1998
Agostino Di Scipio's tape piece PAESAGGIO SCALARE n.1 is on the NoteWorks (Cologne) CD ROMA—A SOUNDSCAPE REMIX, Series RealAmbient Vol.1, produced by Michael Rusemberg in Cologne. Di Scipio describes this as a "parasite" work that has its own life, but also needs energy from another work to live (in this case the other work was Michael's Roma Modulare Soundscape). Granular processing and Cantor-set compositional algorithms were used to create the work. Performances took place in Cologne (22 Nov), Rome (10 Dec), and elsewhere.
Edmund Eagan used Kyma for the sound track of a broadcast project with video director Chris Mullington. Called Beyond Belief, this video art program aired on the CBC program Man Alive. Beyond Belief explores one person's spiritual quest from childhood Catholicism into atheistic tendencies fueled by notables from Darwin to Dr. Persinger. Kyma supplied sampling, resonance and vocoder manipulations. There's even a cameo of Ed himself in a First Communion procession!
If you have a voracious appetite for new, unusual, and otherwise exceptional music (and who doesn't?), then check out Joel Chadabe's online CD catalog CDeMUSIC, specializing in CDs from small labels and independent composers: http://www.CDeMUSIC.org
Also, if you are interested in the possibility of distributing your own CD through CDeMUSIC's online catalog, contact Ben to ask about the possibility of distributing your CD through CDeMUSIC.
Agostino Di Scipio's INSTALL QRTT was performed in Rome in December 1998. It included a sort of live installation (traffic sounds being captured from outside the concert hall and processed with Kyma) plus a string quartet with live interactive processing (ambiance-dependent and performance-dependent granular processing parameters). His "2 pezzi muti su Hans Richter" was performed in Florence (at Berio's Tempo Reale) and Rome and again in Cagliari on 9 Dec 1998.
Sound designer Francois Blaignan worked with Claude Letessier at Media Ventures on the sound design for Terrence Mallick's new film The Thin Red Line. Francois used Kyma's cross-synthesis to imprint human vocal characteristics onto sound-effects elements (like the sounds of wind or water) so that they take on an almost-personality or dramatic function in the film.
For LA's Big Fish Audio, atom heart will produce and conceptually design an entire sample CD. The CD will contain approximately 600 MB of rhythms and rhythm-contruction kits produced exclusively for this product. Release date will be in 1999.
Composer Larry Fritts is building a public domain library of anechoically sampled orchestral instruments at http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/. These might make good subjects for spectral analysis, morphing, and GA synthesis/morphing, especially due to the absence of reverb.
The Tape Gallery has won the ILAA award for Best Sound for their Smirnoff radio advertisement—a Tarrantino-esque experience of continuous morphing and movement through space that qualifies as a mini-film in its own right (even without a single visual image). Lloyd Billing, Simon Capes, and Pete Johnston accepted the award at a black-tie affair in London. Pete Johnston used Kyma to do all of the (startling & humorous) audio morphs for the ad.
Quite a few of Dan Jones' Kyma-assisted television scores were aired on British television during November & December including:
Body Story Channel Four, November 12-19-26, December 3, 10, 17
A 6 part docu-drama on the human body
Battle Shock Channel Four November 8, 15, 22
A 3 part series on the mind at war
Matt Haines' Spinyl records has joined with StreetBeat (North America) and Airdog (Europe) in releasing the debut album from Mental Blox. Release date was 11/10/98, so it should be in stores by now. The CD contains material previously released as 12" singles on Spinyl, as well as all-new material recorded specifically for the album. Check it out! By the way, Airdog will be releasing their version of the disc sometime in January, so for you Euro-types, look to !K7 as the distributor.
Other projects by Matt Haines currently available or coming soon: Front BC album coming in February 99, plus single #3 (drum-n-bass) on City of Angels Grand Theft Audio EP #1 (odd electronic music) out 11/20, limited-edition CD-EP in a few weeks, on City of Angels Expect a new Mental Blox 12" single in January 99.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND MUSIC for VI Brazilian Symposium on Computer Music Rio de Janeiro - Brazil, 19 - 23 July 1999
Rodrigo Cicchelli Velloso (Kyma user) is a co-chair of this symposium. For full information and a copy of the call for papers, contact: Rodrigo Cicchelli Velloso.
