Chroma Program Notes
Tonight! Doors open at 7:30, tickets on the door. Come for an audio / visual feast of the senses, with a bunch of varied pieces that have new, fun and challenging takes on a well known-format.
Granular Synthesis Composers Collective
CHROMA
11.08.10
Callaway Auditorium, UWA
about
gs is a collective of graduates from waapa and uwa who combined resources to showcase original compositions by local musicians through concerts and workshops.
core members consist of kynan tan, ben hamblin, tim beahan, kelly curran and tiffany ha. tonight we welcome guest artists brett murray, sam gillies, david boring, the boost hero man and obscotch, liz lofthouse and jessica currie.
tonight’s concert theme is AUDIOVISUAL. composers have sourced films, video art, theatrical elements and DIY contraptions to accompany and inspire their original compositions.
granular synthesis’ second concert promises to entertain and challenge audiences, while demonstrating the broad range of styles and accessibility within ‘new music’.
running order
gs collective decay (10’)
ben hamblin spalte (8’)
kelly curran ziba (5’)
obscotch numa/numaness and clost
sam gillies a monologue in a competitive environment (7’)
INTERVAL 20’
david boring & the boost hero man tviaaoam
brett murray TITLE NOT REMEMBERED (200?) (7’)
tiffany ha friends (8’)
gs collective chroma (10’)
decay gs collective
kynan: keys tim: drums ben: clarinet/laptop
kelly: accordion tiff: tape player
gs members were given the theme ‘decay’ as starting point for visual and musical elements. each member took footage from their own research and combined them to form the resulting video collage.
each instrument enters the musical texture gradually, until they collectively overthrow the balance of the soundscape and musical structures begin to ‘decay’. elements such as rhythm, timbre, duration, phrasing and pitch begin to crumble.
spalte ben hamblin
ben: clarinet/laptop
this work builds upon earlier experiments of using the body of the clarinet as a feedback loop by placing a speaker inside the clarinet and passing the sound in a constant loop.
ziba kelly curran
kelly: flute liz lofthouse: spoken word/text
ben: programming/laptop robert ingpen: illustrations
“This work is based on award-winning picture book, Ziba Came on a Boat. The spoken first page of the book and a melodic flute theme are recorded live, then played back repeatedly to form a backdrop against which new text and flute responses and effects are heard. Illustrations from the book are simultaneously projected on a screen throughout the piece.
The flute theme utilizes the bittersweet mixolydian mode, to reflect Ziba’s mixed emotions. Each repeat of the recorded spoken text and flute theme contains increasing reverb to give the effect of increasing distance, as travelled by Ziba. As Ziba becomes physically further away from the familiar experiences of home, so the flute techniques become less familiar and traditional, concluding with purely percussive techniques. “
numa/numaness and clost obscotch
“Obscotch is the moniker of underground experimental musician Jake Moore.
Abandoning the ambient electronica of his previous incarnation Orions Belt, Obscotch began as an experimenal noise project, tackling a plethora of styles and influences that would ultimately culminate in the 2005 release Counter Consumate.
Post 2005 Obscotch has been creating increasingly complex and meticulously programmed electronic music that has drawn comparisons to Autechre, Upland and Ricardo Villalobos.”
a monologue in a competitive environment sam gillies
jess currie: speaker tim: keys kynan: drums
ben: laptop kelly: harmonica
tiff: guitar jake moore: synths/electronics
“’A Monologue…’ is a piece written for performance in an environment where the background noise is gradually increased to deafening levels. The text of the performance is taken form the nature of the actual performance, a sort of scripted stream of consciousness regarding the direct competition with the music, and that it is a challenge by the end of the piece to finish their monologue before the music rungs out, and to do so in a way that as many of their words from the monologue is audible by the audience by the time they finish. It is a game for the musicians (in the case of a live performance) as they try to drown out the performer with their music within the confines of the general movement of the music as outlined in the performance notes.”
INTERVAL (20 minutes)
please help yourself to refreshments in the common room
tviaaoam david boring & the boost hero man
“an improvised work in the intercourse between electronic musics, tviaaoam fuses different forms and elements of hip-hop together with noise and glitch concepts to create new forms of cognitive dance music. two producers attempt to cause failures and exploit unintended program functions while generating cohesive and meshing grooves – a visual element analogs their stages of sound creation from input to processing and finally output and decay.”
TITLE NOT REMEMBERED (200?) brett murray
brett: scientist tiff: assistant kynan: blind man
kelly: blind man’s carer tim: idiot savant ben: machinery operator
“A blinded man seeks to revitalize memories of his dead wife through experimental technology. Photographic film of the late couple are processed in a laboratory with the scientific promise of a “99% accurate” musical recovery of the deceased. It is a cruel, ridiculous and insensitive scenario that suggests the disappointment, danger, and substance-less-ness of contemporary pseudo science.
Style over substance is the key.”
friends tiffany ha
tiff: guitar tim: drums
video by francis russell
based on the absurdity of life, ‘friends’ is a piece featuring francis russell’s video ‘from the inane to the insane’, which alternates synopses of episodes from the sitcom Friends with short bios of serial killers. the film is played alongside music inspired by late 20th century minimalism with an art-rock influence.
the repetitive nature of the guitar and drum fragments reflect the routine of day-to-day life, and the changing meters and rhythmic complexity between the two instruments represent two forces that are neither allied nor opposed, but always slightly jarring against one another.
chroma gs collective
kynan: video mixing ben: laptop/clarinet tiff: guitar
kelly: voice tim: keys/processing
‘chroma’ is the second collaborative piece from the gs collective for tonight and takes a exploratory approach to the context of performative audio/visual works. here the visuals are generated and controlled live, along with sound that is improvised around a loose structure. the work revels in near-accidental collisions of sound and image as the performers develop from simple elements into complex textures.
granular synthesis 