NoInputMatrixMixerPedals (excerpt)

Rainbow On Oil II (headphones recommended)

As the inspiration for this soundwork of obsolete sounds I chose a recording labeled "Heath Robinson". Curious to know what the sound came from, I did an internet search and learned that W. Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist whose fanciful illustrations of elaborate contraptions preceded Rube Goldberg. However, this didn't tell me what the recording I had chosen was actually of. A further search, cross referencing the listed date, 1943, revealed that Heath Robinson was also the name given to a British codebreaking machine used in World War II. This inspired me to encrypt a message into this composition. Can you solve it? Other obsolete sounds used include a 78 rpm record player, children's toys, a touch-tone telephone, a CD-ROM drive and television static.

Cipher

Riis was composed using the sounds of the Marine Parkway Bridge across Rockaway Inlet in New York. The piece is named for the beach and park which is reached by the causeway.

Riis

Four Minutes, Eighteen Seconds Ago was created from field recordings I made with several audio recorders in various parts of an abandoned farmhouse in Botswana, near the Limpopo River. The title refers to the immediate past, but the composition also references ghosts of the distant past. Acting as ”ears”, the recorders were placed in areas of the house where once there had been human activity. The first recorder was placed in the living room, by the fireplace. The second recorder was placed in the bathroom on the edge of the bathtub. The third recorder was placed in the hallway just before turning onto the veranda. The placement of recorders at various points in the house references the time traveled between them (e.g. you hear footsteps approaching before each one is shut off), and time travel is, again, a reference to the presence of former inhabitants. The recordings began just before sunset and continued until the full moon had risen, at which point the recorders were harvested by moonlight. The house had no roof, resulting in recorded sounds of the surrounding bushveld wildlife. However, intermingled with the dusk recording was a recording of the same location from several days earlier. The composition has a supernatural atmosphere, playing with timeframe literally in a matter of days as well as lifetimes.

4 Minutes, 18 Seconds Ago (abandoned farmhouse, Botswana, dusk)

Earth, Bone, Coal

Melting Neapolitan is a soundwork made from field recordings of three distinct ice cream trucks. For many people, the sounds of ice cream trucks are evocative of a time and place. These three ice cream truck sounds (representing strawberry, chocolate and vanilla flavors of Neapolitan ice cream) are processed to be distant and atmospheric, yet familiar. The soundwork’s duration is eight minutes and it plays on loop.
www.gregorykramerstudio.com

Melting Neapolitan (excerpt) By Gregory Kramer

Coffin Cruising is a drone sound work composed of short wave radio and keyboard sounds. Simmering and meditative, it evokes desolate landscapes, post-civilization environments, technological detritus and a planet, transitioning from decay to rebirth, ultimately tranquil. It's also and example of Funeral Psych, a fictional genre inspired by science fiction, funerary organ and vintage horror films.

Gregory Kramer

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