Richard Lainhart, Wavelength (2005)
Richard Lainhart, Wavelength (2005)
“I found this track on a drive while looking for something else. It’s from 2005, and that’s all I know about it – I can’t remember when or how I did it. But I like it, so I thought I’d share it here.”
(from Richard via Soundcloud)
Richard Lainhart (February 14, 1953 – December 30, 2011)
Dear friends of Richard,
It is with a heavy heart that I that I must tell you Richard Lainhart, composer, musician, technologist, filmmaker, and digital artisan died Friday, December 30, 2011. On December 17, Richard complained of pains in his side and was admitted to the hospital for tests which showed an intestinal cancer. He was operated on on December 21. After the surgery (which showed the cancer had not spread), there were infectious complications which took his life on December 30.
He struggled valiantly to overcome his infection, but it was not to be. We are all in shock and cannot grasp the idea of his not making music, talking music, teaching, posting and playing.
Caroline Meyers
Richard Lainhart’s wife
I never met Richard personally but did exchange some emails with him and I was impressed with his lack of dogma when it came to electronic music. On one hand he a big part in the early days of electronic music but he was also embracing making music with whatever software or hardware that best helped him express himself. You can hear more of his music on his soundcloud page and also ImprovFriday members hosted a tribute posted dedications for him last weekend (Jan 5-7 2012).
Richard Lainhart Improv Friday Dedication, Jan 5-7 2011
Richard Lainhart SoundCloud Page
Richard Lainhart, archive.org
Vimeo
Youtube
Synthtopia obituary
Create Digital Music obituary
Quotes
“Lainhart crafts sounds in a tonal, musical fashion – sustained tones, drones, melodic fragments – and electronically manipulates them into beautiful tapestries of sound.” (Waterfront Week)
[His] “music reflects the spirit of possibility that once defined electronic music, bringing with it a sense of past, present and future that transcends time, technology and cultural assumptions. The spell- binding music seemed to evoke feelings that can’t quite be named, and suggest music I might rather imagine for myself in silence than trust most composers to compose.” (The Village Voice).
“He’s evolved a singular vision as a composer, performer and engineer of darkly seductive minimalism.” (Peter Marsh, BBC)
ve been weary of the day a member of ImprovFriday would pass away. In terms of his involvement with ImprovFriday: I could ask Richard to play live for IF and he would literally get back to me within hours and set it up. As most of you know, he also was generous enough to lend a tune for ImprovFriday Vol. 2 and participated in numerous events. We are really going to miss Richard. Next week’s theme will be “Richard Lainhart Dedications”
Richard was by far one of the true contemporary electronic music genius’s and his knowledge of its roots put him way ahead of most of us. Richard’s contribution to contemporary electronic music was immense and his knowledge of its historical applications was legendary. – Steve Moshier
Richard changed the way I listen to music – and there is no greater compliment that one musician can pay to another. He will be missed very, very much. – Paul Muller
Biography (via O-Townmedia)
Richard Lainhart is an award-winning composer, author, and filmmaker – a digital artisan who works with sonic and visual data. Since childhood, he’s been interested in natural processes such as waves, flames and clouds, in harmonics and harmony, and in creative interactions with machines, using them as compositional methods to present sounds and images that are as beautiful as he can make them.
Lainhart studied composition and electronic music with Joel Chadabe at the State University of New York at Albany. He has composed music for film, television, CD-ROMs, interactive applications, and the Web. His compositions have been performed in the US, England, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Japan. Recordings of his music have appeared on the Periodic Music, Vacant Lot, XI Records, Airglow Music, Tobira Records, and ExOvo labels. As an active performer, Lainhart has appeared in public approximately 2000 times. Besides performing his own work, he has worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Jordan Rudess, among many others. He has composed over 100 electronic and acoustic works. In 2008, he was commissioned by the Electronic Music Foundation to contribute a work to New York Soundscape.
Lainhart’s animations and short films have been shown at festivals in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, and Korea, and online at ResFest, The New Venue, The Bitscreen, and Streaming Cinema 2.0. His film “A Haiku Setting” won awards in several categories at the 2002 International Festival of Cinema and Technology in Toronto. In 2009, he was awarded a Film & Media grant by the New York State Council on the Arts for “No Other Time”, full-length intermedia performance designed for a large reverberant space, combining live analog electronics with four-channel playback, and high-definition computer-animated film projection.
