Teaching Computers to Love #10 - Guy Fleisher, Bretwalda & Mali Baden Powell
Louis Grace presents Teaching Computers to Love. This is a collaborative platform for artists to develop an episode sonically with a 10-20 minute body of work.
"My process involves mainly the curation and reappropriation of the recorded materials. I build bespoke digital tools for specific pieces, based on FFT analysis, in order to capture specific data of the natural environment’s recordings, and resynthesise them into the composition.
The Piece “Giussy’s Meditation Song” is a meditative composition, meant to accompany meditation practice. In such a practice, breathwork and mental imagery is not important, and the main aim is at relaxing the psyche in order to be able to ‘just sit’, in the moment.
The piece is dedicated to Giussy Galo, who is a taoist practitioner and Qi Gong teacher, in Rome, Italy.
This initial intent determined the piece’s length, and informed the various sound objects used in the piece. It includes field recordings from Rome, Lazzio region, Jeffery’s Bay South Africa, and Beit Hanan, Israel. In my work I try to find a way of merging the recordings to create a scene in which the meditation practice evolves over time, as in guided meditation, through cognitive perception of salient audible details, and attention.
I was mainly focused on using the recorded environment sound descriptors (meaning) in order to progress the compositional process, and not the obvious relationships in enculturation and familiarity of the materials.
To me, this was very vivid in the process, as I was testing and trying out different materials, observing my own perception as it moved along with the piece, while 'letting go' of making conscious choices in technical possibilities. In it, the serendipity whenever I sat to work on it, became key. The hardest part was writing in a circular fashion, composing the piece inwards, without implying it in the composition itself. The sound objects refer to bells or gongs, used frequently in meditation in order to refocus the meditator's attention inwards, as one advances linearly over time.
Happy meditation practice!
Silent Illumination Lights
The heart
The song of nature
The veil of Maya"
British-born, Bangkok-based, experimental musician focusing on investigating medieval culture through the lens of analogue electronics and cut-up. Topics include linguistics, Christian mysticism, social conditions and popular literature. Bretwalda’s first album, Barrowlands, was released last year; the material submitted will be issued on the forthcoming album Cammock Tongue.
These particular pieces are exercises in ‘drone linguistics’: using the uncanny sound of spoken Middle English, regional dialects and amplified articulation in post-industrial, musique concrete de-constructions. The second movement makes use of a 1486 poem by John Lydgate, The Dance of
Death, read by Middle English academic Dr. Elizaveta Strakhov (of Marquette University) using authentic pronunciation.
The Dance of Death
"Verba Auctoris
O creatures ye that ben resonable
The liif desiring wich is eternal,
Ye may se here doctine ful notable,
Youre lif to lede wich that is mortal,
Therby to lerne is especial
Howe ye shul trace the Dauce of Machabre, To man and womman yliche natural,
For deth ne spareth hy ne lowe degre."
"This piece represents the cognitive dissonance of the Afro Brazilian instrument the Berimbau and it’s relationship with the sea. The sea is represented in all forms by the synthesizers and sound design incorporated into the piece. On the one hand the Berimbau represents emancipation for Africans on Brazilian soil, but on the other, it is emblematic of the struggle my ancestors paid their lives for in grief, labour and mutilation."
The Raven
"The Raven speaks no language I understand
The call neither shrieks nor cackles
The nest is unfettered, filled with the remnants of another plan
The shirk of one wing to another grants freedom:
Flight is the essence of the human ideal
A super power most people would want
But to the raven, the ideal is the next meal
Calling to friends and foes to flaunt"
Words by Mali baden Powell
Written & produced by Mali Baden-Powell. Performed by Mali Baden-Powel. Additional percussion by Wazoo Baden-Powell. Recorded in Rhythm Section Studio.
Tracklist
Giussy's Meditation Song (Guy Fleisher)
Exercises in ‘Drone Linguistics (Bretwalda)
Berimbau Touches the Sea Floor (Mali Baden Powell)