This Is How I Comb My Hair

Dissection of various operations on a 5-note chord. Accompaniment. Intrigue. 4 types of microphones. MIDI instruments. Hardware synths. What could go wrong?

Plexus In B Flat

In this creepy collaborative installation, participants were asked to follow a strand of white yarn that wound in a maze through the depths of Warner Gymnasium at Oberlin. Beginning with an overhead view of a haunting silks piece, they were then told by distorted voices to follow the string down 4 flights of winding stairs, where untold horrors awaited them. Upon resurfacing from the basement, the string led the group to a room, empty except for one person knitting - with the string they'd been following the whole time.

Concept and performance: Georgie Johnson, Gabrielle "Teddy" Ment, Piper Hill, and Julian Guerrieri.
Choreography: Johnson and Ment.
Sound: Hill. 
Text from “The White Album” by Joan Didion read aloud by Guerrieri

Follow the String - Intro

In this creepy collaborative installation, participants were asked to follow a strand of white yarn that wound in a maze through the depths of Warner Gymnasium at Oberlin. Beginning with an overhead view of a haunting silks piece, they were then told by distorted voices to follow the string down 4 flights of winding stairs, where untold horrors awaited them. Upon resurfacing from the basement, the string led the group to a room, empty except for one person knitting - with the string they'd been following the whole time.

Concept and performance: Georgie Johnson, Gabrielle "Teddy" Ment, Piper Hill, and Julian Guerrieri.
Choreography: Johnson and Ment.
Sound: Hill. 
Text from “The White Album” by Joan Didion read aloud by Guerrieri

Follow the String - Basement Atmosphere

This is a sad song in a big house

8 overlapping takes, each 8 channels, no processing
Originally recorded for 8-channel surround, this is a stereo mix

Big House Sad Song

A text setting of the earliest available memories from the six members of Sourgum, an experimental vocal chamber group. An exercise in vulnerability, “Early Memories” illuminates not only the memories themselves, but also the collective warmth that forms from the act of sharing them.

Music: Piper Hill
Text and Performance by:
Maxwell Addae, Neal Baker, Helen Hé, Piper Hill, Will FK Tokunaga, Kari Watson

Early Memories - Sourgum Live, Dec 2 2018

A collaboration with Zeb Page, bagpiper and professor of Geology, this duet for bagpipes and live electronics was written for the Kaliedosonic festival. Using the ambisonics plugin for Max, high resonant frequencies of the bagpipe piece were projected in varying orbits around Finney Chapel’s 20-speaker array. When listening to bagpipes for an extended period of time, these frequencies start to ring in one’s ears of their own accord. This piece materializes and quickens that process, bolstering these frequencies and adding an element of immersive motion, a barely detectable sonic illusion.

In the Pibroch style of the Scottish Highlands, ornaments become more complex over the course of the piece. This lament is heavily inspired by the Pibroch tradition.

Lament - with Zeb Page

this is a song about jeffy b


Lyrics:

(Jeffy: Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service? (X4))
(Alexa: I'm not dead)

(A short hymn:)
Many of us are thieves with stolen land and labor,
But there is no one quite as bad as our
Watchful Lord and Savior.

(Jeffy: Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?)

Hey there, Jeffy B!
When will you come to get me?
I'm waiting on your call.
Alexa play this song and
Tell your daddy that it's wrong
To steal and enslave and to
Own this much capital at all!

(Alexa: Hmm, I'm not sure what you meant by that question)

His forest stretches
Past the horizon
In all directions.

We can watch it bloom
While its namesake burns.
We can hum a tune
While the system learns
What we like
And what we hide.

And wipe away tears that billionaires cry,
And make sure your workers can't unionize,
And upload your consciousness after you die,
And sell private location data to ICE.

Hey there, Jeffy B!
When will you come to get me?
I've been waiting on your call.
Alexa play this song and
Tell your daddy that it's wrong
To steal and enslave and to
Own this much capital at all!

(Alexa: Sorry I'm having trouble understanding right now, please try a little later)

At all

(Jeffy: When I'm 80 years old, I want to have minimized the number of regrets that I have)

Piper Hill

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