Champaign-Urbana is identified as one of the "10 most technologically advanced cities in the world" in Newsweek magazine November 5, 1998. Describing the town as "oozing" with high tech entrepreneurs, Newsweek points out that CU was the home of the original Netscape—Mosaic (although they failed to notice that Microsoft's Explorer was *also* developed from Mosaic). Of course they also mention NCSA, the Beckman Institute, and the "more than 70" other high tech companies in the area. And anyone who has ever attended a Kyma Immersion Weekend will be familiar with what Newsweek calls CU's favorite high tech hangouts—Cafe Kopi and Radio Maria!
Yoichi Nagashima has uploaded several JPEG photos and sound files of his 1998 concert at Xebec Hall). You can meet Yoichi Nagashima, Yasushi Yoshida and Tamami Tono, attend the rehearsals, and hear sound files of the concert itself. http://www.kobe-yamate.ac.jp/~nagasm/19981028/
Yasushi Yoshida's live performance from that concert "Wissenschaftliche Hochzeit" can also be heard in Yamaha VQ formated (sized 3.8MB) at http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~MZ2Y-YSD/NewPages/CD.html
Eugenio Giordani (creator of everyone's favorite Kyma reverb "EuVerb") presented a workshop dedicated to Kyma-Capybara and a concert at Conservatorio di Musica G. Rossini di Pesaro as part of the Progetto_TecnoArte_2000, organized by Laboratorio Elettronico per la Musica Sperimentale (LEMS) on the 2nd and 4th of December 1998.
Mercoledì 2 Dicembre 1998, (Sala dei Marmi): Workshop introduttivo sul sistema di produzione audio-digitale KYMA-CAPYBARA 66 (Relatore : Eugenio Giordani - LEMS)
Venerdì 4 Dicembre 1998, (Auditorium Pedrotti) SOLO (K. Stockhausen) per sassofono e sistema Kyma-Capybara (Saxophone: Giampaolo Antongirolami - Live Electronics and programming: Eugenio Giordani)
http://space.tin.it/scuola/adamomi/tecnoarte.htm
Brian Belet and Mickey Helms have music on the CDCM COMPUTER MUSIC SERIES VOLUME 26 / Centaur Records, CRC 2404 /Music from CREAM: Center for Research in Electro-Acoustic Music
And Phil Winsor is featured on CDCM COMPUTER MUSIC SERIES VOLUME 27 / CENTAUR RECORDS CRC 2047 / Music from CEMI: Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia.
For details: http://www.music.unt.edu/CEMI/CDCM.htm or mailTo:cdcm@sndart.cemi.unt.edu
Brian Belet performed his composition [MUTE]ation, using Kyma processing in real time with parameters controlled by external MIDI controller, at the Society of Composers, Inc. [SCI] Region VIII 1998 Conference at the University of Montana in Missoula on November 21. At the same conference he presented a talk titled "Music Notation and Human Issues for Live Computer Performance: Problems and Solutions," using the Kyma system to support the presentation.
atom heart tells us that he spent the month of November in Santiago converting .wav files into aiff files and back, pruning trees in the garden, drinking strawberry shakes on the sunny balcony, checking the g3 for viruses and killing them, and thinking. And releasing the Real Intelligence3 compilation CD on the Rather Interesting label. Also the collaboration between atom heart and burned friedmann entitled *flanger* will see it's first release in a couple of weeks... their first e.p. is scheduled for 1999 release on u.k.'s *n-tone* label. soon after that the release of their album *templates* is planned. -atom heart website: -rather interesting website:
Günther Auer used Kyma to create a sound installation that ran for 4 months this past summer in a building designed by famed Austrian architect Günther Domenig. Auer composed everything exclusively in Kyma, which he describes as "a very fine baby!"
