San Francisco
Tape Music Festival
7pm Saturday January 11, 2025
Combustible (2008)
7’03” Stereo
Intricate combinations of combustible materials (fuels, oxygen and ignitions) are brought into close proximity, sparking processes in the early phases of the piece that sputter and die out, leaving trails of heat and exhaust. The combinations become more efficient and volatile and begin to propel semi-stable processes that strive to connect and evolve. But after a few false steps this theater self-destructs, blowing itself to smithereens. Then nothing at all - an interlude in a void. But the vacuum gets penetrated and smashed then refilled and pulverized, only to make way for new combustible combinations and processes to flourish. This cycle continues forever, but we’re offered a glimpse through this 7-minute “viewport”.
Thom Blum composes electroacoustic music and, occasionally, installations. He has been residing, creating and playing in San Francisco since 1978. Recent musical activities include releases of two digital-only/online albums: Three Improvisitions (2022, Bandcamp) and House Music (2024, Bandcamp). Ongoing, at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco, he has created a multi-channel, musique concrète installation-instrument (aka “the instrullation”) and embedded it within the Library’s stacks. It provides visitors with a unique sonic perspective on the Library. On Sundays he often improvises, live, on the instrullation – sometimes with other guest artists – to suit the specific interests of those visitors who are roaming the stacks.
Soundtrack of Shadow Play (1969)
3’12” Stereo
In 1969 David Tudor arrived in Ahmedabad, India, in the state of Gurajat, for a three-month residency at the National Institute of Design (NID). According to a 2023 Pitchfork review of the compilation, “The NID Tapes: Electronic Music From India 1969-1972”, written by Joshua Minsoo Kim, during his residency Tudor had shipped from New York “a Dual Ring Modulator, a Bode Frequency Shifter, and tape machines, and he led workshops on the instrument.” During this Festival we will play selections from this compilation.
A filmmaker/composer, I.S. Mathur, was in and around NID during this period, and he was heavily influenced by the new music and technology that Tudor was introducing there. He sang the praises of Edgar Varèse and, again from the Pitchfork review above, Mathur’s brief piece, “... ‘Soundtrack of Shadow Play’ is an invigorating slab of musique concrète in the lineage of Varèse’s Poème électronique.”
Sketches (2025)
9’40” 20 Channels
Taking inspiration from classic pieces like Hugh Le Caine's Drispody and Pierre Henry's Variations pour une porte et un soupir, I have been wanting to compose a piece out of a single sound source. I recorded one of the most cliché sounds I could think of and manipulated it with a DAW and my own C++ code to create a handful of studies. Sketches is just a prototype of a future piece made out of these unrefined tests.
Reviled for his "shapeless sonic tinkering" by the Los Angeles Times, clarinetist, composer, improviser, and computer musician Matt Ingalls is the founder and Artistic Director of sfSound and the San Francisco Tape Music Collective. He received the Deuxième Prix, Lauréats des Puys (Catégorie Humour) in the 1994 Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges and was the first recipient of the ASCAP/SEAMUS Commission and Recording Prize. A professional software engineer, his audio tools Soundflower, MacCsound, and Aardvark Synth have been used widely throughout the world.
Naaion (2025)
7’04” Octophonic
A story of axonal infarct. As an axon’s connection to the brain, via the optic nerve, is severed, it experiences an ecstatic fall into isolated singularity, full of light and color.
Cliff Caruthers is a San Francisco-based sound designer and composer with over 300 theatre production credits, including Born with Teeth for Alley Theatre, Frankenstein for Guthrie Theater, Caucasian Chalk Circle for ACT, TRAGEDY: A Tragedy for Berkeley Rep, Sweat for Center Rep, Man in Love for KC Rep, and Fun Home for TheatreWorks, where he was Resident Sound Designer for seven years. He is co-curator of the SF Tape Music Festival, a proud member of United Scenic Artists, and teaches sound design at SFSU.
Dans l’air du soir (2019)
[In the Air of the Night]
10’04” Stereo
A small tribute for the 100th anniversary of the death of composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Thanks to François Couture (piano performance of excerpts from pieces by Debussy) and to the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) for its support. Dans l’air du soir was awarded an Honorable Mention at the 2019 international electroacoustic music competition Musica Nova (Prague, Czech Republic) and the 2nd prize at the 12th Prix collégien de musique contemporaine (2019-22) awarded by the Canadian Music Centre.
Gilles Gobeil has concentrated on the creation of acousmatic and mixed works since 1985. His compositions approach what is known as “cinéma pour l’oreille” (cinema for the ear); many of them are inspired by literary works and seek to “visualize” them through the medium of sound.
