Unravelling the electrosonic tapestry: six contemporary threads of electroacoustic music in Ireland

Musicologist BARBARA JILLIAN DIGNAM explores the current trends in electroacoustic composition in Ireland. 

The performance poet Jemima Foxtrot recently declared that ‘power comes from celebrating difference’.[i] Never has a truer word been uttered when it comes to speaking of electroacoustic music in Ireland. In recognition of the fact that ‘electroacoustic’ as a contested term can connote very different things – or nothing at all – at any given moment, this article actively chooses to use it in its broadest sense, to mean any art work that employs elements of the electric and the acoustic in a concrete or obscure way. It is also cognisant of the fact that it clearly omits many creative strands that contribute to the vibrant texture of the current electroacoustic music scene in Ireland. It is simply a snapshot in time, a representative sample of six diverse compositional threads, and it is hoped that it will see the beginning of a wider consideration of the rich musical dialogues that are taking place.

Whilst each composer produces vastly different electroacoustic works, connections appear on closer inspection. Softday are unique in their approach to applying a creative turn to seemingly non-musical data. They do however share similarities with Jennifer Walshe in that both apply compositional tools that derive from Dada (currently celebrating its centenary), Fluxus and Situationism, but neither are they defined by these movements, and both engage with critical issues of contemporary society in theatrically-driven ways. Like Softday, Karen Power and Linda Buckley pay particular attention to the natural environment around us, however their treatment of found sound and their compositional approaches to acoustic and synthetic materials are comparatively different. Fergal Dowling has become synonymous with live electronic music and the creative work of Dublin Sound Lab, but he does share a similar desire for rigorous testing and perfection of processes to Jonathan Nangle. Dowling’s approach may even be considered incomparable given his steadfastness in designing one particular MaxMSP patch and Nangle somewhat bookends the group with his exploration of the art-science dichotomy.

In consolidating these composers in this manner, this article in no way attempts to wholly define any of these compositional voices which, in some cases, defy conventional musicological definition owing to their diverse output and multi-faceted approach.[ii]

 

‘Our territory is definitely in that exploration around a changing aesthetic’ — Softday

At present, Softday (Sean Taylor and Mikael Fernström) are content with being referred to as ‘Climate Change Artists’. Their organic approach to listening to the world, sound practice and the creation of art works through social engagement methods illustrates their interest in ‘the aesthetic of the amateur’ and co-authorship. This has led them to establish their own scratch orchestras and ensembles consisting of professional and amateur musicians. In involving local communities of practice in the exchange of lay and expert knowledge during both the research and music-making processes in projects such as Amhrán na mBeach (Song of the Bees, 2010-2013), Marbh Chrios (Dead Zone, 2010/2011), and in their current research analysing pollution in the Chicago river (expected 2018-2019) and environmental damage in the West Bank, Gaza, their works pose social engagement questions directly to their audience but in a more accessible and evocative manner with one-off performances generally take place on site: ‘We like contestation because it allows us to talk to both sides of the question’. They see their work as paying homage to Dada and Fluxus movements and their ‘creative soundwalks’ clearly exhibit the influence of Guy Debord’s theory of the ‘dérive’, psychogeographical effects and Situationism, where their mantra is: ‘Every real sound you hear in the world is unique. It only happens once’.[iii] Two examples of this are Sonic Sidewalks (2010) and their annual Acouscenic Listening Intensive. Now in its third year, the one-day Acouscenic Listening Intensive sees Softday and a small number of participants exploring and actively interacting with ‘the study of listening, creative soundwalking and the mindful meditative practices of Tai Chi and Qigong’. As Fernström explains:

‘We sometimes discover different ways of listening to the world … you could say it’s quite elitist but we are trying to pioneer the whole field of listening to the world in a different way, to pay attention to what we hear rather than it just being background noise …’

For Sonic Sidewalks, Softday established the ‘Softday Mobile Philharmonic project’ in association with the social art project SpiritStore and EVA International, Ireland's Biennial of Contemporary Art in Limerick. The concept behind this work was to produce a one-off Soundscape encompassing sonic characteristics of the Limerick city landscape as they occurred in real-time on a given Summer’s day, utilising low-cost mobile technologies and open source software. Members of the public attended a workshop with Taylor and Fernström and an explicit soundwalk route was devised and followed, beginning and concluding at French’s café with stop-off points such as the Farmer’s Market, John’s Square and Colbert train station. Material was recorded along the route and fashioned into a public performance piece using mobile phones as instruments of playback, thereby recontextualising both the discrete sonic content and the communicative purpose of the mobile devices themselves.

Softday, Sonic Sidewalks

 

Complex sound art performances combine field recordings, controlled improvisation, structured pieces of music (electronic and acoustic) and the sonification of scientific data utilising a variety of methodologies such as audification. In Amhrán na mBeach, Softday explore issues such as Colony Collapse Disorder, the dependence of plants and animals on bees, and the commodification and urbanisation of bees by humans in collaboration with the Monks of Glenstal Abbey and beekeepers from Ireland and abroad. Sonic material was collected through field recordings taken at a number of locations throughout Ireland and scientific data was assembled and sonified:

‘We built a special frame for recording sounds inside a hive structure. Specially selected electret microphone capsules were inserted in the corners of the frame. With two microphone frames inserted, we get an 8-channel recording from a hive’.[iv]

Beekeepers were trained in gathering materials and performing as laptop musicians in the ‘Apiary Ensemble’ and a SamplePlayer constructed in PureData enabled interactivity with the sonic materials during performance (field recordings, acoustic content and electronically-generated content) using graphic scores as guides. Moments of controlled improvisation were built in to the performance in Glenstal Abbey:

The choreography is worked out collectively … everything about the piece in Glenstal was highly choreographed – everybody knew their cues which we had worked out with them in rehearsals.

 

The Softday Apiary Ensemble, Irish Chamber Orchestra and Monks of Glenstal Abbey, April 2013. Photographs by Robert Corrigan and Frank O’Shea

 

Watch an extract from Amhrán na mBeach performance here

Their current project intends to engage with a number of communities of interest in Chicago, to sonify pollution data garnered from the Chicago river. They plan to collect data from the local community using specially-designed kits and sonify the results in conjunction with other research findings.

 

‘The body, for me, is not a kind of abstract, conceptual thing. It’s a very concrete, physical phenomenon’ – Jennifer Walshe

Sound is central to Walshe’s compositional language, even when it is not immediately apparent or is deliberately conceptual. When she considers changes in stage lighting, an opera character’s costume, the text or graphic in a score, or the objects selected for performers, everything for her has a sonic gesture. Walshe’s approach to composition encompasses periods of deep research into heterogeneous sonic and conceptual domains before deliberately juxtaposing apparently disparate materials that would not normally be found together in seeking out relationships and connections for creative exploitation. No sound is prohibited and Walshe is particularly drawn to those that are not considered sonically beautiful in a conventional sense, a scrubbing brush on wet tiles or the crunch of porridge in a plastic bag for instance.

Her latest project commissioned by the Arditti Quartet, Everything is Important (2015-2016) for voice, string quartet, video and tape, illustrates this approach where she researched anti-facial recognition makeup and Korean beauty masks, stockpiled texts on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to object-oriented ontologies to climate change in addition to sourcing content from scientific databases and YouTube clips, making field recordings, generating electronic sounds and recording stringed instruments, coupled with producing video content and performance materials for the string quartet and her vocal part, and taking dance classes for a one-minute choreographed segment in the work.

She recently proposed ‘The New Discipline’, a compositional approach around the concept of the ‘auteur’:

“The New Discipline” is a term I’ve adopted over the last year. The term functions as a way for me to connect compositions which have a wide range of disparate interests but all share the common concern of being rooted in the physical, theatrical and visual, as well as musical; pieces which often invoke the extra-musical, which activate the non-cochlear. In performance, these are works in which the ear, the eye and the brain are expected to be active and engaged. Works in which we understand that there are people on the stage, and that these people are/have bodies.[v]

Taking her cue from Robert Ashley, his TV operas for instance, she seeks out the unification of music and text by writing and setting the material herself. Walshe also directs, performs and trains others in the presentation of her work. This practice is evident not only in opera writing, XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!! (2003) and Die Taktik (2012) for instance, but also in her exploration of various personae (all ‘slivers’ of herself) in works such as The Total Mountain (voice and film, 2014), an energetic performance piece underscored with serious questions about social media and communications technology which she has performed eighteen times since its composition, including at the Music Current festival in 2016.

Watch a brief excerpt from The Total Mountain performed by Jennifer Walshe and read notes on the work commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2014

 

Other examples include various output by the ‘Grúpat’ art collective (2007-), a series of alter egos assumed by Walshe such as the outsider artist Violetta Mahon; the sculptor, sound artist and musician, Turf Boon; and the installation artist Helen O’Brien, known as O’Brien Industries; and her collaborative intermedia works emanating from the ‘Aisteach project’, of which the Historical Documents of the Irish Avant Garde Vol.1: Dada (1921) (2012) is a fine example. Here, her consideration of identity, language, art and the larger question of ‘what does it mean to be Irish?’ are sonified through layers of drone-type textures with fragments of a Gaelic language intoned against a cacophonic grainy texture of acoustic and synthetic material.

Listen to a recording of the live performance by Jennifer Walshe of Historical Documents of the Irish Avant Garde Vol.1 (1921) here

 

Given that she sees all music as music theatre, it is unsurprising that visual content, physical movement and theatricality are significant in her output. Walshe’s chamber opera Die Taktik, centres on the notion of games in everyday life, from a sporting game like tennis to the more impactful one of evolution. This multi-narrative work is itself a type of game where Walshe invites the audience to determine patterns of information within the musical and theatrical structure of the work in real-time. The opera is structured in 21 scenes, each with its own set of vocal and instrumental lexicons, movement directions (including dance) and video game footage. No conventional libretto is applied and singers have very little text to perform. Instead, ten voiceovers played over speakers relay information about pattern recognition, sport, biology and quantum physics. Having been recorded by Walshe in and around Stuttgart, these produce a documentary effect. The chorus interacts with the audience creating a wholly immersive experience within the space. The score was produced in ‘shooting-script’ style for ease of reference as time signatures and tempi vary across parts at any one point in the work.

 

Extract from original score for Die Taktik illustrating 'shooting-script' style

 

‘For me, it’s always been about merging acoustic and electroacoustic’ — Karen Power

Working only with pre-recorded materials, Karen Power explores contexts of hearing, questioning how a musical space is transformed via the juxtaposition of natural and acoustic instrument sound, and how this changing context impacts the way we hear it and behave within it. Moreover, she is concerned with instrumentalists’ reactions to these juxtapositions, how they hear their instrument and view their playing in a different light. In exploring this, she has spent two years developing the ‘Aural Score’ and ‘Aural Part’ system for rehearsing and performing her works. Both function in similar ways to their conventional counterparts, the aural score providing open or very directed performance information, the aural part providing specific information on textures, rhythms, frequencies, etc. Performers are not expected to reproduce exactly what they hear in their individual aural parts, instead to interact with them, at times formulating a response to what they hear around them in a partially improvised manner. These ‘guided improvisations’ allows Power to maintain control as the composer, providing contextual support throughout the work.

The system was applied in veiled babble (2015/16) composed explicitly for Ensemble Mosaik. The work takes unheard sonic content collected from six chosen locations along the River Spree in Berlin and dialogically juxtaposes it with a large ensemble dispersed throughout the performance space, responding to and interacting with the aural score and each other within the musical environment being created in addition to recalling their overall approach to the work nearing its conclusion (Power’s ‘Memory of Hearing’ concept). The nine-piece ensemble is divided into three groups, each assigned a leader, with varying possibilities for staging provided depending on venues and performance contexts. In addition, five volunteers are required to operate iPods or smartphones at the beginning of the performance.

 

Division of ensemble for performance. Table adapted from original veiled babble score

GROUP 1	GROUP 2	GROUP 2
Piano	Percussion	Cello
Bass Oboe	Bass Flute	Bass Clarinet
Viola	Bass Saxophone	Violin

 

Power divides the piece into five segments for rehearsal purposes only. The performance should evolve seamlessly. 

