Actually, You Can

Department of Corrections

Reprogram is an exercise in the re-creation and re-contextualization of iconic sonic textures found in glitch/microsound. The obsessive and constant pulse in Reprogram obscures any real sense of meter, instead shifting the focus to micro-variations in its surface activity. Structural changes are marked by a distinct signal, which instigates or terminates sonic strata and creates a sense of anticipation through slow and deceptively irregular repetition. 

Reprogram attempts to harness the stark, monolithic character of purely synthetic microsound (Ryoji Ikeda’s sound work in particular), while retaining a distinctly human element through the incorporation of vocal sources drawn from the recitation of a poem.

Reprogram (excerpt)

Blue Sky Catastrophe (2010) was recorded by the International Contemporary Ensemble's Peter Evans as part of a residency at UCSD.  This piece explores the relatively new terrain of brass multiphonics (split tones), juxtaposed against the lyrical and martial traditions of trumpet playing.

Blue Sky Catastrophe, performed by Peter Evans

Live @ Радио РСН

"power is everywhere" is an assemblage of various writings/talks by Foucault. The singer is observer, actor, and deliverer of the message. She is not there to simply sing the text – she is there to instigate the way the music unfolds by way of what the words tell us. She is powerful, taking note of what happens and how to move forward. She is everywhere all the time. My piece is influenced by opera, song cycles, theater, and might even be considered a surreal singspiel.

Left Coast Ensemble, with Nikki Einfeld (soprano)
video: https://youtu.be/75lAqvPOLjQ

TEXTS (indicates omitted words)
Power (is everywhere.)

We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it "excludes," it "represses," it "censors," it "abstracts," it "masks," it "conceals." In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production.

Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it... We must make allowances for the complex and unstable process whereby a discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart.

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism. In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating. Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms the constitutive moment of abolition, which dissolves in time the truth of the work of art.
 
Justice must always question itself, just as society can exist only by means of the work it does on itself and on its institutions. The judges of normality (are present everywhere.) We are in the society of the great teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social worker-judge.
 
The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the outlaw, the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order. What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something, which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life. As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one, perhaps, nearing its end.
 
But there exists a system of power which blocks, prohibits, and invalidates this discourse and this knowledge, a power not only found in the manifest authority of censorship, but one that profoundly and subtly penetrates an entire societal network. (Intellectuals are themselves agents of this system of power - the idea of their responsibility for "consciousness" and discourse forms part of the system.) The intellectual's role is no longer to place himself "somewhat ahead and to the side" in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; rather, it is to struggle against the forms of power that transform him into its object and instrument in the sphere of "knowledge," "truth," "consciousness," and "discourse."

Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

Power exists only when it is put into action; it does not require your consent.

If no one knows who you are, can you be forgotten? If memory is power, are those who are forgotten powerless? The powerless are everywhere.

power is everywhere, an observed distraction for soprano & ensemble on texts of Foucault (2017)

Brace Up! is the first ever studio release from the duo of Chris Corsano (drums) and Bill Orcutt (guitar). Recorded in Brussels at Les Ateliers Claus by Christophe Albertijn on March 19th and 20th, 2018. 

"Over the past six years or so, drummer Chris Corsano has proven to be one of Bill Orcutt's most reliably flexible collusionists. Regardless of whether Bill is cluster-busting electric guitar strings, weaseling around with cracked electronics, or playing relatively spacious free-rock, Corsano is able to provide the proper base for his aural sculpting. A lot of Orcutt's instrumental work has traditionally felt hermetic even though he's exploring caverns of explosive ecstasy. One often got the impression Bill was operating in the way John Travolta did in the classic 1976 ABC television drama, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Orcutt's actual interaction with collaborators emerged not from communication so much as pure observation. While he was fully cognizant of his musical surroundings, his reactions to it were walled off. This approach did not encourage sonic dialogue so much as parallel streams of discourse. These streams could interact with each other, but not in particularly standard ways. On Brace Up! , their first ever studio release, this precept has changed considerably. Whether it's a function of emotional familiarity or an intellectual choice I dunno, but there's a whole new kind of duo exchange going down on this record. Bill and Chris are clearly playing off each other's moves throughout the album. And it really raises the level of the music to an all-time high. From the cop car see-saw of 'Poundland Frenzy' to the mutual pummeling of 'Paranoid Time' (possibly a Minutemen tribute?) to the lazychicken- gets-stung-prog of 'She Punched a Hole in the Moon for Me,' the sounds on Brace Up! display a constant flow of ideas and instantaneous conjugation of newly forged verbs. As great as Bill and Chris's previous duo records have been, this one's greater." -- Byron Coley

Brace Up!

Paranoid Time

Music by Samuel Beebe.

The Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, Susan Deaver, conducting.

Inspired by a Roberto Ifill poem of the same name, THE REST IS SILENCE was initially conceived as a choral work. The poem was written following the death of the poet’s sister, Gwen Ifill, and makes reference to Hamlet’s final words just before he dies. Ifill’s lyrical lines of verse consider the moment of passing from life to death, and relate this mysterious transition to imagery such as a person plunging into a frigid lake, and the moment when a baby’s head droops into sleep.

The phrasing and textures in the orchestral score still very much resemble the original sketches from the choral setting, particularly the rests (silences) between the phrases, originally designed to offer the singers an instant to take a breath before heading into the oncoming line. These pauses were left intact, allowing the orchestra to have the feel of a choir, breathing between phrases. As the music moves throughout the orchestra, each choir in the orchestra brings out its own expressive interpretation of the original choral material, highlighting particularly the four horns and the strings. The expansive, shimmering opening, along with its reprise later on as climactic closing section, were added later in the composition process, framing the internal, restrained material, lending additional depth to the emotional narrative of the work.

THE REST IS SILENCE

Discords (2018) for 3D audio, guitar amp, and small computer speakers.

*This is a binaural rendering and should be listened to with headphones*

Written in the Ambisonic spatial audio format, Discords is intended for playback over a multi-channel speaker array (ideally 16 channels). In performance, the opening 0-1:06 is played through a guitar amp (stage right) and the ending 9:00-39 is played through small computer speakers (stage left). Sound is briefly sent to the guitar amp again from 4:25 to 5:15.

Discords (2018) for 3D audio - binaural mix

Pile - Bruxist Grin

Diane Seuss is a poet, a thinker, a seer, a sayer - an oracle of sorts. Her collection Four-Legged Girl is a complete game changer in the way it:
-tells stories, 
-captures the way we remember, reinvent, forget, 
-manages to shock and touch and move us,
-catches us off guard and draws us only further in.

It Wasn't A Dream is a collection of six settings of Seuss's poems from her collection. It is for soprano, tenor and piano four-hands. I composed it for the Brooklyn Art Song Society in 2018. Here is the third setting, which is the middle portion of the title poem. Thanks to soprano Charlotte Mundy, tenor Andrew Fuchs, and pianists Miori Sugiyama and Michael Brofman.

Reprogram (excerpt)

Robert Seaback