These five pieces, created over a period of five days in May – June 2021, were composed from field recordings, detuned piano, modular and software synths, and found objects. They were originally made to accompany the Auxart 1 installation by Philip Krohn, and were later (re)mixed to stereo. Recorded and layered as long improvisational takes, these pieces represented a somewhat new way of working – a kind of sonic diary that captured a particular moment in time, including its weather, insects and birds. Accepting of accidents, embracing small gestures, embedding accretions of time. Lightly edited into loose forms, the five sections wander slowly across a landscape, and sometimes stumble across a surprising shape.
CD released on Stellage, 2021. (eco)systems is a mix of acoustic instruments, field recordings, digital and analogue synths, structured in algorithmic cycles, random fluctuations, slow evolutions and large timescales, networks of events, systems of repetition, interactions between sound characters, a movement of cut / copy / paste, erase & rewrite in an endlessly renewed back and forth, a fluid and evocative movement, until two ecosystems emerged, as fictitious as they are real.
“Across two numerically titled pieces the duo simulate and explore various biomes, weather conditions, environments and creatures. Insect-like chirps echo in cavernous spaces, distorting synthesizers disintegrate into silence. At one moment thumping rhythms resemble a creature’s heartbeat, at another you hear what sounds like rainfall deep in a deciduous forest during a summer storm. Synthetic, almost cinematic soundscapes slowly morph into imagined underwater worlds, only to dissolve into vast, falling waterfalls. More serene, almost ambient passages evoke rays of sunlight piercing through clouds after intense rainfall.
There is an incredibly impressive fluidity and variety to Duplant’s and Nehil’s work on (eco)systems. Sound sources intertwine and morph in disorienting ways, as a listener you’re constantly being transported by the evocative nature of the music. The dizzying complexity of these pieces seemingly ignores the ocean that separates these two artists – one based in Northern France, the other in the Western United States. (eco)systems sounds like two well-acquainted friends in yet another deep conversation.”
Bounds treats recorded sound as infinitely malleable; from grains to pulses to pitches to rhythms, loops and cycles; interruptions, repetitions, spaces, pauses; strings in a continuum. Sounds sourced from percussion instruments, subjected to techniques of micro-editing and impulse-response reverb. Acoustic events become alien tones in strata of (artificial) real space.
Cassette, 26 min. Draft Records D020, edition of 100 Artwork by Harrison Higgs.
Meticulously edited studio constructions composed of metallic rattles and impacts, vocal whoops and grunts, and digital silence. A refined use of digital editing techniques gives way to jagged repetitive structures, arrhythmic punk and wild cinematic spaces. Percussive elements are fused together, extracted from found objects, field recordings, synthetic tones, crashes, and drum machine thuds. The textures of hip hop, electronic, industrial and noise are filtered through the craft of musique concrete and sound design. These miniatures serve as a more synthetic and noisy partner to Knives (released in 2009 on Senufo).
Sonoris sns-09 CD. Composed 2007 – 08, released 2010. Cover art by Harrison Higgs.
Reviews
Open clusters, animal patterns, resonant “ghosts”, dynamism, percussive bursts and awkwardness. Sources include voice, plucked springs, dry branches, various metal objects, Fender Rhodes, struck pipes, detuned hammer dulcimer, bass drum, clapping, trombone, dry bamboo, signal generator, blown pipes, Chinese mouthharp, church organ, prepared piano, prepared synth, and recordings of the Chicago O’Hare Airport, a rushing stream, mineral deposits in water, snow crystals, heating vents and industrial areas in Portland, OR.
Senufo Edition 01 LP, numbered limited edition of 180 composed and released 2009
Physicality, suspense, cinematic effects, rhythmic ruptures, and dynamism. Compositional processes include improvisation, blind layering, random muting, re-amping, impact alignment. Many of these tracks were used in the dance performance Bandage a Knife. Sources include organ, prepared synthesizer, trombone, string trio, voice, plucked springs, leather, blown pipes, ice shards, signal generator, drum kit, drum machine, clapping, breaking glass, bowed acoustic guitar, plucked and bowed hammer dulcimer, Fender Rhodes, snapping twigs, piano, feedback, stones, and field recordings of freezing rain on plastic, a rushing stream, a market in Kyoto.
CD, 53 min. Sonoris sns-06 composed 2006 – 07, released 2008 Cover art by Harrison Higgs
Choral clusters, animalism, extended spaces, natural acoustics, awkwardness, percussive bursts. Site-specific improvisation, blind layering, sonic hybrids, envelope manipulation, faulty tape recorders, live feedback/distortion devices. Sources include voice, hammer dulcimer, glass xylophone, metal objects, feedback, signal generator, detuned piano, harmonica, wood pieces, fireworks, chimes, bamboo swords, sawblades, glass on tile, bass drum, flute, plucked autoharp, tuning forks, snare drum, 300 lbs of rock salt, a book, and recordings of rain in a half-finished cabin, melting snow on leaves, rain on a plastic roof, struck wood (from inside a well pipe), a graveyard and a schoolyard in Portland, OR, ice crystals and wind in the Columbia Gorge, WA.
CD, 48 min. And/OAR and/30 Composed 2002 – 2005, released 2008
Rustling and jumbled textures, rhythmic rolling, ideophones, free exchange, blind layering, room tone, micro-envelopes, “creatureality”, re-recording, auditory fatigue. Sources include fabric, pebbles, various drums and rattles, upright bass, a down comforter, grass, tin foil, radio static, glass spheres, bowed wires, scraped autoharp, voice, moose call, recorder, tuning fork, feedback, oscillator, cello, hammer dulcimer, field recordings of graveyards and parks in Portland OR.
Aprupture is where holes find their way into a sound-material, lurching along, burrowing in. If jumping, stomping or skipping through, an incessant regulation is destroyed. The pulse is a rocking wooden boat with heavy ropes that creak and sway. An “outside force” – the rise and fall of waves, determines it. The creation of aprupture leaves a series of places where multiple transparencies do not entirely obscure a ground. In placing them together in time, there is a control of layers but not of correspondences. Tonality is a byproduct of production. Rhythm is an accident and correspondence is circumstantial. The ecllipses as a dotted pattern clues the mothod of intermesh. Woven into a sheet, the sheet being torn and rumpled, then becoming large enough to include a landscape. Materials resting one upon another. Or particulate, taking up form. Density as measured – the spaces between this suspension. Or woven as a process of length, taken over with treatment time, manually applied. The fabric resulting, with texture determined by scale, opening up with proximity. A composition curdles in the ear. {from the liner notes by S.N.}
Seth Nehil 