Surface Image: Interview with Tristan Perich / February 29, 2016 by Liquid Music

By Lauren McNee

Live music and visual art collide on March 24 with the presentation of Surface Image featuring composer Tristan Perich and pianist Vicky Chow, a partnership with the Walker Art Center's Sound Horizon Series. Written for solo piano and 40 channel 1-bit electronics, Surface Image is an hour-long musical journey that synthesizes Perich's electronic aesthetic and Chow's virtuosity. Surface Image and Perich's Observations (for two sets of crotales and 6-channel 1-bit electronics) will be performed in two galleries at the Walker Art Center. Audiences are encouraged to create a unique multimedia experience by freely wandering the galleries while listening to live music.

Chicago-based percussionist Peter Ferry sat down with Perich at his studio in Brooklyn to talk about working with 1-bit electronics, collaborating with Vicky Chow, the beauty of minimalism and presenting music in a gallery context.

Watch for an interview with Vicky Chow later this week!

Collaborate

Working with Vicky Chow

Composer Tristan Perich interview with Peter Ferry in advance of Liquid Music performance. Liquid Music and the Walker Art Center present: VICKY CHOW AND TRISTAN PERICH: Surface Image Thu, Mar 24, 2016 'Observations' performed at 6:00pm (Tristan Perich and Peter Ferry) 'Surface Image' performed at 7:00pm (Vicky Chow) Free event as part of the Walker Art Center's Sound Horizon series.

Evolution of Surface Image

Electronic Sound

1-bit electronics

Speaker construction

Meld

Visual art <----> Live sound

Humans <----> Machines

Structured minimalism <----> Artistic beauty

Adventure

In-gallery performance

Peter Ferry is a young American percussion soloist quickly gaining recognition for “presenting percussion in a stunning, thoughtful way” (Democrat and Chronicle). Beyond his national concerto and recital touring, Ferry connects with online audiences through the TEDx stage and imaginative videos of contemporary repertoire performances. Ferry also joins Alarm Will Sound, Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble Dal Niente and other established contemporary ensembles as a guest percussionist. An alumnus of the Eastman School of Music, Ferry graduated with the first ever John Beck Percussion Scholarship, an Arts Leadership certificate, and the prestigious Performer's Certificate recognizing "outstanding performing ability." More at PeterFerry.com

Holographic Video / February 10, 2016 by Liquid Music

To compliment the release of three new videos excerpts from Holographic, we asked Daniel Wohl and Daniel Schwarz to elaborate on their collaborative and creative process. Read about the "visual language" for the multi-media live performance below.

"I wanted to bring a visual element to the live performance to show another side of the music I was making. “Holographic” is an album which people can listen to on its own, but when they come see a live performance they get a different view point.

Daniel Schwarz’s visuals translate the sonic ‘data’ of my music into visual content. By taking the MIDI information (which gives rhythm to his video) as well as the live audio feed, the visuals are rendered in real time during our performance. The acoustic and electronic elements are being translated through Daniel’s particular custom created software and filtered through his unique visual language.

There is a lot going on in the live performance - the audience can pick up on the tone and the emotional content, but much of the imagery is left open to interpretation. Below we asked DS to break down some of the specific concepts behind a selection of pieces from Holographic to showcase the intricacies of his work."

– Daniel Wohl

Daniel Schwarz: The drone-y and forceful sounds in Formless reminded me of our current geopolitical fabric and the new ways technology has allowed us to see it. For the visuals I appropriated Google Earth fly-overs where acts of violence or human right violations are ingrained in the publicly available satellite imagery. The footage shows e.g. fights between the Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military near Donetsk, possible barrel bomb droppings around Aleppo in Syria, and a missile strike in Gaza indicated by clouds of dark red and black smoke.

In many ways it is a nod to the crucial practices of the Forensic Architecture project or Bellingcat and their creation of knowledge and evidence through similar means.

DS: Source’s soundscape is made up from a wide array of digital samples and voice recordings that are strongly manipulated. The visual content consists of live web content from various international news sources and platforms for information gathering and knowledge exchange.

The websites, initially clearly readable, become progressively more intermeshed - mirroring the manipulation of the digital sound samples in the song. Headlines, images and texts are arbitrarily juxtaposed creating new and unexpected meanings and also allow to situate the performance in its time-specific context within the current actualities of politics and social life.

DS: Shapes - Both the title and the sharp yet fragile string movements of this piece immediately brought to mind the shapes of borders and the act of crossing them; their control, oppression, and often times one-directional flow from the side of power, privilege or wealth (e.g. Mexico/US, Israel/Gaza, or the European Schengen zone). Experiencing the horrendous refugee crisis and the incapability or unwillingness of the international community to find humane solutions and approaches, lead to looking at symbols or signifiers for nationality and citizenship. How can national flags - which were designed with the clear intent to be easily recognizable and identifiable to a certain country - be abstracted and transformed into a different visual system or order? I ended up using common computer vision algorithms to detect feature sets and redrew thousands of lines connecting these machine detected points. The intention being to question understandings of what a country represents and the common populistic projections onto this symbol.

