{"title":"Recent Releases","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"catherine-lamb-muto-infinitas-rebecca-lane-jon-heilbron","title":"Catherine Lamb","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Cat_Lamb_2024_480x480.jpg?v=1751549836\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eCatherine Lamb\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eCommentary on ‘Muto Infinitas’ by Rebecca Lane\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eI have been slowly working on\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C0\"\u003eMuto Infinitas\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003efor 5 years (!) and it charts a large part of the development of my personal and musical life with Cat Lamb, and a personal practice in playing extended just intonation (or as Cat would prefer to say, rational intonation). Jon Heilbron and I consider this piece to be a work in progress – so it is in this spirit that we offer the recording.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eThe piece is an example of Cat’s interest in the long introduction, which she expands harmonically and melodically over time. She mentioned to us that her hope was to create the perceptual experience where a melody emerges but the listener is not aware at which point it begins to do so.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eThe piece is unmetered – the double bass, as a sustaining instrument, follows the voicings of the flute, whose gradually diminishing breath lengths generate the movement from harmony to melody over around 60 minutes. However, it’s an ambiguous zone between harmony and melody, consonance and dissonance, the individual timbre of our instruments and their timbral fusion.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eWe have made various formal and informal recordings of the piece over the years, which have helped to shape our interpretation of it. Attending to the interaction of the ratios (relative stasis) but also being responsible for illuminating the whole form (movement forward) through the placement of my tones\/breath lengths is a constant negotiation that forces me to contemplate the micro and macro \/ vertical and horizontal aggregates simultaneously. (Though Cat has reminded me that the material is such that it exhibits multiple dimensions beyond simply the vertical and the horizontal.)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eI can easily get lost in tuning the ratios, in discovering the nature of their interactions and internalising their aural picture. Listening back to a recording helps with refining the acoustic clarity of the ratios, but it also helps in perceiving the total form from the outside. Re-threading the piece, through the editing process, gave me the opportunity to perceive the total form, to see how we might change the way we play it live in order to unfold the perceptual space that Cat is seeking. So the piece is a framework into which Jon and I hope to go deeper and deeper. We look forward to performing it again and again and seeing how our interpretation and listening evolve further.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eThe origins of the piece lie in 2016 when Cat, Mike Majkowski and myself received a small grant for Cat to develop a piece with us.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C0\"\u003eMuto Infinitas\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003egradually took shape over around a year; Mike and I met with Cat once or twice a month and each time she would bring the next section of her piece, which we would workshop together. Cat’s working process is never dogmatic or pedagogical, and she gave us space to find our own way into the material. The development period and first performance was with Mike, then in 2017 Jon and I began to work on it together and have performed it a handful of times since then.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eCat wrote\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C0\"\u003eMuto Infinitas\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003efor my Eva Kingma quartertone bass flute which I had just bought at the time, and through the piece we discovered its microtonal capabilities. I never play it as an equal temperament quartertone instrument, but the extra keys are paramount because they increase the instrument’s microtonal flexibility. I find the fingerings that get me closest to a particular frequency and then move closer to it using vowel formants, air speed and embouchure – techniques I began to develop while working on the piece. I like to think of myself as a frequency producer rather than a flute player, finding freedom through numbers – Cat’s scores often indicate ratios, cents, frequencies or partial numbers. Re-approaching melodic material from this angle helps me to put aside the historical baggage of my instrument and find pleasure in melody again.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eCat and I first met in 2013 when a mutual friend, artist-poet Natalie Häusler, suggested I meet her. I realised that I had already seen Cat perform with others (Johnny Chang being one), and had had the strong intuition (which doesn’t happen often!) that I should play with her. We finally met in the toilets at Ausland – I guess we were immediately comfortable! The following year I played a piece of hers called\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C0\"\u003eFrame\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003e, also for bass flute, and it was a turning point for me. I realised that you could actually focus your musical imagination on acoustic perception, on the inner nature of tonal relationships – an aspect that had been a fleeting experience in the music I had played up until that point. I admire Cat greatly because her approach to composing is intuitive and rigorous but, put plainly, it is also deeply\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C0\"\u003ejoyful\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003e, as is her warmth and generosity in sharing her knowledge of the material.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/rebeccalane_480x480.jpg?v=1751549926\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003eRebecca Lane\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428917805370,"sku":"at173","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at173CatLambMutoInfinitas.jpg?v=1749646715"},{"product_id":"james-opstad-drift-gbsr-duo-heather-roche-apartment-house","title":"James Opstad","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e1  \u003cstrong\u003eNymphaea\u003c\/strong\u003e   (2020)     13:48\u003cbr\u003eGBSR duo         Siwan Rhys, piano     George Barton, vibraphone  \u003cbr\u003e                                                                                                                   \u003cbr\u003e2  \u003cstrong\u003eStudy 2\u003c\/strong\u003e    (2019)    7:04\u003cbr\u003eApartment House\u003cbr\u003eMira Benjamin \u0026amp; Gordon MacKay, violins\u003cbr\u003eBridget Carey, viola   Anton Lukoszevieze, cello\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e3   \u003cstrong\u003eEluvium\u003c\/strong\u003e   (2018)   9:28\u003cbr\u003efor clarinet and resonating tam-tam\u003cbr\u003eHeather Roche, clarinet\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e4  \u003cstrong\u003eStudy 1\u003c\/strong\u003e    (2019)    3:30\u003cbr\u003eApartment House\u003cbr\u003eMira Benjamin \u0026amp; Gordon MacKay, violins\u003cbr\u003eBridget Carey, viola   Anton Lukoszevieze, cello\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e5  \u003cstrong\u003eDrift\u003c\/strong\u003e  (2021\/24)   22:36\u003cbr\u003eGBSR duo     Siwan Rhys, piano   George Barton, temple blocks \u003cbr\u003ewith  Heather Roche, clarinet\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/james_opstad_2_480x480.jpg?v=1752081758\" alt=\"\" style=\"float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eINTERVIEW WITH JAMES OPSTAD\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLet's\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003estart with the title piece, Drift, which is the last track on the album, and the longest by some way.  I find it a really strong \u0026amp; engaging work.  How did it come about, and why the rather unusual instrumentation (clarinet, piano, temple blocks)? \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI started working on Drift in 2020 after completing Nymphaea, which is also written for the GBSR Duo. The initial version was just for piano and percussion. This was a time when everyone was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and, for myself, it not only impacted my ability to work with other musicians, but also significantly delayed my chances of having a child (my wife and I were referred for fertility treatment shortly before the first lockdown). For a long time, this piece became inseparable in my mind from this rather dark time and, although I felt it was incomplete, I also found it difficult to contemplate returning to it. This all changed with the birth of our daughter, which somehow healed this association, and allowed me to look at the piece in a fresh and more positive light. So, in 2024, when she was a few months old, I began to reimagine the work as a trio with clarinet. It turned out to be the perfect way for me to find my way back into composing as a sleep-deprived new parent!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn terms of the piece itself, each instrument occupies its own tempo and, together, these tempi all slow over the full duration. There’s often this sense of falling in my work–a sort of gravitational pull–and that’s what is present here. Progressive lowering of the pitch material also leads to a gradual thickening of the timbre that, I feel, enhances this sensation. When adding the clarinet, it was important that it didn’t feel like a solo instrument. I wanted the three instruments to be blended and equal, and for the listener’s attention to be able to drift between them without hearing one as the primary focus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe oldest piece on the CD is 'Eluvium', which dates from 2018.  Again the instrumentation is unusual (clarinet \u0026amp; resonating tam-tam), but - unlike in the other pieces on the disc - the soundworld changes considerably during the course of the track.  What were you looking for in this piece, and does the development of sounds within the piece date from an earlier phase of your compositional career?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes, this piece marked a bit of a turning point for me. In the period prior to writing it, I had been exploring electroacoustic music and the use of live electronics. This had led me towards writing music that was very sound based. I was starting to long for a return to using pitch in a more deliberate way–even just the act of writing one note after another. I was still interested in using technology but was more keen on how it could be used within a primarily acoustic context.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEluvium involves a live feedback process in which the clarinet and tam-tam are recorded in real-time. The recording is then played through a speaker that is placed behind the tam-tam. This process repeats throughout the piece, leading to an accumulation of resonant frequencies. The sound-world does change considerably but it’s all as a result of this process and the way in which the clarinet part is constructed. So, what I was looking for was this gradual transformation, but also a feeling of erasure. There’s this sense in the clarinet part, resulting from the way that the tempi are alternated and layered, that it sort of wipes itself out. This is heightened by the blurring effect created by the tam-tam, which eventually engulfs the clarinet altogether.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI see this piece as a precursor of the rest of the music on the album, not only because of a renewed focus on pitch, but also because of the layering of different tempi. This went on to become a recurrent feature of my work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eYes, the layering of different tempi is a really striking feature of the album. Have you a sense of where your interest in this aspect of music comes from? Are there other composers who have influenced you in this?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think a lot of different interests of mine intersected to lead me in this direction. There are some Feldman pieces where the parts are uncoordinated–I’m thinking of early pieces, such as the Piece for Four Pianos, where the players read from the same score, but also later pieces, like Why Patterns?, where there are separate parts that proceed independently. I think, in this music, I get a sense of the parts coexisting within a shared space that I really like. By layering tempi, I’m trying to capture some of that sense while having a bit more control over the moment to moment relationship between the parts. I also love early music and can trace the prolation canons written by Ockeghem as another influence. In these pieces, mensuration markings indicate that the same part should be performed with different alterations of the durations, so it’s a similar idea of layering and stretching the material. On a technical level, Nancarrow is an influence, though I don’t think anyone would guess that from listening to the music! Some of the underlying principles, however, such as using ratios to establish the relationships between tempi, are similar. And then there are ideas from physics that have affected how I think about time more generally. Carlo Rovelli’s book, The Order of Time, is a great read that I would recommend to anyone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI should add that it’s not really my intention that these ideas are evident to the listener. It’s more about striving for this slightly elusive quality where some aspects of the music exist on the threshold of comprehension. That’s something that I have come to realise is a common thread in a lot of the music I love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAnd where do you think the return to using pitch came from?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’ve always been interested in counterpoint, but around the time of writing Eluvium I became particularly interested in canon. I like the way that writing canonically leads to each note creating a sort of ripple effect. I think, off the back of being interested in process based music, canon was inviting because it brings process into the note to note creation of a piece. So, this gave me a way to reconnect with pitch and immerse myself more in the interplay between the voices, while still exploring more abstract ideas in terms of form and structure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCould you tell us a bit about your background in music, both as a performer and a composer? \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was a lot of music around the house when I was growing up; my brothers are both musicians and my parents are great music lovers. I listened to jazz and was also exposed to 20th century classical music, including composers such as Messiaen and Takemitsu. I began to write music of my own and also played cello, piano and bass guitar. I then went to a specialist music school where I studied composition and started to play double bass. During this time, performing became my main focus and I went on to study jazz double bass at the Royal Academy of Music, where I also continued classical studies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy work since as a performer has been very varied and I’ve been lucky to play with many amazing musicians. It was via performing in freely improvised settings that I arrived at a renewed interest in experimental music and composition. Discovering Another Timbre and listening to Apartment House perform were both highly influential at this time (it was a little later that I started to perform with Apartment House). I think the way I write has grown quite organically since. I have wide ranging musical interests but don’t feel the need to channel them all into my work. Instead, I feel that they have affected my sensibilities in many subtle ways. Ultimately, I don’t believe that there is one way of making music that has all the answers. When I am composing I often want to achieve things that can’t be done through improvisation and the reverse is also true when I am improvising. Performing music by other composers also affects the music I write, of course.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne aspect I haven’t mentioned is my interest in technology, which also traces back to my childhood. I initially found an outlet for this in live electronics but later became interested in other ways of using technology in performance. Much of the music on this album was written during my PhD and as part of this I developed a custom score reading application. This aids the performance of simultaneous divergent tempi by providing each performer with their own pulse that is present in the score.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51429203018042,"sku":"at242","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at242frontcover.jpg?v=1749651014"},{"product_id":"marc-sabat-bach-tunings-sara-cubarsi-xenia-gogu","title":"Bach Tunings","description":"\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\" align=\"center\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohann Sebastian Bach  \/  Marc Sabat\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003eSei Bach-Intonazioni per Violono solo   (ca.1720 \/ 2010-2019)\u003cbr\u003eversion for two violins in just intonation tunings\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u0026amp;\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMarc Sabat    \u003c\/strong\u003eStreams Barely in Winter  (2019)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e1  \u003cstrong\u003eStreams barely in Winter 1 - Cold   \u003c\/strong\u003e2:04\u003cbr\u003e2-5   \u003cstrong\u003eSei Bach-Intonazioni Ia: Sonata Prima   \u003c\/strong\u003e18:28\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e6   \u003cstrong\u003eStreams Barely in Winter 2 - Sun   \u003c\/strong\u003e1:14\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e7-11   \u003cstrong\u003eSei Bach-Intonazioni IIa: Sonata Seconda    \u003c\/strong\u003e25:07\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e12   \u003cstrong\u003eStreams Barely in Winter 3 - Stones   \u003c\/strong\u003e2:00\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e13-16   \u003cstrong\u003eSei Bach-Intonazioni IIIa: Sonata Terza   \u003c\/strong\u003e25:03\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Marc_Sabat_b1477902-d5cb-4161-929f-7e97c9958612_480x480.jpg?v=1752078385\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eINTERVIEW WITH MARC SABAT\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCould you tell us about the background to this project, and why Bach?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike many other string players, I have a special connection to Bach's six solos for violin. The pieces are experimental compositions in a timeless sense, playing with the limits of harmony and counterpoint sounding on an unaccompanied melody instrument. The music is completely idiomatic, aware of the violin’s physicality, and at the same time absolutely utopian, following a musical exploration that goes beyond instrumental limitations and challenges the player to attempt the same. I guess that Bach deliberately chose the six primary tonalities of his cycle to complement and challenge the traditional tuning in perfect fifths (a violin has open strings G D A E); the six solos present, in order, the keys G B A D (minor) and then C and finally E (major). \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike keyboards, where the (usually 12) notes have to be tempered to work in various harmonic contexts, strings can adjust the tuning of notes on a case-by-case basis. Ideally, the open strings, when sounded, ought to fit the mode, and decisions about intonation ought to be made consistently and logically. Some years ago, in my own music, I started to work with untempered intervals and chords, sometimes called just or rational intonation, which is tuned according to the row of harmonic partials and provides many different microtonal sound combinations. I especially like that musicians can learn to distinguish and tune such sounds by ear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Bach Tunings” tries to apply the intervals of JI music to Bach’s three solo sonatas, mainly using the relationships of lower harmonic partials and trying to keep the sound somewhat idiomatic (to my ears) by avoiding obvious “quartertones” and microtonal-sounding melodies. At the same time, my approach tries to avoid illogical or inconsistent use of the open strings, which means, for example, that the note C often has three different tunings, ranging across a quartertone range: as a perfect fifth from G, as a major third from E, or as a natural seventh from D. In the third sonata, C is the tonal centre, so in my version, the keynote (tonic) is continually shifting! In fact, at one point in the first movement, I combine all three of these different C’s in close proximity, sometimes even simultaneously! This, of course, is taking things a little far, but to me it sounds surprisingly fitting in the context!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo compose the tuning, I annotated Bach’s score with JI accidentals, and eventually found myself writing a second violin part, a mix of bordun and counterpoint, which serves to enable and colour the JI tuning. The collaboration with Sara Cubarsi, who combines instrumental virtuosity with a deep conceptual curiosity, inspired me to turn my studies and sketches into a completed musical project which we have presented live and now are documenting on this disc. Thank you Simon for appreciating this work and for making it publicly available on Another Timbre!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCan you say a bit more about the second violin part?  As a non-musician who knows Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin quite well, for me it’s the second violin part even more than the unorthodox tuning which really ‘makes the music strange’ on first hearing, and it captivated me on first listening. As I understand it, when you started composing you thought of the second violin as a kind of drone, but as you started composing it became much more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy first attempts at tuning the Bach solos were simply annotations of the original score. At some point it seemed to me more musical to hear the subtle variations of tuning both melodically and as simultaneously sounding intervals. So, I started composing a second violin line made of changing drone notes, mainly open strings and harmonics. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSometimes it made sense to provide a lower note, and sometimes a note in the middle or higher register. The way these tones started to complement and transform some aspects of Bach’s music, adding syncopation and unexpected accents, inspired me to go deeper and freer into a kind of conversation with the score, sometimes writing counterpoint and imitative lines. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBecause the tuning isn’t always rooted in the bass line, my additions step outside the approach typical of traditional Baroque voicings, moving away from style imitation or parody into something more experimental and free, which I feel allowed me to make the music my own. I my imagination I really found myself in a kind of collaboration with Bach. In the first sonata I made very few, if any, alterations to his solo, focussing on my added part. But by the third sonata, I decided to divide Bach’s notes between the two violins when needed, allowing the often-unplayable sustaining notes Bach wrote (but expected to be only briefly sounded in broken chords) to be actually sounding through the moving melodic lines, revealing parts of his score that aren’t usually heard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBoth Sara Cubarsi and Xenia Gogu’s playing is tremendous. But how did you meet Sara, and was she involved in the project from an early stage?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSara was studying violin in London at the Royal Academy in 2014 when she wrote to me to find out about my music and work with microtonal just intonation. She adapted and performed an early piece of mine, a duo for violin and viola called Three Chorales for Harry Partch and shared some of her own fascinating compositions with me. A few years later we met in Berlin after her performance of a trio by Catherine Lamb in the Studio 8 series, and we decided to meet at Cat’s studio the next day and have a look at my sketches for the Bach Tunings, which I had just started to adapt for two violins. She became excited about the project, and some years later we made a first rendering during her doctoral studies at Cal Arts. Finally, when Sara moved back to Europe and began working with MusikFabrik, we had the opportunity to plan a recording session and a live concert featuring all three Sonatas and my three preludes, which is how this recording came to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eYou preface each of the Sonatas with three short compositions of your own – Streams Barely in Winter, 1, 2 and 3. If I have one regret about the disc, it’s that these pieces are so short. I think they’re gorgeous. But what relation do they have to the Bach sonatas?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese three pieces are intentionally miniatures, each focussing on a particular aspect of the Sonata it precedes when combined with the Bach-Intonations, as they are presented on this disc. I imagine the pieces also can be played on their own or as a small set, and in fact I adapted and extended the first two into a longer form as a piece for chamber strings sharing the same title. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first piece, titled “Cold”, explores how the descending minor scale in Bach’s g minor Adagio, which serves as the opening melody and also as the bass line, takes shape from simple intervals tuned below the note D. My second prelude, “Sun”, explores the bright, shining sound of septimal harmonies in which the lower open strings of the violins serve as natural sevenths, forcing the fundamentals to be tuned a comma higher than usual. This gives another take on the descending minor scale, in this case echoing from a similarly tuned passage in Bach’s a minor Fugue. This unusual tuning offers an alternative sounding of the e minor chord on violins, which in its conventional form combines open G and E into a Pythagorean harmony. The third and final miniature, “Stones”, explores different “shapes and sizes” of the note C, which is the multiply tuned tonic of the third sonata. The C bends up and down so much it even introduces a quartertone to our ears, which is even made explicitly into harmony by including two soundings of the 13th harmonic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51429211078970,"sku":"at243","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at243frontcover.jpg?v=1749651083"},{"product_id":"julia-eckhardt-blanca","title":"Julia Eckhardt","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Pedro_Roque_480x480.jpg?v=1752225710\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eNOTES ON BLANCA BY JULIA ECKHARDT\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn November 2022, I spent a month as an artist in residency at Centro Negra in the small town of Blanca in the South-East of Spain. I undertook a daily protocol of walking without plan or destination which took me into the wide, majestic, and slightly intimidating hills outside the town. Each day, after a set amount of time I stopped to make a field recording and a detail photo, and upon my return to Centro Negra, recorded an improvisation on the viola echoing the energy of that accidental place. Recording, image and improvisation became three ways of creating imprints of memory. Improvising felt similar to walking into the unknown; adventurous and slightly fearful at the same time, with the wind in the wide and karstic landscape, unhampered by the sparse vegetation, being a constant presence. Eight of these improvisations became the compositions on this release in which the wind patterns of Blanca are a guiding presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBlanca\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e1 air\u003cbr\u003e2 patterns, slow\u003cbr\u003e3 clouds swirling\u003cbr\u003e4 levity\u003cbr\u003e5 wind (figures)\u003cbr\u003e6 circular\u003cbr\u003e7 starling murmurations\u003cbr\u003e8 wind again\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eINTERVIEW WITH JULIA ECKHARDT\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eYou describe the process of going for a walk, taking a photograph of a detail from the scenery you found yourself in, making a field recording, and then recording a solo improvisation when you got back to the centre where your residency was taking place. Is this a process that you have used before, or was it somehow inspired by something particular to the situation at Blanca?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes, I have tried this protocol before, but never brought it to an end. My life can be very fragmented by moments and I’m quickly distracted generally. I probably needed that dedicated time of the residency in Blanca to realise it. Such a protocol requires some consequence, to also carry out the task when you don’t feel like it. If you carry on with it, eventually you go into depth and into new questions and directions, but in the moment, on the way, the repetition often feels pointless. I have done something a bit similar in an earlier piece, Time Suspension. There was no walking involved, but a daily protocol of improvisation and the repetition of the improvisation of the day before. I carried on for one month, and got really bored at moments, but was happy in the end - especially with what happened in those moments of boredom, and how I got out of there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDid you play back the field recordings before recording the improvisations, or ever try playing alongside the field recordings?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo. Partly because I didn’t have the infrastructure for play-back in Blanca, and also because that would have led me in a totally different direction. For example, they would have needed editing, so I would have started to think about how to improve them – because they are really not good recordings at all, there is wind saturation on almost every single one. That could have been interesting in itself, but then I have neither the skills nor the gear to do it in a satisfactory way. I really like listening to field recordings, but I’m not good at making them, I don’t have the patience. I consider my practice being in playing my acoustic instrument with which I have a certain palette of expression at my disposition, and I’m very fond of its physical, active side, the “doing” of it. So that’s what I wanted to use, and to develop, and to enjoy doing. Initially I had planned to use the field recordings in concert alongside the viola composition, and at the premiere I did, but I used them more as an ambiguity, as if there was a window left open. And there is a tiny reminiscence in this release, but all in all I thought I could let go of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eDid you ultimately write out the compositions as actual scores, or were they more in the form of notes based on ideas in the improvisations?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYes, in this case I did note them down, and it became a piece that I can play again. If I had not made the scores, I would consider it a recording project (like Time Suspension), which can only be played back, not played again in another context. The difference is that here I have reworked the essence of the single pieces, and although they started from improvising, they are now developed into compositions. I find there’s a big difference between working on a practice when it’s improvisation, and working on a piece when it’s composition. I’m not sure the score as it is now could be played by someone else, because the piece involves some techniques which I use habitually but which would probably need some explanation. But in theory it could be done. However, there are no plans in that direction, and the written compositions are mostly just for me to remember the piece. In that way, they have also served to develop the piece, to remember the previous steps and be able to build further on them. And beside all that, I like the drawing and writing aspect of making a score as well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCould you tell me something about your background in music?  How did you come to experimental music, and why did you set up the Q-O2 centre?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI received a training as a classical viola player and played in various ensembles and orchestras during and after my studies. Q-O2 was in the beginning an ensemble I set up with a few friends, to play contemporary music, for example by composers who had become friends, and also, more and more, to practise improvisation and set up more interdisciplinary collaborations. Brussels was a very open playfield around the year 2000, and we got opportunities to explore process and research, and experiment with genres and formats. I guess it suited my curiosity for the reasons why we make this music, how decisions are taken, choices made, desires and curiosities awoken. And of course that’s something you don’t do alone, you need some kind of community of like-minded people – not necessarily having the same opinions and tastes but sharing the wish to explore and experiment. In 2006 then there was the opportunity to ask for funding as a ‘workspace’ or laboratory, a category which fitted Q-O2 really well. It meant that we could have funding for four years and – most importantly I think – have our own space.  So that’s where we are: having artists over for residencies, setting up research projects or activities like listening sessions or workshops, sometimes publishing CDs or small books, and for the past seven years we have also run a festival giving a podium to all that has happened at Q-O2, which for me feels like an annual celebration of a different kind of being together than we are used to in our everyday lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eI'm more familiar with you as a player\/improviser than as a composer. Are you working on any other composing projects at the moment?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot at the moment, but I'd like to create another opportunity to do so in the future. I think when I'm composing it's usually in response to someone or something - in the case of \u003cem\u003eBlanca \u003c\/em\u003efirstly to the time at Centro Negra, where I collected the material, and then later to the invitation from the series \u003cem\u003eeye ear \u003c\/em\u003efrom Florence Cats, for which I finished the piece.  In that sense maybe I'm a sort of hobby composer: I only make a piece when the situation is there for it; I can't make one out of nothing.  And there are usually other things to do that are more urgent, especially with my work as an organiser, but also as a player. That's where I feel I'm a professional; following through on those things, especially when I don't really feel like it.  But I enjoy composing very much; I feel there are very few situations where I can be so much myself without needing too many words. Whether it's any good or not, nobody else could have made the piece I made. It's a reflection of my very personal and singular constitution, which is constructed out of a million accidentalities, and which changes all the time in ways I don't really grasp myself. Such a composition is a manifestation of that individuality, and being able to make such a unique appearance in the world through a piece of music feels very special.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51429214060858,"sku":"at244","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at244frontcover.jpg?v=1749651135"},{"product_id":"magnus-granberg-the-willow-bends-and-so-do-i-skogen","title":"Magnus Granberg","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"\u003eAn hour-long ensemble piece from 2024, recorded in Stockholm.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eSkogen\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAnna Lindal \u003ci\u003eviolin \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eEva Lindal \u003ci\u003eviolin \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eLeo Svensson Sander \u003ci\u003ecello \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eFinn Loxbo \u003ci\u003eacoustic steel string guitar \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"SV\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: SV;\"\u003eStina Hellberg Agback \u003ci\u003eharp \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"SV\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: SV;\"\u003eMagnus Granberg \u003ci\u003eprepared piano \u0026amp; composition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eErik Carlsson \u003ci\u003epercussion \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eHenrik Olsson \u003ci\u003eobjects, contact microphones, thumb piano \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003ePetter Wästberg \u003ci\u003econtact microphone, mixing board, loudspeaker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/magnusgranberg-1-655x509-912131822_7b86aa87-15af-433a-bc13-bcadc6f415c5_480x480.jpg?v=1752412005\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eInterview with Magnus Granberg\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCan you tell us about this composition?  What does the title refer to? And from what pieces of music have you derived material for the piece?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe piece was written in spring 2024 and basically consists of four large pools of materials as well as a temporal framework in which the four different pools are ordered into a total of ten cycles, the duration of each cycle being approximately six minutes. Each pool consists of individual sounds, a number of short phrases (each containing two to seven different sounds) as well as an eighteen bar melody in slightly shifting meters from which the performers can choose what and when to play in accordance with a set of guidelines which accompany the individual parts. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe phrases are derived from a small series of tiny rhythmic modules in very simple note values as well as their augmentations and diminutions, whereas the tonal materials all are derived from a few bars from a song by American jazz and film music composer Johnny Mandel called ’A Time for Love’, from which the piece also borrows its title. I first heard the song in my mid teens on ’Alone’, a solo piano album by jazz pianist Bill Evans which was recorded and released in the late 1960s, and which must have been one of the very first CDs that I bought in the very late eighties. There are actually quite a lot more raw materials which I wrote at the time but which I didn’t use for this piece but rather intended to be employed in what eventually might become a small family of pieces for various kinds of settings and ensembles. A first (or perhaps rather second) realisation taking this larger pool of materials as its point of departure is a piece which I wrote for the lovely American string duo andPlay, which was premiered and toured earlier this summer along with a new piece for Angharad Davies.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe ensemble on the new CD is relatively large (9 players). Was there a reason for that, and does it change anything in the way you compose when the performing group is larger?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWell, I think the main reason for writing for this comparatively large ensemble was quite simply that I wanted to gather all the Swedish friends and members of the ensemble, including those players who started to play with Skogen during the pandemic (or perhaps rather during those periods during the pandemic when it was possible meeting up a few people doing something at least) with the addition of guitarist Finn Loxbo whom we and I also had worked with on a couple of different occasions lately. But it’s of course also a question of really enjoying writing for and playing with a relatively large ensemble of this kind, of being part of a musical environment consisting of so many different voices, movements, timbres and temperaments and the particular sense of fulfilment which it brings. As for the question whether anything changes when I write for somewhat larger ensembles, that quite often depends on the schooling and experiences of the members of the ensemble. In this particular instance, where the musicians all have plenty of experience improvising and playing open scores, my writing doesn’t differ very much when writing for a smaller or somewhat larger ensemble, but if I were to write for other kinds of ensembles where the different members had less experience with these ways of working, I would probably limit the amount of materials and choices to a certain extent. And in some cases I also write pieces which are more or less fixed, for example the piece I recently wrote for andPlay, which is a violin \u0026amp; viola duo. I guess it’s sometimes quite simply a matter of what is practical doing when working with particular musicians but of course also a matter of exploring and examining various kinds of musical dynamics.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis particular version of Skogen is all Swedish, and includes two or three players who are relatively new to the ensemble, alongside several Skogen regulars. Is there now a pool of  local musicians keen to play with Skogen?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThere is a handful of relative newcomers on this recording, though a couple of them like violinist Eva Lindal (who also happens to be the sister of longtime Skogen member Anna Lindal) and harpist Stina Hellberg Agback have been playing with us since the pandemic,  - so were both on ’How Lonely Sits the City?’ which was recorded in 2021 and released on Another Timbre the following year. Eva and Stina are both such great and versatile musicians with experiences from so many different fields of music, including early and new music as well as improvised and experimental musics of various kinds. As for guitarist Finn Loxbo we had first worked together on a double album (’Night Will Fade and Fall Apart’) which was released on the Swedish record label Thanatosis in 2022, and Finn also joined Skogen for the music which I wrote for director Karl Dunér’s production of The Persians and The Women of Troy, which was staged at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm in 2023. Finn is a wonderful and very exciting musician (for example with his brilliant ensemble Kommun) whose playing I have admired for a number of years, so I’m very happy to have him with us. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs for the question whether there is a pool of Swedish musicians keen to play with Skogen I must say that I don’t really know! But I do know that there are quite a few brilliant young players here in Stockholm that I myself really would like to work with more at some point, people like violinist Maya Bennardo, kecapi player and composer Kristofer Svensson, percussionist Ryan Packard and double bassist Vilhelm Bromander, just to name a few. I’m very happy for and curious and excited about all the new musicians and composers that are becoming part of the scene, and I really hope to find ways of collaborating with as many of them as possible at some point, in one form or the other.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003cbr clear=\"none\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51429216878906,"sku":"at245","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at245frontcover.jpg?v=1762179141"},{"product_id":"eldritch-priest","title":"Eldritch Priest","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e1   \u003cstrong\u003edust breeding  \u003c\/strong\u003e(2023)    25:56\u003cbr\u003estring quartet played by Apartment House\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e2   \u003cstrong\u003edormitive virtue   \u003c\/strong\u003e(2001)    21:29\u003cbr\u003esolo piano, played by Eldritch Priest\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e3   \u003cstrong\u003edead-wall reveries   \u003c\/strong\u003e(2024)    27:33\u003cbr\u003eclarinet, vibraphone, violin, cello \u0026amp; piano, played by Arraymusic\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/eldritch_second_crop_480x480.jpg?v=1762265657\" alt=\"\" style=\"float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eInterview with Eldritch Priest\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003eI came across you first as a music writer rather than a composer, through your excellent \u0026amp; provocative book\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e Boring Formless Nonsense\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomsbury.com\/us\/boring-formless-nonsense-9781441146168\/\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: windowtext;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e. So, firstly, how did you come to experimental music, and what is the balance in your work between composing, writing, teaching \u0026amp; playing music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003eThat’s interesting that you found my writing first because, as I see it, my work as an author is actually something of a detour in what I see as a long musical career. I actually studied jazz guitar for several years in the nineties, but I very quickly moved into free jazz and experimental composition by the latter part of the decade. This move seemed rather organic to me as I was always attracted to the outer reaches of the genre. Also, I studied with a great pianist Anthony (Tony) Genge, who, as it happened had studied composition with Morton Feldman. Tony was a wonderful guide for what I see as my full-scale shift of interest towards experimental music, and like a great teacher, he introduced me to all manner of experimental composition—from Feldman (of course) to Louis Andriessen to Jo Kondo to Galina Ustvolskaya, and even Ruth Crawford Seeger. What I took most from this period of study was an appreciation for music that was radical in its methods and aesthetic commitments. I became especially interested in composers who, like my jazz heroes, had managed to cultivate a “voice,” or an aesthetic style that was singular and inimitable. Early on Feldman was a major influence, but when I moved to Toronto to study with Tony’s friend, Linda Catlin Smith, I was introduced to a group of composers, all of whom had studied in Victoria (BC) with the Czech composer Rudolf Komorous—Allison Cameron, Stephen Parkinson, and Martin Arnold. (Linda, too, had worked with Rudolf.) Years later I would move to Victoria to do graduate studies, and while I didn’t work with Rudolf (he was retired then), I did befriend him and took great inspiration from his approach to composition, an approach characterized by this uncanny marriage of the Romantic and the Surreal. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003eNow, to speak to the detour… As much as I loved being a musician and composer, I had throughout my university career always also studied philosophy. After completing my graduate studies, I made a decision to do doctoral studies NOT in music but in cultural theory. This turned out of be a rather severe swerve as I basically stopped writing music for five or six years. And after receiving my PhD, I spent several more years pursuing a career in academia. Although I was still playing periodically and writing the occasional work, it was only once I took a faculty position at Simon Fraser University that I feel I made a proper return to performing and composing music. Or at least, that’s my sense of things. And with regard to your question about balance… I don’t really think I’m very good at balancing my composing\/performing music with my writing\/teaching work. Each of these domains seems to require my complete commitment and I’ve learned that, for sanity’s sake, I tend to switch back and forth between them. I published my second book  \u003cem\u003e(Earworm and Event\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e) in 2022, and since then, I’ve mostly been active composing for various ensembles and writing tunes for my jazz trio (Raymond Roussel). However, I’ve another book that I want to write, so I suspect I’ll be shifting gears again. But that said, I’ve gathered a bit of momentum these past few years, so I’m hoping to find a way to accommodate both my musical and academic interests.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e    \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\" style=\"text-indent: -18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; color: windowtext;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e       \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;\" lang=\"EN-US\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThat’s interesting. For me listening to music excites very different parts of my brain from\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;\" lang=\"EN-US\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e whatever academic, cultural or political interests I have at the time. So I completely get that it’s hard to pursue composition\/playing on the one hand, and writing theoretical texts at the same time, even if those texts are about music.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eBut do you also feel that – however indirectly – the theoretical thoughts you have do affect the music you compose?\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003eI’ve been asked this before and, yes, I do feel that there’s a way in which my theoretical work informs my artistic practice. However, as you suggest, I think this happens in a very indirect way. It’s actually easier for me to see it the other way around—the way my artistic practice affects my theoretical writing. What I see as the kind of logical leaps or rational hiatuses that inform art making (or at least my art making) often find their way into my scholarship in the form of arguments that take paradox and nonsense as valid modes of reasoning. I also think my creative work informs the way I see “style” as a legitimate register of theoretical thinking. How it works conversely is a little more mysterious to me. I’ve been told that my compositions are more “sensuous” than “cerebral.” But I’m not certain I buy that dichotomy, if only because the latter is no less a felt affair than the former is. I also think that music is itself a mode of thinking, one whose symbolic content is meaningfully indistinct from what is symbolized. In this respect, the feelingfulness one senses (perceives?) in\/through music is confused—delightfully so!—with the affective experience that it denotes. (Maybe this account is too cerebral….) Perhaps there’s also a way in which my tendency to play fast and loose with concepts (in my theoretical work) in order to draw out their less obvious resonances finds its way into my compositions as a kind of aesthetic\/expressive dalliance. The works on this album, I think, exemplify what I mean by this, in the sense that in them I flirt relentlessly with a musical idea in order to elicit (or encourage) a manner of listening that blurs the distinction between a trivial regard and focused attention.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';\"\u003eWhen we began planning this disc, 'dust breeding' was the starting point. In fact, you sent me two different versions of the piece. Could you explain its instrumentation \u0026amp; history, and how open is the score? \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eYes, that’s right, \u003ci\u003edust breeding\u003c\/i\u003e was the beginning of this project. For me, \u003ci\u003edust breeding\u003c\/i\u003e is a work that takes the conventions of chamber music for a quiet ride across a fragile surface of sound, where pitch, noise, intention, and accident pass playfully through each other’s territory. In this piece, the performers are asked to play sounds that are unstable, yet sonorously and harmonically rich in their delicacy. The image I have in mind is of dust (noise) swirling over and gradually settling on the structure of the string quartet.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;\"\u003eMy aim in writing this work, wasn’t to deconstruct or reinvent the string quartet, but rather to experiment with and perhaps even exaggerate the expressive potential of sounds and textures that I would characterize as “glass-like”— translucent and frangible. At the same time, I wanted these sounds to have a certain opacity. Hence the “dust-like” quality of the string and bow noise as well as the odd “wrong” (but, oh so right!) note, which work together to produce subtle sonic artefacts. As I hear it, this means the music is at times begrimed in a way that contrasts with the vitreous touches of the melodic and harmonic content. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI wrote \u003ci\u003edust breeding\u003c\/i\u003e specifically for Apartment House after recording some cello solos with Anton Lukoszevieze. There’s a section in one of the solos that features an extended passage of harmonic-like sounds\/noises activated by lightly touching the strings where there are not necessarily any nodes. This technique produces an effect that is both transparent and obscure, and I wanted to probe the potential of this effect in a context where things could be a little more “shambolic.” That is, where these sounds appear in the cello solo in a very direct and deliberate way, in the quartet they seem as if accidental and random. But you’ll note that I wrote “seem,” meaning that the ramshackle quality dissimulates what is actually a very specifically notated performance. So, the score is not, in fact, very open at all. Yet, at the same time, the performers never use a traditional bowing technique. They are either making those harmonic-esque sounds, playing \u003ci\u003ecol lengno tratto\u003c\/i\u003e, or \u003ci\u003ecol legno battuto\u003c\/i\u003e, such that every event has some layer of random noise, of “dust,” added to the sound. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;\"\u003eIn other words, I like to think of \u003ci\u003edust breeding\u003c\/i\u003e as chamber music with dirt in its eye. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThat’s all really interesting.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eWhat about the piano solo, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003edormitive virtue\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e?\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eYou recorded this yourself in your apartment, and in a way the music sounds more like a semi-private, reflective improvisation than the other pieces on the disc. Is that accurate? Or was the piece fully written out before you played it?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eLike all the works on this album, \u003ci\u003edormitive virtue\u003c\/i\u003e is a fully composed piece. That it sounds improvised is a wonderful compliment! I’ve been trying for years to cultivate a compositional sensibility that gives the impression of being somewhat “offhanded.” This is the oldest work on the album and one I think shows just how much under the spell of Feldman I was. I’m not suggesting that it sounds like Feldman, so much as its “reflective” and drifting character produces that kind of paradoxical situation, where music can be both blithe and thoughtful. I think (I hope) my more recent work still seeks this kind ambiguity, but does so through a very different gestural language. To me, \u003ci\u003edead-wall reveries\u003c\/i\u003e, the title track, aims for a similar type of enigmatical repair, but through a much more lyrical and, dare I say, expressive grammar. Without insinuating anything Romantic or sentimental, the work tries to muster an aloof yet friendly kind of melodic play that, like daydreaming, strays impassively from one moment to another. In this regard, there’s a continuity of spirit between my older and newer work. But there’s also clearly a break in the manner of articulation, one, I suspect, that reflects my interest in improvisation and a long-held love for melodies that go wonderfully nowhere (and everywhere). For instance, unlike \u003ci\u003edormitive virtue\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003edead-wall reveries \u003c\/i\u003eis loaded with notes and an abundance of lyrical bits, but, ironically, none of them matter! Or, perhaps, they all matter equally in their seeming shiftlessness and resistance to forming a hierarchy of events or actions. Although I expect it’s not for everyone, I find this kind of situation in music and art to be extremely appealing. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eYes,\u003cspan class=\"apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003edead-wall reveries\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a very unusual piece, and strikingly diverse stylistically. It shifts restlessly between busily melodic passages and slower, more reflective sequences. As you say, there is no evident structure which the listener can grasp, so it’s a disorienting, but strangely engaging, journey.  It’s the most recent piece on the album, so is that the direction that your music is heading in general, or is it a one-off?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-CA\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAs you mentioned, \u003ci\u003edead-wall reveries\u003c\/i\u003e is a bit disorienting, but there’s something about \u003ci\u003ehow\u003c\/i\u003e it moves back and forth between styles that I find seductive. I think the casual toing and froing of it all maybe sets up an uneven refrain that modulates attention in weird ways throughout the work. It makes me think of Carl Stalling’s work, but much slower…and less Looney Tunes. This is certainly something that I’ve started exploring more deliberately in my work. For a long time, I was fascinated with trying to exhaust a single musical idea. Much like the writer George Perec once attempted with a space in Paris, I would tarry with the details of a particular gesture or textural figure and work to unpack its latent features. But these days I’m a little more interested in seeing how things can shift without being particularly dramatic or precious about it, like the way our thoughts can wander from topic to topic without drawing attention to the fact. Yet occasionally this back-and-forth refrain seems to work a little like Sergei Eisenstein’s approach to montage, an editing technique that sees the sequencing of disparate images (or styles) as producing another order of meaning or import. This isn’t to say that I think \u003ci\u003edead-wall reveries\u003c\/i\u003e is cinematic in its logic—or Marxist in its politics. I think it’s much more promiscuous than that as it flirts with more than marries any kind of dialectically informed progression of ideas. Maybe what I’m after with this work is something gently lurid, something oxymoronic that goes and stays where it always will have been.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52073739878714,"sku":"at246","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at246_front_cover.jpg?v=1762179141"},{"product_id":"marja-ahti","title":"Marja Ahti","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e1    \u003cstrong\u003eChora   \u003c\/strong\u003e(2019\/2024)       21:28\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e2    \u003cstrong\u003eFluctuating Streams    \u003c\/strong\u003e(2020\/2024)    19:48\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBlutwurst\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eCristina Abati, viola      Marco Baldini, trumpet    Maurizio Costantini, double bass\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eDaniela Fantechi, accordion    Michele Lanzini, cello    Edoardo Ricci, bass clarinet\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eLuisa Santacesaria, harmonium\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRecorded and mixed by Francesco Toninelli\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Marja_Ahti_photo_by_Andrew_Fenchel_480x480.jpg?v=1762181010\" alt=\"\" style=\"float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eInterview with Marja Ahti\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eFirst of all, could you explain how this project came about? Was it your initiative, or Blutwurst's?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eThe project was initiated by Blurwurst in 2021. Daniela (Fantechi), Marco (Baldini) and Luisa Santacesaria) approached me with the idea to start from one of my electroacoustic works and translate it into their acoustic dimension. As a first piece, they chose \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica-Oblique;\"\u003eFluctuating Streams\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica-Bold;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003e(from \u003ci\u003eThe Current Inside\u003c\/i\u003e, 2019) and asked my permission to start working on an adaptation. In the spring of 2022 they sent me an initial recording and I provided some comments and requests to help them keep it in the spirit of my work. The piece was first performed live in Lecce the same fall alongside two works by Walter Marchetti. Around this time we were talking about adding another piece to the repertoire and they asked if they could start working on a transcription of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica-Oblique;\"\u003eChora\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003e (from \u003ci\u003eVegetal Negatives\u003c\/i\u003e, 2018). It was a surprising choice, so I was very curious to hear what their interpretation would sound like. With \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica-Oblique;\"\u003eFluctuating Streams \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003ethere is more of a chordal structure to start from, but \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica-Oblique;\"\u003eChora\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003e consists largely of analogue filter feedback tuned by ear, wobbling and sliding pitches, percussive thuds from the levers of a pump organ and an intimate field recording from a monastery in Greece. We continued working on both pieces in person in the summer of 2024 as I was finally able to visit Florence for a week of rehearsal, culminating in a concert with both pieces as well as my solo electronic set. It was really wonderful to spend that week together in music and friendship.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; tab-stops: -16.95pt -10.1pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eWhen Blutwurst were working with you on the acoustic renderings of your pieces, was the aim to try to make the acoustic versions sound like the electronic originals, or was the point to use acoustic instruments to create a completely different soundworld?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eThe aim was to use the originals as a creative starting point for a new soundworld and to investigate how the idea and spirit of the original pieces would carry through into a new medium. First of all, the acoustic versions are stretching the duration into a completely different time frame, with \u003ci\u003eChora\u003c\/i\u003e about twice as long and \u003ci\u003eFluctuating Streams\u003c\/i\u003e over three times the duration of the electronic piece. This slowness and gravitas is something I very much associate with Blutwurst’s aesthetic. This kind of spacing is something I’m even more interested in now than when I made the original versions, so we were really able to meet each other in this - almost like I was able to correct some things that I wish I’d had more patience with in the originals. With \u003ci\u003eFluctuating Streams\u003c\/i\u003e I wanted the elemental associations in my piece to carry through. My piece evokes airy streams and upward movements, almost like condensation, so we were, for example, working with adding an airy quality to the playing, while still keeping the focus on pitch relations and difference tones, that was central to the arrangement.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eHave you composed works before for acoustic instruments, or is all your previous music electronic?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eMost of my previous music is electroacoustic. I've worked on some cross-disciplinary pieces with both notated and process-composed music for acoustic instruments within the context of performance art. And a little foray into composing for electric guitar quartet invited by Sähkökitarakvartetti, a Finnish ensemble. In the past few years I've been increasingly welcoming acoustic instruments into my soundworld, making collaborative recordings with cellist Judith Hamann and at the moment with contrabass clarinettist John McCowen. My recent work \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica-Oblique;\"\u003eTouch This Fragrant Surface of Earth\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003e is a piece that combines acousmatic sound with live percussion, cello and bass clarinet. So I'm getting more interested in composing for acoustic instruments these days. I was recently invited to compose a solo piece for shakuhachi player Kiku Day, which I'm looking forward to diving into next year.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eCould you say a bit about your musical background, and how you came to experimental music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eI started out studying saxophone and guitar as a teenager, playing in bands and different school constellations, mostly jazz and indie rock. Leaving school, I felt like being a musician was not the right path for me. At the time I had something of an existential urge, a hunger for learning, and so I went to university to study literature. I didn't articulate it like this at the time, but I felt it would teach me something about the human experience. So, I put aside making music completely until I graduated. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eBy this time I really missed music, but I didn't want to get back to where I left off, so I sold my saxophone and bought some studio equipment and a sampler and started to make electronic music with whatever sources I could find. I had just met my partner, Niko-Matti, and he had been involved in the Finnish experimental music scene since a young age. Moving from Sweden to Finland at that time, I felt really empowered by the DIY ethos of the people I met, so that definitely gave me a sense of being allowed to experiment in a new way.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eYou said that when you came back to music after university, you sold your saxophone and bought studio equipment instead.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eSo, at that stage did you reject acoustic instruments completely?\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eAnd why do you think you’re now more open to them? \u003c\/em\u003e\u2028\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; text-autospace: none;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;\"\u003eNo, not at all, I wasn't rejecting acoustic instruments as such, just the idea of being an instrumentalist myself, with the limitations of being married to one instrument, daily rehearsals and drills, the strong genre associations of the saxophone and probably mainly just myself being stuck in some uncreative patterns that needed to be uprooted. I’ve never actually rejected acoustic instruments, I’ve just gravitated to sound sources and technologies that were available to me, easy to use and relatively unbound to conventions. Something that I could mess around with. Gradually, as I’ve found my own language with these methods, I’ve been able to see how acoustic instruments can be an equal way of expressing this language. At the same time I’ve also come back to wanting to play acoustic instruments myself - to have a more embodied musical practice - so I’ve been exploring wind instruments again, as well as percussion and kantele. I’m not yet sure how and if this will be part of what I do, or if it’s just for my own practice.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52073873015098,"sku":"at247","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at247_front_cover.jpg?v=1761577275"},{"product_id":"santiago-diez-fischer","title":"Santiago Diez Fischer","description":"\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;\"\u003e1   \u003cstrong\u003eand your mouth is like the sound of many waters   \u003c\/strong\u003e(2024)    9:32\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;\"\u003e2   \u003cstrong\u003etres ciegos    \u003c\/strong\u003e(2015)    13:36\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;\"\u003e3   \u003cstrong\u003eunder the redwood tree    \u003c\/strong\u003e(2023)     12:31\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;\"\u003e4   \u003cstrong\u003erise in the sky to be a reminder of comfort    \u003c\/strong\u003e(2024)    8:19\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;\"\u003e5   \u003cstrong\u003esappho's song    \u003c\/strong\u003e(2024)      12:25\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Standard\" style=\"margin-bottom: 8pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGyre\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: normal;\" align=\"center\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;\" lang=\"SV\"\u003eAlejandro Oliván López, baritone saxophone\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;\" lang=\"SV\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: normal;\" align=\"center\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;\"\u003eStefanie Mirwald-Keiser, accordion\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: normal;\" align=\"center\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;\"\u003eChristian Streit Smith, percussion\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; line-height: normal;\" align=\"center\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Santiago_480x480.png?v=1762182115\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eInterview with Santiago Diez Fischer\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eBefore we talk about your album ‘Songs’, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background in music – like where are you from? And how and when did you come to contemporary music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI was born in Argentina, in a small town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. I’ve always had a strong connection with culture, poetry, and music, thanks to my parents. I started playing the guitar when I was fourteen, although I actually wanted to play the cello. At that time, buying a cello was too expensive, but my grandmother had a guitar at home, so that’s how I began. Later, my father bought me an electric guitar, and that’s when I truly immersed myself in music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eWhen I had to decide on a career path, I hesitated between literature and composition. I eventually chose composition because there was something in sound that felt both magical and poetic to me.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eFormal studies often tend to strip that “magic” away, so my first years were difficult, but once I began writing music, everything changed — shaping sound was exactly what I had been looking for.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eIn Argentina I studied with Jorge Sad, who not only taught me to enjoy sound but also gave me the opportunity to work in a university studio.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAt the beginning of the 2000s in Argentina, it was very difficult to find an ensemble capable of properly performing student compositions. It wasn’t a problem of the musicians themselves or their skills, but simply that no ensemble would rehearse more than once before a concert. For us, as students, each concert was a major disappointment because the result was always halfway there, which prevented us from doing real critical work on our music. We couldn’t truly hear whether what we had imagined and written actually worked — whether what we heard corresponded to our idea.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eBecause of this problem, I devoted myself mainly to electroacoustic composition for several years, thanks to Jorge Sad’s proposal to work in the university studio. I was fascinated by the possibility of working directly with sound material and obtaining an immediate musical result. Still, my studio time was limited — I could only use the university facilities (computer, software, speakers, etc.) twice a week, for three hours each day. My solution was to use my voice to reproduce ideas, gestures, and sonic behaviors, to record them, and then to try to write and draw those recordings in a sort of personal graphic score.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eA few years later, when I returned to instrumental composition, I felt the need to find an alternative voice to deepen that method. That’s when I came across the idea of plastic sonority: the sound produced by a plastic object rubbed with a bow, usually a double bass bow. This second voice enriched my own, and between the two I discovered a new kind of vocality in my work.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThis method, which was initially a response to a practical limitation, gradually became a poetic act. The human voice and the plastic voice are, for me today, the instruments through which I experiment in order to write a poetic sound.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eOf course, studying with people like Rebecca Saunders, Philippe Leroux, Denis Dufour, Christine Groult, and having courses or encounters with Chaya Czernowin and Pierluigi Billone, profoundly changed my understanding of music, my own music, and the magical relationship that exists in interpretation.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAnother fundamental aspect has been being an immigrant in Europe — living here and not in my country inevitably changes and enriches you.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eFinally, in 2020, the opportunity arose to create a mixed music class linked to the electroacoustic composition department at the Conservatoire de Pantin. The electroacoustic class there is perhaps the most important one in French acousmatic music — a class with decades of history, where many composers who are now central to contemporary music have studied.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI was given the chance to innovate, to propose a class focused on experimentation, new lutheries, and experimental mixed composition. Together with my colleagues Marco Marini and Jonathan Prager, and the students, we’ve built a wonderful community of creators.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eGreat, now onto the album ‘SONGS’:\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eit contains five works, all written for the musicians of Gyre Ensemble, but spread over a period of nearly 10 years.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eWere the pieces conceived as a set (or a suite) from the start – or do they stand on their own as separate works?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAll the pieces grew out of the first one that Gyre played — \u003ci\u003eTres Ciegos\u003c\/i\u003e. Originally, that work was written for two percussionists and accordion, but at the trio’s request I reworked it for saxophone, percussion, and accordion. That was our first collaboration.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eLater, the idea for the album came up — the concept was to write one piece for each musician, plus a new trio. While there are differences between the first trio and the later pieces, I think there’s a thread connecting them all. The voice is perhaps that thread. In all five works, the musicians’ voices are involved in one way or another.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe other four works are more closely connected musically. They share a common sonority that flows through them, and the voice — the singing — always reappears.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI think listening to the album in the order it was conceived helps enrich the experience, but each piece also has its own universe and can stand independently.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThree of the SONGS use electronics, and the other two sound as if they do. And – as you say - all the pieces have a vocal element, though no singer as such. The titles of the pieces also all reference works by female writers.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eSo a lot is going on – can you explain it to us?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eYes, there’s a lot happening at once — I guess it’s a bit like life, isn’t it?