Music

Corrosion

Music for Instruments, Computers and Electronics
Electronic Music Foundation, 2002  ·  EMF CD 043

Five works combining acoustic instruments with live electronic processing or prerecorded computer-generated materials. Composed while resident in The Netherlands during the 1990s, in collaboration with musicians from across Europe.

Reviewed in Computer Music Journal (Vol. 30, No. 3, 2006) by Richard Barrett: “never less than thought-provoking”.

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Works

Excerpts from all five works. Scores and performance materials available on request — see Contact.

• Continuity 3 (2002)
  for percussion and computer

  Uses transformations of performing technique and sound to explore relationships between continuous and discontinuous textures and structures. Three metallic sound-sources are processed in real time via Max/MSP; the computer acts as a resonating body extending and refracting the percussionist’s sounds. Performed by Timothy Phillips.

  Excerpt:
• Continuity 2 (1999)
  for recorder quartet and electronics

  Written for the Malle Symen recorder quartet (Amsterdam). Virtually no traditional sound-production; instead the physical components of playing — breath, embouchure, fingers — are disengaged and independently notated. The electronic part combines sampled concrete sounds with Xenakis’s dynamic stochastic synthesis technique.

  Excerpt:
• Act 5 (1998)
  for bassoon and electronics

  A theatrical work in which three large objects (pots and pans, a xylophone, a kettledrum) hang over a darkened stage and are released by the soloist to fall to the floor in turn. The bassoon part gradually opens from a restricted low register outward and upward. Performed by Hamish McKeich.

  Excerpt:
• g4 (1997)
  electronic composition

  Composed exclusively using Xenakis’s dynamic stochastic synthesis. Form is reminiscent of the abrupt, unpredictable layer-structures of Xenakis’s Gendy3, but with greater internal complexity and denser conglomerate textures — a tribute to Xenakis’s work that simultaneously opens its own direction.

  Excerpt:
• Strepidus Somnus (1996)
  for vocal quartet and electronics

  Four vocalists perform with earpieces, each reproducing a precomposed track of vocal material ranging from coital gasps to algorithmically-fractured English. The aim is parallel streams of quasi-improvisatory consciousness, with occasional coordinated moments creating a floridly surrealist sense of dislocation. At 27 minutes, the longest and most ambitious work on the album.

  Excerpt:

More information on compositions can be found at the Living Composers Project. Scores and performance materials are available via email.