DeepVoid (string quartet)

composed for Ensemble Modern and Nina Guo as part of the 10th International Composition Seminar.

premiered at the cresc…biennale für aktuelle Musik Frankfurt Rhein Main, conducted by Sara Caneva, 19 Feb 2023

In flesh ii

premiered by Schallfeld Ensemble at Klangspuren Schwaz 2023
directed by Pierre-Andre Valade

neon moon, for sextet

Performer: Dana Jessen
Recording Engineer: Ryan Garvey

Using decollage, I rework F. Scott Fitgerald's text, "The Crack-Up." Cities of dreams poetically retells Fitzgerald's work that negotiates his relationship to mental illness, alcoholism, impostor syndrome, and the desire to find success in the arts; all things that have played rolls in my life. This work is composed in collaboration with Jessen's improvisational practice.

cities of dreams

NPVR is the avant garde duo made up of the late Peter Rehberg and Nik Void. Editions Mego is proud to present their second and final release. No this is not some kind of Beatles synthetic AI that raises the dead reconstructed recordings but rather a new album made by the humans and their machines. 

The initial meeting of Rehberg and Void was in London in 2016 and despite or due to their mutual awkwardness found solace and compatibility in the fact that they both had a similar electronic modular set up, along with matching cases to transport all. The idea to collaborate was an obvious and organic process as a means to connect their individual gear together and observe the outcome. The fruits of these initial experiments, recorded in London, resulted in the playful experimentation of their acclaimed 2017 release 33 33 (eMego 251).

Now in 2024 Editions Mego presents the logically titled follow up, 33 34. These sessions were recorded six months after the initial recordings at Peter’s home in Vienna. This was planned out as a mirror city release to the original London recordings. With Peter having access to his full studio set up this time around we encounter a rich audio landscape which organically folds together a variety of musical genres blurring any distinction between these forms so the resulting music hovers as a new cloud of sound. Any musical form, be it industrial, electro-acoustic, ambient, drone and techno all coexist and melt into the other as the ensuing result unveils a hypnotic swarm of divergent sounds (music). When active there were no lines or contexts with NPVR, either between sound or genre within these recordings or live where NPVR were at home playing at a techno club one night and an avant garde venue the next.

The initial session of these recordings was edited by Rehberg and sent to Void to further develop.
Over time the final versions were agreed on and then shelved as other outside projects took over. The awkwardness had been surmounted and the two had become close friends. NPVR performed at a range of venues such as Tresor, Sutton House, Corsica, Blitz, Paris GRM #Focus2, LEV Festival and Rigas Skanumezs Festival. Following Rehberg’s untimely passing Void had difficulty listening back to the sessions but eventually thought it fit to complete and release this album, of which even the artwork (like 33 33, an image from Zurich photographer, Georg Gatsas) had been decided upon prior to Rehberg parting ways. 

There is an unmistakable joy to these recordings. One encounters an enthralling exploration of their chosen machines which conveys the excitement of what can be randomly conjured when people speak through such devices. There is no grand statement or argument here, just the sheer thrill of creation and the recorded results of random encounters. The art of collaboration was always a mainstay of Rehberg’s practice from the advent of the MEGO adventure. Rehberg & Bauer was an initial collaboration with former business partner Ramon Bauer. Even at this stage one can hear a relaxed sense of delight in the sheer discovery of sound.

A mix made for the Wire magazine following the release of 33 33 hints at the freedom that comes with endless urge for exploration and discovery. Abstract tracks from Z'EV. Jérôme Noetinger and Jung An Tagen are included alongside British stalwarts The Fall and New Order. There were no lines between pop / academic / underground or mainstream in Rehberg’s world. All of it sat at the same table. It is just matter in the atmosphere, like the diverse exploration found in these recordings that comprise 33 34.

33 34

Raw to the Core

NPVR 'Raw to the Core' (EMEGO312)

Concert recording from Jan.27th 2024 @ WERK, Klybeckareal, Basel.
1. Set: Modular Synth Solo
2. Set: Duo with Benjamin Brodbeck on drums & objects

WERK - Konzert - 2.Set

WERK - Konzert - 1.Set

Ensemble SEV 

Maayan James - Saxophone 
Dennis Sobolev - Electric guitar
Dan Weinstein - Cello

Ori Kadishay - Recording & Mix

Anat Nazarathy - Photo

Recorded on 2nd October 2023 in the Mazkeka Studios, Jerusalem

Things I Deleted for Baritone sax, Electric guitar and Cello

Stereo JrF contact mics with impedance adapters, taped to my bedroom window during a storm in New Orleans, recording into a TASCAM DR-100MKIII. 

Recorded 8 March 2024 in the evening.

Contact Mics: https://jezrileyfrench.co.uk/contact-microphones.php

contact mics on window during new orleans storm [stereo]

Sarah Nemtsov
KETER (2020)
for amplified quintet (bass clarinet, viola, cello, detuned harp and prepared piano) with electronics

Soloists from the Ensemble InterContemporain 
Dimitri Vassilakis, piano 
Alain Billard, clarinet 
John Stulz, viola 
Renaud Déjardin, cello 
Valeria Kafelnikov, harp 

Live recording from the world premiere January 2024 in Paris

Title of the concert: BON ANNIVERSAIRE, PÉTER EÖTVÖS !
 Date of recording: 13 January 2024
 Place: Paris, IRCAM, Espace de projection 
 Interprets: The Soloists from the Ensemble intercontemporain (Dimitri Vassilakis, piano ; Alain Billard, clarinet ; John Stulz, alto ; Renaud Déjardin, cello ; Valeria Kafelnikov, harp) 

IRCAM Computer Music Production: Augustin Muller 
IRCAM Sound diffusion: Clément Cerles
IRCAM Sound recording: Sylvain Carton
IRCAM Video recording: Eric de Gélis, Joachim Payen, Antoine Plouzen-Morvan, Bastien Sabarros
IRCAM-Centre Pompidou production

*
Published with kind permission by Ensemble Intercontemporain and IRCAM

photo Quentin Chevirier

*
more info
https://www.ensembleintercontemporain.com/fr/2024/01/keter-de-sarah-nemtsov/

KETER (2020) excerpt - Ensemble Intercontemporain

for percussion trio

Instrumentation: three bass drums, each prepared with six electric bass strings, vibrators, aluminum foil, and coins

premiered and commissioned by line upon line percussion: Adam Bedell, Cullen Faulk, Matthew Teodori

Program note: 

The internet is ubiquitous but largely experienced as immaterial. Often it is experienced like a ghost or spirit; an invisible, ethereal animating force rapidly reshaping what we think of as reality.
While learning about the United States National Security Agency’s global spying program, exposed by Edward Snowden, I was struck by the descriptions of the physical infrastructure that makes the internet function. I knew nothing about the fiber optic cables buried at the bottom of the ocean which allow the internet to function across continents. These extremely thin cables send patterns of light across oceans, transmitting data. They create a web of wires wrapping around the world, like a sunken land-bridge. Our experiences, conversations, hopes, dreams, and intimate secrets are transmitted from one continent to another through these thin threads of light; they bind the world together in this strange, beautiful, and terrifying way.

Sunken Landscape: thread of light | for percussion trio (2020)

contact: isaac.blumfield@gmail.com

Isaac Roth Blumfield is a composer from Saint Paul, Minnesota, currently based in Basel, Switzerland. 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. In fall 2024, he will begin a PhD at Harvard University, studying with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku.

Sunken Landscape: thread of light | for percussion trio (2020)

Isaac Roth Blumfield

Recent comments

Mathias D. Clain

Related tracks