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe electronics are usually quite simple. I want to play with the musicians; I want to be part of the performance experience. So the electronic part is me playing some object or instrument. In most of the pieces I’m playing guitar, plastic objects, or other materials. The fact that I perform different instruments to build the electronics gives the music a kind of organic quality — it makes the relationship with the acoustic instruments more like a chamber music experience.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAt the same time, electronics are something the piece either asks for or doesn’t. It’s never an obligation. The trio Sappho’s Song has no electronics (though it sometimes sounds like it does) — the conception of the piece didn’t call for it. For me, electronics are just another instrument, one that adds something when needed, but only if the musical idea demands it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe voice, in this case, represents almost a deus ex machina — something that shifts the listener’s perception. The voice is undoubtedly the transformative element in my work.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eBut the voice isn’t present only as sound; it also appears in the poetry of these women writers. Since childhood I’ve had a special connection with reading and poetry. A family friend, the Argentine poet Olga Orozco, embodied that feminine poetic voice, and she was someone who changed my life. That led me to seek that voice in other poets — a voice that nourishes me with images I often use as titles in my works.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eIn short, electronics are my way of giving my voice to the dialogue with the instruments; the use of the human voice in the pieces opens the door to a deeply spiritual sound world; and the titles drawn from the works of female poets represent the voice that has inspired me since my childhood.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI’m not often a fan of voice in contemporary music, but I really like the way you use voices in SONGS. It’s clearly not traditional classical singing, but has a kind of everyday, unpolished quality which I much prefer.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCan you say a bit more about how and why you are using voices here?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eClearly, the voice I have in mind is not a classical or trained voice — it’s an everyday voice, the voice with which we hum a song we love, with which we imitate an instrument. It’s the voice with which, I imagine, our ancestors once sang. A primordial voice.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAt the same time, the melodies I use in my works are ones I sing after finishing the piece — I improvise them over the mock-up of the work, once it’s already complete. In a way, my voice “emerges” — poetically, at least — from the very entrails of the piece.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThere’s something I often discuss with my students: the concept of non finito. This idea of an aesthetic of the unfinished (or the seemingly unfinished) feels very rich to me in art. When we talk about what is “unfinished”, we think of the works that Michelangelo never completed. In those pieces, the material — the stone, the raw matter of nature — becomes intertwined with the spiritual quest of the human being, of the artist. That place where stone ceases to be stone and becomes sculpture, and where the sculpture merges again with the raw stone, is beautiful.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eSometimes I think that my voice — or the voice within my music — carries that same spirit: an unfinished element that at once gives the stone to the sculpture and the form to the material.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eHow did you meet the musicians from Gyre, and how fundamental were they to shaping the music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI first met Christian, as he had performed in several works by composers I know and admire, and later I met Stefi and Alejandro. With all of them there was a special chemistry.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eComposition often involves a lot of solitary work, but — at least for my music — close collaboration with musicians is essential. Working with the three of them during the composition process, the recording, and the editing was absolutely fundamental. The album wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t worked together.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe music is more abrasive than a lot of what we release on Another Timbre, so I was intrigued when you and Christian expressed interest in releasing it on the label. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI think the album is a perfect fit for Another Timbre. I’ve known the label for a long time and listened to many of its releases. I feel that SONGS combines elements that make it ideal for them. Not long ago, a friend described my music as “punk-lyrical” or “punk-poetic”, and I think that’s quite accurate — it’s the poetic voice that emerges from chaos. That definition fits perfectly with Another Timbre’s spirit.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eGoing back to the start of this interview, it strikes me that there have been a few other Argentine musicians who have appeared on Another Timbre – Lucio Capece, Gabriel Paiuk, and Tomàs Cabado – but I think that all of you now live in Europe. This is completely understandable as Europe must offer many more possibilities for contemporary composers \u0026amp; musicians, but it’s also a bit sad that you have had to leave your native country to prosper.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eI know that the situation in Argentina is particularly chaotic at the moment, but do you ever think of going back and living and working there?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eIt’s a subject that, as an Argentine and an immigrant, one reflects on a lot.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eFirst of all, I know Lucio’s, Gabriel’s, and Tomás’s music very well — it’s music I admire deeply, and I’m happy to share the same label with them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI think that, for me, Argentina represents my childhood — my parents and siblings, my family home. It’s something that marked me deeply. Argentine rock, tango, folk music — the sound of Argentina shaped me.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eBut I remember a literature teacher who once told us that the Ithaca Odysseus longed to return to wasn’t a place in space, but a place in time. Argentina is my country, the one I miss and love, but I know that if I were to return today, it wouldn’t be the Argentina I left — because that Argentina exists in my personal history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAt the same time, I think Argentina is a country built by immigrants — Spanish, Italian, English, and German immigrants who were always on the verge of returning home. And I think — from my own experience — that this idea of returning is always present in us, because as the tango says,\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eyo siempre estoy volviendo\u003c\/i\u003e (I’m always coming back).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: footnote-list;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: footnote;\" id=\"ftn1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"mso-element: footnote-list;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"ftn1\" style=\"mso-element: footnote;\"\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoFootnoteText\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52073908470074,"sku":"at248","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at248_front_cover_e3f23ae6-8029-45a1-afb6-512b34cc3c07.jpg?v=1762181675"},{"product_id":"jurg-frey","title":"Jürg Frey","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003eJe laisse à la nuit son poids d’ombre\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003e   (2019\/2020)    52:07\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003eensemble]h[iatus \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;\"\u003eMartine Altenburger\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci style=\"font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;\"\u003ecello      \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;\"\u003eTiziana Bertoncini\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci style=\"font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;\"\u003eviolin      \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;\"\u003eFabrice Charles \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci style=\"font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;\"\u003etrombone\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003eIsabelle Duthoit \u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eclarinet      \u003c\/i\u003eLaurent Guitton \u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003etuba      \u003c\/i\u003eLê Quan Ninh \u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003epercussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eHélène Fauchère\u003ci\u003e \u0026amp; \u003c\/i\u003eGéraldine Keller\u003ci\u003e  voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eThomas Lehn \u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eanalogue synthesiser      \u003c\/i\u003eAlessandra Rombolá \u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eflute \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Ju-rg_Frey_FOTO_3_zvg_5e0e70d3-72e5-4fa5-9f8f-8ec4d68f2b98_480x480.jpg?v=1762183499\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;\"\u003eInterview with Jürg Frey \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e‘Je laisse à la nuit son poids d’ombre’ is written for a relatively large ensemble of 10 players, including two female voices, trombone, tuba and analogue synthesiser. I’m guessing it’s the first time that you’ve composed for this combination of instruments. I think it’s beautifully atmospheric music, but was there anything about the instrumentation that you found challenging?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eIn fact, the instrumentation was not easy to handle, and there were two sticking points that particularly challenged me: firstly, it was the analogue synthesiser, and above all the way Thomas Lehn plays this instrument. He has a very individual approach to playing the instrument, and this approach is also strongly influenced by his work as an improvising musician. I really appreciated that Thomas took the time to come from Vienna to Aarau and to work with me; it helped hugely and that's how I learned about the instrument. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe second, even greater challenge was the two soprano voices. It really took me many weeks to figure out how I wanted to deal with the two voices and how the two voices relate to each other. At the beginning, the whole spectrum of possibilities was open: the two voices are opposed to each other, and so there is some kind of drama, or, on the other hand, the two voices merge together and sing in unison the whole time.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eIn addition to these two questions, which concerned a specific instrumental-technical issue on the one hand and a fundamental conceptual issue concerning the two voices on the other, there was another component that indirectly affected the instrumentation: When writing for an ensemble such as ensemble]h[iatus, which has a deeply rooted experience in improvisation, one writes not only for instruments, but also, to a particular extent, for the personalities of the musicians. I knew some of the musicians, I had already worked with some of them, and I had to find out information about the others. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eWhat did you discover while composing the piece?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI don't think I discover much while composing. Or maybe in a more general way: I discover the piece. My composing is primarily a process of doing something, even when it doesn't seem like the piece is progressing. I am doing something; even thinking about it is doing something, or reading a book. Many decisions are intuitive, with a precise sense of what the piece will be. I feel that it could be right. When the piece is written I discover more and more things that are connected on different levels, even things that I wasn't fully aware of while working. Things that I didn't “compose” but simply ‘did’, writing notes.... And discovering all these connections and relationships means discovering what the piece is, what kind of ‘body’ the piece is, beyond “simply writing the notes”. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe piece uses various texts – a mixture of old Japanese haikus and poems by Swiss poet Anne Perrier (1922-2017), who I understand was part of the vibrant literary scene in the “Romandie”, the French-speaking part of Switzerland.