Upcoming event on November 4 2008 ABATTOIR: Audrey Chen (cello/voice) and Robert van Heumen (electronics) perform at Proeflokaal in Theater Kikker, Utrecht [more info]
Nicole Atkins / Neptune City - the female Roy Orbison in a David Lynch atmosphere - great voice, huge orchestrations, kitsch but just right on that edge
Ane Brun / Changing of the seasons & A temporary dive - Swedish singer songwriter, a bit of Kate Bush, a bit of Joni Mitchell but mostly her own - especially her interpretation of Purcell's Laid in Earth is killing me
Senor Coconut / Around the world - latin versions of famous pop songs, very funny, very well done
Metallica / Death Magnetic - back to basics, what can I say
Angelo Badalamenti / Mulholland Drive soundtrack - Nicole Atkins mentions Badalamenti as inspiration - this is a great record, never really listened to it extensively
I added a link to the right to a list of recently purchased music. I feel I have to make a statement that there are still people buying cds (or vinyl for that matter).
So after participating in the High Zero festival in Baltimore and hearing Liz Albee perform the trumpet, I'm very inspired taking on that instrument again, incorporating it into my set. Possibly using a Wii controller's accelerometers and the numchuck replacing my joystick. This will take some time though - first getting my chops back, then finding the time to experiment with the controllers, and adepting my setup to that. But I'm very exited to start that!
Thinking about that I dug up some old music I worked on when living in Jersey City, using a hardware sampler, the trumpet, and a 4-track minidisc recorder. The two tracks that I can still listen to I've put online, including some great artwork, from a collection of comics I picked up at an auction upstate New York.
The High Zero festival was a lot of fun. The concept is: you take 10 local improvisors, and invite another 10 from abroad (a lot of Americans though), put them together in combinations never heard before (yes, the old Kraakgeluiden concept), and wait and see and hear. Because of the big local base, the atmosphere is very friendly, 'instant family'. Everyone is put up at some local performer's house, and there are 5 evenings of 4 sessions each, and additional there are these Hijinx's, events during the day where sound is produced in public space. Somethimes very funny.
As for the evening concerts, I must say that not all sessions were musically great. Quite a lot were amusing, because of the awkwardness of the musicians, or because of the theatricality of it. Some performances that stood out:
Robert van Heumen: electronics Bill Nace: guitar Ric Royer: voice, tapes
I don't think this one stood out musically, but the combination made for some weird action. Ric did not make any sound, but held up signs for the audience to make sound. I would sample that, and throw that back at them. Funny, but not very musical. Then there were some moments of heavy distorted interaction between me and Bill, that I enjoyed a lot.
Arrington de Dionyso: voice, bass clarinet
This was an amazing solo. The best musician of the festival. Working with resonance, throatsinging, great bassclarinet playing. Check this guy out. Also a sweet human being.
Aside from the music, we were fed every night, there was a dance party on Saturday night (very funny to see all these 'non pulsed' musicians dance their ass off) and a barbeque with crap (uh, crab) on Sunday afternoon. Great festival, great people. Recommended!
I also performed with ABATTOIR (my duo with Audrey Chen) at the H&H building, and held a lecture at Peabody conservatory. O, and then there was a recording session on Friday afternoon with Liz Albee, Arrington de Dionyso, Mike Muniak and myself. That was great, finally some duo work, and I was very glad for this opportunity to play with these great players.
Finally some time to catch up on things. After a great coast to coast trip in the US I was sucked into work very soon. Of course things at STEIM, how to continue with the funding (partly) secured. More about that later (maybe). But first a report on the International Computer Music Conference 2008, in Belfast from Aug 24-29.
ICMC08 report
The International Computer Music Conference took place in Belfast this year, at Queens University, also using SARC's diffusion system.
The conference was integrated with the Sonorities festival, which resulted in an enormous amount of concerts, concurrently with paper presentations, demo's and panels. This made it sometimes difficult to choose, and to my opinion some parts of the conference/festival suffered from that.
Every day there were paper presentations in the morning, in two spaces at the same time, and in the afternoon demo's were given, and posters presented. Due to the nature of the conference these papers were generally quite theoretical and specific. An interesting one that comes to mind was a presentation by Trond Lossius from BEK (Norway) about Jamoma (http://jamoma.org/). According to the website: Jamoma provides a clear structure and common features for building max patches. Reducing the amount of time needed to create new performance systems, and enhancing the interchange of patches amongst max users. Basically a way to control groups of parameters simultaniously.
