Electronic Frequencies

00:00 Jingle
00:36 Ernst van der Loo: Hypnagogia (Stereo Reduction)
10:39 Natasha Barrett: Dusk’s Gait
22:36 Fousek, Hansen, Tellier, Craig: No way of knowing, Side One
37:23 Persona Mercure: Replacement
44:18 Nikos Stavropoulos: Ballistichory
51:31 Ernst van der Loo: Risk Assessment (Stereo Reduction)
59:41 Reprise

Ernst van der Loo.

Ernst van der Loo (1974, Rotterdam) is a Dutch composer/performer based in the Oslo area in Norway. He studied sound engineering and electroacoustic composition & performance. He obtained a bachelors degree from the institute of Sonology in The Hague, The Netherlands and, more recently, a masters degree at the Norwegian Music Academy in Oslo, Norway studying with Natasha Barrett. He has been active as an electronics performer in the free improvisation scene next to his engagement with electroacoustic music. His current work mainly focuses on fixed media spatial audio composition. His source materials are often synthesised with analogue modular equipment. He has also been active in the theater sector as sound engineer, sound designer and composer.

Hypnagogia.

According to Wikipedia Hypnagogia is:
“the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep (…) Mental phenomena that may occur during this ‘threshold consciousness’ phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis.”
The piece tries to approach the phenomena that could appear during the threshold state between wakefulness and sleep in an artistic way using spatial audio techniques to induce auditory illusions in space. By composing music in a spatial environment we are able to approach the auditory illusions experienced during this state of mind. These illusions are de-facto not stereo or mono. We are hearing those illusions in a space, be it the room we are in or the room we think we are in, in that particular moment.

Risk Assessment.

Risk Assessment was originally composed in stereo with the idea that it could be diffused live over a loudspeaker array. The first half was finished in December 2018 for Electric Audio Unit’s diffusion workshop at Sentralen, Oslo. The second part was composed several months later, also in stereo.
The piece was then carefully re-distributed over the ambisonics field, from which the current stereo version is again reduced. There is a distinct difference between the two versions noticeable. Currently I prefer the stereo reduction of the ambisonics version.
Also notable: the sound materials for this piece are derived from recordings of analogue modular synthesis processes which were heavily processed during the composition process.
Risk Assessment will be played as multi channel version at the BeastFeast Birmingham 2020.

Natasha Barrett.

Natasha Barrett composes acousmatic and live electroacoustic concert works, multi-media projects and installations. The musical application of spatial audio has guided her work since the late 90’s and she is a leading voice in the new wave of artists working with ambisonics, 3-D sound and its contemporary music context.
Her inspiration comes from the natural, cultural and social world around us: the way it sounds and behaves, systems, processes and resulting phenomena. These interests have led her into the realms of cutting-edge audio technologies, geoscience, sonification, motion tracking and some exciting collaborations involving instrumental ensembles, visual artists, architects and scientists.
Her work is commissioned, performed and broadcast throughout the world, and throughout her career she has received a solid list of international awards including the Nordic Council Music Prize (Nordic Countries) and Euphonie D’Or in the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Awards (France). Originally from the UK, Barrett moved to Norway in 1999. Active in performance, education and research, she is co-director of the Norwegian spatial-music performance ensemble Electric Audio Unit (EAU) and founder of 3DA (the Norwegian society for 3-D sound-art). Besides her independent career as a composer she currently holds a professorship at the Norwegian Academy for Music, Oslo.

Dusk’s Gait. 2018, duration 12’00.

Dusk’s Gait is partly narrative in form while projecting an overarching appreciation of the natural world: as dusk falls, a habitat of fictional creatures is let loose, celebrating moments of real nature that may easily expire. Although acousmatic sounds may appear abstract, they can be imbued with a sense of character through their gait – or literally the manner of moving, which can occur in space, in spectrum and in morphology. In Dusk’s Gait, ambisonics spatialisation and custom-made sound analysis and transformation methods are used to create tangible spatial objects, each with a characteristic gait.

Persone Mercure, Montreal, Québec
https://personamercure.bandcamp.com

Fousek, Hansen, Tellier-Craig.

Three distinct approaches to electronic music collide in collaborative project Fousek/Hansen/Tellier-Craig, fusing Karl Fousek’s FM synthesis, Devon Hansen’s detailed approach to drone and processed percussion and the unmistakable sounds of Roger Tellier-Craig’s hybrid laptop/modular rig. Together, they draw on ingenious musical dexterity and experience to craft improvised soundscapes and rhythmic intrigue.

Nikos Stavropoulos.

Nikos Stavropoulos (Athens, Greece, 1975) is a composer of predominantly acousmatic and mixed music. He read music at the University of Wales (Bangor, Wales, UK), where he studied composition with Andrew Lewis and completed a doctorate at the University of Sheffield (England, UK) under the supervision of Adrian Moore.
His music is performed and broadcast regularly around the world and has been awarded internationally on several occasions. His practice is concerned with notions of tangibility and immersivity in acousmatic experiences and the articulation of acoustic space, in the pursuit of probable aural impossibilities.
Since 2006, he has been a member of the Music, Sound & Performance Group at Leeds Beckett University (Leeds, England, UK), where he is a Reader in Composition and lectures on Electroacoustic Music.

Thanks to Ernst van der Loo for helping setup this program.