Adumbration: to suggest, disclose, or outline partially; to foreshadow vaguely; overshadow, obscure.

Adumbrations goes through a series of statements towards a sensibility of ideals and shadows, utilizing female voices reciting a series of tongue twisters that iterate sibilant, fricative, and bilabial sounds. If spoken incorrectly, the sound qualities of these tongue twisters are heard as curse words. Therefore, there needs to be consistency in the process of speaking these tongue twisters explicitly. In the English language curse words can function as multiple parts of speech, and as the saying goes, people who curse more frequently are more honest. 

This piece explores the dichotomous relationship between certain ideals and shadows, i.e. consistencies and inconsistencies, actuality and potentiality, and the explicit and the honest, as it goes through a series of musical adumbrations that “halo” the process of these tongue twisters. Through these adumbrations, the contradictory can be either one or the other of the ideals or shadows turning on itself, and at times the appearance of the clarity and the inaccuracy are in an indefinite flux through these halos.  This occurs as inconsistent phonemes are turned from inaccurate iterations of the tongue twisters into something sounding consistent.  The halos are supplementing the voice within varying simultaneous parameters that include shimmering, radiating around the iterations and vice/versa, and existing as a spatial supplement revolving in different stereo planes around and as a process, and out of the immersive comes our personal perception of the contradiction.  One can think of this adumbrated halo, in this sense, as a place where the dichotomous relationship becomes indistinguishable, and laughter for a flawed system. 

This piece is partially inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s movie Persona.

Thank you so much for the wonderful voice recordings:
Elizabeth Gartman
Caroline Mckinzie
Logan Piker

Adumbrations

Christian | Sound Artist | Field Recordist | Music Producer |Songwriter | Soundscape Researcher 

BA, Xi'an Conservatory of Music, CHN - Electronic Music Production
MA, University of York, UK - Music Production
PhD Candidate, University of Sheffield, UK - Composition 

Boyi Bai is a composer and sound artist whose works explore the intersections of soundscape composition, field recording, and VR immersive audio. His pieces have been showcased at various international festivals and events, including Sound/Image (London), MANTRA (Ecuador), PAYSAGES | COMPOSÉS festival (France), Click Fest (Ohio), Sonic Nomads (Seoul), Rádio SOMA (Brazil), Sound+ Environment Symposium (Newcastle), MA/IN Festival (Rome), BBC Radio 6, Radiophrenia (Glasgow), Radio Suyai TV (Chile), Sonic Arts Forum (Maynooth), Sound Junction (Sheffield), Sonic Sculptures 3 (Nottingham), San Francisco Tape Music Festival, River Radio (Exeter), and the Royal Institution's Theatre (London). Through a blend of environmental sound and electroacoustic techniques, Boyi’s work aims to create immersive listening experiences that challenge perceptions of space, memory, and auditory storytelling.

08/2025 Denny Awards Competition for Electronic Music – Acousmatic Music Gold Award
04/2025 Sound of the Year Awards 2024 – Runner-up in "The Sound of the City" category for the piece What Sheffield Sounds Like – Tram 
03/2025 sponsored by the University of Sheffield Research Stimulation Fund for participation in the 2025 Sonic Arts Forum.
09/2023 Sponsored by 'The National Lottery Heritage Fund & North York Moors National Park' for participation in 'The Western River Rye Catchment Soundscape project.
09/2023 7K Worship Song Composition Competitiion - First Place
08/2023 Sponsored by 'Cities and Memory' for participation in the 'EXODUS 50: THE SOUND OF ADVENTURE' project in Japan.
09/2022 Bach International Music Competition - “Composition” First Prize.
03/2022 York-Chinese Top 10 Singers - Champion.
07/2021 "The Young Communist Party Member" - Third prize from the Shaanxi Provincial Radio and Television Bureau to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
06/2021 Xi'an Conservatory of Music Pop Music Composition Competition - First Prize.

David Quang-Minh Nguyen is an audio engineer, sound designer/re-recording mixer, and composer of concert music. His current interests lie in composing acousmatic works that explore multi-channel loudspeaker expansion, various types of sound spatialization, and immersive audio.

Recognized nationally and internationally, David has had his works presented at the June in Buffalo New Music Festival, where he received individual master classes with Harvey Sollberger, Martin Bresnick, Roger Reynolds, and Brian Ferneyhough. He was an active participant in the Festival DME under the direction of Åke Parmerud, Musique & Recherches Académie d'été de composition électroacoustique under the direction of Annette Vande Gorne and João Pedro Oliveira, and the Sounds Around Me Festival under Thomas Gorbach. He was also selected by Master Artist Robert Normandeau for a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

His works have been presented at more than fifty national and international events, and he is a laureate or finalist in numerous competitions.  He has been published on ABLAZE Records' Electronic Masters Vol. 7 and received an honorable mention at the XII° Destellos Electroacoustic Competition 2019 for his work Misprints.  He also placed 2nd in the XIII° Destellos competition for Adumbrations, was a finalist for the PRIX CIME 2019, and won 2nd place for the ASCAP/SEAMUS Award for his work Weight Stranding. In 2021, his SEAMUS-commissioned piece Whale Song Stranding was selected for presentation on the SEAMUS 31 CD and received the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis selection.  David was awarded the Prix CIME 2023 Residency Award for Whale Song Stranding.  His work Texture Arc the Points won 1st place in the ULJUS Međunarodno Pijanističko Takmičenje Smederevo Competition and 2nd place in the prestigious Concours Biennal de Composition Acousmatique Métamorphoses.

David Q. Nguyen holds a BM from Old Dominion University, where he studied with Andrey R. Kasparov and Mark Chambers.  He also graduated at the top of his class from The Omega Studios School of Applied Recording Arts & Sciences with a focus on Audio Engineering in the Music Industry and Film/Television.  He has received his Master and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where his primary teachers are Reynold Tharp, Erik Lund, Eli Fieldsteel, Sever Tipei, and Scott A. Wyatt.

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SpacedKace is an emerging talent straight out of the Hot city of Johannesburg. I’m a member of the Plugcity Collective, founded by Blaquemystery. 

I Grew up amidst diverse and dynamic music culture,  this of course fuelled my deep passion for underground electronic music, especially the dub-infused rhythms that capture your soul.

My sounds are characterized by deep, grooving basslines, cosmic soundscapes, and a love for creating immersive, groove-inducing journeys.

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