There will be an evening of hybridization on Wednesday, April 15 at the Cyberarts Gallery in Jamaica Plain as Eric Frye, Roy Werner (aka GS Sultan) and Jeff Witscher (aka Rene Hell)—three composers working with analog, digital, and electroacoustic processes—come together for a period of intense sonic exploration. In preparation for the concert, Sam Wolk sat down to chat with Eric and Roy and discuss some of the inner workings of the two musicians’ sonic practices.
Sam Wolk: Can you each give a concrete/technical or abstract/virtual overview of the sorts of processes you will be engaging with at the performance on Wednesday?
Eric Frye: I’ll be using a hybrid modular synthesizer and various software platforms via laptop. Each machine will perform similar synthesizing functions. Sometimes, they mirror each other in their respective actions. Other times, they are entirely dissimilar.
Roy Werner: I will be performing with a program I have written in Max/MSP oriented around delicate manipulation of preexisting audio sources.
SW: Can you tell us about the structure of your interface into the “plane of immanence” of all sonic possibility? Where Roy’s “interface” might be taken to be Max/MSP, while Eric’s would be the hybrid digital-analog synthesis system, and Jeff’s might be Reaper/ProTools?
EF: The modular and computer are both constructed systems which enable the composition of complex sonic objects and auditory events. Each system consists of self-organizing elements that function as a collective network of voltage or algorithmically controlled mapping agents.
SW Can you talk about the relationship between your performance practice and your recording practice? Are recordings instances of you improvising/setting a system loose the same way you do in a performance context, or are they selected exemplars of multiple iterations of the same process, or perhaps artifacts of a lengthy process of revision and “editing” (literal or figurative—i.e. traditional audio editing, or audio output being feedback to the input in the sense of influencing revisions on a systems level)? Are performances presentations of fixed systems, fixed audio, or something else? Are systems constructed in real time, or explored in real time, or anything along those lines?
EF: I try to record as often as possible. Ideally, that would be every day. Recording is a way of preserving ideas which might lead to further compositional investigation. I focus on locating specific sounds. Also, I am always eager to approach new forms of synthesis (new modules, and, more often, new software) in an exploratory manner.
My performance pieces are methodically composed. I am able to make decisions within the context of a live performance, but these decisions are specific and involve the inclusion or exclusion of particular particles, or entire events. Improvisation, in the sense of free-form investigation, is not a part of my live performance. That being said, the systems I am working with are inherently chaotic. The sounds are being emitted and shaped in real time and are subject to various environmental inconsistencies.
RW: Generally, I record everything outputted from my program; a good amount of this ends up being unusable but it is helpful to listen back to these recordings and find instances that can be reprocessed or expanded upon; similar to Eric’s idea of “further compositional investigation” on select instances.
The things I will explore when recording are usually dictated by either the source or a specific software parameter; i.e., some work is intended to extract all possible outcomes starting from a single clip of audio; other work is intended to produce all possible architectures that can be generated from one algorithm or one facet of the software.
Some finished pieces end up being segments directly taken from these exploratory recordings with no further manipulation, while others involve using segments as inputs in the software as a sort of feedback system, and exploring these second (or third, etc.) iterations of themselves some leave the Max/MSP framework entirely, and any further manipulation is through small edits and collage in a simple DAW.
Performances tend to be a combination of all of the above; there can be movements of fixed audio in which I have no agency in the live setting, movements of fixed systems in which the basic compositional structure is set but the way I articulate it in a live setting can vary, and movements of improvisation. I think these three frameworks in conjunction allow for the most possible and most diverse endgames in a performance and force performative pieces to act as presentations of new work (i.e., new complete recordings) and presentations of new concepts (i.e., new software iterations).
SW: How do you document your work? Or, rather, where does the work manifest itself outside of the single artifact which is the final recording? Put another way, where else does it live? In Reaper project directories files, max patches, written notation, photos on phone of modular synthesis patches, drafts and drafts and drafts of audio recordings, notes in documents on your computer, ephemeral performances of a “recorded/released” piece, etc.?
EF: Yes, files and directories are all points of documentation. Modular patches are mapped out and documented with software. When I originally began using the modular system, I was using pen and paper to diagram the patches. However, this quickly became too tedious and I turned to a patch-mapping platform for ongoing documentation. For live performance, I refer to a notated score which is constructed throughout the composition process.
RW: I have extensive notes on variables, algorithms, and specific instances in recordings that I find interesting and intend on investigating further.
