News of my activities, upcoming performances, and site updates.
November 9, 2024
November 30 of this year marks the 25th anniversary of the WTO protest in Seattle.
On Friday, November 15 at 7 pm at the Jack Straw Cultural Center I will present N30: Live at the World Trade Organization Protest November 30, 1999.
This is an hour-long surround sound version of my front-line field recordings made on November 30, 1999 where tens of thousands gathered to protest against corporate attacks on working people, liveable wages, national sovereignty, and the environment.
An oral history made in the moment, N30 is propelled by the audible drama of the unfolding protest teeming with protester chants, stray conversations, and music (notably the Infernal Noise Brigade). In addition, you will hear a simmering polyglot of police radio traffic, splashes and sprays of tape hiss, enigmatic glossolalia, and other broadcast anomalies.
Earlier incarnations of this work were aired on Sonarchy Radio produced and hosted by Doug Haire for Jack Straw. The initial surround-sound version of N30 was last heard in Seattle in 2004 at the now-legendary Polestar Music Gallery.
Join in person at Jack Straw, or hear a stereo streaming version via Facebook or YouTube.
November 8, 2024
Tonight, High Zero and The Red Room (425 E 31st St, Baltimore) serve up the first evening of DIFFUSION, a festival devoted to multichannel electronic and computer music.
Identical sets at 7:30 pm and 10 pm feature classics, rarities, and overlooked gems (get a pdf of the program) collated and curated by yours truly including: Pendlerdrøm (1997) by Barry Truax, Eclipse (1967) by Pril Smiley; Into the Labyrinth (2000) by Hildegard Westerkamp, Farewell to a Hill (1975 / 2024) by Alice Shields, Well, hell (2022) by Robbie Wing, and more.
Visit https://www.redroom.org/ for more information about the festival.
August 26, 2024
My latest album, soft gradient, is out on bandcamp!
soft gradient surges and churns through lush textures made from treated magnetic tapes and a one-of-a-kind modular synth, the pHREAKER by AHC Audio.
This 43-minute piece is dedicated to Annea Lockwood in gratitude for her friendship and music. Annea’s gift of a kempul gong recurs quietly in this piece in tandem with field recordings of everyday environments and antique objects including bells, gates, and corroded light bulb filaments.
soft gradient is the latest installment of Petit Bardo, a series inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist concept of bardo thödrol (liberation through hearing in/during/through the intermediate state).
August 25, 2024
Here is the program for A Surround Sound Evening of Agitprop Sound.
August 12, 2024
In commemoration of the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri this evening presents multiple approaches to the soundscape of politics and the political. Surround sound and supra-stereo works by Donia Jarrar, Lyn Goeringer, Jazmin (JT) Green, Chris DeLaurenti, Steve Barsotti, and others engage the politics of the personal and “the art of the possible” along with the possibility of restructuring the web in which we live.
Encompassing personal testimonies, visceral documents of protest, sonic meditations, and other pathways into utopian listening, this evening includes a portrait of a checkpoint on the West Bank; a collage of recordings made during the 2014 protests in Ferguson; satirical cut-ups; and more.
Agitprop is a contraction of “agitate” and “propaganda.” In his Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, Kwame Nkrumah believes propaganda “serves two different but essential functions in our war: To subvert the enemy and to awaken and mobilize our people.” At the outset of World War II, James R. Angell wryly noted that propaganda “has been defined as something the other fellow does, while education is what you do.” But this evening offers an approach inspired by Salomé Voegelin who writes in The Political Possibility of Sound, “Sound generates a possible reality that does not represent a singular actuality but renders… a mobile and unseen complexity… and sounds the minor, the suppressed, the hidden and the ignored.”
July 17, 2024
My latest album, soft gradient, is out on bandcamp!
soft gradient surges and churns through lush textures made from treated magnetic tapes and a one-of-a-kind modular synth, the pHREAKER by AHC Audio.
This 43-minute piece is dedicated to Annea Lockwood in gratitude for her friendship and music. Annea’s gift of a kempul gong recurs quietly in this piece in tandem with field recordings of everyday environments and antique objects including bells, gates, and corroded light bulb filaments.
soft gradient is the latest installment of Petit Bardo, a series inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist concept of bardo thödrol (liberation through hearing in/during/through the intermediate state).
June 3, 2024
I have received quite a few emails asking about:
April 3, 2024
I was interviewed for The Sound of Curiosity podcast by The Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble! Listen on bandcamp (I’m on episodes 27, 28, and 29) or on Mixcloud to parts one, two, and three. Episodes include plenty of music including Blue Evening, Three Camels for Orchestra, and a few live tracks.
February 26, 2024
I am proud to have made an editorial contribution to Unlocking the Digital Age, a book by Kathleen DeLaurenti and Andrea I. Copland. Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students as well as independent scholars, this free, open-source text is an excellent guide for the beginning music researcher.
