Loosely based on "The Muse" by Anna Akhmatova. Live electronics from VCV Rack with its matrix mixers and lots of Mutable Instruments hardware clones. Some echo FX post-production. Serene and pitiless? Maybe.

The Muse - poetry reading

Anne Sexton - Anna Who Was Mad

Anne Sexton - The Ambition Bird

Anne Sexton - Her Kind

Horo Horo To for Bass Koto, Alto Flute and Oboe is dedicated to the memory of koto player and teacher Makiko Goto, (1963 - 2021).The work draws its inspiration from a haiku of the same title by Matsuo Basho (1644 - 1694).

quietly, quietly / yellow mountain roses fall-/ sound of the rapids
(tr. Makoto Ueda)

The bass koto presents the backdrop of the mountains, staid, in places impenetrable.The oboe can be seen/heard as the mortal petals of the mountain roses, who fall and seek their way floating in the unfamiliar medium of water. By extension it is the mortal soul seeking and imagining life beyond the veil.
In several traditions, it is the sound of the flute that can penetrate this veil. The minimal but pivotal appearances of the alto flute mark these transitions.

Recorded June, 2022
Peter Veale, Bass Koto, Oboe
Helen Bledsoe, Alto Flute, Electronics, Concept, Recording, Composition

Track art: Painting Morikawa Kyoriku, Calligraphy, Matsuo Basho

Horo Horo To - Homage to Makiko

A reading of Erin is, a poem by Jo Richter. 
For voice, a contrabass flute sample, and a neurally-trained lupophone. 

Erin is

so long had she been looking for
that madwoman in her innermost
sanctum – the attic – she had for-
gotten how to ignite her destitute

ire – her unfed desire – no more
should her soul feel entitled to host
more than one incarnation – sore
insight! no prism may constitute

refraction unless it has learnt to roar!
to roar and to tremble with lost
retribution! snow white – cor
pauper – her skin teems with anvil-frost

Lupophone trained on samples provided by Peter Veale. Repository for RAVE https://github.com/acids-ircam/RAVE

Erin is - poetry reading

A small neural network (peabrain!) performing on a corpus of tromba marina sounds that is reacting and not reacting to my live flute playing. Thanks to Taylor Brook for the patching and Sara Cubarsi for the tromba marina sounds!

Peabrain 1.2

Ruina I: Pummeled is for improvising musician and soundtrack. The title comes from Auden's "The Fall of Rome". The entire suite Ruina was inspired by the rise and decline of civilizations throughout history. Here is my version for flute.

Ruina I: Pummeled

Ruina II: Harpbeat is for improvising musician and soundtrack. The title is a play on words, there are no harp sounds. The soundtrack was produced from a single hit of a glass gong. It represents the nadir of a dying civilization. This is my version for alto flute.

Ruina II: Harpbeat

Ruina III: Navy Love is for improvising musician and soundtrack. The title comes from Vladimir Mayakovsky's poem (you can read the original here: https://rupoem.ru/mayakovskij/po-moryam-igraya.aspx.  To my knowledge, there is no English translation online). I chose this poem for its phonetic content, not its poetic. Although that in itself is also interesting. Here is my version for bass flute.

Ruina III: Navy Love

Solus is a short electronic work from a single sampled and processed flute multiphonic (if you don't count the two cameo appearances of vst synths, and a few live sounds).

Solus

Thunder And Lightning

This synth is amazing. Just two piccolo multiphonic samples, 19-tone mean tuning and holy cow. For short attention spans.

Polygas Piccolo

If you are going to steal, steal from the best. An electronic improvisation on bass flute with the materials from Luigi Nono's Das Atmende Klarsein. Not as a tribute, because I do not follow his processes, nor try to imitate his sound or atmosphere. However, I try to express a heartfelt gratitude for his work over the course of five and a half minutes.

Stolen Breath

Messing around with .scl files in Vital, my new synth.

One Minute Improv 23-Limit Intervals

Composed in 2020, this performance stems from the "live" video production that replaced the concert that was planed for 16. December 2020. Browbeat was part of a larger project Gesang | Gesicht. Read the program notes and follow the link to the video here: https://helenbledsoe.com/?page_id=1355

Browbeat for Flute and Electronics

Some electroacoustic experiments, and even some serious stuff. My flute channel is over here: https://soundcloud.com/helenbledsoe, and my noise/pop stuff is over here: https://soundcloud.com/chilled_out_electro

Helen Bledsoe Electro Stuff

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