steve peters

Recent News

2012-01-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

As of February 3, 2012...

CURRENT
Feb. 21, 2012: not a leaf remains as it was, a new duo CD with Steve Roden is now available on the 12k label, recorded and mixed by Doug Haire during an Artist Support Program residency at Jack Straw Productions. All-acoustic improvised songs based on Japanese jisei.

Jan. 20—Apr. 13, 2012: Uprising, collaborative sound/visual installation with artist Rick Araluce at Suyama Space in Seattle. Plumbing run amok! Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9-5. Rick's slide show.

UPCOMING
April 14, 2012, 7 PM: I am organizing a three-hour performance of Gavin Bryars' classic piece, The Sinking of the Titanic, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the event. Many great Seattle musicians will hopefully participate. Chapel Performance Space, Seattle.

RECENT
Dec. 31, 2011: An excerpt from Solar Ring is included on Iron, a FREE DOWNLOAD-ONLY compilation released by Dragon's Eye Recordings.

Sept. 18—Dec. 31, 2011: Index Filicum was presented as part of the Florasonic series curated by ESS. Four luscious voices sing the Latin names of the species in the fern room at the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago.

Sept. 16—Oct. 30, 2011: hover was a collaborative sound/visual installation with artist Christine Wallers, based on the mysterious auroral sound associated with the Northern Lights. Audible Gallery at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago. Review.

July 2011: Lições dos Antepassados (Lessons from the Ancestors) was created during a three-week Binaural artist residency in the tiny mountain village of Nodar, Portugal. Bells, ghosts, flora and fauna.

June 21—July 11, 2011: An excerpt of The Very Rich Hours is included in With Hidden Noise, a traveling exhibition of sound art curated by Stephen Vitiello for Independent Curators International. It also includes work by Taylor Deupree, Jennie C. Jones, Pauline Oliveros, Andrea Parkins, Steve Roden, Michael Schumacher, and Stephen Vitiello. Its first stop was at the Aspen Art Museum in Aspen, CO.

June 10, 2011: the Webster Cycles was performed again in England by the ensemble Interrobang, directed by composer Simon Cummings, in St. Philip's Cathedral in Birmingham. Read about their previous performances here, and listen to them here.

Gamelan Encantada, an ensemble I played with for many years in New Mexico, celebrates their 20th anniversary with their first CD, Oasis in the Desert, featuring contemporary works for Javanese-style American gamelan composed for them over the years by group members and others. In addition to my own Tjotjog, there are very beautiful works by Joseph Weber, Beth Yip, and Daniel Davis.

Trimpin: Contraptions for Art & Sound has recently been published by Marquand Books. It is the catalog of a series of exhibitions surveying Trimpin's work since moving to Seattle twenty-five years ago. I wrote a short essay about Archival Investigations, the show he had at Jack Straw Productions documenting some of his earliest work here.

The new album I produced by Blackberry Winter, featuring the wonderful singer Marideth Sisco and other great Ozarks folk musicians heard on the Winter's Bone soundtrack, is now available on CD, iTunes, CD Baby, etc.

Arbouse Recordings has released Erik Satie et les Nouveaux Jeunes, a tribute to the eccentric French composer who has inspired so many of us. I'm happy to be included on this 2-CD set, along Steve Roden, Rachel Grimes, Hauschka, and many others. EUR 18 + shipping at the link above.

Angelitos Negros is a new CD-EP I recently produced by Santa Fé diva Nacha Mendez, with the great West African kora player Foday Musa Suso. It includes three different versions of the classic title song, plus my Spanish-language mix of Mi Sueño (released in English on her last album).

Installations

2010-02-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

Click on titles for more info.

Uprising (2012)
Index Filicum (2011)
hover (2011)
Lições dos Antepassados/Lessons from the Ancestors (2011)
The Very Rich Hours (2009)
first light, last (2006)
Chamber Music (2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011)
Correspondence (2005)
Morning Ragas (2005)
Center of Gravity (2004)
Window Seat (2004)
Mountains Hidden in Mountains (2004)
Luminous Bodies on Galileo’s Inclined Plane (2003)
Delicate Abrasions (2003)
Alchemy (2000, 2003, 2005, 2007)
Confluences (2000)
Celebrating Nature: The Landscape Underground (2000)
Here-ings: a sonic geohistory (1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007)
Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon (1998, 2009)
Emanations (1996, 1998, 2001)

Soundtracks

2009-09-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

I am always interested in working on good film and video projects, whether as composer, producer, editor, sound designer, or location recordist, or through licensing my existing work.

