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Pushing the Envelopes

  • E14 - Wander Steps (Pascale Criton)

    9 JUN 2023 · Wander Steps (Pascale Criton) for two microtonal accordions played by the duo XAMP (Fanny Vicens and Jean-Etienne Sotty), 2018 “Wander Steps is based on the interaction of two quarter-tone accordions. The instrumental playing involves the production of tiny differences carefully modulated by ear in course of the live performance by the accordionists. The sought-after interferences (beats, resultant tones, difference tones) generate certain acoustic phenomena sensitive to the response of the space and controllable through modes of playing.” Pascale Criton http://www.pascalecriton.com/en/biography
    12m 1s
  • E13 - Horizontal Drift (Chris Trapani)

    1 JUN 2023 · Like the slowly shifting topography of the city of New Orleans, Horizontal Drift stretches in two dimensions. The first is in the domain of pitch, where an altered fretboard gives the possibility of quarter-tone gradations. Second, in the realm of time: the piece is a series of flexible loops whose length and transposition are constantly varied, often overlapping as one fragment drifts into the next… http://christophertrapani.com/wordpresssite/
    12m 30s
  • E12 - ∇ (Benjamin Thigpen)

    21 MAY 2023 · ∇ (nabla) is a mathematical operator which describes certain global characteristics of a field or region. ∇ may denote the direction and magnitude of the greatest rate of increase (gradient); the tendency to converge toward or repel from a point (divergence), or the infinitesimal rotation at a given point (curl). For a layman (like myself), it is a question of mathematically modeling the complex, dynamic movements of fluids, with ∇ expressing some of the ways in which physical quantities change in space. The symbol, an inverted delta, takes its name from the Greek word for an ancient Phoenician harp. ∇ was recorded live in concert at the Concordia University Hexagram Black Box, in Montréal, on 1 March 2015. The ensemble of compressed air instruments, Plateforme, was invented and developed by Jean-François Laporte. Plateforme consists of 2 Pipes, 8 Telescopic Tu-Yos, 10 Vibrating Membranes and 18 Overtone Flutes. All the parameters of the acoustic instruments and the real-time processing were controlled via computer by the composer. Benjamin Thigpen Commissioned by Productions Totem Contemporain, 2015 Duration : 21’ 39'' https://electrocd.com/en/artiste/thigpen_be/benjamin-thigpen/biographie
    21m 44s
  • E11 - Raag Bhairav (Keshav Mohta)

    6 JUN 2021 · Raag Bhairav (Saraswati Veena) Keshav Mohta inquires into the power of sound to influence the fabric of consciousness. He is interested in the re-construction of indian ragas (melodic structures) from an embodied state of meditative presence. His music on the veena, an ancient indian classical instrument, probes into the nuances of the micro notes (shruti) and on the subsequent creation of an aesthetic flavour. For more information on his work: www.dharmayog.co.in
    17m 24s
  • E10 - The Pulsating Waves (Haarvöl with Xoán-Xil López)

    10 MAY 2021 · Hailing from Porto, Haarvöl are a group operating in the best tradition of ensembles such as Morphogenesis, Double Leopards, 3/4 Had been Eliminated and the Starving Weirdos between textured drones, noise, electro-acoustic experimentation and indefinable manipulation of sonic detritus. Firefly Frequencies presents the second of three pieces for dance commissioned by Ballet Teatro for the play Revoluções (Revolutions). Haarvöl’s three permanent members — Fernando José Pereira, João Faria, and Rui Manuel Vieira — collaborate with Xoán-Xil López, a Galician sound artistic working on field recording and experimental music. Haarvöl develops cinematic soundscapes, with analogue or digital sound sources weaved in complex and detailed compositions. The Pulsating Waves (Reality) Pulse tone waves are frequencies embodied in a pulsar that is at the same time decisive for all humans and, metaphorically, for the revolution. Feeling the pulse of events, of agitation, of breaking, is essential for the revolutionary moment. It is this kind of continuous auscultation that determines success or, rather, the inversion of the whole emancipatory movement in the process of pragmatic transfiguration which, by obvious ineffectiveness, becomes implosive. The pulsations of events thus assert themselves as a decisive engine, and yet, in the face of the weakening of the utopian drive in its inevitable collision with reality, everything changes. The passage from one moment to the other brings with it the presence of the now and the consequent structural modifications that the utopian impossibility needs to maintain itself as an emancipatory impulse. It will then be in the programmatic transfiguration of the revolutionary event that its pulsation is played, more or less strong, but never absent. The decisive clash also affirms the reality, stripped of all the romantic drive that forms the revolutionary utopia. The fracture induces realism, and this is never the dreamed face of emancipation. We are told in the last book of the Invisible Committee that “All the reasons for making a revolution are there. There is none missing. The wreck of politics, the arrogance of the powerful, the reign of the false, the vulgarity of the rich, the cataclysms of industry, rampant misery, naked exploitation, the ecological apocalypse ... do not deprive us of anything, not even being informed of this. ‘Climate: 2016 beats record of heat’ says Le Monde in its main title, now already like almost every year. All the reasons are met, but not the reasons that make revolutions; are the bodies. And the bodies are in front of the screens.” Right. https://haarvol.bandcamp.com/ https://cronica.bandcamp.com/album/unwritten-rules-of-a-ceaseless-journey
    15m 6s
  • E09 - Antarès (Natacha Muslera)

