Contained in the worlds appearances are virtual potentials. Deleuze & Guattari’s body without organs is granted access to a deterritorialized horizon of continuous intensities. Questions about hierarchy, organization, reproduction and stasis shape the architecture of this composition. Recorded at WORM Studios, Rotterdam.

Body Without Organs

Improvisation recorded on Coenderstraat based on my composition Coenderstraat

Coenderstraat

The work was composed and recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic, a time where a simple measurement has taken on a completely new meaning. As well as being performed by musicians in isolation, the musical gestures are shaped by a social distancing architecture that has forced us to be both linked and detached, intertwined and isolated. 

Maria Martpay - Marimba
Mayuko Takeda - Bass Clarinet 
Ola Kwiatkowska - Violin 
Chema Martinez Martinez - Violoncello

Carmel Freeman - Composer

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69SL3t5eLVg

One Point Five Meters

My version of the Miles Davis' composition Blue in Green.

Blue In Green (Live)

Composition based on  reflections and memories of the eight surgeries I had as a child on my eyelid. I wanted to create a sound world that feels both familiar and threatening, foreign and innate, uncontrollable yet calculated. Sounds made with an EMS VCS 3 (Putney) semi-modular analog synthesizer.

Surgery

At the crux of this composition is the flux between unity and chaos that flows through so much of nature.  I began pondering the natural phenomena in the behaviour of germs, the murmation of birds and eventually the philosophical implications of orchids (successfully) pretending to be wasps, taking on the female wasp’s shape in order to seduce male wasps into copulation in order to spread orchid pollen. I aimed to explore this interweaving of dichotomy and resolution, of tension and catharsis through various compositional means, approaching the chamber ensemble as an ecosystem that could be manipulated. Plunger mutes in the brass section explore contrasting yet connected textural experiences, while intervals exploring dissonance blend into one another and temporarily find stability. Nature can feel very paradoxical and yet very cohesive. Perhaps this is the greatest paradox of all. 

Still unperformed. Recording made with NotePerformer.

Orchid And Wasp (Mock-Up)

This composition was inspired by the forest as an environment that is both static and active. Tones are sounded like trees in a dialogue with themselves and each other. The forest is explored as a multiplicity of states: the shadow and the object, the individual and the whole, the dark mass and the fragmented light. 

This was composed as a concerto for Aart Strootman and Codart's Contemporary Big Band. The concerto architecture I had the opportunity to compose for was perfect for exploring the relationship between the tree (the guitar) and the forest (the orchestra). States of individuality and co-existence add an additional duality to the flux of the piece. The proverb “מֵרוֹב עֵצִים לֹא רוֹאִים אֶת הַיַּעַר” (in English - lit. ‘from many trees you don’t see the forest’, more commonly “see the forest for the trees”) was utilized to inform this composition in order to incorporate the irony in becoming so focused on an object you no longer see it. I constructed a 12-note mode that essentially divides the chromatic scale between two octaves around an axis of symmetry on middle C (resulting in a 4-octave, 23-note scale). I then assigned each letter of the Hebrew alphabet to a note (excluding the axis) in order to generate a melodic sequence out of the proverb. This generated a melodic gesture that served as the starting point for thematic and harmonic material. 

The premiere of this composition was postponed to Covid-19 so for now this recording made with NotePerformer is all I have. This means that improvisation sections are up to you to imagine.

Rest For Three (Mock-Up)

El Silbo (“the whistle”) is a transposition of Spanish from speech to whistling used on La Gomera (the least populous of the Spanish Canary Islands). The unique topography of the island (ravines and valleys) makes the language particularly useful, as whistled messages can travel as many as five kilometres. The way this language extracts musical elements of an existing language while preserving communicative capacity inspired this electronic work. Field recordings of the language are found throughout the work both in raw and digitally manipulated forms. Stereophonic sound is explored in a recreation of the spatialization that accompanies a a language traversing great distances. I have also used layered textures to conjure the call-and-response nature of Silbo Gomero. Finally microtonal relationships are incorporated into the work as a further exploration of how language can be manipulated.

El Silbo

A balloon drifts into anonymity and away from its owner. No longer associated with the occasion it once represented, the balloon is now a nameless plastic husk floating in space. This electronic composition was made with audio recordings of balloons, other found objects and manipulated with computer software. These recordings, like lost balloons, are removed from their original context and forced into obscurity.

carmel freeman

Popular tracks