The lunchbreak was dedicated to two sessions of concerts with electronic compositions taking place in SARC - one at 12:15 and one at 13:45. Because of the relatively small number of seats in SARC participants could only attend one of the two concerts per day. These concerts were generally quite interesting - although most pieces didn't really use the elaborate diffusion system in an effective way. Some memorable pieces:
* Butch Rovan / Correspondences: audio-visual work after Beaudelaire's Correspondances - very instrumental and lots of movement
* Carmen Caruso / Mayday: cinema-for-the-ear - beautiful sound collage
* Rikhardur H. Fridriksson / Postcards from North and South: good use of the diffusion system, beautiful sounds
* Benjamin Broening / Lamentation Alphabet: Aleph
Almost every day at night there were two concerts: an early one with mainly compositions for ensemble of soloists with electronics, and a late night concert with a bit more focus on longer sessions with more improvisation. These concerts were less interesting in general than the lunch concerts - most pieces were quite conceptual and sometimes more about technology than music. Some interesting ones:
* Scott McLaughlin / Whitewater for sax & computer: good blend of acoustic and electronic sound - good balance, neither one was dominant or leading
* Juhani Raisanen / Cringle: one of the few real electronic instruments, performed with mastery
Then there were the continous presentations in the Grand Hall: a total of three hours of tape works, repeated 3 times. Every day a block of new works. This part of the program suffered a lot from a lack of attention, as it wasn't announced very clearly, and obviously a lot of things were happening at the same time. Some memorable works:
* Martin Bedard / Check-point: interesting sounds, although the piece was too long
* Gilles Gobeil / Ombres, espaces, silences: interesting combinations of sounds, movement, drama - too long though
* Robert van Heumen / Fury: of course I can't not mention my own participation - it was good hearing it a couple of times, and I can already hear some improvements...
All in all a good conference. Lots of opportunities to meet people, and lots of music. Next year in Canada, McGill University.
Back after 4 weeks of driving in beautful USA backcountry. From Washington DC through poor West Virginia, hills of Ohio, corn corn corn in Indiana & Illinois, the extended prairies and emptiness of Minesota, big sky South Dakota, beautiful Badlands & Black Hills, vulkanism in Yellowstone, through cowboy country Wyoming to Swiss Rocky Mountains, Colorado, Goosenecks State Park, sunrise between the red monoliths of Monument Valley, hiking down the Grand Canyon, climbing amazing but hot hot hot Zion Canyon, outer space Bryce, to mind boggling kitchy & corny Las Vegas to shopping LA.
Trying to get some perspective. Camping on primitive campgrounds, living life at its most basic. And seeing real starry skies and hearing your blood in your ears from silence.
I'm very sad to tell you that Michel Waisvisz, director of STEIM, died yesterday, peacefully at home. Joel Ryan was performing with Sakata Akira at that exact moment - in front of a packed house during a big event to show the world what it is STEIM does. How's that for timing.
I will always remember Michel as playful, friendly, and determined. Being happy as a little kid playing with electronic instruments, tiny little gadgets and virtual toys, keeping the weird bunch of people at STEIM motivated and feeling good, and being determined about what direction to go with STEIM.
Coming days will be strange, stressfull, and soothing at the same time with all positive messages from all over the world coming in.
The electroacoustic trio SKIF++ consist of Jeff Carey and Robert van Heumen, both of whom work on laptops, with Bas van Koolwijk adding a visual component. Van Koolwijk's stated intention is to use video to expose its essential falseness, to reveal the cold machinery behind the "placating curtain" of the visuals it generates. This is a facet of the music also, which has a certain feral, vicious quality to it - as if using machinery as some sort of vengeance upon itself. Using devices such as joysticks to exacerbate the chance, improvised nature of this music, this is musique concrete that has torn away from its formal, academic origins. The openingtrack "SK01" uses conspicuous samples of kitchen implements, battered and smashed into near uselessness, alongside coruscating bursts of voracious noise. "SK02" meanwhile starts out as nothing but the random movement of tiny particles, pinging and colliding, before accruing into a larger, more malevolent shape. Deconstruction and reassembly in nasty extremis.
I'm currently at CultureLab in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, working on the Vreemdeling composition. I'm keeping a dedicated blog at http://hardhatarea.com/vreemdeling/. Still not sure of the title by the way.
Tomorrow I'll be leaving for CultureLab, Newcastle-upon-tyne. That's where I'll stay for two weeks, working on Vreemdeling. I'll talk about it to the students, discuss electronic composition techniques, work on finalizing the stereo version, and preparing a multi channel version. There will be a concert at the end, at which I will probably perform the multi channel version, using joysticks and such for diffusion. Sending OSC to the Resound system. This might be combined with my usual live setup. Or I might also perform Fury. Will see.
Currently I'm still thrown off balance quite a bit with all the events from the last couple of weeks. STEIM threatened to be shut down and other personal stuff around the workplace. Thinking of STEIM, it's not so much that I fear losing my job. I'm just very angry that people would risk losing such a valuable place. It's injustice. But well, lots of people said that much better and in prettier words than I can... all the letters that came in.
In these times I can find solace with music. Not only my own, but just beautiful music. Like Martha Wainwright's 'I know you're married but I've got feelings too' (great title!), Portishead's Third, or just straightforward Linkin park's Hybrid Theory.