    8 MAR 2021 · Enregistrement à partir du texte "Le poids du ciel" de Jean Giono dans la minuscule chapelle de Boussac Bourg, lors du deuxième confinement en Novembre 2020. Voix improvisées : Christine Shaller et Natacha Muslera Lecture & composition Natacha Mulsera Texte: Le poids du ciel de Jean Giono
    9m 12s
  • E08 - RADIO SCHREBER (Richard Crow)

    21 FEB 2021 · RADIO SCHREBER, SOLILOQUIES FOR SCHIZOPHONIC VOICES "Radio Schreber, Soliloquies for Schizophonic voices" investigated the recurring theme of 'hearing voices' in sonic and literary works by paying homage to Daniel Paul Schreber's "Memoirs of My Nervous Illness" (Denkwürdigkeiten einen Nervenkranken). Written at Sonnenstein Public asylum and published in 1903, the Memoirs detail and map an alternate delusional world. For the centenary of Schreber's death, this sound performance gives voice to Schreber's visionary text through a specially created composition that premiered at the Freud Museum, London. As a continuation of his project "Imaginary Hospital Radio", Richard Crow explores a sonic tableaux of phantasmic and disembodied voices embedded in the text as well as in its physical and imaginary locations inhabited by Schreber. A performance curated by Lucia Farinati with the assistance of Rita Correddu Recorded and engineered by Colin Potter of Nurse with Wound Live electronics, sound objects, tapes, live sound mix: Richard Crow Phantasmic voices of Radio Schreber: Richard Crow, Gabriel Séverin, Anna Teresa Scheer, Nick Couldry, Adam Bohman, Douglas Park and others who remain obscure and unknown... https://institution-of-rot.org/
    41m 8s
  • E07 - Ghost (Seijiro Murayama)

    14 JAN 2021 · Ghost (Given: 1, a drum kit, 2. a room for staying alone) The parenthetic givens of "Ghost" are somewhat of a provocation. How exactly can one stay "alone" in a room given also that one has a whole drum kit for company? Questions of co-existence (of musician and instrument, sound and its absence, rhythm and interval, action, event and process, sounding, playing and listening) abound in Seijiro Murayama's improvisations, where each sonic gesture or statement engages in the construction of a problem that unfolds along multiple timescales. Not only how to be alone (together) in the room but how to make room for each other (a problem that extends to the individual components of the kit and the sounds they make) in terms of the potential of each for expression or its withdrawal, provocation, conversation, connection certainly but interleaved with moments of mute cohabitation in which what is felt is neither one nor the other but the making room itself. https://urojiise.wixsite.com/seijiromurayama
    20m 55s
  • E06 - Chaos in Order (Nonpluss)

    13 JAN 2021 · Chaos in Order is a piece that documents the results of a chance encounter between a guitar, a recently vacated fishbowl, a padded envelope, various kitchen utensils and a laptop.
    20m 5s
  • E05 - The Milky Way (Phil Kline)

    29 DEC 2020 · In what has become a cult tradition, Phil Kline goes "electronic caroling" through the streets of Greenwich Village with a parade of boomboxes. Kline creates a euphoric blend of other-worldly voices and bells. For Firefly Frequencies Phil has proposed an extract from the CD version of the work, "Milky Way". "Unsilent Night" is a free, mobile outdoor sound sculpture in which the audience members are also the performers, carrying the music played on boomboxes or smart phones. Phil Kline created it in 1992 as a sort of Christmas Caroling party for his friends. Since then it has become an international event with 40 or more cities participating each year. http://unsilentnight.com/index.html
    9m 41s

Pushing the Envelopes is an ongoing series featuring experiments in contemporary music by composers and improvisers from around the globe who offer Firefly Frequencies pieces and processes that insouciantly steal...

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Pushing the Envelopes is an ongoing series featuring experiments in contemporary music by composers and improvisers from around the globe who offer Firefly Frequencies pieces and processes that insouciantly steal across borders between genres, techniques and languages, giving vital and political meaning to music’s need to attack, decay, sustain, release.
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Author firefly frequencies
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