NIME 2016

Coral Bells Movt.2 2016 -  Brigid Burke
Coral Bells explores the diverse overtone, microtone sounds and origins of the Federation Hand Bells and Bass clarinet into the visual with discrete sounds of the ecosystems of coral from Fitzroy Island Northern Australia. This creation brings a new life to the Federation Hand Bells providing deepening connections with the Australian landscape. It is the conversation of between the audio and dead coral from that accentuates the audio-visual reflecting both the translucent Federation Bell sounds, Bass clarinet, glass and dead coral. The acoustic resonators vibrates with the coral and are recreated into visuals of moving glass objects. These sounds transform into acousmatic sounds. The colors and texture within the visuals are layered white/grey, sepia, hints of pastel colours, burnt reds, yellows and gold images that are layered to create a thick timbral texture to form the video voice. The sounds of subtle high pitched Bells and gritty sand sounds with the Bass clarinet periodically joining the drones with discordant multiphonics and flourishes of notes dominate throughout. Subsequent acoustic and visual motifs capture and emerge sonically/visually creating timbre layers of the interpreted coral and glass reflections.

On Solo - Johannes Mulder
The performance is part of the ongoing research project into Karlheinz Stockhausen’s historic work Solo (Solo, für Melodie-Instrument mit Rückkopplung 1965-6). Together with my colleague Dr. Juan Parra Cancino from ORCIM Ghent we are teasing out the consequences of the (now common) software replacement of the elaborate tape delay system that was used in the time of the work’s inception.

Shelter - Sam Gillies
bass flute - Cat Hope 
bass clarinet - Lindsay Vickery
viola - Aaron Wyatt 

Working almost exclusively at a very soft volume, Shelter inverts the relationships between the source sound material and it’s experience in the real world, placing very large sounds (sourced from field recordings) at the threshold of audibility while audio artifacts are brought to the forefront of our focus to act as recognisable musical material. By utilising a soft dynamic, all audience members are able to hear each channel more equally, regardless of their position in the performance space. This new version for bass clarinet, electric guitar, and electronics expands the original electronic composition into something more lively and environmentally focused. The compositional intentions of the original Shelter remain at play here - this version still seeks to address the assumptions of multichannel listening, while affecting an environment of sound in preference to an experience of sound. However, this electroacoustic version adds a little bit of much needed chaos, allowing performers to interact and manipulate this sonic environment.

Ground Interference - The Listen(n) Project - Leah Barclay 
Ground Interference draws on short recordings from each location I visited in spring 2014 with a particular focus on Joshua Tree National Park, Jornada Biosphere Reserve, Mojave Desert, and Death Valley National Park. These fragile desert environments are inhabited by thousands of species all part of a delicate ecosystem that is in a state of flux induced by changing climates. The transfixing acoustic ecologies of the southwest deserts demand a stillness that encourages a deeper environmental awareness and engagement. In many instances during our field trip we struggled to find locations without human interference. The distant hum of highway traffic and relentless airplanes under the flight path from LAX were expected, yet we also encountered unexpected sounds interfering with the acoustic ecologies of the land. These range from an obscure reverberating vending machine in Death Valley National Park to rattling power lines in the Jornada Biosphere Reserve that were so loud I could feel the vibrations through my feet.

Becoming Desert - The Listen(n) Project - Garth Paine 
Becoming Desert draws on the experience of sitting or lying down silent in the desert for several hours at a time to make sound recordings. The field recordings I made in four deserts of the American Southwest are the basis of this work. When listening to the desert sounds through headphones at the time of recording, one is aware of a kind of hyper-real sonic environment. The amplified soundfield in the headphones is surreal in its presence and accuracy and multiplies my direct experience of listening many times.

Nature Forms II [2016] for flute, clarinet, viola, percussion, hybrid field recording and electronics - Lindsay Vickery

bass flute - Cat Hope
clarinet - Lindsay Vickery
viola - Aaron Wyatt
percussion - Vanessa Tomlinson

Nature Forms II is an eco-structuralist work, maintaining what Opie and Brown term the “primary rules” of “environmentally-based musical composition”: that “structures must be derived from natural sound sources” and that “structural data must remain in series”. Nature Forms II explores the possibility of recursive re-interrogation of a field recording through visualization and resonification/resynthesis via machine and performative means. The source field recording is contrasted with artificially generated versions created with additive, subtractive and ring modulation resynthesis. Interaction between the live performers and the electronic components are explores through “spectral freezing” of components of the field recording to create spectrally derived chords from features of the recording bird sounds and a rusty gate which are then transcribed into notation for the instrumentalists and temporal manipulation of the recording to allow complex bird calls to be emulated in a human time-scale.

Basaur - Stephan Moore
Basaur is a structured improvisation for software, microphones, and objects, performed through a multichannel sound system. Using simple, readymade household devices as the primary sound source, Basaur unfolds as a guided exploration of the small mechanical drones and noises that occupy the edges of our quotidian sonic awareness. Using both pre-recorded and live-performed sound sources, textures are layered and connected, building to a richly detailed environment of active sounds -- background becomes foreground, and the everyday annoyances of modern convenience take on a full-throated presence that is by turns lyrical and menacing.