hatlog / by Robert van Heumen - electronic musician and composer

Collaborations with Susan Happersett

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:47:32 +0100

The last couple of months I've started a fruitful collaboration with visual artist Susan Happersett from Jersey City, resulting in two stop-motion video's with a soundtrack: fibonacci scroll and Fashion Week.

Both video's were constructed by photographing every frame by hand by Susan and her partner Gertjan, then collected into a video. The soundtrack was added afterwards. On fibonacci scroll I wanted to double the rhythm created by the marching scribblings on the screen in the beginning, then flipping the atmosphere around in the second part. For Fashion Week I created a kit on my MachineDrum (made by Elektron) and punched in/out various sounds while watching the video. Creating a number of variations I choose the one that fitted best in the end.

The full video's will probably be put online some time in the future, but since they will be submitted to various festivals and museums I can't give more than a glimpse right now.

Review and full video of the ABATTOIR concert at Japan Society

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:01:35 +0100

Below a review of ABATTOIR's concert in the STEIM showcase program at Japan Society in New York City on May 8 2010.

An evening of performances associated with the Amsterdam-based Studio of Electro-Instrumental Music isn't the usual fare for the Japan Society, but if the performers were mostly European, the center's director, Takuro Mizuta Lippit aka dj sniff, fit the usual demographic for the May 8th showcase. And whatever excuse it takes to get a taste of the famed Dutch center in New York was welcome. The evening opened with Yutaka Makino layering loud and dense plateaus of electronic sound in complete darkness; he calls his work three dimensional, but in this instance at least the dimensions could only be sensed. The duo ABATTOIR, with Robert van Heumen processing Audrey Chen's vocals and cello live, proved to be the highlight of the evening, accentuated by the theater's excellent sound system. Every click, scrape and exhalation was plainly audibly through their arc of sparse to loud to delicate beauty. dj sniff collided heavy sax records with Otomo Yoshihide and Yamatanka Eye before resolving with Coltrane, creating a turntablist free jazz tumbler. The final set featured electronicist Yannis Kyriakides taking a feed from Andy Moor's electric guitar that rocked and only got better when Kyriakides mixed in white noise and disembodied crowd sounds, creating an expansive stereo field. With workshops and exhibitions on electronic music-making, including labs designed for children, the weekend was both exciting and pleasantly demystifying.

Kurt Gottschalk for All About Jazz

So what's this all about? See for yourself:

ABATTOIR pictures Japan Society

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:24:36 +0100

Below are some pictures from ABATTOIR's concert at Japan Society on May 8, 2010.

Photo's by Peter Gannushkin

Sound updates

Fri, 21 May 2010 20:48:46 +0100

I don't get to write as much as I'd want to, but at least I've added some new sounds. Very fresh SKIF++ recordings from concerts at Diapason Gallery and Brown University during our recent tour on the US eastcoast, an older recording from ABATTOIR at Nachtjournal in Cologne (March 2009) and an excerpt from Whistle Pig Saloon's concert at Borealis 2009. This last track will (hopefully) accompany our paper in Leonardo Music Journal on Improvisation.

Check out the sounds here.

So what's keeping me from writing? Well... how about this:

A Turing Machine classic style

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:11:08 +0100

Totally nerdy, totally unnecessary (since it's a thought experiment) but I love it!

STEIM / ABATTOIR at Japan Society in New York City

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:31:17 +0100

STEIM will be presenting a two-day program at Japan Society in NYC. Here's a video announcing it.

Yearlist 2009

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:38:32 +0100

Everybody seems to be doing it, so I'll give it a shot.

The ultimate highlight of 2009 is Fever Ray. Great debut album and fabulous show in Paradiso.

Best cds I've heard in 2009:

1. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
2. King Midas Sound - Waiting for you...
3. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
4. The Black Dog - Further Vexations
5. Redshape - The Dance Paradox

Best concerts I've witnessed in 2009:

1. Fever Ray, Paradiso Amsterdam
2. Chimaira / Throwdown / Unearth, Watt Rotterdam
3. PJ Harvey, Paradiso Amsterdam

New sounds

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:48:20 +0100

A semi-improvised live interpretation of the Stranger composition (as download) performed at the SPARK festival in Minneapolis in February 2009
Game/Jan, a coldcase: a theaterpiece for which I created the soundtrack
Two remixes for the rockband Absence

Rutt/Etra Scan Processor

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:13:52 +0100

I bumped into this video on Lost at E Minor lately. Interesting, as Bas van Koolwijk, one of my collaborators in SKIF++, is using this process in a digital way in the SKIF++ live performances. It seems there's more people out there making digital versions of the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor, developed by Steve Rutt and Bill Etra.

"Videomakers like Gary Hill and Steina and Woody Vasulka used the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor to expand the scope of their experiments with electronic imaging. Between 1972 and 1974, the Vasulkas explored the possibilities of the Rutt/Etra and created one of their best known video effects in which the lighter areas of the frame pull the lines of the raster vertically and give the illusion of three-dimensional shapes. When the input signal is an image captured by a camera feed, these lines seem to adopt the contours of objects."
(taken from http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=456 - also check the video on this page, with Bill Etra showing the Rutt/Etra)

On a related note: Bas just finished building the Synchronator (together with Gert Jan Prins), a device that maps audio to video. There is a Vimeo channel with video's made with the device.

