The night slowly surrenders (At the gates of dawn)

Absterge -  20 - 12 - 2024

2024-12-24

Flickering Candle Flame

performed and written for Mikołaj Rytowski for the ATTACCA Festival 2024; premiered on June 1 at Druckereihalle im Ackermannshof, Basel, Switzerland

recording: Robin Michel
mixed by Isaac Roth Blumfield

The electronics for this work were recorded in part at the SWR Experimentalstudio in Freiburg, Germany with assistance from sound engineers Thomas Hummel and Luis Miehlich

link to binaural version (for listening with headphones): https://soundcloud.com/isaacrothblumfield/strange-symmetry-for-percussion-and-ambisonic-live-electronics-2024-binaural-version-use-headphones

strange symmetry | for percussion and ambisonic live electronics (2024) – stereo version

dvaNdva

nostalgia and sorrow are in the mud

Yes, I'm Afraid It's Another Mix

sometimes life isn't always fair 1.

Lyrics

Look at us,
Very all or nothing
That choice is a good or a bad thing
From silence to full absorption
The happiest made from saddened
Be wary now,
Can you trust these lights
They’re always on 
And they’re mostly bright

Misunderstood
Intense in passion for good
Since the zinc spark
Thor has been my blood
The mind has God power now.
Hammer not hood
Fun times
The crushing bolts are charged,
Enemies of wood!

It’s for the trees
And we’re hugging
For the birds to find perch
For the Fishes soul
More balanced H2O

I've heard some spiritual people parrot that only humans have soul because we can reason the world properly. I don't believe that. I believe all life, trees, birds, fish, algae... all have soul and are all part of the one energy we all experience. So I sing that in this one!

I suppose you could argue that with the extra connections made by human consciousness when reasoning the universe portray us as superior... However in a system that is appreciated properly as whole the other life needs to be respected within that system. So if anything we become custodians for the health of that life when we now know we can influence all beings environments so intensely.

I can't imagine only humans get a zinc spark at conception... I'd imagine science shows all life has a similar energetic spark at the beginning activating that physical beings' energy in the physical realm...

I like to imagine it all as one whole system. One big giant web of mycelium connected like neurons in the brain or stars in a galaxy or galaxies around the voids .. When we get enough randomness we seem to get similar patterns and the same synergy of perfection. Intention is key for us I believe and being truly aware of that should allow us as individuals within the species to ascend to the unknown levels. How possible that is and at what depth in the physical realm tbc... 

Detached thought and intentions which spell out the projection but zero attachment to the result... making them pure are possibly a source of manifestation control in the real world. Intentional placebo maybe... 🧘

All or Nothing

Fredo’s Boat Ride

Trance 3 (Nonsense)

Title:
Strange Cookies

Dates:
12-Dec-2025 (inception), 13-Dec-2025 (finalised), 13-Dec-2025 (released)

Artists:
Music composed, performed, produced by Norman Freund
Artwork by Norman Freund
Video by Norman Freund

BandCamp Purchase:
https://normanfreund.bandcamp.com/track/strange-cookies

Description:
Strange Cookies is a demonstration of the capabilities of the Granie granular synthesiser using the new graphical sequencer of Granie. It is the same audio that appears in the Granie demonstration video:
https://youtu.be/MJiv-VFGuP8

The audio feeding Granie comes from the Soma Lyra 8, which was then feed to the Soma COSMOS, then off to Granie as the final destination. Since Strange Cookies was intended as a demonstration recording for a video, there will be some pauses in the music and perhaps some repetition that would normally not appear in a standalone composition.

The best source of information about this composition is the demonstration video which shows the Granie synthesiser settings evolve live as the piece was performed.

Granie can be purchased at:
https://normafreund.gumroad.com/l/granie

Strange Cookies

contact: isaac.blumfield@gmail.com

Isaac Roth Blumfield is a composer from Saint Paul, Minnesota, currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He writes experimental music for acoustic and electronic instruments which explores resonance, materiality, and memory through expanded sonic approaches towards instruments and objects. His music looks for the strange spaces between subjective and unconscious experience, exploring uncanny places between beauty, pain, and strangeness.
His music has been influenced through  through work with performers such as ensemble sonic space basel alumni, Schallfeld Ensemble, violinists Austin Wulliman and Chris Otto, line upon line percussion trio, Ensemble Modern, Barcelona Modern Ensemble, guitarist Francesco Palmieri and Jamie Monck, and Quartetto Maurice at programs such as the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, the Banff Centre for Creativity, Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, New Music on the Point, Valencia International Performance Academy, Ticino Musica Festival and Freie Universität Berlin im Sommer.  
His music has been broadcast on Swiss Public Radio and supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Fondation Nicati - De Luze, and the Hirschmann Stiftung. He graduated with his Bachelor's degree in composition at New England Conservatory in Boston and a Master's degree in composition at the Hochschule für Musik FHNW in Basel, Switzerland and is currently pursuing post graduate studies at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna. His primary teachers have included Stratis Minakakis, Timothy McCormack, Caspar Johannes Walter, Svetlana Maras, and Clara Iannotta. He is currently a PhD candidate at Harvard University, studying with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku.