Tag: drone

viola. harmonium. Klaus Lang on Ilkley moor.

Last November I made a short film with Klaus Lang up on Ilkley Moor. I wrote a piece for Klaus and, together with Viola d’Amore player Barbara Konrad, we carried a harmonium up onto the moor. The film documents two pieces, my ‘a technical diagram for the abstraction of ockeghem’s missa pro defunctis: kyrie, side elevation‘ and a section from Klaus’ longer cycle: ‘viola. harmonium.‘

viola. harmonium. on Ilkley Moor from Oliver Thurley on Vimeo.

This film couldn’t have been made without Ollie Jenkins, who took care of all the filming and editing, and Elspeth Mitchell, who helped organise and produce everything. The project was part-funded by the Centre for Practice-Led Research in the Arts (CePRA) at the University of Leeds. Thanks also to Helen Barker and Rex Russell for their assistance.

NOCTURNES ~ WITH ZERO cassette

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A slight digression from the usual “contemporary classical(ish)” stuff, I’ve released a new tape under my WITH ZERO moniker. NOCTURNES is a 60-minute slow-burning new age piece, intended for deep nighttime listening, meditation and states of half waking/consciousness.

 


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The cassette comes in a limited edition of 50, pro-dubbed on transparent glittering shells (because, y’know…) and is available via bandcamp.

 

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The WITH ZERO project has been around since about 2012, mainly as a hard drive with which to store miscellaneous synthesiser sketches. This is the first proper release, with a few more in the pipeline for the next couple of months.

Network for String Quartet

I’ve mentioned the piece a couple of times on here over the last few months, but wanted to wait for a performance/recording to explain it a little more. So here we are at last: Network no.1 for string quartet.

The score is a hybrid of graphic and traditional, with a graph network diagram functioning as a map, and traditionally notated reference. Each ‘node’ on the map relates to an element from the separately notated gamut of sonorities. The edges of the map signify a potential route from one musical element to another. The length of an edge determines the duration of the element to be performed. So in this sense the map represents the time-space and structure of the piece, while the reference contains the sonic material.

As previously mentioned, the work exists in a a state of non-linearity. Performers work independently, following their own paths across score ‘maps’. Routes are determined stochastically (and regenerated each time the network graphs are compiles), although each player may choose their own starting point.

The recording was made on Tuesday, 7th May, 2013. Many thanks to the performers for their time:

Violins – Alice Dawkins; Hannah Packman
Viola – Katherine Lambeth
Violoncello – Claudia Chapman

Thanks also to Tony @Big_Pause for his patient advice during the programming stage.

[VIDEO] from Hibernate’s “Winter’s Gift”, live at Cafe Oto

Happy Holidays! Gianmarco Del Re has made a rather wonderful video of Hibernate’s christmas bash we played at on Dec 15th, 2012. It’s got some really nice shots of the gear we used that night and James and I trying to keep it under control.

Hibernate A Winter’s Gift from Gianmarco Del Re on Vimeo.

The sound seems only to be from our intro though so doesn’t totally capture the sound of the set, but a very good watch.

Shortly after this set I was also very kindly asked to come on Rich Hughes’ Cambridge radio show ‘The Visitor‘ for a chat and a bit of a live set. Unfortunately my gear crashed in the first take so had to try and pull it back with some chatter and spectralist improv. Now, you too can listen to me die of embarrassment on-air and talk about Aaliyah!