second body - 2am city lights
[mhrk062] (July 21, 2008)
The cinematics within a sigle night hour
2am City Lights is a sequence of FM synthesizer improvisations, recorded without additional overdubbing or editing except track (1), which has two layers of live material.
Suburbs at night
...That was the moment when I first realized that an electronic musical instrument is not less „real“ than an acoustic one. Much more visible in hardware than software: the reality feeling of electrons flowing through various circuits to the D/A converters, their flow initialized by handtouch. Given the nature of FM sound, most often defined as 'metallic', it could easily be shaped or heard as a direct reference to electricity, further associated with lights and all kinds of engines. The city itself being a complex machinery with its drift cycles, even more exposed when most of its inhabitants sleeping, a bio-mechanical organism you can feel pulsing.
Single-cell unit
I used waves with complex envelopes looping at different tempos, interfering and modulating each other, thus creating a flow of repetitive structures guided by a „human element“ not much different than the narrative of a free jazz impro. There's been an entire soundscape at each of my fingertips, quite dependable on velocity, speed, pitch, manual parameter control.
Abstract vs. Dramatic
...And most of my previous work that I consider important masks the machinery behind it with bits and samples, particularly human voices, breath, deconstructed melodies, fake pianos, a patchwork; none of these are put on the canvas of this one, so personally it's a step in some direction. I'd say maybe it was important to let the digital trickery stream live, as if there was really no option to undo or edit. This keeps you awake, no matter what. However, these pieces can also very well serve as sweet lullabies. Think the flight of a nightbird, or flashing lights, empty streets, a heart, constant flow, engine.
Recorded July-August 2007
Performed by Emilian Gatsov on Yamaha SY77
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