SW: Do your processes of composition tend to move toward systems which can be repeatedly iterated in order to create divergent actualizations (think two wildly different performances given the same starting system) versus tending towards systems whose output is almost entirely identical each time the process is executed (for instance a max patch that executes the same way every time, or a score dictating a performer’s actions in a highly determined way), or somewhere in between, where the system has its own coherent sonic “identity” despite never producing the same actualization?
EF: My performative pieces adhere to a mapped-out score. The overarching structure is repeatable, while the individual particles and events making up the piece are malleable to various degrees.
RW: The systems I create act similarly to Eric’s; vague architecture can be replicated multiple times but a majority of distinct sonic “moments” involve randomization in some capacity and are infinitely unrepetitive. Performances can feel like tactical games against the computer, attempting to keep these randomized processes from running too far out of control while never actually reaching the same conclusion as any previous performance.
SW: Roy, It seems that a word like “deconstruction” might got used a lot in discussion of your work, both in terms of deconstructions of sound materials themselves, and deconstructions of musical structures which those sound materials might have originated within. However, in listening to your work I personally hear it much more as a form of reconstruction, or rather construction. I’ll explain what I mean. Obviously a “deconstruction” has to happen at some point as original materials are taken from their contexts and broken down into smaller component chunks, but making this process of deconstruction evident does not seem to be what I hear in your work. Instead, the central thing I hear is you drawing upon the combinatorial power latent in the raw materials in order to create something new, and doing so mostly without reference to any sort of model from which the original materials were drawn from.
How do you think about this relationship between original, deconstruction, and reconstruction (or just construction) in your work? To what extent are these words important, if at all, in guiding your thinking and shaping your sonic processes while making the work? Do you find discussion of things like “signs/signified” useful in considering the relationship between grains of sampled sound and that which they refer to (original context from which they are drawn, and the original sounding body which placed them into that first context)? Or discussion of one of your pieces as a “simulacrum” of some sort? I can explain more what I mean by some of these things, but perhaps you already have thoughts to share.
Do you see yourself as sitting within narratives of “recycled” art or “pop deconstruction?” To what extent do you hope the work reflexively bring its status as collage of copied and altered digital objects to the front of the work versus non-reflexively treating the sonic materials as acousmatic objects?
RW: In some sense I think that it’s important, or at least interesting, to note that my work is “sample-based,” but I often feel like this carries much more connotative weight than I would like. I am mostly interested in using samples as confines; like I mentioned above, exploring the possible outcomes when processing a segment of audio with its preexisting architecture embedded. I’m not as interested in the politics of composing in this way, like plunderphonics or something of that nature. I guess I mean, I’m not trying to maintain some intrinsic value of these samples, just treating them as vehicles for raw audio. So I agree that “deconstruction” (implying more significance on what is being “deconstructed”) is less important than just “construction.” Some of my work (specifically the Umor Rex release) has been overtly referential to where the audio comes from, but overall it is definitely, as you said, “without reference to any sort of model from which the original materials were drawn,” and more about “how the audio comes from,” or something like that.
For what I have been working on lately, which is also what I’ll be performing at Cyberarts, I have almost completely lost track of what is “sourced,” and the distinction between recorded vs. prerecorded vs. generated material is sort of meaningless at this point. The artifacts of originality are much rarer and much less distinguishable in an attempt to mask what is the “raw” or “pure” sound from myself in the same way it is masked for any other listener.
SW: Eric, the word that first springs to mind for me with your work is “interface.” Though I have a lot to say about it, and specific questions with regards to the relationship between the digital, the analog, and the organic in your work, first I’d just like to ask you the following: What, if anything, does “interface” mean to you? What happens at the site (literal or figurative) of the interface? What sorts of elements (abstract, concrete) does the interface bring together for you? How do you explore the spectrum that goes between the interface shaping you and shaping the work to you shaping the interface and you shaping the work? How would you define the interface that you work with or construct (its boundaries, possibilities, structure, etc.)?
EF: To me, the interface, whether it be a modular synth or computer, is simply a functional machine that enables me to construct and examine sonic events. I explore through a navigational technique of methodical calibration.
SW: Sorry, we don’t have time for more questions and conversation. There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to follow up on with you guys so we can get more of a back-and-forth dialogue going, but this already has me so excited to see you guys perform on Wednesday at the Cyberarts Gallery! See you there.
Eric Frye, Roy Werner, and Jeff Witscher will be performing new audiovisual works in concert on Wednesday, April 15 at the Cyberarts Gallery at 141 Green Street in Jamaica Plain (right at Green Street station on the Orange Line). The show will be all ages, with a suggested donation of $10. Doors will be at 8pm, and music will begin at 8:30.