HD video from SPARK

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:00:46 +0100

In February 2009 I performed a semi-improvised version of the composition Stranger. Now there's an HD video of the whole set online.

From the program notes:

This is a live interpretation of the composition Stranger. The performance is semi-improvised, based upon a pre-conceived structure, exploring the no man's land between a traditional tape piece and free improvisation. The composition Stranger is conceived as an electronic composition as well as a research in the composition process. It started with basic questions of life: How do we control our lives? Does anything matter? What really is empathy? What can it mean to know another person, to understand another life? Is it possible to break free from the bonds of the familiar, from existing concepts and beliefs? Big questions, yes. But similar questions can be applied to the composition process in the choise of sounds and the structure of composition itself: How do we choose sounds and processes out of many? Can those processes be arbitrary, even random, or should every sound and every process be weighted again and again until we know it's right? What does that mean, 'it is right'? What is it to create a piece of music? Should the judgement of others be considered in making a composition? Is it even possible to create a unique piece of music? The obvious metaphor: a composition as a life.
Stranger is inspired by Albert Camus’ L’Étranger, Philip K. Dick’s Do androids dream of electric sheep and as always by L.E.J. Brouwer. A blog is kept about the composition process.

Game Jan premiere Friday December 11

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:02:35 +0100

The last couple of weeks I've been working on the music for the theaterplay Game Jan, which will have its premiere coming Friday December 11. Yesterday we had our first full runthrough, and it looks great!

There is a trailer on Vimeo and you can find more information at the Lange Poten website.

Photo by Ben van Duin

Game Jan playlist

wo 9 & do 10 december (try-outs) Haarlem
Toneelschuur, 20.00 uur, 023-5173910
vr 11 december (première) Haarlem,
Toneelschuur, 20.00 uur, 023-5173910
za 12 december Haarlem
Toneelschuur, 20.00 uur, 023-5173910
do 17 december Den Haag
Theater a/h Spui, 20.30 uur, 070-3465272
di 12 januari Utrecht
Stadsschouwburg, 20.30 uur, 030-2302023
vr 15 januari Heemskerk,
CC De Cirkel, 20.30 uur, 0251-236942
za 30 januari Alkmaar,
Provadja, 20.15 uur, 072- 5202011
do 4 februari Leiden,
LAKtheater, 20.30 uur, 071-5124890
ma 8 t/m wo 10 februari Amsterdam
Theater Bellevue, 20.30 uur, 020-5305301
vr 12 & za 13 februari Rotterdam
Rotterdamse Schouwburg, 20.30 uur, 010-4118110

ABATTOIR reviews

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:08:52 +0100

We've recently received two great reviews of the ABATTOIR album:

"Digital brutalism in free form, vehement expressions, heightened efforts, wailings and atonal lamentations are all performed with uninterrupted breathing techniques - the electronic manipulation is relentless, full of powerful distortions, melancholic melodies and experimental combinations. Authentic, intricate compositions [...]."
Aurelio Cianciotta for Neural.it

"Heavy duty improvised music [...]. From the very first to the very last second things erupt like volcano. Sometimes we are on top of that volcano, watching the eruption, then we see hot lava running down, slow but hot and powerful."
Frans de Waard for Vital Weekly

Game Jan

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:47:30 +0100

(I hopelessly behind with blogging, so I won't even bother trying to catch up...)

I'm currently working on the sound for a theaterpiece, called Game Jan. I'm constructing the music while scenes are being made, which is a challenge. But in the end it's a good thing, as it will ensure that sound, image (there's 2D and 3D projections) and play will fit together. The premiere is December 11, in De Toneelschuur in Haarlem. Below the trailer.

ABATTOIR CD released on Evil Rabbit Records

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:22:09 +0100

Finally the ABATTOIR recordings from the STEIM local stop concert and studio sessions in May 2008 have been released on CD! With an additional track from a STEIM concert in March this year. Looks good, sounds good, buy it! At Fridgesound Recordings.

Released on Evil Rabbit Records.

Audrey Chen - voice & cello
Robert van Heumen - laptop & controllers

1. Bloodknot 13:12
2. Hone 11:27
3. Endless summer 6:29
4. Ear to ear 8:28
5. Game 8:17
6. Feasting 12:50

All music by Audrey Chen & Robert van Heumen
Selected, mixed and mastered by Robert van Heumen

Tracks 1 & 2 recorded live at STEIM's Local Stop concert on May 22 2008
Tracks 3, 4 & 5 recorded at STEIM on May 17 & 20 2008
Track 6 recorded live at STEIM's Local Stop concert on March 12 2009

"Stranger" selected in the Bourges Electroacoustic Music Competition

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:01:21 +0100

My composition Stranger has been selected in the 36th Bourges International Competition Electroacoustic Music and Electronic Art 2009 in the category New Practices of Performance.

Here is the program.