Compositions
Electroacoustic Works
It is worth listening to electroacoustic music on a good pair of headphones or loudspeakers - phone or laptop speakers will not give you any sense of the lower frequencies or stereo spatialisation!
This piece was made as part of a commission that saw a number of University of Sheffield Sound Studios (USSS) composers record sounds of still-operating machinery in Kelham Island Museum. We then used these recordings to create individual pieces which responded to the themes brought up by Kelham Island.
In Industry, I considered the way in which past industries have been effaced or remembered through the process of gentrification, making way for new and different cultures and industries.
Solipsis (Remix)
seeks to explore how a fusion can be achieved between electroacoustic music and other, more vococentric musical genres.
I was eager to create a work that was distinct and original whilst simultaneously retaining relevance to the music used as source material. The piece achieves this by re-framing the vocal melodies and phrases within the context of new electroacoustic materials derived from Sam’s voice. It is the relationship between these layers that forms the impetus of the piece on both macro- and meso-temporal scales, as the trajectories of the original sung phrases work both as points of departure for the new sound materials as well as structural points which are triggered and anticipated by the electroacoustic morphologies of the piece. Ultimately, the work is an attempt to unify different aspects of two contrasting approaches to creating music, and doing so has opened up new methodologies to my own compositional practice.
I would like to express deep gratitude to Samuel Dunkley for the opportunity to remix his work.
Check out the original track here.
Ventosmia results from a fascination with the way in which everyday sounds can take on greater significance and meaning when presented in the context of a composition. There are two principal source sounds the piece is based around - a recording of strong winds buffeting my childhood home, and multiple recordings of a busy Sheffield high street. The processing of these recordings result in a soundscape which shifts between recognisable and abstract sound.
I got a fidget spinner and discovered it makes some pretty great sounds, so I made a piece from recordings of one. In Rotor I explore how the listener's expectations can be manipulated in order to build and release tension.
In Veins Coalesce inharmonic pitched materials are interwoven with chaotic noise-based sounds, in order to investigate how a coherent sound-world can be built out of disparate constituent parts.
Veins Coalesce won the student category prize in Klang! 2017, and was also selected to be played as part of The Engine Room International Sound Art Exhibition in London, 2017.
Translation is the result of a collaboration between myself and Ben Allen. Ben wrote and voiced the poem heard in this piece, whilst I provided the electroacoustic music. Our aim for this piece was to create a truly collaborative artwork, where the music and text work with one another rather than one being subordinate to the other.
Ben is a Sheffield-based poet and musician, and I highly recommend checking out his band's music HERE.
Granite is one of my earlier compositions, most of which are characterised by sudden and violent eruptions of noise. Have a listen for yourself...
I performed Granite at Ai Maako festival in Santiago, Chile 2016.