Five rehearsal segments for veiled babble. Table adapted from original score

0′00″ – 4′00″	opening sounds; various degrees of water granulation from above and below the river
4′00″ – 9′00″	focus on low frequencies; based on different methods of transport recorded through the river
9′00″ – 16′00″	a series of hypnotic sea creatures eating and simply living through the river
16′00″ – 23′00″	water transport systems; from tourist to functioning ships and boats
23′00″ – 28′40″	lower transport frequencies; enhanced by the river and varying layers of running river water

 

A number of pitch/tonal centres are listed in the score: B, C#, D#, E, G, G#, A. Performers are free to choose the range and variation of these centres (e.g. B quarter flat) in conjunction with their aural part unless particular octave ranges are specified. The accompanying text for each aural part is detailed, outlining the structure of the five interwoven segments, important elements to note in the aural part, pitch restrictions, sonic phrasing, cluster chords, harmonics, and bowing sequences. Time is a crucial element in Power’s works and it is mapped out precisely in the score.

Listen to an extract of the premiere of veiled babble by Ensemble Mosaik here

  

Recording is fundamental to her compositional process and although she captures the sounds of a place or natural environment, Power’s approach is never to reconstruct them but to ‘recreate the energy and transform it into a musical sense’. Recent installation and concert works investigate sounds of everyday life that are inaudible to the naked ear, i.e., natural sounds existing beneath the surface. Given the ethereal and unknown nature of the Arctic, instruments of ice, loaded silence and sonic cradle (all 2015) tap into the unique sonic properties of ice. In particular, instruments of ice presents the listener with a cacophony of gestural activity across noise, nodal and pitched materials, including cracks, pops, granulations, pitched ice and swells of glacial material in direct conversation with acoustic instruments, all informed by Power’s memory of this seemingly silent and vast extreme environment.

Promotional video of instruments of ice including extracts from the premiere by Quiet Music Ensemble and Karen Power

 

once below (2015) captures the underground sounds of a disused war bunker under the Gesundbrunnen train station in Berlin. Setting these sounds in a double installation with the Kapelle der Versöhnung (Chapel of Reconciliation) above ground, Power considers how and why visitors behave in a certain way when they enter this domed-shaped space. Four musicians with varying degrees of improvisation experience become directly linked with the audience through their interaction with the sound material they hear within the space.

An extract of the premiere of once below at the MikroMusik Festival 2015, Berlin:

 

 ‘I’ve always been interested in that kind of cross-genre aesthetic … but it’s more of an openness or maybe an approach I would say …’ — Linda Buckley

Buckley employs found-sound and sounds from our natural environment in considering how such materials impact upon instrumental and vocal writing. Timbre is important and she is drawn to the causal ambiguity that can result from manipulating real and synthetic sound. Much of her current output does not engage with notation; instead, she is concentrating on generating a ‘seamless unity’ between her own voice and electronics which has resulted in a more immersive, liberating and personal experience for her.

Three recent cross-media collaborations with visual artists have fed into her interest in the physicality and visual aspects of music and its presentation. Changeling (2016), a collaborative piece between Buckley, director Laura Sheeran and dancer Stephanie Dufresne, centres on the story of Brigid Cleary, the last woman to be burned as a witch in Ireland (Clonmel, 1895) and explores the psychology behind the horrific human actions that can arise from hysteria, lack of knowledge and mythological beliefs. In ‘Fire Dance’, a slow-moving texture results from manipulated vocal content, slowly detuned and dismantled as if stretched. Certain frequencies are highlighted, creating clusters of tonal material in addition to subtle internal pulsations.

Listen to an extract of ‘Fire Dance’ from Changeling:

 

Another collaborative work, Passages (2016) sees Buckley co-writing with her sister Irene. In comparison with Changeling where the producers collaborated throughout the process, the soundtrack for Ailbhe Ní Bhriain’s film was composed independently in response to the concept of the project: ‘Passages represents the warmth of shared journeys, the mystery of night ships and the passing of time’.[vi]  Voice also features strongly here; the progression of atmospheric sound events is slow and textures are rich and immersive like a delicate fabric containing interwoven strands of sonic fibres. Much of the raw material for this piece stems from recordings of foghorns, wind, and the sea made by the Buckley sisters near their childhood home in the Old Head of Kinsale, manipulated and merged with synthetically-generated material. Vocal sounds morph into electronic material and back again in a seamless ‘interplay between the real and the synthetic, the acoustic and the electronic’. The soundtrack is not intended to synchronise with the visuals onscreen resulting in ‘very interesting meeting points which are different every time’.