A review by Keir Neuringer (from STEIM's Concert blog) of the Audrey Chen / Robert van Heumen duo at STEIM's Local Stop concert on May 22, 2008:
[...] Robert van Heumen and Audrey Chen followed. They have performed together in various combinations before in Amsterdam and Chen’s home city of Baltimore, but this was their first duo. Chen played ‘cello with more finesse than I have seen her do before. When I have seen her in the past she has employed the ‘cello and electronics mainly as drone instruments, with her often primal vocalizations leading the performance. Tonight her voice fed hungrily and playfully off her capricious ‘cello playing. Devoted to not holding back when she performs, it was a pleasure to see her working so hard to match van Heumen’s often brutal digital transformations of her sound. There were several moments of pure psychedelia as van Heumen allowed untransposed, ungranulated repetitions of Chen’s voice to come through—often considered dangerous territory in some circles but used here in good taste. Van Heumen tends to play forcefully and loudly, and tonight was no exception. However, I noted positively that his choices seemed to be more calculated and considered than usual, with less attention given to his joystick controller and more focus on subtle actions and longer-term transformations. I loved it when, halfway through the second of two extended pieces, he took Chen’s keening voice and filtered it in such a way that, for a moment, it seemed that George Martin, the revered Beatles producer, had entered the room.
Of course I don't know a thing about everyday life in the US, and even less about its politics, but following the whole circus from a distance, and reading some here and there, I'd like to officially endorse Obama here (Let the media come in! Experimental composer in Bos en Lommer endorses Obama!).
Seriously - read Robert Reich's blog entry. His blog makes a lot of sense in general.
And although I know charisma can be dangerous at times, I think Obama's charisma could help him, the US and the rest of the world 'transcending the boundaries of class, race, and nationality'. I know some friends on that side of the big devide have lost hope that anything will change, but if we want anything to happen, it'll have to be through Obama.
O, and give Barry Adamson a listen - Stranger of a Sofa is a very nice, a little dark, but overall very happy album. And usually I hate happy music - so that says something. You can listen now (don't know how long they will keep it there) at VPRO's 3voor12 luisterpaal.
Dutch electronic improviser, member of an electro-acoustic project (OfficeR) and of a trio active in audio-visual arts (SKIF++), mathematician, trumpet player, software programmer and so on…
Robert van Heumen’s compositions are created using primarily the laptop and, specifically, running the software LiSa for a live sampling and SuperCollider for a real-time audio-synthesis.
This is his first CD, containing two titles: “Fury (after anger)”, a composition in four movements built on distorted, crackled, buzzed sounds with episodic fragments of spoken words, repetitive at times but often consisting of entire pieces of text taken from historical documents about “Dust Bowl migrants living in Farm Security Administration camps in central California (1940-1941)” (see here). Subtle melodies generated by a guitar occasionally interfere.
“They Would Get Angry Sometimes”, the second piece, has nearly the same structure, but with more incidence of computer treatments and, perhaps, of noise.
Original work of sampling and programming, great combination of different sound sources, thus an excellent debut.
The online magazine neural.it - 'media art, hacktivism, emusic, since 1993' - published a review of Fury.
"Fury (after Anger)" is a new project by Robert von Heumen made up of two recordings: the title track, split in four different tracks, and "They Would Get Angry Sometimes". The former has been commissioned by the Sonic Circuit Festival in Washington and the latter has been composed from a performance at Rhode Island's Brown University. Both the works show their "in progress" structure and a strong conceptual approach, in part because of the sound forms riskiness, really suggestive, impalpable, ultimate, but somehow subject to the textual dynamics: recordings dating back to 1940-41 concerning the immigrants' life in the California's Farm Security Administration camps. Van Heumen's thesis is that "Fury" is functional to a specific investigation on the human beings primitive dynamics, our inner part that we feel very hard to eradicate or control. The author perfectly succeeded in emanating a sense of disquietude, even avoiding to decipher all the included texts. The texts are then suspended among drones, hums and buzz'n'crackles: muffled rustlings and dissonant glitches, wonderfully acted in a vibrant music crescendo but also still ambiguous, harsh and unstable. Aurelio Cianciotta
With Tom Tlalim & Nicolas Field I played in Geneva, through the Cave12 connection, on March 28. This was the first concert with this trio, after two studio sessions, and we rocked! It's quite heavy, noise-like, driven by Nicolas's endless energy behind the drumkit, Tom's basslines and melodies, and my distorted sample layers.
Everyone is still hacking along during this third workshop day. Making their own circuitboards using simple circuits with photocells to generate squarewaves, controlling the pitch. And still hacking their toys, from machine guns to radios, Pokemon dolls and toyparrots (tiny live sampling machine).
In the meantime Taku has done an evening course with them, building their own sensorinterface. Some students worked until as late as 2AM last night, after a party they organized at the workshop space.
Nic started the day with some more theory on analog processing, and in a couple of minutes Frank will demo a way to use all this with JunXion and LiSa to control live sampling.
After hooking up a speaker to a 9 volt battery, they are now all emerged in their battery-operated radios. Opening them up, making connections that god never thought of, and the space is beautifully engulfed in a vibrant buzz of crackles. Since communication through the english language is not working that well, Nic choose to work by example: in silence showing everyone how to make and break connections. That's what makes the buzzing room even more interesting: there's little talking...
