𝔥𝔶𝔭𝔢𝔯-𝔪𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔶 is about hyperreality manifest in the form of digital memory, and the ways in which memory is distributed, transformed, and modified through virtual space. It seeks to imagine the sounds of a cybernetically mutated digital fragment of the past that has taken on a ghost-like life of its own. ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ (1940) by Ruth Lowe is a song about memory itself. It functions in this piece as a sort of metaphor for the way the past shapeshifts through different electronic media and is deconstructed, decontextualized and distributed through virtual spheres.

Ilana Waniuk - violin
Michael Jones - percussions
Robbie Bui - cello 
Matthew Henson - double bass 
Nikolas Vudu - mastering engineer

Hyper-memory for Amplified Ensemble and Electronics

https://vimeo.com/810689604

What does the cello think, feel, dream, remember? INTRÅ meditates on an imagined psychological space shared between performer and instrument.
….

INTRÅ explores the unconsciousness of the performer, embodying a fictional Cellist who possesses a complex and deeply interwoven relationship with the instrument and seeks to imagine the unconscious inner world of the Cello as an animate “living” subject itself. Co-mingled with the instrument, both the human body and instrumental body share a complex collective unconscious. Navigating this shared psychological space between instrument and performer, INTRÅ moves between dreams, memories, and a sea of thoughts & emotions associated with the performative body, the dramatism and ecstasy of musical performance, trauma and classical music pedagogy. (2023)

Premiered by Robbie Bui on February 17th, 2023 at the Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theatre at the University of California San Diego

Audio mixing and mastering, S Whiteley

INTRÅ for Cello, Electronics and Lights [audio only]

with video: https://vimeo.com/830722946

inter-species and inter-material entanglements
synthetic-organic hybridities 
inter-species cyborg speculation 

saxophone samples were recorded by Erin Rogers. blue whale, bowhead whale, and killer whale samples were recorded by the UCSD scripps institute of oceanography- special thanks to marine lab researcher, Joshua Jones.

Inter[Species]Inter[Materialisms] for Electronics & Video

Wonderwall, Deepfried

Commissioned by Riot Ensemble

𝔰𝔦𝔠 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔱 𝔤𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞 𝔪𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔦 is inscribed on numerous Flemish Ruckers harpsichords and translates to “Thus Passes the Glory of the World”– a kind of reminder of the impermanent nature of all things, and perhaps even referring to the ephemerality of sound itself, or, the quick decay that is characteristic of the harpsichord’s plucked mechanism and thus referring to the instrument itself. The harpsichord has a long history of moving in and out of popularity, as it gradually became replaced by the fortepiano in the 18th century, and since then has underwent many periods of revival. Within popular culture since the 20th century, it has carried  connotations that are distinctly evocative of the past due to its unique timbre – often associated with the haunted, ghostly, and sinister, especially within film scores. This piece is a meditation on impermanence, transitoriness, forgotten sounds, and sonic spectres. It is an aural hallucination on time, historicity, ghosts, and the sonic living dead. The phrase ‘𝔰𝔦𝔠 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔱 𝔤𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞 𝔪𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔦’ is used as a kind of mantra for the movement through various sound histories, as we are reminded of the fact of impermanence and invited to actively lean into the ephemerality of sound as we listen.

Sarah Dacey - soprano
Philip Haworth - oboe
Goska Isphording - harpsichord
Marianne Schofield - doublebass
Sam Wilson - percussion
Darren Bloom - conductor

Mixed by ess whiteley
Mastered by Ian Whillock

𝔰𝔦𝔠 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔱 𝔤𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞 𝔪𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔦 for harpsichord, voice, oboe, bass, perc. & elec.

"A haunting aural imagining of technological materiality, 'Machine Spectre' explores the hidden vibrancy of the materials that make up our digital world giving voice to their extraction, transformation, and obsolescence. whiteley conjures a cyborgian soundscape where tape recorders, Walkman electronics, and CD cases speak, reanimating the ghostly presence of outdated tech:
⌨️ Typing keyboards
📼 Tape players
💿 CD cases
Influenced by deep listening, speculative world-building, and post-internet aesthetics, Whiteley crafts a "spectral sonic body" that exists between memory and machine, dissolving the boundaries of human, material, and technological agency."
– Michael Clayville

Machine Spectre for chamber orchestra and electronics meditates on the material vitality and fallibility of technological devices. The piece unfolds as a complex assemblage of myriad sonic histories, inter-material identities and fragmented interwoven selfhoods. Its poly-temporal musical body is made up of bits and pieces of technological sounds from the past, present and future as well as earthly sounds of acoustic instruments and human performers - hence, giving it a cyborgian identity. While the material nature of technology is often overlooked, computers, smartphones, etc. are made up of countless raw materials that are extracted from the earth; Plastic, is derived from cellulose, coal, and crude oil amongst numerous other things, and microprocessors are comprised of copper, cobalt, iron, and quartz, as well as dozens more elements. Machine Spectre imagines a musical cyborg where the spectre of these earthly organic materials are animate and autonomous. The “illegitimate offspring” of its technological origins, origins which it is “exceedingly unfaithful to” (Haraway), this cyborgian being is in a constant state of chaotic emergence, seeking to re-wild itself beyond anthropocentered conceptions and towards its earthly, material genesis.

Premiered and commissioned by Alarm Will Sound and the Mizzou International Composers Festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piM8QypTsCM

Image / sculpture by Maddie Butler

Ess Whiteley

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