteinas, who will do perform at the Kunstvlaai project in Amsterdam from May 16-21. It is called "My Own Private Bayreuth" which refers to both the state of Idaho and to composer Richard Wagner. I will be present there in the afternoon of May 20. Westergasfabriek Amsterdam. More info on this project at [ kunstvlaai ]. The site is a bit strange, but I guess more info will follow.

Read more...

New archaeology: a graphic score

What a week.
I did two trials for the mastering of a CD of commercial release. The material that was delivered two months ago are studio takes that lacked air, brilliance and sometimes good vocal parts. But still, the songs themselves (melodic development, structure, instrumentation) are quite good (nine out of ten). I have done a first assessment of the material and advised the artist. Some of the songs need new vocal parts. Some parts require new instrumentation. For the artist a lot of time has gone into doing a licensing deal and in the meantime for me it was mostly waiting for the ' go ahead'. Last week I decided to do a first touch up of the best of the songs.  I'll give more details when I have them.

It's quite interesting for me as someone who works mostly with electronic music to dig into pop music. Believe me it is not easier to turn a decent recording into something that makes your head bop. To me, as a master engineer, both genres are appealing. Especially when I am challenged to add something experimental. :)

Two other things happened: I found a 20 year old score of a composition that I composed on the occasion of Frans de Waard's 30th birthday. As I knew that Lithuanian composer [ Arturas Bumsteinas ] collects graphic scores I sent it to him.

Finally: I received an offprint of an article that was published in [ Leonardo Music Journal ]. The article was written by Berlin based musicologist [ Volker Straebel  ] and dealt with "From Reproduction to Performance: Media-Specific Music for Compact Disc". My release [ "Music for CD-player" ] is extensively discussed.

Read more...

Archaeology

Yes, this is a reel to reel recorder with a Black and Decker Firestorm drill. And a squashed dog. I did some r2r deck experiments last week and thought about how I could define more accurately the tape speed. My varispeed drill was able to do the job but surprisingly it wasn't that flexible. Actually it didn't work out that well with this drill but it did with another drill (a bigger one). It doesn't work for live performances because the drill makes too much noise (although that could also be an added value ;) ).

It DID yield some interesting results. For one, I noticed what a wonderful medium tape actually is. If you listen to the smooth relation it gives in the left-mid-right balance. That's just beautiful! It's so nice and soft and easy to the ears. The back side is of course that the sound quality itself is (well, at least on this baby) a bummer compared to what digital machines do.

The reason my r2r returned to the laboratory desk was that I found a small and very old tape. It was labeled "do not throw away" so I was of course immediately interested to hear what it contained. It appeared to be a tape cut up that I made somewhere in the mid 80s. At the time I worked quite frantically on pieces, always in a hasty mood so as not to loose the flow I was in. Consequently my operations were not very refined. Splicing and connecting tape parts was always done in a hurry, sometimes with too much overlap or tape parts that were not 100% in line. It was all just part of the process and the fact that the result was not technically 100% was not as relevant as that it captured the spirit of the said process.

As a result, though, I found that almost every splice had fallen apart. I had to reconstruct the entire tape (which lasted approx. 4.5 minutes). This too took place in the same spirit as in the olden days. Eager to find out what sounds had been stored on the tape I took simple tape and a simple cutter and connected the parts even without a splice bar (I had not used that in 20 years and it's gone lost). Then I played the tape and immediately recorded it to digital. I noticed that some parts have been published, scattered over several tape releases but I don't believe that this particular composition has ever been released. I will work on it and construct a new version of it.

(No real animals were hurt during this excercise)

Read more...

Remixing and Remastering my own stuff

Today I had some spare time so I decided to have a go at my own material. I have been working on two series of works that are quite old. The first is commissioned music that I composed in 1995. At the time I was asked to produce the leader audio, the audiobeds and the bumpers for an interactive learning course. The idea of the course was that it was following a crime plot. I devised a tune that could easily fit in with a typical early German crime series ("Inspector Derrick").

Anyhow, it shows quite a different side of my musical activities: applied music. The reason for my picking up this music was that I wanted to see how it could be remastered. Below a few samples, originals versus new masters.

leader [ original ] versus [ new master ]
soundbed 1 [ original ] versus [ new master ]
soundbed 2 [ original ] versus [ new master ]

Well, it also shows that I do not work only on difficult, experimental electronic stuff. The second series is from a 1998 release that was made specially for an exhibition by [ Alexander Korsmit ]. It was released as "Maybe One thousand Buddhas for One Dream with hidden Noise" and given away to visitors. The music was by me, with texts by Paul Auster a.o. Texts were spoken by Danielle Lemaire, Alexander Korsmit and a few other people, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten.

Strangely enough I don't have a copy of it anymore. I have started reconstructing the music because I did have the final mixes but they were made wit Cool Edit Pro and it appears to be very difficult to transfer sessions from one application (CEP) to Reaper. Some files are missing so some of the sessions cannot be reconstructed. The ones featured below have been painstakingly put together again, file by file, track by track, volume envelope by volume envelope, pan envelope by pan envelope. So, why go through all the trouble? Because I remembered the music as something really special. The cooperation with Alexander was that, as well. But I was very tired of that, after the exhibition was over. Alexander is very well-read and has a deep interest in the history of South East Asia, especially Indonesia and India. The knowledge gathered from his reading is included into the texts and into his art work which is very hermetic.

Below are a few examples of reconstructed tracks, both original mixes and remasters.

track 1 [ original ] versus [ new master ]
track 2 [[ original ] versus [ new master ]

I hope you enjoy these.

Read more...