Douglas Leedy: Entropical Paradise (1968)
Douglas Leedy: Entropical Paradise (1968)
six sonic environments created on the moog synthesizer and buchla modular electronic music system
Tracklist (right click to download)
A Entropical Paradise I 20:14
B Entropical Paradise II 20:28
C White Landscape 20:00
D The Harmonarium 19:40
E Star Engine 21:00
F Doria 20:50
notes by douglas leedy
“entropical paradise is different in concept, execution and purpose from most recordings of music. in fact, it isn’t intended as music at all, but as sound, as acoustical environmental “programming” which should be heard but not necessarily listened to. (you may listen to it, however, as music, if you like.)
each record side is the result of a different “program” governing in a random way decisions of pitch, amplitude, duration and to a certain extent timbre, and each creates a different atmosphere when it is played. you may find some sides pleasant, others not, and your reaction may depend on external circumstances – the time of day, where you are, whose company you are in, and so on. you may play the records to your taste – in any order, loudly or softly, a whole side or just a part. if you want more than the twenty-or-so minutes per side and you have an automatic turntable, you may be able to set the mechanism to play one record again and again.
these audio environments, once programmed and set in motion on the moog and buchla electronic music systems, could theoretically run continuously but without repetition indefinitely. that is, the programs are non-repetitive since certain random characteristics have been introduced (owing to limitations of the equipment used, a small portion of several programs had to be realized manually.) there are many analogies in nature to this type of programming, and in fact it is the operation of nature after which these sound environments are patterned. one analogy is the breaking of waves upon an ocean shore: there is an endless succession of waves, and yet each wave is different, even unique. so constant repetition and constant change are one organic process.
entropy is what life and art are said to be continually battling – the inexorable tendency of forces everywhere in the universe, including those within our own bodies, to grow uniform, to come to rest, to achieve a state of equilibrium, to reach the final perfect calm of all things. a paradise, but for whom?
i won’t attempt to describe in words, other than the titles, any of the six environments, since experiencing them makes description unnecessary. two programs, however, were influenced by personal readings in science fiction: “the harmonarium” was suggested by the creatures of which kurt vonnegut, jr., wrote in “the sirens of titan,” creatures who lived in huge underground caverns on the planet mercury and fed upon that planet’s musical vibrations. the creation of “star engine” brought back to my mind c. s. lewis’s sci-fi novel, “out of the star planet.”
the sounds on these records were made by the moog synthesizer and the buchla modular electronic music system of the electronic music studio at the university of california, los angeles. because of the nature of this recording, no attempt has been made to eliminate or reduce electronic background noises such as hiss, hum and occasional unexpected transients. these are ordinarily considered a plague in recording, but here they function as an integral part of the recorded experience.
i am indebted to chris shelton and wadley j. brood for technical assistance, and to the same two and gerald strang, steve soomil, craig buhler, ken yapkowitz, dennis matthews and bob richardson for inspiration, encouragement, cooperation, and for the free sharing of ideas and enthusiasm that has taken place at the ucla electronic music studio. though they may be unaware of it, they have all contributed a great deal to these recordings.”
Derek Rogers: Boxing Demons in Sleep (2010)
Derek Rogers: Boxing Demons in Sleep (2010) “I wrote this piece to demonstrate the five phases of sleep; that is, the moment of awareness before relaxation, the transition from lighter to heavier sleep, and the creation of dreams in the final REM sleep stage. ‘Boxing Demons In Sleep’ was created utilizing guitar, synthesizer, and electronics [...]
Marco Lucchi: Marco is Moondogging (2010)
International ensemble/collective o.e.s. created an album with a multitude of interpretations to a composition by the eccentric avant-garde composer, Moondog.
With vocal and instrumental executions, samples and remixes contributed by Hidekazu Wakabayashi, Harold Nono, Roberto Corsini, Marco Lucchi, Giampaolo Violi, Antonio de Braga, Cometa, Eerohz, Massimo Croce, iN2Ni, Jean Montag and Steve Layton.
“Marco is Moondogging” is the hommage that Marco Lucci pays to the legendary figure of Moondog. o.e.s. worked on a song of his entitled “Lovesong” that has a twin in an instrumental track titled “Fujiyama”. The song tells a story that is similar to the one of Tristan and Isolda or of Romeo and Juliet. A very tragic love story.
Listen to the track (via soundcloud)
listen to the track
Download the whole album as a zip file or click here for more downloading and streaming options.