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eWhat drew you to these particular texts?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe selection of texts began with the poems of Anne Perrier, a poetic work that I have known for years but never had the opportunity to combine with music. And soon the two soprano voices issue returned: can Anne Perrier speak or sing with two voices? And then, after many attempts, the answer was: no.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI then decided to juxtapose Anne Perrier's poems with a selection of Japanese haikus. And when I had the selection on my desk, this inner vibration occurred, which subtly influenced the composition.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoListParagraph\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eTo me several of the texts seem to be about moments when things are hovering between two worlds, and that sense of uncertainty and fragility translates well into the music. Is that how you see the piece too?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eI agree, you can see that it is already prepared in the two worlds of Haikus and Anne Perrier.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eAnd then, when composing, it is always important for me not only to create a secure architecture in the piece, but also to compose in the opposite direction: uncertainty, fragility... everything that subversively runs counter to stability, opens up to another world. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThrough my choice of text, I also approached this sense of uncertainty and fragility, much is only hinted at, but at the same time it is very precise – exactly my world. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAnd the music might also feel in suspension, partly because there is no bass voice to ground the composition. This ground world may then partly be reflected by the ensemble, tuba, trombone, low drums. And last but not least, the fragility arises from some open sections in the composition. It is the moment when, as a composer, I communicate with the musicians in a special way: not that I give them the freedom to improvise, but the decisions lie in their hands, that is, in their ears and imagination, and ultimately in their hearts. The musicians leave the safe ground of the written composition, moving in limbo, connected to the ensemble and to the guidelines of the composition. I then have the feeling that they are hanging around in the ensemble and in the piece, rather than actively shaping it. They become responsible for the atmosphere, the tangibility and the gentle flow of energies of the composition. So they are actually playing in an uncertain landscape.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/stacks-image-16b6937-1200x422-1.jpg?v=1762183650\" alt=\"\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eInterview with Lê Quan Ninh of ensemble]h[iatus\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"mso-hyphenate: none;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eTell us a bit about ensemble]h[iatus: why and when did you set it up, and what are the aims of the group?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe ensemble was created by Martine Altenburger and myself in 2006, and our aim was to bring together musicians who were both performers and improvisers. We wanted to explore the hiatus between interpreting and improvising, hence the name given to the ensemble. Since its inception, we have performed new pièces by Vinko Globokar, Jean-Christophe Feldhandler, Peter Jakober, Steffen Krebber, Antony Pateras, Jennifer Walshe, Marco Döttlinger, Alexander Martinz, in addition to pieces from the contemporary repertoire. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"mso-hyphenate: none;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eAs I understand it, ‘Je laisse à la nuit son poids d’ombre’ was initiated by the ensemble rather than Jürg.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eCan you explain how it came about?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eYes, as a registered organisation in France, we were able to secure funding for a project. But it was my meeting with singer Hélène Fauchère, rather than Jürg, that initially sparked the idea. Hélène and I discussed composers we both liked, and two names came up: Beat Furrer and Jürg Frey, with whom Hélène had already worked. So the idea of commissioning a work from Jürg came about naturally. As an ensemble we had already explored rather turbulent aesthetics with pieces by Vinko Globokar and Peter Jakober, for example, but we also have a keen interest in the music of the Wandelweiser collective, and the project with Jürg Frey gave us the opportunity to explore a musical aesthetic that we’d never fully tackled before. Moreover, as the group already had one singer, we were also curious about what would happen with the presence of a second singer. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52073955295546,"sku":"at249","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at249_front_cover_93c4a5f4-5b7b-4557-be3d-4b4948cf56e3.jpg?v=1762182984"},{"product_id":"jakob-ullmann","title":"Jakob Ullmann","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cb style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\"\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"SV\" style=\"mso-ansi-language: SV;\"\u003eSolo I\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan lang=\"SV\" style=\"mso-ansi-language: SV;\"\u003e(1992\/93-2010) for flute \u003cspan style=\"color: #92d050;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cb style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\"\u003eSolo IV \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #92d050;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e(2013\/14) for low string instrument\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e(simultaneous realisation of two solos for instruments \u0026amp; playback)\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e48:44\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003eRebecca Lane, quarter-tone flutes\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e     \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003eJon Heilbron, double bass\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDouble bass playback recorded by Sam Dunscombe in Berlin. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003eFlute playback recorded by Sam Dunscombe in Berlin, with additional recordings by Anthony Pateras in Djaara\/Castlemaine\u003c\/span\u003e.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"center\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/jakob_ullmann-web_480x480.jpg?v=1762184193\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eInterview with Jakob Ullmann\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe CD contains two of your solo pieces - Solo I for flute and Solo IV for a low stringed instrument - which are realised simultaneously.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eWhen you composed the solos, did you already have in mind the idea that they might be combined and played together?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eIn the late 1980s I made my first attempts to depart from the strict conventions of (western) musical notation and to introduce some more or less graphic structures into my scores. The experiences of writing disappearing musics – a piece in which different groups of instruments rehearse independently and coordinate the performance only with the help of a clock – helped me to plan a series of solo pieces, which give the musicians (with the help of graphic notation I discussed with John Cage) much more freedom in performing the piece than in my earlier pieces. The performer has to develop a slightly different version for each performance, whether with or without other solo pieces. Following the first three solo pieces, which date from the beginning of the 1990s, new versions of the older pieces have been made: Solo I in a version for oboe da caccia (formerly for flute) and a version of Solo II\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003efor bassoon (formerly trombone). In 2013\/2014 I added the solo piece for a (low) stringed instrument (IV), and solo pieces for piano (V) and percussion (VI) to this series. The music is very soft, and lasts for at least 45 minutes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eCan you tell us a bit more about the scores? Is any of the music written out in conventional notation, or are the scores all graphic?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe material for the musicians‘ plan for performing one or more of the Solo-pieces is generally more or less similar for all the Solo-pieces. It consists of 4 or 5 different kinds of information which have to be combined with the help of a rather short and sometimes open list of instructions for the use of the material. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eFirstly, there is graphic material (10 sheets with one or more coloured squares - the cd-cover gives an impression of this).\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eMost of them contain one or more blue or red coloured circles. The interpretation of these graphic sheets is made with the help of lines of different lengths which are placed on the sheets). This material is used mostly to determine the character or colour of the sounds produced. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe second kind of material is a series of pitches which ordain (prearrange) the sequence of central pitches which distinguish the regions of the piece. The order of the pitches is fixed, but the duration can differ. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe third kind of material is a more or less complex diagram which contains different ways of playing the instrument. The diagram is used to find out which kind of treatment can be combined or followed by which other. This diagram is important for the interpretation of the results that are produced with the graphic sheets and the lines. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe fourth kind of material contains some transparent sheets of paper which are used to produce glissandi and\/or multiphonics, especially as applied to the series of central pitches. Some of the solos contain some more material for additional sound-events.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eTo prepare a performance, you have to fix the duration of the whole piece, and then the durations of the central pitches. Then you can start to produce the other necessary information and apply it to the time-structure in general.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eSome\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eperformers (Hans-Peter Schulz (organ), Dafne Vicente-Sandoval (bassoon), Lukas Rickli (piano)) have written about their experience of preparing and playing Solo-pieces alone or in combination with others, and have discussed the special problems of applying very low volume sounds to their instrument(s) (see: Musik-Konzepte 210, Booklets (fremde zeit addendum and the double-cd with bassoon-pieces) and MusikTexte).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eThe music combines acoustic instruments with playback.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003eDo you prepare tapes (or files) for playback, or is this something which the musicians take on?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003eDuring the preparation of one or more of the Solo-pieces the musician will find out very soon that it is impossible to realise everything which the material for the piece demands and\/or suggests. Even if you have access to some assistants for the performance (especially necessary for Solo III and Solo V – it seems impossible to perform these pieces without assistants), some of the necessary sound-events must be added by help of loudspeakers. As, for instance, with very low and\/or very high pitches which have to be heard during the whole performance. Due to different kinds of instruments and their tuning, it is impossible to pre-record these sounds for every performance. The recording must be made for the particular acoustic situation of the venue, the kind of instrument(s), even the standard pitch (especially for performances of Solo III, Solo V or combinations with these pieces). The recording should resonate perfectly with the instruments and help avoid a mixture of different types of performance.\u003cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Tahoma',sans-serif;\"\u003e© Jakob Ullmann\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52073998549306,"sku":"at250","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at250_front_cover_5dbace59-12f5-4330-aa01-887e8b397821.jpg?v=1765194228"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.anothertimbre.com\/collections\/recent-releases.oembed","provider":"Another Timbre","version":"1.0","type":"link"}