Winter's Bone — 2010, Roadside Attractions (DVD released by Lion's Gate Films); directed by Debra Granik. Award-winning feature film based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell. Set in the Missouri Ozarks, the soundtrack features great local folk and country musicians, and original score by Dickon Hinchliffe (Tindersticks). I did some post-production location recording, produced studio sessions with the local musicians, and produced the soundtrack album, which is available on CD or as digital download. And a tiny excerpt of my piece In Memory of the Four Winds was used in one scene to enhance the sound of a wood splitter.

With My Back to the World: Agnes Martin — 2002, New Deal Films; DVD; 57 minutes; directed by Mary Lance. An intimate portrait of the great American abstract painter Agnes Martin, made during her final years in Taos, New Mexico. I was honored to compose the score, as her work has been hugely influential to me. Some of the music was released on the Occasional Music CD.

Gathering Up Again: Fiesta in Santa Fé — 1992, Quotidian Documentary Research; VHS (out of print)/DVD; 47 minutes; directed by Jeanette DeBouzek & Diane Reyna. I did location and post-production recording for this controversial doc about the oldest public celebration in the USA, revealing cross-cultural tensions that arise during this annual event honoring the "bloodless" reconquest of New Mexico.

Recordings

2009-09-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

This is the definitive, exhaustive discography of all recorded releases I've ever been involved with, no matter how obscure or ridiculous (still in progress). Click on titles for details.

SOLO RELEASES
The Very Rich Hours — CD-R, 2009
Stained Glass (Chamber Music 5) — CD-R, 2008
Filtered Light (Chamber Music 4) — CD-R, 2008
Webster Cycles — CD-EP, 2008
Occasional Music — CD, 2007
Three Rooms — CD, 2007
From Shelter — CD-EP, 2004
Delicate Abrasions — 3" mini CD-R, 2003
Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — CD/Book, 2002
In Memory of the Four Winds — CD, 2000
Emanations — CD, 1998
To Olympia With Love — CS, 1984

COLLABORATIONS
w/ Steve Roden, not a leaf remains as it was — CD, 2012
w/ Philip Corner, Gong (Cymbal)/Ear in the Desert — CD, 2009
w/ Steven M. Miller, Live at the Outpost, Vol. 2 — CD-R, 1998
Snapshot Cassette/Magazine #9 — CS/Assemblage, 1988
Snapshot Cassette/Magazine #8 — CS/Assemblage, 1986
Snapshot Cassette/Magazine #7 — CS/Assemblage, 1986
Snapshot Cassette/Magazine #6 — CS/Assemblage, 1985

COMPILATIONS
Iron — Free Download, 2012
Satie & les Nouveaux Jeunes — 2-CD, 2011
Post-Minimalism — 2-CD, 2007
Albuzerxque #13 — CD, 2003?
Silents — CD, 2002
Albuzerxque #12 — CD, 2002
Albuzerxque #9 — CD, 2002
Albuzerxque #2 — CD, 2000
Albuzerxque #1 — CD, 2000
Site of Sound — CD/Book, 1999
Sound — CD, 1998
The Aerial, Vol. 1 — CD/CS, 1990
Soundviews: Sources — CS, 1990
Regional Zeal — LP, 1982

AS GUEST ARTIST
Francisco López, Absolute Noise Ensemble — 2-CD, 2006
Francisco López, Untitled, 1993 — CD, 2006
Nacha Mendez, Bodega de Amor — CD, 2004
Francisco López, Azoic Zone — CD, 1993
Lois, Strumpet — LP/CD/CS, 1993
Steve Fisk, 448 Deathless Days — LP/CD/CS, 1987
Palace of Lights Sampler — 7" EP, 1981
Marc Barreca, Twilight — LP, 1980
Life Elsewhere — 12" EP, 1980