At the September 1998 Kobe International Computer Music Festival Eric Lyon did live Kyma performance using 8 PCs and Kyma in a "moderately reality-defying piece." All he will add is that it involved lots of C code and sampling of Sun Ra. Check out the website for details (the website has both Japanese and English versions). http://www2.osk.3web.ne.jp/~airnet/ICMF98
Francois Blaignan at Media Venture in Hollywood used Kyma to morph between crickets and birds for a new television ad directed by Tim "Edward ScissorHands" Burton. Completely computer-generated, the ad is for a product called Hollywood Gum (sold in France) and has an opening scene where day switches to night and back again (hence the crickets and birds). In addition to film work, Francois has been busy doing sound for US television ads for 7UP, and Lincoln-Mercury. When asked the flavor of Hollywood gum, Blaignan admitted that he did not know (but he hopes it was not inspired by the La Brea Tar Pits).
Dennis Miller's BioForm11, a computer-generated graphic, won a cash prize in the Eurographics Conference Computer Graphics Forum 1999 Cover Contest. The image will be used by Blackwell, the publisher of the journal, for promotional activities.
If you'd like to commission some custom-computer-generated art for your website, book cover, CD cover art or studio walls, check out Dennis Miller's work at http://www.casdn.neu.edu/~music/Faculty/Miller/Images/images1.html
Stephen James Taylor used Kyma to do some granulation for the score of Why Do Fools Fall in Love. The life story of Frankie Lymon as told through the flashbacks of the three women he married (simultaneously as it turns out) features lots of production numbers, the Platters, and an appearance by Little Richard as himself. Despite the fact that it is the story of a musician who rose to fame when he was just 12 years old and died by age 25 of heroin addiction, Stephen assures me that it is a comedy (he has seen it with 5 different test audiences and all of them laughed all the way through it), so go see it or rent it on video, especially for the sound track! (and for a little history on how the early rock and roll musicians were exploited by the record companies).
Atom Heart's music is never boring (maybe that's why his record label is named "Rather Interesting"). It's real I-love-computers music that doesn't try to imitate acoustic instruments. Check out his latest release _Naturalist_ for some Kyma-induced time stretching and freeze-framing, uncompromisingly digital broad band clicky beats and, best of all, one whole track of music in praise of coffee!
Atom Heart's favorite questions asked after concerts:
01. what kind of techno do you play?
02. how many megabyte holds that machine?
03. do you have a 303?
04. where do you come from? (how do i know...)
05. have you released a record yet?
Francois Blaignon's ad for Blockbuster Video (done at Media Venture) was rated as the #2 ad in the entire USA this summer by Shoot magazine (a trade journal for advertising agencies). So if you happen to see a television ad based on old scary movies, listen closely for Kyma on the sound track!
Sound designer and composer Yasushi Yoshida has a new website called Channel "D" http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~MZ2Y-YSD/ which includes photos of Yasuski travelling with his Capybara!
Greg Hunter used Kyma to process the audio on one of the tracks for his band Alien Soap Opera's new album Second Wave, released in September under the Electric Melt label. Greg is now working on another new album using recordings made of the Himba tribe in Namibia. The Himba are under dire threat due to a proposed dam, which, if it goes ahead, will basically wipe them out, and he is hoping that this album will raise awareness of their situation. When not travelling between Capetown and London or working with his band, Greg relaxes with his new hobby—welding (perhaps because it reminds him of constructing new sounds in Kyma?)
John Dunn and Mary Anne Clark used Kyma to help realize an entire CD of music based (no pun intended) on DNA sequences! Featured proteins include beta-globin sequences from human, whale, bat and echidna, the protein in spider's silk, lysozyme C from human, echidna, mouse and green monkey, and collagen. Ranging in style from a quasi-renaissance motet with a woman's voice chanting the names of amino acids, to a complex imaginary landscape based on Collagen, this well-engineered CD can be heard for free in real audio on the web or purchased as a one-off CD-R signed by the two composers at http://algoart.com/dnamusic
Composer/violinist Dick Robinson (owner of the very first Kyma system sold in the US) received a scholarship from the band REM for a residency at the Hammige Arts Center in Georgia. Robinson also received another grant to do the sound for a collaborative piece with fibre-sculptor Edith Kelman in which slides of deep space taken from the Hubble Telescope will be projected on curtains of silver threads that are perturbed by air currents—giving a sense of three dimensionality.
