This site documents some of my music/sound projects. Click on the photos to enlarge them. To listen to the streaming MP3 audio samples you will need a high-speed internet connection and good speakers or headphones, as much of the work is very quiet and not reproduced well by tiny built-in computer speakers.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Monday, February 4, 2008
Recent News
Filtered Light (Chamber Music 4) is a new sound installation at the University of New Mexico Art Museum in Albuquerque, running through May 11. Presented as part of the annual UNM Composers Symposium. A limited edition CD-R is available from Dragon's Eye Recordings. Listen to a sneak preview (wait for slow fade in):
powered by ODEO (6:00)
Also new: The Webster Cycles has just been released by Cold Blue Music. This is probably the oldest piece of mine you will ever get to hear. JA Deane recorded a definitive version for six trombones in Santa Fe about 18 years later, and nearly 10 years after that it is finally available. Vita brevis, ars tardus...
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Installations
Chamber Music 4: Filtered Light (2008)
March 28 - May 11, 2008
University of New Mexico Art Museum
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Four-channel sound installation, using fourteen frequencies derived from a field recording made during off hours in the museum's Studio Gallery. Presented as part of the 2008 UNM Composers Symposium. A limited edition CD-R is available from Dragon's Eye Recordings. Listen to an excerpt (wait for slow fade in):
powered by ODEO (6:00)
Chamber Music 3: Silent Room (2007)
May 11 & 12, 2007
Seattle Public Library, Greenwood Branch
Seattle, Washington
Four-channel sound installation, using twelve frequencies derived from a field recording made during off hours in the library's Silent Room, a glass-walled room within the library designated as a quiet study area; the piece plays continuously at a very low level, and listeners may stay as long as they wish. Listen to an excerpt:
powered by ODEO (4:08)
Chamber Music 2: Atrium (2007)
March 16 - April 26, 2007
Atrium Sound Space, College of Santa Fé
Santa Fé, New Mexico
Four-channel sound installation. Chamber Music is an ongoing series of site-specific sound works derived from field recordings made in buildings when no people are present. These recordings of "silent" room tone are filtered to extract subtle resonant frequencies from the spectrum of (very quiet) broadband noise. In this case, an hour-long stereo recording was made during off hours in the lobby of the new music building at the College of Santa Fé. Ten frequencies were isolated, and aside from gating and setting the volume level for each one, no other electronic processing, manipulation, or editing was used. Listen to an excerpt:
powered by ODEO (5:08)
first light, last (2006)
December 7 - 23, 2006
Portland Art Center, Light & Sound Gallery
Portland, Oregon
Video and multi-channel sound installation with artist Christine Wallers. A meditation on the cusps of darkness and light, sound and silence. The visuals are projected sequences of still photographs of cloudless sky, taken in the moments just before darkness and dawn. The sound is derived from a 40-minute field recording made on the beach at Kalaloch, Washington as night visibly descended. Listen to an excerpt:
powered by ODEO (6:00)
Correspondence (2005)
November 30 - December 3, 2005
Light Box Gallery at Miami Light Project
Miami, Florida
Collaborative sound installation with Rene Barge, created by exchanging recordings through the mail between the far corners of the USA. The sonic materials were all of domestic origin: Rene's sounds were recordings of things and moments around his home in Miami that carried memory and meaning for him; mine were drones derived from a field recording made in an empty house in Seattle. He sent me his material, I added mine and sent it back. Rene built the little table and bench to create an intimate space in the gallery that encouraged attentive listening. Listen to the entire piece here:
powered by ODEO (21:42)
Alchemy (2000)
March 1 - 30, 2007
Portland Art Center
Portland, Oregon
August 30 - October 9, 2005
Center on Contemporary Art
Seattle, Washington
In Resonance, curated by Fionn Meade & Rob Millis
January 17 - May 31, 2003
Nicolaysen Art Museum
Casper, Wyoming
September 22 - October 1, 2000
Old San Ysidro Church
Corrales, New Mexico - review in April 2001 Art in America
Originally titled Alchemy of Desire, this collaborative installation with visual artist Christine Wallers was first presented in September 2000 as a site-specific installation at the historic San Ysidro Church in Corrales, New Mexico. The sound is derived from the whispering voices of 32 people reading written responses we received from over 300 people in fifteen countries to our invitation to imagine change in the world. Individual voices are heard through a series of large bowls made of spun yellow brass, set upon steel plates suspended from the ceiling. Transducers affixed to the bowls transmit sound directly into the metal, causing them to resonate. Heard clearly in the first bowl, the voices are electronically transformed into increasingly pure, abstract tones as they flow through the space in a quiet wave and gradually subside into silence. Random groupings of unprocessed voices are played at very low volume through small speakers distributed throughout the gallery. Listen to a location recording made by Jonathan Way at CoCA in Seattle:
powered by ODEO (3:36)
Morning Ragas (2005)
June 18, 2005
Port Angeles Fine Arts Center
Port Angeles, Washington
Art Outside #6, curated by Jake Seniuk
All of the sounds in this site-specific work were recorded in Webster's Woods, the art center's five-acre outdoor sculpture park, during one weekend in early May, 2005. The source material includes environmental sound (birds, a ship's horn, etc.), natural objects, and some of the many sculptures encountered in the park. The raw field recordings were edited and electronically processed, resulting in a series of birdsong "solos" over gradually shifting loops and drones. The piece is intended to be heard at low volume through headphones while wandering the trails, mixing amiably with the live sounds. Listen to an edited, remixed version:
powered by ODEO (12:00)
Center of Gravity (2004)
October 8 – November 19, 2004
Betty Rymer Gallery, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Implicit Plasticity, curated by Dubhe Carreño
Collaborative installation with artist Susan York for one of her "graphite rooms," in which the walls and floor are coated with a neutral paint base infused with powdered graphite, buffed to a silver-grey sheen (the photo is color, not B&W). A wooden pier extended from the doorway out into the middle of the room, so that the viewer was surrounded by a grey expanse punctuated with several blocks of solid graphite and a stack of white porcelain shards, evoking the contemplative space of a Japanese rock garden. The sound was made entirely with my own breath and real-time electronic processing. Each individual breath was treated as its own miniature composition. These short pieces are separated by silences of random length. A remixed version is on the Three Rooms CD from the Sirr label. Listen to an excerpt (with condensed silences):
powered by ODEO (5:40)
Window Seat (2004)
July 2 - August 13, 2004
Santa Fe Art Institute
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Transmit + Transform, curated by Diane Karp
Site-specific sound installation located in a small, closet-like space in the administrative office of the Art Institute with a full-length window looking out upon the main entrance to the building. Four participants (David Dunn, Jackie M, Ann Racuya-Robbins, Gene Youngblood) were invited to sit in this space at different times for about 30 minutes and describe what they saw out the window; their voices were recorded and edited to form a woven narrative. Visitors sat in the chair looking out the window, listening on headphones to a mix of ambient sounds recorded outside the window, live sound picked up by a wireless microphone hidden outside, and the speaking voices. An attentive listener might notice random correspondences between what they were seeing, the sounds they were hearing (both past and present), and the events described by the voices. Listen to an edited version:
powered by ODEO (9:47)
Mountains Hidden in Mountains (2003)
July 2 - August 13, 2004
Santa Fe Art Institute
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Transmit + Transform, curated by Diane Karp
A bell was hung inside a tower located near the main entrance to the Art Institute. When rung by a visitor, it triggers a recording of the bell that fades in imperceptibly as the real sound decays, creating the illusion of an endless tone. The sound changes subtly over 22 minutes, slowly mixing in layers of pitch-shifted bell tones that get increasingly lower until they finally evaporate into silence. A remixed version is on the Three Rooms CD from the Sirr label. Listen to a condensed version:
powered by ODEO (11:19)
Here-ings: a sonic geohistory (1999 - 2001)
March 27 - April 28, 2004
Dorsch Gallery
Miami, Florida
Subtropics Festival, curated by Gustavo Matamoros
(sound-only version)
March 19 - May 14, 2004
Sun Valley Center for the Arts
Sun Valley, Idaho
Sound of Place/Place of Sound, curated by Jennifer Gately
(listening station with CD and book)
June 5 - August 28, 2003
University of Texas Art Gallery
El Paso, Texas
(sound-only version)
October 6 - 27, 2002
THE LAND/an art site
Mountainair, New Mexico
Fourth Show: Nothing to See
(completed version with 24 listening benches permanently installed on recording sites)
July 12 - August 10, 2002
516 Magnifico Artspace
Albuquerque, New Mexico
being, here: work from the land
(sound installation with 24 stone and steel listening benches)
December 14, 2001 - April 21, 2002
Museum of Fine Arts
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Organizing the World: Sculptural Interventions, curated by Aline Brandauer and Christine Wallers
(sound-only version, with sandstone markers)
October 3 - 24, 1999
THE LAND/an art site
Mountainair, New Mexico
Second Show, curated by Christine Wallers
(In-progress version of five wooden listening benches with screen printed texts placed on corresponding recording sites, and a rough mix of the first five hours of recordings heard at the opening at a nearby gallery.)
