First performance with this setup. 

Computer generates saw waves, randomised pulse trains and raw voltage offsets; also controls playback of a recording of a discharging 9v battery and sounds fedback from a phono cartridge on the prepared speaker. The speaker and phono cartridge are manipulated and sounds are mixed and distributed between prepared speaker and PA. 

Room mic recording by Seth Cooke https://soundcloud.com/seth-cooke

Phono Cartridge, Speaker and Computer. Cafe Kino 20-06-14

Edited first play with a new external db.bounce~ I'm writing for Max/MSP. The idea comes from Peter Blasser's "bounce and bounds" concept. (http://www.ciat-lonbarde.net/). 

Three virtual cursors following linear paths, but forced to share the same numeric space, causing chaotic deformation of basic triangle waves.

Bounce Synthesis Test

Written for Mark Fisher and Justin Barton's 2013 installation On Vanishing Land 
(which also included contributions from John Foxx, Raime, Gazelle Twin, Baron Mordant, Ekoplekz, Farmers of Vega)
http://otolithgroup.org/index.php?m=project&id=148
(image by mark fisher)

Skjølbrot - Dunwich (On Vanishing Land)

Music used for Mark Fisher and Justin Barton's installation On Vanishing Land 
Processed recording of "Silent Night" for violin, and first-person binaural recording of insomnia
Silent Night played on violin by Kev Nickells (https://soundcloud.com/hakarl)

Installation commissioned by the Otolith Group for an exhibition at the Showroom Gallery, London 2013 also included contributions from John Foxx, Raime, Gazelle Twin, Baron Mordant, Ekoplekz, Farmers of Vega

otolithgroup.org/index.php?m=project&id=148

(image by Mark Fisher)

Skjølbrot  - Unruhige Nacht (for violin and insomnia) (On Vanishing Land)

An edit of direct to hard drive recordings from an external I programmed for MaxMSP - at the noisier extreme of its range.  No processing other than volume.

Software download: http://www.skjolbrot.org/index.php/software/
GitHub: https://github.com/DanBennettDev/db.bounce
Works on Max 6 & higher, 32 and 64bit.

db.bounce~ MaxMSP external Demo

Software test. 2 pairs of bicoupled neurons enveloping sines & pink noise

Artificial Neurons Rhythm Test

2nd play with these. Larger network, again enveloping sine waves and pink noise. I just recorded a few different settings then roughly edited down. 

5x2 Neuron Rhythms Test

Test of a 9 neuron Central Pattern Generator network simulated via a cpg~ external I wrote for Max/MSP.
This is roughly cut down from about 20 mins playing. 

The output from each neurons is used directly to envelope the volume of a sine wave and white noise "voice". One neuron's output instead triggers an envelope for a kind of sine-wave kick drum.

Here I "play" the system by changing network parameters ("natural frequency" of oscillator nodes and the strength and direction of coupling between oscillators) and I change the pitches of the sine waves

For more info, and to get hold of the MAX/MSP objects, see here 
https://danbennettdev.github.io/projects/cpg_creativity.html

Neural Oscillator Test - Enveloping Sines and white noise

Originally written for Demonstrate Theatre Company to accompany their play Ever the Bull (later re-titled "Hazmat & Me"). 
This version adapted from material for the play. Musical saw, guitar, zither, toy piano, synths, junk.

Theme from "Ever The Bull"

Performance at the (amazing) LUFF festival in Lausanne, Switzerland, October 2017. 
Structured improvisation for prepared Speaker & Stylus, Feedback Synthesis, Flute Physical Model, Computer. 
RIP: all the sub-bass that did not transfer to the recording. The sound system in the Casino de Montbenon is unbelievable.

Here's a video version where you can also see me looking sleep deprived
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQH1QCdaFhM

Live At LUFF 2017

This was originally on LF records' Computer Music compilation, as an excerpt-from/sketch-for a work-in-progress. But the work never progressed and I don't think I have the source recordings any more.

Edited together from performances with a setup I built around Xenakis' Gendyn synthesis algorithm. Also a few piano clunks and a brief bit of bowed cymbal.

Computer Music

Gendyn, Piano, and Cymbal

Maersk 04- Shipbreaking

One of a series of tracks I made for phono cartridge, speaker and computer, but never did anything with. 
Digital test signals and primitives - sine waves, impulses, stochastic pulse-trains, and static signal offsets - are used to sound out the bodies of musical reproduction systems. 

Audio playback equipment is designed to disappear during playback, but for a while I was interested in making music which bought the acoustics of these systems into the foreground, making them the subject of the music. 

I used principles from digital signal processing and the analysis of acoustic spaces to build a performance setup in which test signals and digital primitives could be arranged live, and played back through prepared speakers (here a speaker attached to phono cartridge) and these sounds could then be recorded, layered and played back through the same setup. The same test signals are also used in their raw state - played back directly through the monitors (in this case whatever system you listen back on) with the aim that the material properties of the playback system would also play a prominent part in the music, and become apparent to the listener as acoustic objects - not just transparent conduits for the representation of sound.

For obvious reasons this probably works better on speakers than on headphones, and a bit of volume helps.

This is all based on ideas I was developing at the time about a "resistive" computer music https://www.academia.edu/13218285/Towards_a_Resistive_Computer_Music
I think I'd articulate the ideas differently now, I don't buy everything there, and there are some missing steps that need to be filled in, but I still find the basic approach interesting.

Moving Magnet  1

Recorded years ago, and found on the hard drive today while clearing space. One of my favourite songs.

There are a lot of versions of this song on record. This is my version of the one Shirley Collins sang. In this version Joseph is old, Mary is young. In other versions Joseph is young and there is more romance in the story. 

I'm not even slightly religious, but I like the song because each version of the song I've heard feels like glimpsing a version of Christianity that could still deal with visceral, awkward, human experience. Here it's the male sense of inadequacy painted as cosmic horror. Joseph's inadequacy in the face of his wife's power in bearing a child, fear of cuckolding, anxiety at the idea of his child outliving and overpowering him. 

I find the final verse particularly mindblowing: Joseph tries to salvage what he can of the traditional patriarchal order - now in a caring rather than angry mode, by taking the "pretty baby" on his knee. The child calmly responds that he will have dominion over the stars. Joseph is totally contingent.

The Cherry Tree Carol

Bookings / projects: skjolbrot@gmail.com
www.skjolbrot.org

Not curated: a mess of things I've done and have some reason to share.

Occasional duos/ collab with Stephen Cornford, Dominic Lash, Seth Cooke, ++
www.bangthebore.org

Dan Bennett

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