Date completed: winter 2013

Duration: 7'15"

Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

Recording: 
SONAR New Music Ensemble conducted by Lee Mills in Baltimore, MD

Man With A Black Bag (2013)

"Power Chords for 4 Channels," completed in July of 2023, is an exploration of sound design and sonic aesthetics anchored in the arena of rock and metal guitar. Inspired by the concept of a "ghost in the overtones," this work seeks to pull back the curtain on the guitar signal's spectral complexities, highlighting elusive musical expressions hidden within. At its core, it takes three rudimentary power chords: A5, G5, and E5, recorded with heavy distortion and saturation to emphasize the timbral richness.

This composition is not merely about power chords, but rather about the myriad possibilities concealed within their overtones. It operates within a paradox, both a study in restrictive musical content and a testament to the boundless potentialities of sound manipulation. The first 20 seconds of material act as the kernel of the piece, spawning dozens of variants through the use of filters, time-stretching techniques, and algorithmic playback triggers. It is a calculated venture into the drama of the minimal, extracting nuance and depth from the most fundamental elements of rock and metal. "Power Chords for 4 Channels" ultimately delivers a curious, layered fixed media playback experience, born from a pursuit of spectral phantoms within the simplest of musical building blocks.

Power Chords (stereo version)

Date completed: Fall 2024

Recording: 
April 19, 2025
Department of Music, University of California Santa Barbara

Mivos Quartet
Performer 1: Olivia De Prato, violin 
Performer 2: Adam Woodward, violin
Performer 3: Victor Lowrie Tafoya, viola
Performer 4: Nathan Watts, cello
Video and Multichannel Audio: Andrew A. Watts

A Strobe Fractures Obsidian Night was written for the October 2024 edition of the Novalis Festival in Osijek, Croatia. The video content of the work delves into the ecological theme of light pollution, inspired by the artistic innovation of Aleksandar Srnec's Lumino kinetic art and Croatia's proactive stance on ecological issues. The graphical material was generated through AI via Stable Diffusion, then crafted manually and algorithmically in Adobe Premiere Pro and Max/MSP. A Strobe Fractures Obsidian Night features an open instrumentation ensemble of four performers whose parts relate to four streams of fixed audio playback. Special thanks to Davor Branimir Vincze and Szilárd Benes for all of the help throughout. 

www.andrewawatts.com

A Strobe Fractures Obsidian Night (2024)

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