Listen to an extract from the opening of Passages:

 

A Reflection of Light (2016) is a collaboration between Buckley and the artist Grace Weir centred on the story of ‘Let there be light’, a work by the Irish abstract painter Mainie Jellet currently hanging in the School of Physics at Trinity College Dublin. In this instance, although Buckley was given a very open brief in terms of content, the film was already completed therefore the visual image governed the musical content. Buckley’s subtle spectral music is well suited to the visual content of the film and she intended for it to be ‘a kind of an atmosphere or a tint to what is occurring in the visual’.

 

‘You could actually think of it as … the computer running a multi-player game and these instrumentalists, instead of using game controllers, they’re using sound … to interact with [it] and we’re watching them doing it’ — Fergal Dowling

Dowling has taken considerable time to research interaction and group interaction in perfecting the ‘Sketch’ MaxMSP patch that has become a salient component in his recent live electronic works. The process works like a simple chain function whereby sonic material generated by the acoustic instrument(s) is automatically recognised and captured by the computer, therefore acoustic articulations and dynamic inflections must be clearly sounded. As this process continues and further material is gathered, the onsets and/or terminations of sound events are used to trigger the playback of previously recorded sonic content. Successive recordings produce recurrences of earlier acoustic material layered with previous playback material (nothing is manipulated) and mapped onto real-time performance context, in essence, ‘the process uses extensive direct quotations of the actual performance to create sequential repetitions and layerings … like a spoiler in a movie’.[vii] Each recontextualised event introduces new meaning, allowing for greater interactivity and the generation of evolving associations between instrumentalists, computer operator, sonic material and contexts. In practice, this is a complex strategy and Dowling provides detailed performance, computer notation and system requirement guidelines in the score for each piece.

The aim with Stops VIII (piano and computer, 2014) and Spoils (Baroque ensemble and computer, 2016) has been to initiate a formal relationship between computer and performers where each voicing is afforded equal status within the work. Improvisation is imbedded, in that scored pitch material can be performed in any order using the suggested rhythm, performers and computer operator work through the various sections (what Dowling calls ‘cue groups’) without being confined to specific bars or timings (within reason), and decisions regarding recording (what and when) are made during the performance. ‘The computer cues define the relationship and interaction of the acoustic parts’ and in Stops VIII, the pianist needs to balance his/her dialogue with that of the recontextualised material.

 

Listen to a recording of Stops VIII here with David Bremner performing as solo pianist:

 

The five-movement Spoils is in Trio Sonata form and the application of Dowling’s process results in a series of interwoven lines of content that naturally expand in complexity as the number of triggered events increases.

Movement	Instrumentation
1 Unearths	multi-channel fixed media
2 Fleshes	ensemble and computer
3 Stones	ensemble and computer
4 Remains	surround sound and video
5 Grounds	ensemble and computer

 

In movement 2, ‘Fleshes’, Dowling’s intended dialogic design is clearly apparent with the triggered material at times chasing the acoustic instruments before entering into intense musical arguments with them, at other times seeming to envelope them before the musical interaction shifts focus and new material is introduced. Movement 3, ‘Stones’, begins with a more hurried musical statement from the acoustic ensemble. Note-off silences are pronounced in the early part of the movement, the result being that the computer’s triggered sound events are heard almost in entirety before the next acoustic statement is made. The final movement, ‘Grounds’, builds in complexity and intensity as it progresses. The recontextualised ‘spoils’ begin to destabilise the clarity of the acoustic material before the violins and cello initiate a final segment which juxtaposes their held notes with cluster chord interjections on harpsichord, building to a cacophony with the triggered sound events.