From the official description: “It offers a plain language resource that helps early career musicians see where creative practice and creative research intersect and how to traverse information systems to share their work. As professional musicians and researchers, the authors’ experiences on stage and in academia makes this guide an indispensable tool for musicians aiming to thrive in the digital landscape.”
January 12, 2024
I’m happy to join a raft of artists for (c)ovid’s metamorphoses, a book and multi-disc (7 CDs and 2 DVDs) project spearheaded by Bernd Herzogenrath and Lasse-Marc Riek!
October 5, 2023
An installation version of Favorite Intermissions is part of 18th edition of the Shut Up and Listen! festival October 12-14, 2023 in Vienna, Austria.
Curated by visual artist and composer Bernhard Gál, the festival includes a live performance by Nicolas Collins, chamber music by Clara Iaonnotta, and many more performances and installations. The festival streams live online here!
June 28, 2023
The Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble performed my piece for theatrical chamber ensemble, Flags can do nothing without trumpets (2020) several times in 2021 and 2022. Here is a video of a site-specific performance made in 2023:
June 3, 2023
Some in progress music:
May 29, 2023
I contributed text score for Text Scores (to the memory of Ruth Anderson), to A Year Of Deep Listening. The year-long project published a text score a day to honor what would have been the 90th birthday of Pauline Oliveros.
March 18, 2023
I contributed On AI Music, an “Artist Commentary,” to AI in Music Production Tools, Terminology and Implementation by Philip Mantione. Along with a useful glossary, this extensive article surveys AI tools for music creation and sound manipulation.
February 6, 2023
I have spent the last few months (and much of last year) working on the archive of my friend Phillip Arnautoff (1947-2021), builder of a harmonic canon, performer, and composer of the remarkable album Soliloquy.
September 2022
I wrote a short feature, “A Cosmic Portrait of the American West,” in Seattle Symphony’s program guide for their performance of the mammoth Des Canyons aux étoiles… by Olivier Messiaen. An excerpt from the .pdf (linked above):
“With Messiaen, all is prayer,” wrote Charles Tournemire, an organ virtuoso who mentored the young composer at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1920s. Throughout his life, Messiaen practiced a mystic Catholicism where religious visions were not mere allegories but exuded spiritual power. He sensed and heard gifts from God everywhere: “In a present eternity, I glimpse infinite life unbounded by Time and Space.”
July 10, 2022
“Cannonade,” an excerpt from J20 and the Women’s March: Live in DC January 18-21, 2017, is part of a day-long radio broadcast on July 12 curated by Chris Cutler for Radio Art Zone.
June 24, 2022
On Monday, July 25 in Prague I’m opening for Miroslav Noe (solo gong) with a set of solo live electronics (field recordings, gossamer atmospherics, real-time software sabotage) and very miscellaneous percussion.
Audioego
Bořivojova 729 (two giant maple-colored doors with the blue reference number 114)
13000 Praha 3-Žižkov
7 pm – 9 pm
admission: free / optional donation
Presented and organized by Klub Na Kultura, CENSE.earth, Asociace MLOK, sonicity.cz, and Audioego.
June 10, 2022
Brief excerpts of my protest field recordings are part of a fascinating (and highly recommended) episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient on the sound of protest featuring sound artist Norman Long and composer and sound studies researcher Nimalan Yoganathan.
April 2, 2022
Rare Seattle performance! On April 15, guitarist Michael Nicolella performs grey angel for electric guitar and prerecorded sound (scroll to the bottom of this page for the score and sound) at Town Hall, 8 pm in a concert featuring Darius Jones with the Seattle Modern Orchestra.
March 29, 2022
Curated and hosted by Sam Sebren, the Nothing is Real Radio Hour features a nicely curated sampling of my work from field recordings to composition to live performance. Listen to the archived broadcast here.
February 25, 2022
I’ve been out in the woodshed (though in recent weeks it has felt more like a cellar): I’m finally finishing several research articles/analyses on Tony Conrad (“TC as Tactical Media”); Ruth Anderson (on “State of the Union” which expands the tribute I wrote for The Wire); Glenn Gould (a new take on his radiophonic masterpiece The Idea of North); and making sound maps of several films, including The Battle of Algiers.
Along with returning to modular synthesis, I have also been working on a new set-up for live performances that combines a run-of-the-mill laptop with custom-built (and sabotaged) electronics.
December 22, 2021
Fit the Description (Ferguson, August 9-13 2014) has been added to the Wavefarm Radio Archive with an insightful introduction by Joan Schuman, a magnificent radio artist.
November 1, 2021
On November 11 I will be a guest on As if… radio, a long-form radio show during COP26 in Glasgow October 31 to November 12.