Jim Perkins (Bigo and Twigetti): Chopin Prelude (2010)
Jim Perkins (Bigo and Twigetti): Chopin Prelude (2010)
“The original prelude was one of the first pieces I learnt to play. It sparked hundreds of ideas for potential re-arrangments and just provided a lot of opportunities to experiment. I wanted to be able to fuse all the experience I had of editing digital audio files and mixing, with the sounds of the piano but not by chopping up an existing recording as that is quite limited but by starting with the musical arrangement and the playing of the piece, whilst also keeping in mind the editing and effects I might use later on. This allowed me much more flexibility in producing the piece I wanted. That recording triggered a whole series of events which led me to record endless hours of piano, meet some incredible musicians and studio engineers and ultimately create a whole album of piano and laptop pieces.“
KraftiM: Itsium (2010)
“Itsium is a part one of a little symphony and can be seen as a short successor of FraxurY, because again soundwaves from my Swedish collegue and mate frags were used here.
For this release again a combination of scandinavian names and dutch dodekagrams are used to give the hopeful feel in these serious pieces. These tracks will be used on a full album that will be released summer 2010 on netlabel Musictrade
Developing since then with influences from classic masterpieces towards more ambient, drone-like pieces that try to capture the full complexity of silence, as well as more rhythmic experimental pieces that try to shift yer mood rather than move yer feet”
jamendo website
uvumi website
musictrade.info website
indie music works
Bruce Hamilton-Glibs (2010)
“Glibs” is about trying to create a static yet floating or soaring environment. I use Paul Muller’s minimalist textures a lot in my IF (ImprovFriday) mashes and usually use most or all of his tracks, but this time i just took a few bars and looped them with some processing to create a pulsing, energized, harmonic pad.
To this groove I couldn’t resist adding and tweaking Jukka-Pekka Kervien’s glitchtronica, which is also very busy but ultimately a static texture. On top of these controlled fireworks Adam Kondor’s sparse string lines hover, providing an acoustic contrast with slow melancholic melodies and counterpoint. I manipulated these lines a fair amount to get them to sit right in the harmony and in the mix.
Finally I added some warm pizzicato bass tones to flesh out the spectrum and add harmonic nuance. So ultimately it’s the acoustic string elements that provide form, and the electronic parts ,both stable and chaotic, that serve as eternal and essentially unchanging presences.
I like the simultaneously human and otherworldly feelings thesecontrasts can provide, and love the fact that these elements were contributed from around the planet and remixed within a weekend.”
via Improv Friday Event June 17th-19th 2010
commentary via Improv Friday podcast August 18th 2010
Incantations – Alan Stones (2010)
Incantation is the first of three short pieces written for a collaborative dance project with American choreographer Allyson Green and artist Peter Terezakis, which was premiered in San Diego in March of this year. The dance piece, entitled ‘Archive of Happiness’ is a rememberance and celebration of two great choreographers/dancers who recently passed away – Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham.
Curated by Jim Perkins – Alan Stones Ballad no.1 appears on twigetticast no.3
From Honey to Ashes – Baby Bats
Baby bats is an improvised performance from Jeremy Keenan, Matt Lewis and Edgar Curtis, otherwise known as From Honey to Ashes.The sound world is created through a combination of foley, granulation, comb filtering and audio pops and clicks. Real-time rhythmic synchronicity is achieved between players by using a central network through which patterns are passed around and instruments are interconnected.
the sea, the sea- My Fun/Justin Hardison (2009)
the sea, the sea- My Fun/Justin Hardison (2009)
My Fun is the slightly eccentric nom de guerre of Justin Hardison, a musician, who uses field recordings, lush electronics and samples to make quite lovely, if also quite bittersweet music. – Rare Frequency
He also runs The Land Of label
Heinali-Ave Moog (2009)
notes via the composer:
“Ave Moog is a sort of ode to the legendary rich and powerful sound of analog synthesizers. It could remind of Vavilov’s or Bach’s “Ave Maria” but the chord progression isn’t actually based on any of them, though it was inspired by Vavilov’s (Caccini) version. Dedicated to Robert Moog”
curated by paul bailey
Mark Harris: Still Frame (2009)
Mark Harris: Still Frame (2009)
“an experiment in granular synthesis. created from two notes (a piano and violin tone)“
website
curated by: Paul Muller
Mark Harris: I Am A Long Way From Home (2009)
“a live improvisation. based around a recoding I did of wind in the trees”
