The Brakhage Center’s Experimental Radio Project published three of my tracks. They stream a growing selection of experimental electronic composers. You can listen here:
http://brakhagecenter.com/?page_id=83
Okay, it’s been a while. Since my last post (which was what, 10 months ago?) I have been to Japan and Burning Man with the Dawn of Man Productions, and done a lot of sound design, including an exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, for which there is now some excellent documentation. I’ve posted a video below.
On the horizon, I’m collaborating on a piece with choreographer Nathan Blackwell called [ABSURDUS]corpus, which happens Friday and Saturday, 1/18 and 1/19, 2013, in Boulder, CO. Get tickets here. I’ll post more about it when I finalize the material and get some recordings up.
While I’m in Colorado, I’ll also be teaching a workshop at the University of Denver on January 25th on using the XBee 802.15.4 wireless protocol to make your Arduino projects wireless! I have a POC video on this blog already (it’s the most popular post I have, thanks to the Lilypad XBee page) but I’ll probably have some documentation and/or a tutorial posted afterwards, if I can get it together. The workshop will tentatively also be shown on Skype.
Laleh Mehran, Men Of God, Men Of Nature, 2012
Denver Art Museum
Nathan Wheeler, sound design
Men of God, Men of Nature (documentation) from Laleh Mehran on Vimeo.
This piece was really fun. The room is acoustically very unorthodox – there are no parallel surfaces. This made for some excellent opportunities to explore acoustic reflections and interference patterns. As you walk around the space, sonic spectra are constantly shifting and highlighting different elements of the textures. I placed the subwoofer in the floor of the cube and it’s playing a constant 35hz. Given the treatment of the room, this is somewhat audible as you enter the space, and it has a very unsettling effect. The real effect comes when you enter the cube, though – due to acoustics, the low tone is heard inside the threshold of the cube, but it disappears immediately upon exiting. I had a great time working with Laleh and the staff at the DAM.
That’s it for now! More as it comes. Hopefully there will be more than 2 posts in 2013.
Well, there seems to be quite a lot on the horizon for me over the next month and a half. First off, I’m going to see Radiohead in Broomfield on March 12, which should be really exciting.
Then I’m going on a short tour, where I’ll be supporting Lulacruza, and I’ll play the Mission Creek Music Festival in Iowa City, opening for Tim Hecker, a brilliant ambient/electronic musician. Then I’m performing at my hometown Communikey Festival.
All in all, a very exciting and busy few weeks. I’ll try to take some pictures and post them, and I’ll definitely be posting more tracks and updating my Listen Page (which you should check out if you haven’t yet!) You can also visit my BandCamp for my digital releases.
I’m still working on my new website, but this is still it for now. Don’t worry, the URL will stay the same, but I plan on having a little less blog and a little more music. Much love!
On a recent trip back to Boulder, I had an opportunity to compose and record a number of new tracks while on tour with a crew of Communikey folks. The result of those sessions has taken the form of a 2-track digital release called “Memories of Atlantis.” It can be downloaded and/or purchased from my BandCamp site.
In other news, I’ll be opening for ambient superstar Tim Hecker at the Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City on March 29. I’m very excited!
Lance Stack, of The Flat Response, records local shows and events all around Denver, and even sometimes ventures to New Mexico. He’s an unsung hero, and part of the glue that really holds Denver together as a community.
As part of his mission to document all the amazing things happening in the Metro area, he recorded almost all of the Communikey Festival in Boulder, which includes the set I played opening for William Basinski and Mark McGuire. You can listen on his website, and take a shortcut by clicking the following link:
http://www.theflatresponse.com/2011/11/2792/
I’ll also be posting a couple tracks on the Listen tab of this site. Thanks, Lance!
DEEP TAPES has graciously released the debut EP of my project with kikiilimikilii, Gross Bite, and our cassette tape “Yod EP.” Peep it here:
http://deeptapes.com/gross-bite-yod-cassette/
The album art is really great, and Alex does all of the releases on his own time and with a lot of heart. Definitely worth the purchase. They are cheap.
I’m considering posting a max patch or two that I used on the album. I might do that later. In any case, check it out! kikiilimikilii and I are working on videos for each of the tracks, which should be available sooner or later.
In other news, New York is treating me very well. I am providing sound for an installation at the Museum of the Moving Image which will be installed in the museum lobby until March. I’ll be in Boulder for December, and will be playing some shows there, as well as working on material for a new record. So stay tuned!
“Altered Purpose”
“Altered Purpose” Sound Art Installation from Nathan Wheeler on Vimeo.
I painted and drew pictures of my concept of the future of science, which are microorganisms that have been repurposed into human tools, like bacteria that glow or refract light, or function as batteries.
I transformed these pictures into speakers using some wire and magnets, and mounted them on my wall. I wrote a program to make the sounds you hear in the video, and also play through the speakers in real time. I also crafted 3-D variations on platonic solids/sacred geometry out of the same paper, transforming the flat into 3-D.
The piece is intended for live performance and gallery installation.
Since graduating from the University of Colorado, I’ve spent the last 7 months gigging, touring, and relaxing. I’ve received an offer for a job and a place to live in New York City, so I’ll be moving there… tomorrow. I look forward to the new surroundings and opportunities that are sure to present themselves. I’ll also be rebuilding my website from the ground up, learning HTML5 Canvas in the process. This blog will probably remain active, but will no longer be the feature of the site. It will instead focus on my portfolio and interactivity. I will also continue to update my projects, which are sure to be numerous, as I am moving to NYC to do the same things, i.e. interactive music and physical computing. So stay tuned!
If you’re curious about hearing my music, there’s a tab at the top of the page titled “Listen.” Feel free to click on it – it has links to videos and downloads of my music. Thanks for checking it out!
The performance at Communikey was a great success! I’ve received a lot of positive feedback, and I loved playing alongside Basinski and McGuire.
I’m finally in documenting mode again, so I should soon have some footage from my January show, “September Sixth.” I’m currently trying to track down more video from the Communikey performance. I have some shots from one angle, but I know there’s more footage out there and I’d love to cut something together. So that might have to wait a little while.
My first piece for violin and electronics, Apotheosis, is set to be performed this Friday and Saturday evening in the Black Box theater as part of a show called “Carnivals and Snowstorms.” Should be great!
Stay tuned, I should have audio of the Communikey show coming soon.
But in the meantime, here’s a video from Zemi17 of the Gamelatron installed at Naropa University in April as part of the festival: