Fixed media electronic works

2013, fixed media

Over the last several years, I have worked to simplify my music as much as possible--at first from a desire to avoid cluttering it up with "extra notes," and increasingly out of an impulse to get down to the most basic, essential idea I can. Pentecost is one manifestation of that drive. Its genesis lies in the contemplation of a handmade tapestry I own, a deep blue field divided by two interlocking grids of white lines. My first quick sketches--wavering pencil on blank paper--tried to take in too much; but, as I pared it down, I came to a band of interweaving lines moving across the page, individual and yet one gesture.

The title Pentecost refers to both the event and the feast in Christian tradition: the descent of tongues of flame onto the heads of a waiting, wondering band of disciples. The weaving lines of my sketches circle and descend, a moment suspended in time, imagined in sound.

(the present version of Pentecost is a stereo remix based on an octophonic remix I did in February 2014, replacing the original stereo file from October 2013)

Pentecost

Pentecost (2013)

Put together using the multimedia controller software ianniX and an AM synth built in Max/MSP. Floating, bending layers of sound are mapped to a series of objects in ianniX's 2D space.

Miniature (2014)

Stand at the Abyss is a personal meditation on a saying attributed to the Orthodox monk Elder Sophrony: “Stand at the abyss and pray until you can stand no longer, then have a cup of tea.”

Stand at the Abyss (2010)

CLOUDS, LIGHT is the fruit of a series of private improvisations I did in April 2016, throwing a variety of simple sounds through a tangled web of sixty-five or so delay lines to see what they would do (this we call “research”). I liked the results of one in particular enough to return to it sporadically over the next six months, pushing and pulling and prodding it until I figured it was really time to call it done and move on to the next big project. The thick haziness of the beginning gradually rises and clarifies until it gives way to a quiet, delicate, warm interlude. The work closes resubmerged in the dense murk, the brief glimmer of light through the clouds passed into memory.

This track is a stereo mix of the 8-channel version.

Clouds, Light (2016)

A simple, resonant gesture, bending heavenward. A plea.

Miniature (2016)

THE DEEPS articulates a single gesture divided into three contrasting sections, drawn from a recorded sample of boiling water. Though the source material is never completely obscured, it is filtered and altered in order to bring into super-real relief its contrasts and textural drama, evoking more profound imagery than its rather mundane beginnings might suggest.

This recording is a stereo mix of the 8-channel version.

The Deeps (2017)

Pre-release mix of my new spatial audio work Transfiguration, the final version of which will be included on an upcoming release from Irritable Hedgehog Music, "Pentecost."


Transfiguration is the second of a planned triptych of meditations on the interactions, the comings-and goings-and-union, between the tangible and spiritual worlds. The gospels relate the Transfiguration as the visible illumination of the depth of reality veiled in flesh in the person of Jesus: “his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.”

Like its companion piece, Pentecost, Transfiguration is crafted from a simple sound source (in this case, a one-second contrabassoon sample). Following a pen-and-paper sketch, the work blooms from muted simplicity to a rich, layered texture before returning to a single tone, now flush with the afterglow of its brief metamorphosis.

Transfiguration

Transfiguration (2018) PRE-RELEASE

Composer, percussionist, and guitarist. Ears wide open. Recently a professor of composition and music theory at Washington State University, currently catching my breath.

Lots more here: linktr.ee/scottblasco