Based on a practice of listening as a way to connect to place, this work began with 24 hours of ambient field recordings made at different locations at THE LAND/an art site in central New Mexico. Additional contact mic recordings were made of various plants and objects encountered there. A series of short poetic texts were written evoking the events during each hour of recording; these were sandblasted onto stone listening benches placed permanently on the recording sites. Listen to a collage of sound samples:
powered by ODEO
ALSO: Independent radio producer Paul Ingles won a Murrow Award for a feature he did on this piece for the Living On Earth program - listen & read a transcript (scroll down to "Sonic Sculptures").
Luminous Bodies on Galileo’s Inclined Plane (2003)
October 4 - November 2, 2003
Albuquerque Contemporary Art Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
"...a mesmerizing theoretical space, a speculative construct, and a hypnotic abstract machine, manifest as a room inside a room." John Carver, THE Magazine, November 2003.
Collaborative installation with architect Reggie Stump. Using Galileo's theory of perpetual motion as a conceptual reference point, Stump created a physical structure within the gallery that investigates the relationship between space, time and motion. The work is a poetic approach to a literal assignment: to design a living space to be shared by two individuals with very different mobility needs – one with cerebral palsy, one without. As an imaginative study for this larger project, Stump constructed two converging mirrored corridors that challenge the observer's own comfort and ease of movement. Each corridor (made of perforated steel, plexiglass and wood) houses a video projection of the bodies in question, rendered as living constellations, traversing the same piece of raw rural terrain - the future building site - with differing degrees of ability. The eight-channels of environmental sound evoked a fictional landscape while electronically processed grasshoppers "flew" across the room between speakers, and impossibly sustained bell tones marked the passing of time and map out an audible terrain of subtle standing waves that change perceptibly with the listener's own movement within the gallery. Listen to a short excerpt (without bells):
powered by ODEO (2:00)
For more photos and video clips, go to Reggie's web site and click on the image that looks like the one shown here.
Delicate Abrasions (2003)
June 6 - July 19, 2003
Klaudia Marr Gallery/Shack Obscura
Santa Fe, New Mexico
12-channel site-specific sound installation with six listening benches made of steel and stone. The Shack Obscura was once a small warehouse area for an old neighborhood grocery, and is now used as a raw project space in the alley behind Klaudia Marr Gallery. All sounds were derived from tactile interaction with the interior surfaces and materials of the building: nails, dust and grit, sliding door, concrete, metal, glass, and wood. A remastered version is on the Three Rooms CD from the Sirr label (see above). Listen to the original version:
powered by ODEO (17:00)
Emanations (1995)
August 2001
Harwood Art Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(six-channel sound installation)
May 5 - June 2, 1998
Brooklyn College Art Gallery
Brooklyn, New York
(four-channel sound installation)
February 16 - April 12, 1996
Nonsequitur Music Gallery
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Collaborative installation with artist Claire Giovanniello. Four-channel sound installation made from very quiet electroacoustic feedback recorded in the gallery space. Claire's work consisted of a series of white, three-dimensional paintings covered with gauze, and two wall sculptures made of roofing nails and aluminum rods. Listen to an excerpt (headphones required):
powered by ODEO (6:19)
Confluences (2000)
August 18 - September 24, 2000
Albuquerque Museum
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Water, a juried exhibition presented by Magnifico
(six-channel sound installation)
Six speakers were placed at various locations throughout the exhibit, each one playing a recording of a different confluence of the Rio Grande with one of its tributary streams. These recordings were part of a series gathered in the summer of 1999 during a field trip from Albuquerque to the source of the Rio Grande in Colorado. (received Award of Merit)
Sound samples coming eventually...