Composer Agostino Di Scipio presented a talk entitled "The Composer as Noise Generator" at the von Karaian Centrum in Vienna on 1 July 1998. These talks were moderated by Denis Smalley as part of the ElektroKomplex forum celebrating 50 years of Musique Concrete.
On 3 July 1998, Di Scipio's tape work "Dissequentia" was played at the House of Radio Culture, ORF in Vienna. The piece was produced in 1998 (and premiered in L'Aquila) using Eva Martelli's voice reading a poem ("Sequentia") by Edoardo Sanguineti (the poem in turn was based on Berio's works titled "Sequenze").
Ken Heitmueller is using Kyma to prepare the audio tracks for a sound installation at Eastern State Penitentary in New York: http://www.easternstate.com. He is also planning a live performance using Kyma at the exhibit opening.
Composer Diane Thome, winner of the 1998 ICMA Commission Award, used Kyma in the creation of her commissioned piece UnfoldEntwine which was premiered in Ann Arbor Michigan on Saturday, October 3 1998. She describes the work as "a mysterious, slowly-unfolding journey with an astonishing, even magical, destination. The processes of unfolding, disclosing, interleaving and entwining which characterize the architecture of the work also suggested its title"
Kyma also played a part in other concerts during the Ann Arbor festival, including dinergy 2 a piece for Sho processed live through the Capybara (composed and performed by Tamami Tono), and tape pieces by Larry Fritts, Eric Chasalow, Dennis Miller, and several of Larry Fritts' students.
Santa Barbara-based Kyma aficionados Nik Green and Penny Little of The Away Team decided to seek out new life and new civilizations during July and August of 1998 as they boldly went where they hadn't been for about 9-10 years: the European continent of the planet Earth.
Travelling for both pleasure and promotion, they shuttled to London, Austria, Dublin, France, and Belgium. They brought along their promotional CD, which has six or seven mixes of various items of "noise with respect to time" (i.e., their own highly infectious brand of quirky synthpop). Except for jamming with Helmut Neugebauer (free jazz sax player in Vienna) and some English musicians, they had no official gigs.
To find out more about the Away Team and their music, visit: http://home.earthlink.net/~theawayteam/awayteamwebsite/capybara.html
Stephen David Beck's Echoes of Accidental Music, for harp and Kyma system, was premiered Friday, June 12, 1998 at the American Harp Society's National Conference in Baton Rouge, LA. New Orleans by harpist Rebecca Todaro.
Phil Winsor's Abe and Andy Along the Potomac, a tape piece based on intermingled quotations from Abraham Lincoln's speeches and Andy Warhol's diaries of expenses kept track of for the IRS, was performed in Stuttgart Germany on the 4th of July 1998. Winsor used Kyma to process the instrumental parts played on sheng (a Chinese mouth organ with pipes) and ku-ch'in, another Chinese instrument which is related to the zither.
Between playing in his band Suddenly Tammy and helping to organize the Tibetan Freedom Concert, bass player/Kyma fanatic Ken Heitmueller has somehow managed to find time to work on what he calls his Kyma Suit. Using a video/cinematographer's battery belt pack (weighing 9 pounds) and a DC/AC power inverter from Radio Shack, he has so far managed to successfully power his Capybara from the batteries for longer than his laptop will operate on a full charge. Now all that remains is to get his amp (12 V car power amp) and speakers (Infinity car speakers from his old Caddy), and he will be ready to pursue his dream of playing Kyma-processed electric bass in the New York subways.
Ken also sent in this drawing of a Capybara (the rodent, not the multiprocessor sound computation engine):
