I am finally set up my circle of equipment around me. Had my tape loops ready. My field recordings were edited and chopped. The right cables and equipment and began setting everything up.
It took me a bit of time to get everything working smoothly. I ended up having a few cables short and had to get creative, instead of stereo the JU-06A was going in mono, and I midi-synced the Juno to the Volca FM. I also set up effects send from the mixer to the SP404 MK2.
I decided to create three pieces, as I had three different tape loop styles, and I would have the long-form tape loop running different drones for each piece. I also selected different sounds each time.
Improvisation number one would be waves and bird sounds with the long tape loop running a drone of the Thames. I had chorus and reverb in my sp404mk2 effects send and return. As well as an effect that is generative and randomises loops and releases. I wanted to keep the core idea of minimalism and ambient as well as generative in mind. i wanted to do as little as possible and let the FX do the work and then I would slowly bring in things and out over a period of 5 minutes for each improvisation. Because it’s all going into the Zoom H5 I didn’t have to worry about production or anything else. I wanted it to be raw and afterwards require little editing. I wanted to embrace the ideas I’ve previously researched in.
Performance number two was similar but had more bird field recordings and the noise pollution resonance from the turbines on the loop form tape loop. As well as switching between playing back the tape loop on the mixer and switching to inputs and driving the FX send and master creating feedback. I was controlling the FX with one hand and sending and adjusting with the other. Again I wanted to create this parallel between non-human and human existence that I saw at Stave Hill, this performance was my reflection from consistently going to the site and experiencing this relationship that is ongoing and self-reliant on each other. Reminds me of Gaia theory and other academic works that I’ve read in the Environmental Sound Arts work.
The third performance was the best, in my opinion, I’d really learnt to let go by this point and I went over my allotted time of 5 minutes but I enjoyed it so much, I forgot I was even recording. It was complex and simple at the same time, I allowed the sounds to breathe and take time between compositional changes. I switched between tape loops and line-ins. Minimal Synth sounds, arpeggiated and sequenced. After finishing the last performance I decided to listen back as I felt perhaps they weren’t that great.
After listening back to the three performances I was blown away. Something so texturally interesting and deep could be composed improvisational with minimal editing. Again not egocentric as I wasn’t impressed by the composition as such but more the sonic of the machines altogether. It’s generative it wasn’t about me, I was blown away but what the equipment and sounds did themselves. I simply set the parameters for the machines to create, the loops would keep recording over each other adding layers and layers, I did the trick of putting masking tape on top of the erase head and this allowed for constant layering to record. I’m curious to see what others think.
Finally, before going to bed I looked up AI text to photo programs as I felt like generative art would suit this work as the composition is the same.
I typed in words related to the project and ended up generating based on this sentence. “Anthropocene, Cuthulucene, Minimalism, Cassette, Tape Loops, Field Recordings, Noise Pollution, Birds, Human, Non-Human” and these were the outcome.
In particular, I really like the second photo. I think all that is left now is to do some research into Cuthulucene and the Gaia theory. The improvisations sound like an amalgamation, can the future soundscapes of our society become something like this? Will we become a coexisting lifeform, all-knowing all breathing?