Celebrating Nature: The Landscape Underground (1999)
January 2000 - ?
Albuquerque Convention Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
A collaboration with visual artist Barbara Grothus, this is a permanent neon light and sound installation commissioned by the City of Albuquerque Public Art Program for a pedestrian tunnel joining the Convention Center and the parking garage beneath Civic Plaza. The neon lights are based on abstract line drawings of natural forms: mountains, trees, birds, etc. Ten channels of sound are placed throughout the length of the tunnel, which is situated East-West. The environmental field recordings were all made by myself in north-central New Mexico, and correspond to different times of day, beginning with a dawn chorus at the east end of the tunnel and midnight crickets at the west end, and a flowing stream in the center. Those sounds are all continuous, while others appear more randomly. Some of them pan between speakers, suggesting movement through the tunnel.
Sound samples coming eventually...
Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon (1991-1994)
December 1998
Refusalon Gallery
San Francisco, California
Sound
(listening station with headphones)
Listen to the entire remixed and unedited piece:
powered by ODEO (21:30)
Releases & Publications
The Webster Cycles
Cold Blue Music
Los Angeles, California
(CD, 2008; CB0026)
A single 30-minute piece that straddles the fence of structure and improvisation: all of the words in the dictionary that use only the letters A-G, arranged in alphabetical order. Each word is played for the length of one long breath, and within that the letters/notes are played spontaneously, as are dynamics, timbre, etc. This very lush multi-tracked version is for six trombones, all performed by the fabulous J.A. Deane. Reviews: Santa Fe Reporter, Sequenza21, Textura
Filtered Light (chamber music 4)
Dragon's Eye Recordings
Seattle, USA
(CD-R, 2008; de5017)
Chamber Music is a series of site-specific sound installations derived from recordings of the empty rooms in which the work is exhibited. Luminous resonant frequencies pulled from thin air, sound that aspires to the qualities of light, slowly shifting in tone and intensity with the passing of time. Filtered Light was a version made for the UNM Art Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2008. Reviews: Tokafi, White_Line
powered by ODEO (6:00)
Occasional Music
Palace of Lights
Hawaii, USA
(CD, 2007; PoL 0703)
Music for real instruments that has been used for dance, theater, and film. Something to confuse everyone: Satie-esque piano (played by Robin Holcomb), swirling minimalist accordions, Javanese gamelan, jazzy trumpets, electro-acoustic mayhem, pretty female voices, Fourth World fusion, drifty electric guitar. You had no idea, did you? Reviewed at Amazon, Earlabs #1, Ectomag, Psyche Van Het Folk, Sea of Tranquility, Terrascopic Rumbles (scroll way down), Textura, Vital Weekly (on Earlabs).
Three Rooms
Sirr
Lisbon, Portugal
(CD, 2007; Sirr 0029)
Documents three sound installations: a re-mastered version of Delicate Abrasions (sounds of playing an old warehouse in Santa Fé), a completely remixed version of Center of Gravity (processed breath sounds for one of Susan York's "graphite rooms" at School of the Art Institute of Chicago), and the original version of Mountains Hidden in Mountains (from a single strike of the meditation bell at a zendo in Albuquerque).