SEE DANIEL WOHL'S HOLOGRAPHIC LIVE IN SAINT PAUL THURSDAY FEB 11 AT 7:30PM AT THE ORDWAY

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Extra-curricular Listening pt. 3 - Holographic w/ Composer JP Merz / February 8, 2016 by Liquid Music

JP Merz (left) Daniel Wohl (right) — JP Merz (left) Daniel Wohl (right)

As purveyors of contemporary chamber music with a growing and increasingly adventurous audience, we are wholeheartedly committed to the creation and cultivation of new and diverse types of music. An essential part of this process is providing bridges and context for new listeners to discover and appreciate what could sometimes be considered "challenging" music. Context that we will attempt (<—key word) to provide through our 'Extra-curricular Listening' blog series.

For each concert we will provide some extracurricular listening (or watching) and some rabbit holes for LM followers to excavate and discover their own exciting but perhaps obscure corner of the music world.

This week JP Merz, composer, sound artists, and Daniel Wohl super fan shares his playlist for Daniel Wohl's Holographic.

Nic Collins

A lot of the electronic textures and techniques on Holographic could be characterized as “glitch music”. Producing sounds by intentionally misusing software, hardware, and audio files, glitch music is a tradition in which failure and “unwanted” sounds are embraced. In referencing this aesthetic, Wohl exposes the technology, highlighting the agency of humans interfacing within a digital system. One of the earliest concert works to use glitching as a musical element is Nic Collins’ string quartet titled Broken Light (1992) which involves hacked CD players which skip in a somewhat controlled but occasionally unpredictable way. This technique and material lends itself to the repetitive shifting textures with interruptions from wild, erratic flurries of notes. This glitch technique and process is featured prominently on Wohl’s own piece Progression.

Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto

In Holographic, Wohl seamlessly blends melodies and instruments from the concert hall with sounds and aesthetics from the club. A classic collaboration between classical and electronica music is the album Vrioon by Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Sakamoto, a prominent Japanese contemporary classical composer, recorded light, floating piano tracks and sent them to Alva Noto, a German electronica musician and visual artist, who manipulated them and added his own sounds. On this album, Alva Noto uses a technique called “microsound”, which takes a small, usually microseconds long, audio file and loops it so fast that it produces a new, distinctly electronic sound. The two have come together again, along with The National’s Bryce Dessner, to produce the soundtrack for the 2015 film, The Revenant, starring Leonardo Di Caprio.

Pamela z

On the track Source, Wohl collaborates with Caroline Shaw and Olga Bell, whose voices emerge from and dissipate into the thick electronic texture. Pamela Z is a composer/performer, who also works with vocal manipulations to create electronic textures but in a completely different way. Pamela Z often creates her own tools which utilize gesture and movement to manipulate her live vocal recordings. In this piece, BREATHING, it’s difficult to tell which sounds are coming from her and which are coming from her laptop, creating a blend of the acoustic and electronic that is characteristic of Wohl’s own music.

Matmos

Holographic is filled a variety of sound sources, from recordings of musicians like the Bang on a Can All Stars (Holographic) to fingernails clacking on a keyboard (Pixel). Electronic duo Matmos is also interested in sound sources, but in a more focused way, often crafting entire albums from just a few sources. Their album California Rhinoplasty primarily uses recordings from plastic surgery. Out of their original context, these sounds take on their own life and can be appreciated for their unique sonic qualities.

Holly Herndon

Laptop performer and composer, Holly Herndon, shares a like-minded interest in the relationship between humans and technology. In Herdon’s piece Chorus, the sound from websites Herndon visits is monitored and recorded, then used to create the sporadic and intense layers throughout the piece. In doing this, Herndon highlights the emotional content embedded in laptops, a device that has become increasingly personal. The manipulations of her voice to create accessible dance rhythms also references this human embodiment of technology and the power of technology to bring people together.

Flying Lotus

Compared to Holographic, Flying Lotus operates more in the world of hip-hop than classical, with altered drum loops rescued from old school funk or jazz albums. But both have an obsession with sounds that move, buzz, shimmer and pulsate, creating intricate, tapestry-like textures that have an organic sense of breath. In Flying Lotus’s music, the beat pushes and pulls and sounds fade in and out, feeling more like a collage than a song with clear form and structure.

The Rabbit Hole

Artists we couldn't fit in, but think are worth mentioning (in no particular order):

Ryoji Ikeda
Aphex Twin
Arca
Matmos + So Perc
Bjork
Autchre
Boards of Canada
Kaija Saariaho
Brian Eno
Angelica Negrón
Paul Lansky
Tim Hecker
William Basinski
Ingram Marshall
Nina C. Young

Special thanks to JP for his work on this post. Keep up on his goings on here:
jpmerz.com
facebook.com/jpmerzcomposer/
@merz_jp
soundcloud.com/merzjp

Liquid Music

Surface Image: Interview with Tristan Perich / February 29, 2016 by Liquid Music

By Lauren McNee

Collaborate

Electronic Sound

Meld

Adventure

Holographic Video / February 10, 2016 by Liquid Music

SEE DANIEL WOHL'S HOLOGRAPHIC LIVE IN SAINT PAUL THURSDAY FEB 11 AT 7:30PM AT THE ORDWAY

Extra-curricular Listening pt. 3 - Holographic w/ Composer JP Merz / February 8, 2016 by Liquid Music

Nic Collins

Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto

Pamela z

Matmos

Holly Herndon

Flying Lotus

The Rabbit Hole

SEE DANIEL WOHL'S HOLOGRAPHIC LIVE IN SAINT PAUL THURSDAY FEB 11 AT 7:30PM AT THE ORDWAY

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