Following on from the live performance at C4CC, Heather and I spent a day recording in my studio, and this is the result.
Heather’s voice is the main sound source – I’m capturing her words as she speaks, and she is responding to the sounds that result. On two tracks I’ve used bowed metal and a kitchen whisk to provide extra textures.
If you would like to get high quality downloads of these tracks, click on the “Buy” link to go to my bandcamp page. The tracks are free or pay what you like.
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: symphony of the senses 1
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: symphony of the senses 2
Symphony of the Senses is a piece by Simon Desorgher, for improvising musicians and dancers. The piece has a broad structure, in that specific sections are defined (heart, breath/air and so on), but the specific details of how each section is formed is largely left to the musicians to decide. This version of the piece was performed in Colourscape with Simon playing flute, Michael Ormiston on vocals, various eastern percussion instruments and (if I remember correctly) effects pedals, and myself on computer. There were three improvising dancers with large coloured scarves, and various scents were released in the different sections of the piece.
In Colourscape the audience move around the whole structure – fixed performers (that’s me) are in a large central dome, whilst the other musicians are on radio mics and can move around freely. The dancers also roam the structure during each performance. It’s quite an experience, for audience and performers alike.
I’m using the same software that I used for my solo perfomances with metal, so I’m layering and looping sounds using software recorders (technically, I’m recording into buffers) and replaying the sounds using granular playback and delay lines, as well as adding extra effects. These are live performances, but there was quite a bit of post-production – mostly in the mixing, though there was a bit of editing involved as well.