AS GROUP MEMBER
Seattle Phonographers Union — CD, 2010
Dueto Le Momo, Demos — CS, 1993
The Furies, Plan It Yourself — CS, 1990?
Exquisite Corpses from PS 122 — CD/CS, 1990
Exquisite Corpses from the Bunker — LP, 1988
The Go Team, Your Pretty Guitar — CS, 1987
Jan Brock, He’s Funny That Way — CS, 1985
John Foster’s Pop Philosophers — CS, 1984
Let’s Together — CS, 1984
Sub Pop #9 — CS, 1983
Absolute Elsewhere — CS, 1982
Dub Communique #2 — CS, 1982
Dub Communique #1 — CS, 1981
E=mc2 +/- 1dB (or, More Music to Fold Towels By) — 2-LP, 1981
Fast Forward Magazine: First Annual Report — CS, 1981
Lightbulb Magazine #4: Emergency Cassette — 2-CS, 1981

AS PRODUCER/ENGINEER
Blackberry Winter, In These Ozark Hills — CD, 2011
Nacha Mendez & Foday Musa Suso, Angelitos Negros — CD-EP, 2011
Winter’s Bone Soundtrack — CD/Download, 2010
Philip Corner, Gong (Cymbal)/Ear in the Desert — CD, 2009
Teiji Ito, Tenno — CD, 2007
Robert Ashley, Now Eleanor's Idea — 2-CD, 2007
Nacha Mendez, Volando — CD, 2004
Chris Cutler & Thomas DiMuzio, Dust — CD, 2002
Fred Sturm, American Rags, Brazilian Tangos, Afrocuban Dances — CD, 2002
Fred Sturm, Brazilian Soul: Music of Villa-Lobos — CD, 2001
Sarah Cahill, 9 Preludes: Ruth Crawford & Johanna Beyer — CD, 2001
Ellen Band, 90% Post-Consumer Sound – CD, 2001
Nacha Mendez, Bodega de Amor — CD, 1999
Jeffrey Krieger, AC/DC/VC — CD, 1997
Annea Lockwood, The Glass World (re-issue) — CD, 1997
Teiji Ito, Meshes — CD, 1997
Radius, Vol. 4 — CD, 1995
Radius, Vol. 3 — CD, 1995
Tom Guralnick, Broken Dances for Muted Pieces — CD, 1995
Braddy Janet — CS, 1994?
Gamelan Pacifica, Trance Gong — CD/CS, 1994
The Aerial, Vol. 6 — CD/CS, 1994
Jerry Hunt, Haramand Plane — CD/CS, 1994
Radius, Vol. 2 — CD, 1993
Radius, Vol. 1 — CD, 1993
Jin Hi Kim, Komunguitar — CD, 1993
Ikue Mori & Tenko, Death Praxis — CD/CS, 1993
Anne Lockwood, Thousand Year Dreaming — CD/CS, 1993
The Aerial, Vol. 5 — CD/CS, 1992
David Dunn, Angels & Insects — CD/CS, 1992
Peter Garland, Border Music — CD/CS, 1992
Alison Knowles, Frijoles Canyon — CD/CS, 1992
Audio Alchemy: The Cassette Mythos Compilation — CD/CS, 1992
Malcolm Goldstein, Sounding the New Violin — CD/CS, 1991
Loren Mazzacane & Suzanne Langille, Come Night — CD/CS, 1991
The Aerial, Vol. 4 — CD/CS, 1991
The Aerial, Vol. 3 — CD/CS, 1991
Deep Listening Band, Troglodyte’s Delight — CD/CS, 1990
The Aerial, Vol. 2 — CD/CS, 1990
The Aerial, Vol. 1 — CD/CS, 1990
The Go Team, Your Pretty Guitar — CS, 1987
John Foster’s Pop Philosophers — CS, 1984
Regional Zeal: Mouth Music from Olympia, Washington — LP, 1982

Uprising (2012)

2009-09-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

January 20 - April 13, 2012
Suyama Space
Seattle, WA
Video on the Seattle Channel
Seattle Times review
Rick Araluce's slide show

Ten-channel collaborative installation with visual artist Rick Araluce. The gallery is overrun by a chaotic jumble of plumbing and pipes; the arteries and veins of the structure that typically lurk behind walls and beneath floorboards are aggressively laid bare, disrupting the ability to navigate the space and threatening to take it over entirely. The pipes, which appear to be ancient, corroded cast iron, are in reality fashioned by hand from plastic, wood, and paint. The open ends of some pipes emit abstract sounds derived entirely from field recordings made in the empty gallery.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

hover (2011)

