one-minute vacation
 
vox americana maritime suite moorish idol s3 moments in burma annapurna: memories in sound plumbing and irrigation of south asia rockets of the mekong kagbeni variations guantanamo express turns in the south embertide compilations

Dusk Machines

dusk machines ( 2005 )

2xCDR available, $108 or barter.


Serendipity Machines are autonomous sound sculpture. They do not repeat themselves; they randomly mix layers of prepared recordings to create never-repeating soundscapes. I do not compose what each Machine plays, but I do predispose each to a particular mood.

This two-disc set documents three Machines I made in 2003 and 2004 that share a family affinity in character and process. Each mixes my field recordings with quiet sine waves tuned to pitches used in the slendro scale of Indonesian gamelan.

 
11.19.03 (haunted) 44 MB Serendipity Machine 11.19.03 (haunted) debuted on my thirty-third birthday at the opening of Supersonic: New Directions in Sound and Form at the Rx Gallery in San Francisco. I've always felt late November to be haunted, filled as it was in my childhood with dry leaves, drying birthday cake, and clear but cold skies.

12.13.03 (morris)

55 MB

Serendipity Machine 12.13.03 (morris) was commissioned by radio producer Ben Adair as a gift for his partner Shosho; it remains in their collection. The name morris was on a luggage tag affixed to the second-hand suitcase I found to build this Machine in.
02.01.04 (cetrino) 78 MB Serendipity Machine 02.01.04 (cetrino) was created for the CEAIT Festival, an annual festival of sound and media art sponsored by CalArts' Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology (a duplicate was made as a gift for my father on his sixtieth birthday). At the festival I started the Machine and allowed it to 'perform' for twenty or so minutes. I blundered into the name cetrino serendipitously in a Spanish-English dictionary; it means both 'greenish yellow' and 'melancholic.' Sublimon!