Reviewed at: Vital Weekly, Boomkat, Disquiet, e/i, d'Mute (French), Gaz-Eta, Kathodik (Italian), Neural, New Media Fix, Octopus (French), Sands Zine (Italian), Tokafi, Touching Extremes (scroll down almost to end), The Wire (October 2007, not online)
Post-Minimalism
Trace Label
Paris, France
(CD, 2007; Trace 024)
2-CD compilation featuring 19 composers from 4 countries, all of them found on MySpace by producer Hervé Zénouda. Includes Ancestral Memory, which can also be heard on Occasional Music.
From Shelter
Cold Blue Music
Los Angeles, California
(CD, 2004; CB0018)
Four short pieces composed for Shelter, a 1998 dance/theater work written and choreographed by Lane Lucas: Three Short Stories (a fine powder/nothing but love/lavender) with Alicia Ultan, violas; My burning skin to sleep... with Marghreta Cordero, voice; SP, piano. Reviews: Classical Net, Dusted, The Improvisor, Sequenza21 (scroll down), Sonic Curiosity, Textura. Listen to Nothing But Love:
powered by ODEO (3:36)
Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World
New Deal Films
Corrales, New Mexico
(DVD, 2003; ISBN 1-878917-10-2)
Soundtrack for the documentary by Mary Lance on the great abstract painter. Some of the music was remixed from earlier work, some was composed especially for this project, with Ben Daitz on viola. Agnes Martin's work has been hugely inspiring to me, and I am honored to contribute to this project. In 1980 I saw a show of her work in Seattle – a room full of large, white canvases. But if you looked at them long enough, they seemed to glow with different colors; her trademark horizontal bands of color were buried beneath layers of white gesso, seeping through like overtones. I spent the next twenty years trying to figure out how to do that with sound (see the Emanations CD). Reviews: collected reviews, New York Times, Slant, Village Voice. Listen to an interview on WNYC with director Mary Lance.
Delicate Abrasions
pianíssimo
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(3" mini CD-R, 2003; ppp03; out of print)
Documentation of a site-specific sound installation at Klaudia Marr Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Limited edition of 100 copies in handmade rusted steel sleeve with printed color insert, cardboard inner sleeve, clear vinyl jacket. Remastered version available on Three Rooms from the Sirr label (see above).
Silents
effe
Japan
(CD, 2002; ef02-002)
A compilation of very quiet works by four composers:
Francisco López (Spain): untitled #120 (2001)
Steve Peters (USA): agung (2001), for seven Javanese gongs
sukora (Japan): Hill
Bernhard Günter (Germany): elliptical entropy (2000)
Listen to agung (headphones required):
powered by ODEO 14:52
Here-ings: a sonic geohistory
La Alameda Press
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(Book + CD, 2002; ISBN: 1-888809-38-83)
This book and CD document a site-specific installation created at THE LAND/an art site in Mountainair, New Mexico. With photographs by Margot Geist.
Twenty-four hours of field recordings were made over the course of one year at various places on this forty-acre site dedicated to low impact, land-based art. These were edited down to a 72-minute sound collage, mixed with contact microphone recordings of various objects found at the site such as grass, cactus, trees, ants, and wire fences. Short poetic texts evoking the sounds heard during each recorded hour were engraved on stone and steel listening benches that are placed permanently on all of the recording sites. The book contains essays discussing the process and ideas behind the creation of the work, the listening bench poems, and a detailed track list of all the sounds heard on the CD. Also available from Earth Ear, and/OAR, and the Deep Listening Institute. Listen to 7 AM - Mockingbird Aria with Harvester Ants:
powered by ODEO (3:00)
in memory of the four winds
pianíssimo
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(CD, 2000; ppp01)
Music composed for Flight Path, choreographed by Doranne Crable for Kagami Butoh. Sound sources include insects, violin, wind, stone, trees, voice, feedback, water, suling gambuh, birds, electronic processing. Available from Earth Ear, and/OAR, and the Deep Listening Institute. Reviews: All Music Guide, Amazing Sounds, Ambient Visions (scroll down), Vital (scroll down). Listen to a condensed version:
powered by ODEO (15:41)
Site of Sound: of architecture & the ear
Errant Bodies Press
Los Angeles, California
(Book + CD, 1999; ISBN: 0-9655570-2-2)
Edited by Brandon LaBelle and Steve Roden, Site of Sound is an anthology focusing on current trends in experimental music, sound art and audio theories, featuring writings, visual works, interviews and artist projects by leading experimental composers, sound-artists, and architects whose work concerns itself with architectural and acoustic space, sound sculpture, field/environmental investigation and recording, and site-specificity. (other artists: Michael Brewster, Loren Chasse, Philip Corner, Moniek Darge, David Dunn, Max Eastley, Rolf Julius, Alison Knowles, Christina Kubisch, Rupert M. Loydell, Tom Marioni, Christof Migone, Tim Robinson, Minoru Sato, Jio Shimizu, Jake Tilson, Giancarlo Toniutti, Jalal Toufic, Toshiya Tsunoda, Ralf L. Wehowsky, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Achim Wollscheid)
Includes a recorded excerpt, score, and essay about Sight Specifics: Santa Fe, one of a series of works in which I invite others to visit particular places and record their spontaneous descriptions of what they observe there. This version is an edited performance by intermedia artist Ann Racuya-Robbins, recorded in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Listen:
powered by ODEO (5:37)
Sound
Refusalon Gallery
San Francisco, California
(CD, 1998)
Compilation from gallery show, with an excerpt from Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon, performed by David Dunn. (other artists: Bill Fontana, Joe Bloggs, Paul De Marinis, Lewis DeSoto, Gustavo Matamoros, Doug Harvey, horea, Guy Hundere/Totemplow, Brandon LaBelle, Ati Maier, Tom Marioni, Guy Overfelt, Steve Roden, Heather Sparks/Adam Sinykin, Jake Tilson, Illana Zuckerman) Listen to the entire remixed and unedited piece:
powered by ODEO (21:30)
emanations
OO Discs
Black Rock, Connecticut
(CD, 1998; oo34)
Sound from an installation with visual artist Claire Giovanniello. A vaporous cloud of pure tones made with controlled feedback, hovering on the threshold of audibility. Available from Pogus, and/OAR, and the Deep Listening Institute. Reviews: All Music Guide, Amazing Sounds. Listen to an excerpt (headphones required):
powered by ODEO (4:19)
Cassette Mythos
Autonomedia
Brooklyn, New York
(Book, 1990; ISBN: 0-936756-69-1)
Edited by Robin James, this overview/anthology of documents from the international underground cassette network ca. mid-late 1980s includes Tape Recorder as Audio Camera: Snapshot Radio/Cassette Magazine, an essay co-written with Rich Jensen about our early work with field recordings and found audio. I thought this was out of print, but it is still listed on the publisher's web site. Robin still maintains an online version with occasional updates. (a companion CD, Audio Alchemy, was also released on Nonsequitur's ¿What Next? label, available from Pogus)
The Aerial - a journal in sound, #1
Nonsequitur
Santa Fe, New Mexico
(CD/Cassette, 1990; AER1990/1)
Idumea, an improvisation on a shape-note hymn for voice, violin, and home-made bass recorder (under name Lost Souls) included on compilation CD that I also produced. (other artists: Christine Baczewska, Floating Concrete Octopus, Malcolm Goldstein, Jerry Hunt, Rich Jensen, Richard Kostelanetz, Loren Mazzacane & Suzanne Langille, David Moss, Bern Porter, Terry Setter, Stuart Sherman) CD out of print, cassette available from the Deep Listening Institute. Listen here:
powered by ODEO (5:33)
Performances
Cold Blue at REDCAT
February 18, 2006
Roy & Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater
Los Angeles, CA
I was honored to have the wonderful pianist Sarah Cahill perform Paris, once, a miniature composed in NYC in the early 1980s, on an evening of short works by various composers on the Cold Blue label (John Luther Adams, Michael Byron, Barney Childs, Rick Cox, Michael Jon Fink, Jim Fox, Kyle Gann, Peter Garland, Daniel Lentz, David Mahler, Read Miller, Steve Peters, Larry Polansky, and Chas Smith). Read the full press release. Listen here:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