“Live talk and recordings from Occupy Wall Street 2011-2012 (torso version) presents a collision of many ideas and experiences at Occupy protest in New York City. At once a revival and reckoning, this sound work recalls an important lineage of protest while casting current concerns with climate change and economic inequality into sharp relief.”
October 27, 2021
My essay, “Imperfect Sound Forever,” was published in the recent issue of Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture. No paywall here, read the pdf.
September 6, 2021
I’m thrilled to be a teaching a graduate seminar in Sound Studies at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. I have a fancy new bio page there!
August 18, 2021
Last year I was interviewed for a podcast series, PhonoDoc: The Art of Recording Real People and Situations, which is now available. I’m part of episode 4 but try the whole series.
Episode 4 covers new approaches to phonography and Pierre Yves Macé’s theoretic contribution to the understanding of documentary phonography (which I almost completely disagree with but I find fascinating nonetheless).
April 17, 2021
Since December I have been working on a long essay, “Imperfect Sound Forever,” which is slated to be published in the Summer issue of Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture.
January 2, 2021
In Berlin ohrenhoch, der Geräuschladen features a multi-speaker presentation of A Queer Dance Party, the DeploraBall, J20, and The Women’s March: Live in DC January 18-21, 2017 (installation version) on three Sundays, January 17, 24, and 31.
A Queer Dance Party, the DeploraBall, J20, and The Women’s March: Live in DC January 18-21, 2017 (installation version) collates multiple forms of sonic resistance immediately before, during, and after the Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump: front-line audio of blockades, chants, speeches, interviews, sound diaries, music, and marches large and small re-sound in tandem with broadcast detritus from fringe and mainstream outlets. Listeners might also detect denatured audio from social media posts and live-streamed video.
A recording is neither a “reduction” (Pisaro) nor “the story of a sound event” (Altman), but a text, a soundscape to be read by listening; and to crib from Attali, “Live in DC” can be heard perhaps as an inverted prophecy of the attempted coup in DC on January 6, 2021.
“Live in DC” is not a soundscape composition; there is scant, if any overt digital signal transformations beyond EQ (a mode of memory) and dynamic compression (a shaper of foregrounds and fields). Instead socially engaged microphones become, in the Partchian sense, corporeal and continue the radical extension of phonography that emerged in the 1990s in which field recordings embrace multiple fidelities, audio errors, frenetic intercutting, and guillotine edits while affirming the presence of the (or many) recordist(s).
Other hallmarks include one or more forms (e.g. stratigraphic, recombinant, parallax) of artificial and obvious polyphony of overlooked or unknown sounds, people, and ideas. Anyone in the middle of an uninterrupted polyglot YouTube playlist, or curates a well-curated Twitter feed, or is addicted to TikTok experiences something similar, visually and sonically.
December 3, 2020
I am so damn saddened by the passing of my friend and mentor Noah Creshevsky. We only met in person a few times – I will always treasure our lunch at Katz’s Deli – but for over a decade we regularly traded acres of emails about composing, teaching, and much more.
Noah’s music meant so much to me. I loved airing his work on my various radio shows, blasting it in my classrooms, and when I could, writing about it. In an ancient (now deleted, alas) review on Sequenza 21 of his magnificent album “The Four Seasons,” I wrote:
“Noah Creshevsky samples, yet instead of just looping he sculpts tiny, poetic fragments into a startling, often luscious palette of timbres and long-limbed melodies; a drum flam, a rising string orchestra scale, and three snippets of bird-like vocal vibratos can collide and caress at once.”
Noah believed in musical inclusion, connecting genres and eras as well as the live and the sampled. One of my favorite pieces, “Rounded with a Sleep” captures the verve and elan of the man and his music.
November 4, 2020
Although I received official word in July that my dissertation, “Activist Sound: Field Recording, Phonography, and Soundscapes of Protest” had “passed,” it didn’t feel real until this arrived in the mail:
July 21, 2020
One of my go-to journals, Imagined Theatres, has published my text-score 500 Icons in tandem with a gloss by Philip Auslander.
June 7, 2020
Too few Americans believe Black Lives Matter. After marching, it is time to do the work: Self-examination, historical research (even my lefty Catholic social justice high school U.S. History course had gaps), and advocacy, such as voting; pestering (and demanding) elected officials to enact tangible change; and further strategizing.
January 6, 2020
I’m performing live in London for The Field is not a Field Friday, January 17, 8 pm at Iklectik Art Lab. Details below!
“An evening of field recording based performance and experimentation with artists Yafeat Ziv, Christopher DeLaurenti, Hannah Dargavel-Leafe and Tom White. The night will feature a selection of unique and timely interventions on topics including site-specific performativity, environmental archives and listening with and beyond the human. This event is instigated by Mark Peter Wright.”