2009-09-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

September 16 - October 30, 2011
Audible Gallery at Experimental Sound Studio
Chicago, IL
Review in TimeOut Chicago

Eight-channel collaborative installation with visual artist Christine Wallers. The sound is inspired by earwitness reports of the mysterious phenomenon of auroral sound associated with the Northern Lights. The visual component consists of hundreds of lines of monofilament and thin copper wire strung overhead, spanning the gallery and catching the natural light.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Index Filicum (2011)

2009-09-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

September 18 - December 31, 2011
Lincoln Park Conservatory
Chicago, IL
Watch video

Four-channel sound installation presented by Experimental Sound Studio as part of their Florasonic series. Four voices (Jeremiah Cawley, Amy Denio, Katherine Hanson, Maria Mannisto) sing the Latin names of nearly all of the species in the conservatory's Fern Room, over drones derived from a field recording of the room.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

The Very Rich Hours

2009-08-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

2009; CD-R (limited edition, 100 copies); Self-published; out of print. Listen/download.

70-minute stereo mix documenting an eight-channel site-specific sound installation at the Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales, New Mexico. Environmental sounds and subtle electronic processing; spoken descriptions of the New Mexico landscape by Anne Cooper, Loren Kahn, JB Bryan, Basia Irland, Thomas Ashcraft, Mary Lance, Jeffrey Lee, Ted Harrison, David Dunn, and Lisa Gill; Latin names of endangered species sung by Ben Black, Katherine Hanson, Jessika Kenney, Linda Strandberg, and David Stutz.

(David Dunn's speaking parts were lifted from an earlier work, Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon)

RECORDINGS | HOME

The Very Rich Hours (2009)

2009-08-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

August 27 - 30 & September 4 - 7, 2009
Old San Ysidro Church
Corrales, New Mexico
Land/Art
Listen/download (four segments)
Exhibition catalog

8-channel site-specific sound installation, presented as part of SiteWorks, curated by Kathleen Shields for Land/Art, organized by 516 Arts. Environmental sounds and subtle electronic processing; spoken descriptions of the New Mexico landscape by Anne Cooper, Loren Kahn, JB Bryan, Basia Irland, Thomas Ashcraft, Mary Lance, Jeffrey Lee, Ted Harrison, David Dunn, and Lisa Gill; Latin names of endangered species sung by Ben Black, Katherine Hanson, Jessika Kenney, Linda Strandberg, and David Stutz; and five custom-made listening benches constructed by Albuquerque craftsman Mark Middleton.

An excerpt of this piece is included in With Hidden Noise, a traveling exhibition curated by Stephen Vitiello for Independent Curators International that also includes work by Taylor Deupree, Jennie C. Jones, Pauline Oliveros, Andrea Parkins, Steve Roden, Michael Schumacher, and Stephen Vitiello.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Lições dos Antepassados / Lessons from the Ancestors (2011)

2009-08-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

July 23, 2011
Capela de Nossa Senhora de Conceição
Nodar, Portugal
Listen/download (two segments)
Exhibition catalog (forthcoming)

4.1-channel site-specific sound installation, presented as part of a Binaural Artist Residency. Environmental sounds, chapel bells, spoken names of the region's human ancestors and the common names of local flora and fauna (Luis Costa, Ines Henriques, José Henriques, Carina Martins), and sung Latin names of same (Manuela Barile).

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

The Aerial: a journal in sound, Volume 1

2009-08-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

1990; CD/Cassette; Nonsequitur (AER1990/1), Santa Fé; out of print

Includes Idumea, an improvisation on a shape-note hymn for voice, violin, and home-made bass recorder (under the name Lost Souls).

I also produced this compilation CD, which includes Christine Baczewska, Floating Concrete Octopus, Malcolm Goldstein, Jerry Hunt, Rich Jensen, Richard Kostelanetz, Loren Mazzacane & Suzanne Langille, David Moss, Bern Porter, Terry Setter, and Stuart Sherman.

RECORDINGS | HOME

Post-Minimalism

2009-08-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

2007; 2-CD; Trace Label (024), Paris

Includes Ancestral Memory, which can also be heard on Occasional Music.

