I have begun working on a song with my friend Ryan, which has considerable potential. If I can somehow turn this into an interdisciplinary or multimedia piece of work, that would be ideal, as collaboration is the thing that is most artistically inspiring to me right now. But as it stands, it’s just a file on his laptop. However, it is the most exciting collaboration happening right now, so I will begin writing about it in my process blogs, regardless of the result. This song started after a decision to create music together, sparked by a conversation we had in a club the other weekend. Ryan’s music has a highly experimental edge, and I consider him at the forefront of experimental sound design techniques in electronic music. While he has created one club-type loop that we could potentially develop, the most exciting aspect to me is the demo he has created using Ableton’s vocoder. The vocoder has an external setting that can be used to play a secondary sample’s harmonic content through the attack of another sample, like a drum loop. He has used a paul stretched vocal pad playing through exponential rhythmic kick drums that make it feel granulated and very free flowing. Doing the same thing with the bass gives it a very dynamic feeling, with all the elements being hard to trace in the mix. I will try recording on it soon.
Blog
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SPRAWLL
SPRAWLL is my conception of a punk/hardcore song but infused with synthetic sound design that could echoes imagery found in the anime Evangelion and other esoteric sci fi media. I want the production to sound as if it is simulating an inorganic body under crisis, as if the frontman of a hardcore band was moshing and stage diving but their body was made of steel, loose wires, and malfunctioning electronics. Over this I am delivering my vocals in visceral screams. The primality of the vocals with the synthesized chaos of the production creates a framework for me to introduced unprompted and unpredictable body movement and performance. I want this song to be able to create new pathways in the room as I move in it, and disengage the audience with their feeling of control and understanding of the space they occupy. With the intention of providing catharsis and pathways through this fear and chaos later in the performance, I believe using SPRAWLL at the beggining of the performance properly sets up the emotional arc I am trying to manifest for myself and those participating in the performance.
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SKULLTHEFT
SKULL THEFT uses the 4×4 structure of a classic 2000’s edm song akin to artists like Deadmau5. Yet each timed hit of the kick and bass is heavily processed with vocoder and signal distortion to make this structure feel violent while still cultivating a hypnotic feeling that informs a universal rhythym among those who hear it. Amongst these distorted drums I used a soft vocal tone that is meant to feel seductive and indifferent, with lyrics that explore the bodies relationship to the elements of the music as they are occuring. I intend for this song to have the feeling of a classic EDM anthem but warped in a manner that makes it feel like it is occuring within a hellscape manifested in films like hellraiser. My intention in performing this song is so transform the space after playing extremely choatic unstructured and “scary” music is to invite people to cathartically release the tension developed by the previous songs and begin to find a liberating rhythym within the overwhelming intensity of the music that comes before it. This is to allow people to lean into the intensity of the moment and their own feelings through dance rather than escape from it by retreating further into their minds.
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Brainstorming
I am still unsure as to what I would like to do for this collaboration unit. The idea I have proposed in class is to create an immersive game experience around the EP I am making with my friend and artist ALPARR. As he studies game design at university, I thought this could potentially be an exciting way to add an extra element of immersion with our music, and release our EP through USBs that have the feeling of cursed media. If the game evokes a sense of being a stray file accidentally left on a USB, then it could further immerse our audience in a way that is interactive and transcends the linear domain of listening to music digitally. However, I am not sure whether this is realistic due to time constraints and the amount of work it would require. Otherwise, I would ideally like to work with video or film in some way that centers around my practice. I am not sure who I could do this with, but I will work lightly with multiple people in a casual manner until I feel like a particular project has potential.
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Conceptualization
For my sound piece I intend to collect recordings from my upcoming performance and digitally manipulate them in order to emphasize the role of my body in contrast to the electronic medium that produced the music being informed to explore the notion of physical presence within electronic music performance. I am working on two new songs for the show one titled “SKULL THEFT” and another, “Sprawll” both songs feature my voice as the only virtually untreated and natural element amongst extremely distorted sonics and untraditional sound design. I hope that my performance of these songs incites reactions of the audience through my performing them in a confrontational and embodied manner using body contact and movement as the main medium of transmission. Hearing the screams of the audience, my own voice, and the extra dimension of digitally manipulating these recordings will act as a journal and temporal examination of my physical bodies role in performance as a central pillar within my practice.