Winner of numerous prizes in Canada and abroad, Gobeil has been Composer-in-Residence at The Banff Centre, Bourges, EMS Stockholm, GRM, Hochschule Franz Liszt, PANaroma, ZKM and was Guest Composer of the DAAD’s Artists-in-Berlin Programme in 2008. He is a member of the Canadian Music Center and co-founder of Réseaux, dedicated to the production of Media Art events.
Piece of Paper (2011)
2’40” Stereo
Piece of Paper is one brief track on Amon Tobin’s 2011 album ISAM. An Acronym for "Invented Sound Applied to Music", ISAM was an experiment in synthesizing field recordings and transforming them into new physically playable instruments to create unique sound palettes. From Amon's own voice gender-modified to the sound a of a creaking chair mutated into a string ensemble, ISAM directs an academic approach in audio manipulation to a purely emotional musical context. This contrast is central to the album and represents a pivotal moment in Amon's personal musical development. Sound design techniques previously used in film, as pioneered by the likes of Ben Burt (Star Wars, Wall-E) were utilized alongside new ones that Tobin developed specifically for ISAM and applied in an unprecedented approach to music production.
Brazilian-born Amon Tobin first emerged between 1994-95 with a string of 12" singles on the small London-based record label 9Bar Records. He has since gone on to record seven critically-acclaimed albums under his own name on Ninja that have since helped define the label as a force in musical innovation and diversity. In addition, Amon has produced a small number of radically diverse original scores ranging from George Palfi's cult cinema oddity Taxidermia to Tom Clancy's video game blockbuster Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.
During the mid-90s and early 2000s he pushed the boundaries of found sound to the limits in acclaimed albums such as Bricolage (1997), Permutation (1998), Supermodified (2000), and evolved other compositional tactics in albums like Foley Room (2007) and ISAM (2011). The depth and scope of Amon Tobin's work have been a major inspiration to many. From the Kronos Quartet to Diplo, he achieved respect among artists within and outside electronic music. He established a reputation for musical ingenuity unconfined by genre, and for over two decades he has remained one of the most visionary electronic artists of his generation.
– Geeta Dayal
Phoné (1981)
12’33” Quadraphonic
The sounds in Phonē (from the Greek, meaning “sound” or “voice”) were produced using a special configuration of the frequency modulation (FM) synthesis technique that allows the composer to simulate a wide range of timbres including the singing voice and other strongly resonant sounds. The synthesis programs are designed to permit exploration of and control over the ambiguities that can arise in the perception and identification of sound sources. The interpolation between timbres and extension of “real” vocal timbres into registers that could not exist in the real world — such as a basso “profondissimo” — and the micro-structural control of sound that determines the perceptual fusion and segregation of spectral components are important points in this composition.
The composer developed this technique of FM synthesis of the singing voice at IRCAM, Paris in 1979 using a DEC PDP-10. He coded the piece in the SAIL (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) language at CCRMA in 1980 – 81, using the “Samson Box,” a real-time, highly optimized computer/processor designed by Peter Samson. It was premiered in the Grande Salle of the Centre Pompidou by IRCAM, as part of Pierre Boulez’s seminar Le Compositeur et l’Ordinateur from February 17– 21, 1981.
[From 9/28/2023 “John Chowning, composition” concert at Eastman School of Music]
John Chowning was born in Salem, NJ in 1934. He studied at Wittenberg University in Ohio, and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He received a doctorate in composition from Stanford University in 1966. In 1964, he set up Max Mathews’ Music IV at Stanford University's AI Lab. In 1967 he discovered FM synthesis, a very simple yet elegant way of creating time-varying spectra. Licensed by Stanford to Yamaha, FM synthesis led to a family of synthesizers (DX7) that became the most successful of all time. Until 1996 he taught at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).
Phloême (2024)
6’30” Stereo
Phloême – in connection with trees and their ways of creating water from condensate points....
We now know that trees exchange information with their environment. It is inside that the alchemy of the sap develops, resulting from photosynthesis. It circulates to the roots and carries the information necessary for the growth, protection, and vibration of the tree. Phloem is the area where this sap circulates. I suggest that we dive into it to taste its richness.