Friday 17 January
Iklectik Art Lab
Old Paradise Yard 20
Carlisle Lane (Royal Street corner) next to Archbishop’s Park
London SE1 7LG
doors 7.30 pm / start 8 pm
£6 adv / £8 at the door
December 23, 2019
I wrote a memorial essay for The Wire about one of my favorite composers, Ruth Anderson. A pioneer of electronic music, Ruth’s music was not only masterfully crafted and poetic, but also anticipated plunderphonics and lowercase sound.
You should also read a beautiful remembrance by her spouse and partner Annea Lockwood at New Music Box. The New York Times obituary is here (probably paywalled).
December 3, 2019 (updated with subaudible phonography playlist)
Commissioned by Wavefarm WGXC 90.7 FM “radio for open ears,” I created a radio program on Subaudible Phonography. Airing worldwide courtesy of Radia, a consortium of stations devoted to unusual and experimental radio, this program offers examples from my archive of unusual field recordings.
You can also listen to the pieces without my faux NPR-style narration:
September 15, 2019 (with update)
I’m performing live at the Muscarelle Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia as part of the exhibition “The Adjacent Possible.” The performance is free with two sets, one at 6 pm the other at 7 pm. See the Muscarelle event page for more information.
The first set is pay-what-you-wish at bandcamp:
March 28, 2019
I presented a few short pieces at the Peabody Computer Music Seminar yesterday!
January 22, 2019
Upcoming Performance: I’m performing with Laetitia Sonami and Bonnie Jones at The Red Room in Baltimore on Saturday, February 2 at 9 pm, $5-$10.
December 12, 2018
I spent much of this year researching and writing about Glenn Gould’s The Idea of North. I am hoping this essay will be published shortly online. Also, I’m slowly (too slowly) migrating to bandcamp:
March-December 2018
Completing my dissertation on the soundscape, field recording, and phonography with chapters on Glenn Gould, the soundscape of orchestra intermissions, and the sonics of nuclear power.
March 7, 2018 (with update)
Most of the film scoring projects I’m working on remain in progress and under wraps, however I’m pleased and proud to be sound mixing, scoring, and sound designing THERMAE.
A new, one minute episode of the 23 episode series was uploaded to Instagram here every Wednesday afternoon. Find a sample episode below or follow the episodes on Instagram:
January 15, 2018
For all of you who were marching last year, or wanted to march, and are marching this year on foot on wheels or in spirit, this 4 minute radio work encapsulates what I heard.
September 28, 2017
My essay, “The Acoustic Shadow,” will be published in Suyama Space 1998-2017, a book commemorating Seattle’s famed site for adventurous installations. Details of the book release party in Seattle on October 15:
July 19, 2017
I’m proud to be part of an amazing compilation, Re-cor, published by the Barcelona-based label Earwitness, which strives to publish documentary phonographies that address human relations through sound and listening.
The album includes Do I fit the profile of a criminal? (for Trayvon Martin) which you can also listen to and download here.
Rooted in the word “record”, composed of the prefix re (again, backward movement) and the Latin root cor (heart) meaning “moving back to the heart,” Re-cor features field recordings by Hannan Benamar, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Claudio Curciotti, Daniel Goldaracena, Patrick Hartono, Jay-Dea Lopez, Martin Kay, Jacob Kierkegaard, Hein Schoer, Eisuke Yanagisawa, and Yin Yi. Listen to excerpts here.
February 2, 2017
I’m part of a panel titled “Hostile Sounds” with some amazing artists: DJ PlayPlay, who shared an elegantly hypnotic piece using sounds from the LRAD; Tina Haver Currin, one of the masterminds of the Air Horn Orchestra; and veteran filmmaker and activist Rodrigo Dorfman, whose work has been on the BBC and the PBS documentary series POV.
I’m teaching classes and doing studio visits while serving as a Visiting Artist at Duke, but I have had time to snap a photo of a venerable (and still operating!) Steenbeck editor:
January 10, 2017
I created a surround sound version of Fit the Description for Soundings: Protest | Politics | Dissent, an exhibit at the Power Plant Gallery at Duke University featuring a slew of local, national and international artists.
Unusually (and amazingly!) the gallery has provided three ways to listen to the works. I will be a Visiting Artist at Duke in early February – details to come!
December 6, 2016
Here’s a short video featuring my computer music class building (and playing!) a primitive synth!
October 1, 2016
New piece! Diapason Burst is part of Sensing Electromagnetics, a CD & bandcamp compilation of electromagnetic recordings, released by the Slovakian label LOM. The soundcloud file is temporary, at least until bandcamp produces WordPress-compliant shortcodes!
Diapason Burst was recorded with the microphones of an Elektrosluch 3+ swaying and circling as pendulums over an assortment of dead and dying equipment: a Dell laptop, an Aiwa AM-F70 minidisc, a 2008 iMac, and a U-Create music module.
