acousmatic

Chant (2020)

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)

Illusion of Space (2015)

in surge, for eight-channel audio, is characterized by undulating granular pulse streams that accelerate and fuse into continuous, modulating timbres, or disperse and dissolve into small particles. Recognizable sounds from the piano, voice, and other sources are subject to granular decomposition and re-assembly as in a pixelated surface where images coalesce, smear, and interpenetrate. 

The construction of in surge was an exercise in the creation of archetypes of spatial motion (using up to 3rd order ambisonics) and gestural evolution that are continually recycled and layered in counterpoint. The work was composed in part at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and at the Florida Electroacoustic Music Studio.

acousmatic

Robert Seaback