Matt Evans - Percussion
Henry Fraser - Double Bass
Lucia Stavros - Harp
Lester St. Louis - Cello 

Composition + electronics by Lea Bertucci, 2021

Of Shadow And Substance (Excerpt)

New Jam

Regex (CassetteRip)

Brajam Com Noxin

n o r c a l  n o i s e  f e s t  2 o 1 8  … … 
(iPhone on gear table made accidental recording while in sampler mode)(and why not?)

NorCaloric(((Accidental

ant spa •)(( 08.11.22

Kalk (V2)

Tone

Music performed by Francesco Corvi (nesso.xyz) using generative systems and live coding techniques

All rights reserved

Excerpt from live at The Grey Space (The Hague)

Matthew Ryals says,

The works presented on this EP are from a collection of self-prescribed etudes. The purpose of these studies were to develop my generative compositional skills and, hopefully, discover new techniques. Loosely defined, generative music employs processes that allow the music to compose itself usually within a set of rules or limitations.

My original idea was to record 30 studies in as many days. The days didn’t need to be consecutive as I anticipated interruptions for various reasons including touring, commercial work, teaching obligations, etc. I wanted to limit each piece to one day of work so that I was less likely to focus on elements outside of generative techniques. 90% of the pieces were recorded in 1 day, which for me means 4-5 hours in the studio. I did break my own rule on a few occasions and realized a study over 2-3 days, but this was due to having a more cramped schedule on some days; the total hours were close to the same.

Another rule was to have each piece start and stop itself. To accomplish this, I needed to find ways to build this ability into the system. I achieved this with 80-90% of the pieces, but a few did require my interference, usually to start them due to running out of control mechanisms.

One last rule was to record at least 5 takes of each work. I ended up recording 5-12 takes of each.

Since my focus was developing generative techniques and recording one study a day, I wasn’t as intensely concerned as I normally am with the overall work aesthetically. This led to sonic regions I hadn’t ventured into before.

Each piece was created with a modular synthesizer and recorded live in the moment without overdubs. There is no post editing. The output was a single stereo channel from the modular synthesizer. The first piece was created Jan 4, 2022 and the last one, Sept 9, 2022. Written, performed, and produced by Matthew Ryals at home in Brooklyn, NY.

I learned several things from this project. Many of them were basic techniques that I never gave myself the time to try out before. Maybe a few were original. Most importantly, I came to a lot of ideas concerning macroscopic (structural) processes, but most of them would not be achievable without the use of software such as Max. Since these studies were for solo modular synth, those ideas will likely form the basis of a future project.

This EP for dingn\dents, is the first of 3 EPs, each of which will be released in different versions. An EP and its respective versions will include the same tracks, but different takes. I hope these bite-sized editions encourage the listener to experience and evaluate the differences among the various takes of tracks across the collection.

Thank you to Chang Park, Changhee Kim, Joyce N. Ho, Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie, and Allen Ryals.

Artwork - Joyce N. Ho (joycenho.com)
Mastered By Kim, Changhee
Mixing & Mastering Studio - dNTS (dntslab.com)
Producer - Matthew Ryals (matthewryals.com)

©2023 dingndents Record Ltd.
dnd_EM23001-6001

Matthew Ryals - Etude No. 13 (take 11)

free improvisation, electric guitar/violin/glitch/electronics/coding.

Matthew Ryals - Etude No. 13 (take 11)

dingn\dents

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