August 3, 2016
I have a chapter in the book Environmental Sound Artists just published by Oxford University Press!
This book includes chapters by Andrea Polli, Bernie Krause, David Dunn, Leah Barclay, Cheryl E. Leonard, Zimoun, and many others who integrate listening and the soundscape into their work.
It’s also available in hardcover – I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know if there is a dust jacket or it has a “print on” binding. The softcover edition has glossy paper and b&w photos and illustrations. There’s also an ebook edition at the usual sites.
April 6, 2016
My tribute to Jed Speare is in the latest issue of New Music Box. I’m grateful for the chance to honor an artist whose work meant so much to me and paved the way for what I do. The photo of Jed to the right, taken by Kristophe Diaz, shows him playing a laptop and not one but TWO reel to reel tape decks.
Here is a brief sonic tribute; recorded (by accident!) just a few weeks ago, this is one of my favorite field recordings:
February 26, 2016
This year’s iteration of radioCona will air Fit the Description and To the Cooling Tower, Satsop on March 1 and March 2 respectively on 88.8 FM. Starting at 6:16 pm (GMT+1), the live stream is here and will include sound works by Jacob Kirkegaard, Anne Raimondo, Gilles Aubry, Anna Friz, Chantal Dumas, and many other amazing artists. CONA champions contemporary art in Slovenia, so I’m happy to be part of the program and grateful to curators Elena Biserna and Eric Leonardson.
January 29, 2016
Sound Effect, a radio show and podcast on KPLU 88.5 FM, interviewed me about my album To the Cooling Tower, Satsop (released last year on GD Stereo) as part of their Underground episode.
The disc was also reviewed in The Sound Projector (“…savouring its strange sounds and reverberations… A superb release.” Additional reviews have appeared in Vital Weekly, (“an excellent piece of music. Very spacious, in the most literal sense of the word. A nice letterpress package finishes of this great release.”) Just Outside, (“fine, immersive work”) and in monk mink pink punk (“…huge clouds of reverb… We have always lived in the tower.”)
November 3, 2015
Earlid, a gathering place for adventurous sound and exploratory listeners, features Fit the Description (Ferguson, 9-13 August 2014) in tandem with an essay written by curator and extraordinary audio artist Joan Schuman along with an interview with me about the project.
October 12, 2015
Graveside Reflections, an intimate single channel installation, will debut at Transitory Identifications, an exhibition at the Linda Matney Gallery in Williamsburg, Virginia. The piece, a personal and sometimes amusing exploration of ancestry and death, runs from October 17 to December 14. See here for hours and other details.
September 15, 2015
Fit the Description (Ferguson, 9-13 August 2014) will be part of the Helicotrema Festival on September 27 in Venice. I’m honored to be included among such an amazing and multifarious group of artists.
Day Ripper which had to be excluded from the Fair Use Music album due to a skittish duplicator will debut at the ElectroAcoustic Barn Dance on October 2 in Pollard Hall.
August 13, 2015 (updated August 20)
Fit the Description (Ferguson, 9-13 August 2014) aired on Soundproof as a downloadable podcast here as well as on Friday, August 14 at 9 pm and Sunday, August 16 at 8 pm (all times AEST). Here’s a guide to tuning in or listen below:
Fit the Description collates multiple video feeds, tweets, periscopes, instragrams, and vines from August 9 and subsequent nights in Ferguson, Missouri. While many radio and television reports packaged the subsequent events in Ferguson with a pornographic fixation on looting and property damage, skeptical viewers had to go on-line and piece together a mosaic of video and social media reports for a true sense of what people there were thinking, feeling, saying, and doing.
You will hear events in Ferguson from multiple and occasionally contradictory viewpoints. Grief, shock, and anger mingle with exuberant defiance, astute observations, fear, steely resistance, and wisdom.
Fit the Description was commissioned by the Creative Audio Unit of Australia’s Radio National for Soundproof, a weekly radio show devoted to soundscape composition and other audio arts. I am grateful to presenter Miyuki Jokiranta and executive producer Julie Shapiro for their amazing advice and ideas.
May 15, 2015
new album! To the Cooling Tower, Satsop is the second compact disc in the Improvisational Architecture Series from NY-based label GD Stereo.
The disc documents my journey beneath an aborted nuclear power station. No flashlights, just my ears guided me through a subterranean tunnel where sounds echo, reverberate, and smear. Here’s an excerpt:
Of To the Cooling Tower Frans de Waard of Vital Weekly writes, “……There is a fine build-up in this piece, which works very well. No doubt an untreated recording – or perhaps with some excellent fades throughout more source material, but otherwise an untreated sound recording. A fascinating trip for DeLaurenti, no doubt there, but it’s also, as an outsider, a listener, an excellent piece of music. Very spacious, in the most literal sense of the word. A nice letterpress package finishes of this great release. Take it outside and do a playback in an empty hall.”