Julie Mondor is a composer, musician and teacher. She studied cello. She took a keen interest in contemporary creation, premiering works by Luc Ferrari, Jean-Luc Hervé, Thierry Blondeau, Pierre Alain Jaffrenou, James Giraudon and Coralie Fayolles. She obtained her diploma in electro-acoustic composition at the CRD de Pantin in 2016 under the direction of Christine Groult, Marco Marini and Jonathan Prager. She continues her training with Philippe Mion at the EMA in Vitry sur Seine. She attends master classes with Beatriz Ferreyra, Pali Meursault and Lee Patterson. In summer 2014, she was selected for a composition residency at the OMI Art Center (New York. USA), which brings together 10 selected composers from around the world.
Małgorzata Albińska-Frank & Charlotte Hug
Voices Found (2024)
5’03” Octophonic
A wild dance of never-before-heard voices buzzes around us. Where do the voices come from? What do they want to tell us? Voices from other worlds are speaking to us. They come from where day and night, past and future, before and after, merge. They fly, meet in laughter or sneak up on us quietly from behind. Their messages are mysterious, but the invisible beings have something to tell us, and their voices get under our skin. A resonance chamber and multiple relationships surround us; you are right in the middle!
Charlotte Hug and Małgorzata Albińska–Frank have worked together for a year. The work focuses on spatial interpretations of Charlotte Hug's compositions. Initially intended for stereo format, the piece is now creatively reworked for 3D audio or 5.1 surround format. The aim is to use the new playback options to discover the inner sound spatiality of the compositions and to transport the listener into the three-dimensional imaginary sound landscape.
The musical content should be touching and presented as closely and immersively as possible to stimulate the listener's imagination and encourage active listening.
Małgorzata Albińska – Frank is a Polish sound engineer and music producer. She works internationally in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Italy as a freelancer. Following her fascination with classical music, she specialized in recording and producing music from the Middle Ages to Contemporary Music. Room acoustics and its influence on the sound, colour and location of sound sources play a unique role in her productions. Since the very beginning of the idea of three-dimensional sound reproduction, she has been intensively involved in working with the 3D Audio format. One of the results is the spatially interpreted piece of Charlotte Hug’s Voices Found.
Swiss composer, performer, and visual artist Charlotte Hug is internationally known for her innovative musical/visual solo performances for voice & viola and her inter-medial compositions. She is a professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Science and Art/Music and has received many awards, including artist residencies in London, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, and Shanghai. She was a Civitella Ranieri Fellow and Artiste Étoile at the world-renowned Lucerne Festival. Charlotte Hug is fully active as a concert performer, soloist, improviser, composer, and conductor of her works at major festivals worldwide.
Stunned Night Redux (2024)
5’48” Stereo
It was a sleep that took me far and brought me back fresh and uncaring to a sound that echoed in the still-dark night. It was a cry that seemed to come from the planets themselves. It was ancient and very new. It was a sound I can only describe as red. I shivered. It was a mix of whale song and passenger pigeon cry: the sound of extinction.
- C Pam Zhang, The Land of Milk and Honey
Kristin Miltner is a composer and immersive sound designer based in the Bay Area, CA. She creates music with her custom software, which she has designed to scan sound files and live input, allowing her to instantly restructure a single sound into tessellating multidimensional fabrics of sounds. She applies this method to a wide variety of sonic endeavors, whether interactive and experiential sound design, game sound design, ensemble performance and improvisation, or her solo work. She studied with Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, and Pauline Oliveros at Mills College and released her debut solo album, “Grains”, in 2007 on Praemedia, following it with “Music for Dreaming and Playing” on the Asthmatic Kitty label. She has designed soundscapes for many games, and her endeavors at Spatial Inc (Emeryville, CA) has led to collaborations with artists and sound designers at Meow Wolf, National Geographic, and researchers at the Estuary and Ocean Science Center in Tiburon, CA building elaborate real-world immersive experiences.
Quantum (2020)
8’16” Stereo
Quantum is a deep, artistic exploration of the possibilities offered by sound design in the context of electronically mediated music composition. Quantum was realised by employing sound design techniques on a very narrow selection of initial sonic material, further manipulated to obtain all the sounds that can be heard in the composition, and which in turn compose sections recalling different music styles merging throughout the piece. Quantum explores sound design from two different perspectives: as an element of connection and cohesion common to every electronic music genre and, from a 'concrete music' perspective, as the smallest, atomic, discrete task which can be operated on a sound object.
Enrico Dorigatti is an experimental sound artist, composer, and creative technologist working across diverse formats such as audiovisual, music composition, and generative installations. Formerly a conservatory graduate (BA and MA in electroacoustic music composition), he is currently a PhD candidate in creative technologies at the University of Portsmouth (UK). His artistic and scholarly output has been presented internationally.
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