Listen to ‘Grounds’ from Spoils:

 

Images from the performance of Spoils, Smock Alley Theatre, April 2016. Photographs by Mihai Cucu

 

 

‘My go-to analogy is that idea of an object … a really elaborate object on a table … that’s your material but then you look at it from every direction’ — Jonathan Nangle

Nangle’s compositional style is characterised by a measured process, commencing with a limited range of carefully chosen materials that are then subtly varied and considered from different angles. This process filters through to his electronic output although the sonic result tends to be ‘far busier, louder, and impactful’ comprising more rhythmic detail and abrasive content, with his most recent works featuring heavy bass material. Although he frequently employs conventional notation, for example the majority of Pause (string quartet and video) for Crash Ensemble was notated, he is intuitively drawn towards a less restrictive sculptural approach, where he can mould malleable sonic content without being confined to the grid structure of bars and staves. The influences of visual art and science are apparent in his installation pieces, Triple Double Pendulums (2008), Trip the Light Fantastic (2011) and Breathe (2013) for example.

Trip the Light Fantastic was commissioned by the Contemporary Music Centre for Culture Night 2011. Watch an extract here:

 

Nangle’s encounter with the work of the American visual artist Dan Flavin at a retrospective of his work had a significant impact on him. It is interesting to note that whilst Flavin’s oeuvre focussed on light, colour and the transformation of space, there is a legitimate argument for considering them as sound sculptures, where geometric configurations of fluorescent lighting tubes produced variations of low frequency electrical hum textures alongside internal sonic gestures emanating from the ephemeral light fittings themselves. In untitled (after Dan Flavin) (2013), we clearly see the juncture where art, science, music and technology coalesce in Nangle’s compositional language. Layers of dialogues between sonic and visual content are structured in a semi-Theme and Variation form. Considering the work from a purely sonic perspective, internal dialogues ensue between hypnotic tonal material (containing processed cello) swelling and receding constantly in the background, pulsating phone interference and glitch content, and later, manipulated tam-tam generating a breath-like sound via convolution processing. Each of these musical conversations are bound up in a wider external dialogue with eight lighting tubes (two horizontal and six vertical resembling a square filled with vertical bars) controlled by a MaxMSP patch designed by Nangle. Although the timing of light changes is mathematically pre-programmed, the sensory result is natural.

 

Approximate Time	Brief Description of Thematic Content and Examples of Variations
0′00″	Main Thematic Content: music and light dialogue initiated hypnotic tonal material acting as grounding figure presented in a repetitive structure based on descending and ascending movement (e.g. patterns centred on minor third intervals between Db4 and Bb4, and between Ab4 and F4, at times including Db5); phone interference and glitch material introduced; Synchronous Blue light
1′21″	First visual ‘flash’ imprinting Blue square on visual memory
3′10″	Variation: entries more frequent; tonal material begins a pulsating figure highlighting top left and bottom right corners of the Blue geometric light sculpture; interference and glitch attacks initially more sporadic before building in intensity
3′54″	Variation: unexpected change in mood and colour with dramatic entry of Red light, signalling a more aggressive variation including chordal material morphing into feedback and the introduction of a percussive breath-like sound (tam-tam)
4′44″ to end	Variation: drawing the conversation to a close with both Red and Blue lights; interference and glitch material no longer included and do not return; percussive breath-like sound envelopes the sonic landscape as chordal and feedback material recede into background; piece fades to silence and black out

 

In keeping with a Flavinist aesthetic, Nangle selected one block colour (Blue), only introducing a second colour (Red) at a significant point in the narrative of the piece, and spent considerable time designing the configurations of lighting shapes so they would move synchronously with the gestural actions of the sonic content:

‘[I]n the dark, when those lights flash, you’re just left with the shapes burnt into your retinas … it actually obscures the entire frame that it’s on … you see the patterns very clearly mapped out in your eyes’.

Watch untitled (after Dan Flavin), commissioned by Dublin Sound Lab:

 

 

It is clear that the interweaving of sonic threads of electroacoustic music in Ireland are producing an expanding tapestry of varying textures, colours and forms. With the increase of D.I.Y. pop-up events, new intermedia festivals and improvisatory meetings, the growth of exploration into electroacoustic music in Ireland, or whatever it would like to be called, looks set to continue. To quote Mikael Fernström from Softday: ‘We’ve found a path – we know we’re on it – God knows where it will lead us’.