The result of filtering and arranging a single sample of white noise.

Niphablepsia

This was a final piece for a 20th century theory class years ago for piano, aleatory chorus, metronome, vibraphone, and sampler.

It's performed in 4 micro-movements
1. Der Bahnhof
2."Arbeit Macht Frei"
3. versuchen, versuchen, versuchen, versuchen...
4. Hatikvah

The inspiration for the piece came from a woman who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp as a young girl during World War II. During her internment, she was forced to sing traditional Jewish songs to the new prisoners arriving at the train station--the riskiest transfer point being between the cattle cars and the gates of the camp. The songs were meant to help the new prisoners feel safe and at home and that all was well and good in the camp. Of course, history now shows a much more grim reality. After her release, she detested any and all music having participated in its use as a weapon, by children, against their people. I was aghast upon hearing this. Not only did the Nazi's kill most of her family, her friends, and her neighbors; but they also robbed her of any and all love of music. To me, to have one's enjoyment of music purloined, would be a fate almost worse than death. 

Upon doing research for this piece, I discovered that it was not uncommon for the Nazi's to put ashes of the crematorium victims in the bread that would be made for the prisoners. The title of this piece is an allusion to that atrocity.

We were never able to rehearse the piece, and this was the only time it was ever performed. Not the best performance of the material, but I'm happy that this recording exists. 

Die Brötchen in Auschwitz

Again

Track submission for Science Museum's Oramics contest.

Reaching out into the ether: 
Following the constant human craving for connection, and culminating in the conquest of communication that took place with the 25th of June 1967 broadcast of Our World; the first satellite television broadcast with an estimated 400-700 million viewers from 14 transmitting and 31 receiving countries.

What if Daphne Oram had been commissioned to create the music for this groundbreaking event? Would she have made musical reference to the initial spark of the millions of cathode tubes alighting In harmony? Would she have taken notice of the increase in chatter this connection inherently provides or the exponential technological advances that come with bringing people together? Perhaps she would make musical mention of this contraction of our global view and the search for new ways to find musicality with one another and technology as our relationships deepen with both? Would she have hidden a snippet of her own voice in this new found cacophony of communication as she strove to find its metaphorical counterpoint in the renaissance of electroacoustic music? Could it have sounded something like this? Ultimately, these hypotheticals must go unanswered, however, one could quite certainly surmise that she would have implemented her fantastic Oramics technique/instrument.

In homage of Daphne Oram and her Oramics; I drew this music using Metasynth and a maximum of 10 tracks with a Wacom tablet.

All samples wholly owned by Daphne Oram/Daphne Oram Archive.

There's a spectrographic surprise here...
Samples of the images that were used for visual processing/filtering can be seen here:
www.facebook.com/pages/oneirothopter/52146187566

Oramithopter:::acetate frequency mix

The siren - a moment before awakening.

Time pill (minute mix)

This is a collaboration between loopool and oneirothopter.

Based on a theme of "Music from faraway."
From a (distance) - was created while working at geographically disparate locations using cellular technology, bullhorns, baby monitors, morse code, and typewriters. 

Please do not normalize.

From a (distance)

The opening of a 4-track EP for Jean-Paul Garnier.
Vere (praeludium)
Aestate
Autumnus
Hiems (epilogus)



Again

Erik Hill

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