Packaged in a handsome tactile sleeve by Middlepress (see below) showcasing an elegant drawing by Robert Lansden, who also took the profile photos below.
The CD is available here from Pogus Productions.
April 24, 2015
I’m wrapping a year of teaching at the College William & Mary and working on a piece for the Australian Broadcasting Company. Coming soon, the CD of To the Cooling Tower, Satsop.
April 8, 2015
ohrenhoch der Geräuschladen, a Berlin gallery devoted to sound and listening, premieres Atmen Zwischen Linien (für Eric Garner) (“Breathe Between the Lines (for Eric Garner)”) as part of their Sound Activism program on Sunday, April 12 and Sunday April 19 in a continuous loop from 2 pm to 9 pm. Admission is free; find the gallery at Weichselstrasse 49 in Berlin-Neukölln.
April 3, 2015
Upcoming compact disc release! To the Cooling Tower, Satsop is a solo 45 minute exploration and improvisation in a tunnel beneath an aborted nuclear power station.
Most of the giant, duct-like passageway is a perfect tube, yet random debris, pools of water, boxy alcoves, turns, and the occasional vestibule enrich a soundscape where sounds near and far reverberate and smear. Echo coagulates into a palpable essence. Set for release on May 15, this album is the second in a series devoted to improvisational architecture by GD Stereo.
February 12, 2015
Earlid, a new curated site devoted to adventurous sound and listening, unveils the complete Silences Normalized From The Complete Organ Works Of Olivier Messiaen Disc 2 along with works by Daniella Cascella and one of my long-standing idols (since I heard her work on MusicWorks disc 59) Kathy Kennedy. I culled Silences… from a single disc found in one of the many collections of organ works by the renowned French composer; only Earlid has the complete version.
January 10, 2015
On Friday, January 16, I join the New England Phonographers Union for a short set to close the Hearing Landscape Critically conference at Harvard University. The performance is free, 8 pm, at Paine Hall on the Harvard campus; for a map check this pdf and find the venue in the upper left corner.
Septermber 14, 2014
The complete version of Silences normalized from the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen (Disc 2) will debut September 21 at the Helicotrema Festival in Milan. I answered a few questions for their program notes. Here’s an excerpt:
Septermber 7, 2014
Soundproof, a weekly radio show devoted to soundscape composition and other audio arts on Australia’s Radio National, commissioned a new version of N30: Who guards the Guardians? – a radiophonic document of police and other law enforcement transmissions captured during the protest against the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Seattle on November 30, 1999. The image at left is a rubber bullet collected at N30 compared to an average index finger. Listen and/or download.
April 21, 2014
New found soundscape:
Below the written pitches of Brian Ferneyhough’s Superscriptio for solo piccolo 
April 7, 2014
The Wire published my essay (with sound clips) Towards Activist Sound. The bibliography links to several seminal writings on phonography, field recording, and the soundscape by R. Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, ultra-red, and other favorites!
February 26, 2014
I’m honored to help celebrate Fair Use Week announcing the summer release by Alterity 101 of
No Sound Is Stolen: Fair Use Music 1983-2013.
This retrospective of my music made from other music includes an early (1983) work for two turntables, the return of the out-of-print Three Camels for Orchestra and Sylvian’s Wood, and many unreleased pieces, including Thrill (wedding version) and Ahmad & Miles.
The duplicator compelled us to remove one of the tracks but the album includes a download code to get the censored piece. This preview below has a good chunk of the album for listening and downloading:
January 1, 2014 – Summary of 2013
Thrill: A Love Song at the Andrews Gallery, College of William & Mary, January 17-31
Remote at Franklin Street Works, Stamford, Connecticut, January 24-March 24
Live at Occupy Wall Street N15 M1 S17 at the Megapolis Audio Art Festival, New York, April 19-21
Lecture, “Sound Art, Negative Space, and the Non-Site,” Western Washington University, April 22
Thrill: A Love Song at the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival, April 24-28
of silences intemporally sung at the Spor Festival, Aarhus, Denmark, May 9-12
Paper presentation, “Praxis and Protest Symphonies,” Sound Diaries Symposium at Oxford Brookes University, June 3
Four Protest Symphonies at the Urban Ranch Project, June 15-23
Interviewed about field recordings and Activist Sound by Ear Room, August 6
Live performance at the Third Practice Festival, Richmond, Virginia, November 2
Live at Occupy Wall Street N15 M1 S17 (excerpt) at “Resonances Music, Affect and the City,” Berlin, November 7
Paper presentation, “Collectively Improvised Soundscapes,” Symposium of Acoustic Ecology, University of Kent, November 9
Paper presentation & Artist Talk, “Roots of Activist Sound,” at SFMA Intonarumori with Hearing Modernity at Harvard, November 18
Thrill at the Last Friday Listening Room concert series, UCSD, November 22
Live performance at the Andrea Clearfield Salon, Philadelphia, November 24
The release of Phonopolis: Urban Field Recordings vol. 1 on Masters Chemical Society, December 1
excerpts from Phonopolis, vol. 1
More releases coming up in 2014: the fabled Seattle Phonographers Union LP (Prefecture Records); Fair Use Music 1983-2013 (in the proofing stage, from Alterity 101); To the Cooling Tower (GD Stereo, which released my Favorite Intermissions album) ; and another SPU release (our first performance and our live sets heard on KUOW in Seattle) from banned production.
December 1, 2013
Here’s what I’m working on for 2014: A surround-sound eight channel installation version of Live at Occupy Wall Street N15 M1 S17; the first installment of my Tunneling series, To the Cooling Tower, an exploration of underground tunnels at a shuttered nuclear power plant; and, (fingers crossed) live documentation of my 2012 performance at the Whitney Biennial.
Last month I performed at the Third Practice Festival in Richmond, Virginia; check out my complete live performance on soundcloud:
Finally released: Phonopolis: Urban Field Recordings vol. 1 is out on Masters Chemical Society along with albums by Matt Shoemaker and Nerve Net Noise.
November 19, 2013
On Sunday, November 24 at 7 pm I’m pleased to offer a short solo performance at the famed Andrea Clearfield Salon in Philadelphia!
At Noon Friday November 22, Thrill will be part of the Last Friday Listening Room series of concerts at UCSD; also on the program John Oliver, Hans Tutschku, Jef Chippewa, and more!
November 15, 2013
On Monday November 18, I’m giving a free artist talk/demo in Boston on “Phonography and Protest” at Intonarumori, a School of the Museum of Fine Arts series in collaboration with Harvard’s Hearing Modernity seminar. Catch me from 12:30-2 pm in the East Seminar Room (which is right next to the Alfond Auditorium) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
November 5, 2013
Last weekend, I played a short set at the Third Practice Festival in Richmond, Va; you can listen to the performance here or at the live section of my site.
October 25, 2013
I have a busy November ahead, including solo performances at the Third Practice Festival at 2 pm Nov 2 in Richmond, Va; a Noontime lecture/performance Nov 18 at SMFA’s Intonarumori, a series in tandem with Harvard’s Hearing Modernity seminar; and a solo performance at the famed Andrea Clearfield Salon Sunday, Nov 24 in Philadelphia!
And I’m told by Timm at Masters Chemical Society that the long-promised album Phonopolis: Urban Field Recordings vol. 1 is back from duplicator and will be out in a few weeks.
August 27, 2013
Earlier this month I was interviewed by one of my favorite blogs, Ear Room. Topics include the politics of sound, recording at protests & demonstrations, and my futile beginnings making field recordings.
After a bit of travelling and recording in some acoustically unusual places, I’m back home teaching Computer Music & Electroacoustics as well as Composition & Sound Art at the College of William & Mary.
I’m also working on piece for string quartet & electronics with the criminally dull working title of “kind of a string quartet.”
Later this year I’m performing and presenting in Boston and Philadelphia (details coming soon).
June 1, 2013
I’m speaking as part of the Sound Diaries Symposium at Oxford Brookes University on June 3! For the opening panel, “Social Relations Explored Through Sonic Praxis,” I’ll discuss my protest symphonies.
May 4, 2013
Of silences intemporally sung will be part of the Spor Festival of sound art in Aarhus, Denmark (May 9-12) on a program with its originating work, Luigi Nono’s landmark quartet, Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima.
April 24, 2013
My installation Thrill: A Love Song will have its West Coast debut at the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival – click on BEAF schedule for information – this weekend
April 21, 2013
I just returned from the performing the 4 channel quadraphonic version of Live at Occupy Wall Street N15 M01 S17 at the Megapolis Audio Art Festival in New York. Time to take a breath!
March 22, 2013
I’m performing and participating in the Megapolis Audio Art Festival in New York, April 19-21. I will debut Live at Occupy Wall Street (still a provisional title, sorry!). Of silences intemporally sung will be part of the Spor Festival of sound art in Aarhus, Denmark (May 9-12) on a program with its originating work, Luigi Nono’s landmark quartet, Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima.
Summer means new albums: Phonopolis: Urban Field Recordings vol. 1 will be released by Masters Chemical Society sometime in the summer.
Lastly, I hope to have news very soon about the West Coast debut of Thrill: A Love Song.
February 28, 2013
I’m finishing Live at Occupy Wall Street (provisional title) which will debut at festivals in Richmond and New York later this Spring. Look for Fair Use Music 1983-2013, a collection of music made from recordings of other music sometime in the summer.
February 8, 2013
My sound work Remote is part of the exhibition “Your Content Will Return Shortly,” which explores how contemporary artists harness the in-between moments of our television experiences. Curated by Terri C. Smith, the exhibition is on view from January 24 – March 24, 2013, at Franklin Street Works in Stamford, Connecticut.
Thrill: A Love Song is now closed, but the College of William & Mary produced an elegant short documentary about the installation.
January 17, 2013
My installation Thrill: A Love Song is running at the Andrews Gallery at the College of William & Mary. Showcasing an unsettling yet seductive version of “You’re My Thrill” sung by four singers – Josephine Howell, Kelley Johnson, Dawn Clement, and Greta Matassa – the installation runs January 17-31, 2013 Monday through Friday 10 am-5 pm.
January 5, 2013
I have several releases slated for 2013, including Phonopolis: Urban Field Recordings volume 1 (Masters Chemical Society), a retrospective of sampling/sound collage/plunderphonic pieces, No Sound Is Stolen: Fair Use Music 1983-2013 (Alterity 101), and a live EP by the Seattle Phonographers Union slated for banned production. Also in the works: a sequel to Favorite Intermissions, Intermissions at the Opera.
December 3, 2012
Favorite Intermissions is part of the exhibition Sounds Like Silence at the Hartware MedienKunstVerein in Dortmund, Germany, along with many works which explore forms of silence by John Cage, People Like Us, Bruce Nauman, and many others. The exhibition has an accompanying, eponymous CD and a short guide in English (pdf).
November 10, 2012
I contributed Live at Occupy Wall Street, May Day 2012 to “Ethnology of Crisis,” a month-long exhibition at Brandon LaBelle’s errant bodies space in Berlin which ran November 12-30. This work is one section of a larger work to debut late Spring 2013.
My work appeared in tandem with When we make sounds about something we believe in, who listens? by Ylva Bentancor with Gustavo Bentacor and Mike Majkowski; Jeremy Woodruff’s Can we re-tune the economy with sound?; and participants from the graduate seminar collaborate on “Sights and Sounds of the Crisis.”
October 22, 2012
I resonated smoke alarm chirps, slurring glockenspiels, wind, and rain through metallic surfaces for molting, a moody piece for choreographer Joan Gavaler, who premieres the work at Dancevent (Oct 25-27 at the College of William & Mary).
September 25, 2012
Two of my pieces are on new compilations! An excerpt of SF Variations appears on Sounds Like Silence, a catalog of silences released by Gruenrekorder. Also, part 1 of Silences normalized from the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen is on El Peligro Rojo, a 3-inch CD as well as a free download, from Mute Sound.
August 28, 2012
Follow me on twitter – once a day I post something interesting to read or hear.
August 2, 2012
I have several albums in the works including Phonopolis: Urban Field Recordings, vol. 1, a sequel to Favorite Intermissions, Intermissions at the Opera (provisional title), and an as yet not-titled Moog record excavating pieces I made in the late 70s (when I was barely a teenager) and combining them with works made recently and in the 80s.
July 26, 2012
Since spring of 2011 I’ve been bidding farewell to my oddball collection of instruments through donations, gifts, and unexpected manifestations. Take a listen to my proposed SoundCloud Fellowship application to help me continue the process!
July 6, 2012
I’m currently cooking up new projects, mainly making pieces for an upcoming album and creating objects for installations & an exhibition or two.
July 1, 2012
Tomorrow, I begin teaching an experimental music class at the College of William & Mary! On the docket: various forms of sound synthesis and field recording along with EVP, vocoding, aural illusions, and more.
June 30, 2012
I performed in New York at The Invisible Dog (51 Bergen Street in Brooklyn) in collaboration with video artist Chika Iijima. Audio coming soon!
May 3, 2012
I presented Wallingford Food Bank on May 2 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York as part of A Survey is a Process of Listening, a 2012 Whitney Biennial residency organized by Arika.
March 14, 2012
My article “The flap-o-phone, a site-specific turntable” will appear in the next issue of eContact! along with revised instructions (with photos!) for the flap-o-phone. If you need revised directions now, contact me.
March 8, 2012
Cyclic Defrost reviewed my album Perforate Silence, which you can stream or download free from Spectropol.
March 7, 2012
I just finished a short piece, “Hymn Tone (to the memory of Maryanne Amacher),” for a pledge premium compact disc for Miniature Minotaurs on WFMU. I can’t wait to hear the entire disc as it has tracks by a slew of compelling sound artists including Bonnie Jones, Jon Rose, Nate Wooley, and Olivia Block.
March 2, 2012
This site has been completely revised and revamped with more for the ears and eyes. I checked my archive and this is my first site overhaul since 1998 (gasp!). It was long overdue. Let me know what you think!