Rising of the Lights is a collaboration that also explores the juxtaposition of the live, copresent and mediatised, but in a more accumulative way. Its origins lie in an improvised set in which I performed using a variant of the “Two Rooms” setup. In a group context my microphone picks up elements of other players' performances, particularly if they are playing with a penetrating or loud tone. These fragments of other sound become enmeshed, layered and played back through my loop pedal. The result is that sounds heard live repeat as a liminal element of recorded, looped sound played back into the room. What exactly is recorded is a result of chance and unpredictable; this produces a disorienting effect as sounds are layered to the point where it can become hard to discern where what one is hearing at any given moment is coming from. The duo with flugelhornist Jonny Martin aims to explore and expand upon this process.

The setup is simple: as well as my cello-pedals-amplification setup, I periodically play prerecorded sounds from my phone into my cello’s microphone: fragments of them are absorbed into the overall sound. As well as playing both apart from and into my microphone to a similar purpose, Jonny is also miked up and also relays ambient sound via an iPad app which loops and processes the resultant samples through granular synthesis. By reducing the number of performers to two and focusing explicitly on this process we create an atmosphere in which the uncertainties of perception between live, looped, and processed sounds are amplified. In a context of free improvisation this means we are reacting to what we hear, but we are unsure what it is that we are hearing. This means we never reach a state of predictability or stability and must continue listening, feeding back into the ambient textures. A simple setup leads to a complex result.[1]

The use of technology to create multistable and unstable composites of live and mediatised sound is a consciously and deliberately undertaken act. The result is a process of sound-sculpture, with the creation of sound, its absorption into a technologically mediated system, the use of listening and sonic manipulation to evolve the resultant atmosphere.

 Process here takes precedence over result. Most compositional research places emphasis on works (Goehr, 2007), these being positioned as the research outputs. Following Spatz (2015) [2.3.2] however, I see the description of technique and process as the primary focus of output rather than any specific “work” – the works I produce [2] are in one sense a by-product, exemplars of the techniques that I develop in my practice rather than objects of study or veneration in their own right.

[1]   In later performances I also employ a variant of the Max patch used elsewhere in this project [3.1; 3.3].

[2]   A questionable concept in improvisatory practices - I dispute whether a documentation of an improvised performance can really be satisfactorily characterised as a “work”.