2-CD compilation featuring 19 composers from 4 countries, all of them found on MySpace by producer Hervé Zénouda: Eric Schwartz (USA), Steve Peters (USA, Nick Didkovsky/Kevin Gallagher (USA), Belinda Reynolds (USA), YanJun (CHina), RyanBrown (USA), Pierre Yves Macé (France), Alphonse Izzo (USA), Marco Oppedisano (USA), Dan Becker (USA), Istvan Peter B'Rack (USA), John King (USA), Fathmount (China), Olivier Pé/Yannick Frank (Belgium), Dean Rosenthal (USA), Hervé Zénouda (France), Josh Millrod (USA).

RECORDINGS | HOME

Silents

2009-08-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

2002; CD; effe (ef02-002), Tokyo

A Japanese compilation of very quiet works by four composers:

Francisco López (Spain): untitled #120 (2001)
Steve Peters (USA): agung (2001), for seven Javanese gongs
sukora (Japan): Hill
Bernhard Günter (Germany): elliptical entropy (2000)

RECORDINGS | HOME

Sound

2009-08-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

1998; CD; Refusalon Gallery, San Francisco

Includes an excerpt from Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon, performed by David Dunn. Listen/download

Compilation/catalog from a gallery show curated by Steve Roden. Other artists: Bill Fontana, Joe Bloggs, Paul De Marinis, Lewis DeSoto, Gustavo Matamoros, Doug Harvey, horea, Guy Hundere/Totemplow, Brandon LaBelle, Ati Maier, Tom Marioni, Guy Overfelt, Steve Roden, Heather Sparks/Adam Sinykin, Jake Tilson, Illana Zuckerman.

RECORDINGS | HOME

Cassette Mythos

2009-08-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

Edited by Robin James
Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)
1992; Book, 196 pages, illustrated; ISBN: 0-936756-69-1

Includes Tape Recorder as Audio Camera: Snapshot Radio/Cassette Magazine, an essay co-written with Rich Jensen about our early work with field recordings and found audio.

An amazing overview/anthology of documents from the international underground cassette network ca. mid-late 1980s. Contributors include Miekel And, Eugene Chadbourne, Michael Chocholak, Chris Cutler, Cyrnai, Amy Denio, Phil Dink, Lena Dixon, Mark Edwards, Karen Eliot, L. Bottom Eyes, Dan Fioretti, John Foster, Tom Furgas, Qubais Reed Ghazala, Mike Gunderloy, Chris Hardiman, Sue Ann Harkey, Sean Wolf Hill, Robert Hinrix, Carl Howard, John Hudak, Robin James, Steve Jones, Geoff Kirk, William Levy, Little Fyodor, Annea Lockwood, Dave Mandl, Al Margolis, Scott Marshall, Hal McGee, Minoy, Steve Moore, Erik Mueller, Gen Ken Montgomery, David Myers, John Oswald, Bart Plantenga, A. Produce, Conrad Schnitzler, Pennie Stasik, Neil Strauss, R. Anderson Sutton, and John Trubee.

A companion CD/cassette, Audio Alchemy, was also released on Nonsequitur's ¿What Next? label, available from Pogus)

PUBLICATIONS | HOME

Site of Sound: of Architecture & the Ear

2009-08-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

Edited by Brandon LaBelle & Steve Roden
Errant Bodies Press (Los Angeles, California)
1999; Book/CD, 178 pages, illustrated; ISBN: 0-9655570-2-2

Includes a recorded excerpt, score, and essay about Sight Specifics: Santa Fe. This version is an edited performance by intermedia artist Ann Racuya-Robbins, recorded in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Listen/download.

Site of Sound is an anthology focusing on current trends in experimental music, sound art and audio theories, featuring writings, visual works, interviews and artist projects by leading experimental composers, sound-artists, and architects whose work concerns itself with architectural and acoustic space, sound sculpture, field/ environmental investigation and recording, and site-specificity. (other artists: Michael Brewster, Loren Chasse, Philip Corner, Moniek Darge, David Dunn, Max Eastley, Rolf Julius, Alison Knowles, Christina Kubisch, Rupert M. Loydell, Tom Marioni, Christof Migone, Tim Robinson, Minoru Sato, Jio Shimizu, Jake Tilson, Giancarlo Toniutti, Jalal Toufic, Toshiya Tsunoda, Ralf L. Wehowsky, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Achim Wollscheid)

RECORDINGS | HOME | PUBLICATIONS

Arcana IV: Musicians on Music

2009-08-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

John Zorn, ed.
Hips Road/Tzadik (New York, NY)
2009; 402 pages, illustrated; ISBN: 978-09788337-8-7

Includes my essay, Making a Place to Listen, about my transition from live performance to sound installations.

Edited by John Zorn, the acclaimed Arcana series provides insight into the work and methodologies of some of the most creative musical minds of our time. Rather than an attempt to distill or define a musician’s work, Arcana IV: Musicians on Music illuminates directly via personal vision and experience, through the undiluted words and thoughts of the practitioners themselves. Elucidating through manifestoes, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, composer/performers address composing, improvising, teaching, living, touring and thinking in and through music. Contributors: Derek Bailey, Nels Cline, Chris Cutler, Arnold Dreyblatt, Paul Dresher, Toby Driver, David Dunn, Marty Ehrlich, Peter Evans, Fast Forward, James Fei, Miguel Frasconi, Mamoru Fujieda, Kenneth Gaburo, Steve Gorn, Shelley Hirsch, Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz, Vijay Iyer, John King, Alex Lipowski, Bob Ludwig, Keeril Makan, Benedict Mason, Gordon Mumma, Hankus Netsky, Steve Peters, Matana Roberts, Brandon Ross, Ursel Schlicht, David Slusser, Tyshawn Sorey, Katherine Supové, Davey Williams, and Carolyn Yarnell.

PUBLICATIONS | HOME

Stained Glass (Chamber Music 5)

2008-11-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

2008; CD-R (limited edition, 30 copies); Self-published; out of print. Listen/download (excerpt)

60-minute stereo mix documenting a six-channel site-specific sound installation at the Good Shepherd Center Chapel in Seattle, Washington. All sounds derived from a field recording of the empty Chapel made late at night.

This piece was made to accompany Ashes to Ashes, a visual art show curated by Mary Welch featuring twenty life-size coffins, made from biodegradable materials and suspended from the 28-foot ceiling of the space.

Chamber Music is a series of sound installations derived from recordings of the empty rooms in which the work is exhibited. Luminous resonant frequencies pulled from thin air, sound that aspires to the qualities of light, slowly shifting in tone and intensity with the passing of time.

RECORDINGS | HOME

Filtered Light (Chamber Music 4)

2008-03-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

2008; CD-R (limited edition, 250 copies); Dragon's Eye Recordings (de5017), Seattle. Listen/download (excerpt).

60-minute stereo mix documenting a four-channel site-specific sound installation in the studio gallery at the University of New Mexico Art Museum, made for the 2008 UNM Composers Symposium. All sounds derived from a field recording of the empty gallery (thanks to Manny Rettinger).

Chamber Music is a series of sound installations derived from recordings of the empty rooms in which the work is exhibited. Luminous resonant frequencies pulled from thin air, sound that aspires to the qualities of light, slowly shifting in tone and intensity with the passing of time.

Reviews: Cyclic Defrost, Earlabs, Igloo, Signal to Noise (Fall 2008, not online), Tokafi, Touching Extremes (scroll almost to bottom), Vital Weekly (scroll way down), White_Line, The Wire (June 2008, not online)

RECORDINGS | HOME

Webster Cycles

2008-03-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

2008; CD-EP (US $9 post-paid); Cold Blue Music (CB0026), Los Angeles.

A single 30-minute piece for six trombones, all performed by J.A. Deane. The score consists of all the words in the dictionary that contain only the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, arranged as a list in alphabetical order. The letters are played as musical pitches. Each word is played once, for the duration of one long breath; within that breath the length of the notes, phrasing, dynamics, timbre, and silences between words are all spontaneous.

Reviews: Amazing Sounds, Classical Net, Eartrip (scroll way down), Gaz-Eta (scroll way down), Kathodik (in Italian), Musicweb International, Santa Fe Reporter, Sequenza21, Textura, Touching Extremes (scroll way down), Vital Weekly (scroll way down), The Wire (May 2008, not online)

RECORDINGS | HOME

Occasional Music

2007-07-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

2007; CD/MP3 (US $14/$6); Palace of Lights (PoL 0703), Hawaii.

Music for real instruments that has been used for dance, theater, and film. Something to confuse everyone: Satie-esque piano, swirling minimalist accordions, Javanese gamelan, jazzy trumpets, electro-acoustic mayhem, ethereal female voices, Fourth World fusion, drifty electric guitar. You had no idea, did you? With guest musicians Robin Holcomb, Tom Guralnick, Steven M. Miller, and Jonathan Baldwin.

Reviews: Amazon, Earlabs #1, Ectomag, Psyche Van Het Folk, Sea of Tranquility, Terrascopic Rumbles (scroll way down), Textura, Vital Weekly (on Earlabs).

RECORDINGS | HOME

Bio

2007-07-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

Steve Peters (b. 1959) makes music and sound for a wide range of contexts and occasions using environmental recordings, found/ natural objects, electronics, various musical instruments, and human voices. Attentive to the subtle nuances of perception and place, his work is often site-specific, understated, and contemplative. He performs with the Seattle Phonographers Union, and works as a freelance producer, writer, and curator. Since 1989 he has been the Director of Nonsequitur, a non-profit organization presenting experimental music and sound art, currently via the Wayward Music Series at the Chapel Performance Space in Seattle. His music has been released on such labels as Cold Blue, Palace of Lights, Sirr, and Dragon's Eye.

LONG VERSION
Composer/sound artist Steve Peters was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and raised in the suburbs of southern California. He graduated from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where he studied music composition, was Music Director at KAOS-FM, and played guitar in rock bands with friends like Steve Fisk, John Foster, Bruce Pavitt, Calvin Johnson, Cheri Knight, Tim Brock, Lois Maffeo, and Gary Wilson. He wrote for OP Magazine and other publications, and with Rich Jensen produced Snapshot Radio, a monthly three-hour radio program devoted solely to the sounds of everyday life, recorded by themselves and friends around the world.

In the mid-1980s Peters moved to New York City, working first as an intern at Franklin Furnace, then as part-time factotum at New Music Distribution Service, ticket seller at the Museum of Modern Art, recording engineer of books-on-tape for the blind, and audio Artist-in-Residence in the Long Island public schools. These years were mainly spent playing noisy improvised music in the Downtown experimental music scene. He also presented Snapshot Radio on WFMU-FM, began working with dancers, and took performance workshops with members of Meredith Monk's company.

Chewed up and spit out by NYC, Peters landed in Santa Fé, New Mexico in 1988, and soon he and friend Jonathan Scheuer started Nonsequitur, a non-profit organization publishing recordings of experimental music and audio art. Abandoning the style of music he had played in New York, Steve became more interested in regional and world folk musics, incorporating those influences into his own work, along with environmental sounds recorded on hikes in the mountains and high desert. He made eccentric radio art, worked with singer Marghreta Cordero (aka Nacha Mendez) as Dueto Le Mômo, was a member of Gamelan Encantada for seven years, and studied gamelan selonding in Bali.

Moving to Albuquerque in 1993, Peters hosted radio programs on KUNM-FM, formed a short-lived trio with composers David Dunn and Chris Shultis, collaborated with choreographer Lane Lucas on several dance/theater projects, and scored a documentary about painter Agnes Martin. Performing solo and with others (including Steve Roden, Anna Homler, Francisco López), he developed a more subdued style of improvising with an assortment of small instruments, amplified tree branches and other objects, voice, field recordings, and electronics. This led to a more direct engagement with landscape and place, evolving into the site-specific sound environments that have since become the main focus of his practice. He retired from live performance in 2002.

After fifteen years in the desert, Steve returned to the Northwest in 2004. Still Director of Nonsequitur, he currently oversees the Wayward Music Series at the Chapel Performance Space in Seattle. He also continues to work as a freelance producer, writer, and curator, and performs occasionally with the Seattle Phonographers Union, a collective of artists from various disciplines who improvise with unprocessed field recordings.

CV

2007-07-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

STEVE PETERS, composer/sound artist
(b. 1959, San Rafael, CA; resides in Seattle, WA)

EDUCATION
2002-03 Old-time fiddle with David Margolin (Albuquerque)
1996 Gamelan slonding with I Nyoman Partha Gunawan (Tenganan, Bali)
1991 Javanese gamelan with Jeanette DeBouzek (Santa Fé/Albuquerque)
1984 Workshops with members of Meredith Monk/The House (New York)
1979-85 The Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA), Bachelor of Arts Degree

EXHIBITIONS
2010 Chamber Music 7 (Solar Ring) — site-specific sound installation; Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA); in group show Sound in Space, curated by Scott Sherk

2009 The Very Rich Hours — site-specific sound installation, Old San Ysidro Church (Corrales, NM); in group show Land/Art, curated by Kathleen Shields

2009 Chamber Music 6 (Two Ways of Listening to Nothing) — site-specific sound installation with Rene Barge; Bass Art Museum (Miami, FL); in group show Sound, curated by Gustavo Matamoros

2008 Chamber Music 5 (Stained Glass) — site-specific sound installation; Good Shepherd Center Chapel (Seattle, WA); in group show Ashes to Ashes, curated by Mary Welch

2008 Chamber Music 4 (Filtered Light) — site-specific sound installation; UNM Art Museum (Albuquerque, NM); as part of UNM Composer Symposium, curated by Christopher Shultis

2007 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — sound installation; Saranac Art Projects (Spokane, WA)

2007 Chamber Music 3 (Silent Room) — site-specific sound installation; Seattle Public Library, Greenwood branch (Seattle, WA)

2007 Chamber Music 2 (Atrium) — site-specific sound installation; Atrium Soundspace, Contemporary Music Program at College of Santa Fé (Santa Fé, NM)

2007 Alchemy — sound/visual installation with artist Christine Wallers, Nicolaysen Museum (Casper, WY)

2006 First Light, Last — sound/video installation with Christine Wallers; Sound & Light Gallery at Portland Art Center (Portland, OR)

2005 Alchemy — sound/visual installation with artist Christine Wallers, Center on Contemporary Art (Settle, WA); in group show Resonance, curated by Fionn Meade & Robert Millis as part of the Bumbershoot Festival

2005 Correspondence — sound installation with Rene Barge; Lightbox Gallery (Miami, FL); in group show Boomerang

2005 Morning Ragas — mobile sound installation; Port Angeles Fine Arts Center (Pt. Angeles, WA); in group show Art Outside, curated by Jake Seniuk

2004 Center of Gravity — sound/visual installation with artist Susan York; Betty Rymer Gallery, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL); in group show Implicit Plasticity, curated by Dubhe Carreño

2004 Window Seat and Mountains Hidden in Mountains — site-specific sound installations; Santa Fé Art Institute (Santa Fé, NM); in group show Transmit + Transform, curated by Diane Karp

2004 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — sound installation; Dorsch Gallery (Miami, FL); as part of Subtropics Festival, curated by Gustavo Matamoros

2004 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — sound installation; Sun Valley Center for the Arts (Sun Valley, ID); in group show Sound of Place, Place of Sound, curated by Jennifer Gately

2003 Luminous Bodies on Galileo’s Inclined Plane — multimedia installation with architect/artist Reggie Stump; AC2 Gallery (Albuquerque, NM)

2003 Delicate Abrasions — site-specific sound installation; Shack Obscura at Klaudia Marr Gallery (Santa Fé, NM)

2003 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — sound installation; University of Texas (El Paso, TX); in group show Two Artists Respond to the Land with video artist Robert Tachoires, curated by Kate Bonansinga

2003 Alchemy — sound/visual installation with artist Christine Wallers, Nicolaysen Museum (Casper, WY)

2002 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — completed installation with 24 stone listening benches on recording sites, the LAND/an Art Site (Mountainair, NM); in group show Nothing to See

2002 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — sound/visual installation with 24 stone listening benches, 516 Arts (Albuquerque, NM); in group show Being, here, curated by Steve Peters

2001 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — sound installation; Museum of Fine Arts (Santa Fé, NM); in group show Organizing the World: Sculptural Interventions, curated by Aline Brandauer & Christine Wallers

2001 Emanations — sound/visual installation with artist Claire Giovanniello, Harwood Art Center (Albuquerque, NM); as part of Trapped Light, curated by Christine Wallers

2001 Cloud Chamber — light installation in storefront window (Albuquerque, NM); as part of The Windows Project, curated by Jesse DeLeers

2000 Alchemy — sound/visual installation with artist Christine Wallers, Old San Ysidro Church (Corrales, NM)

2000 Celebrating Nature: the Forest Underground — sound/neon light installation with artist Barbara Grothus, permanent public artwork commissioned for the Albuquerque Convention Center (Albuquerque, NM)

2000 Confluences: Songs of the Rio Grande & Its Tributaries — sound installation (received Award of Merit); Albuquerque Museum (Albuquerque, NM); as part of group show Water

1999 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory — site-specific installation (in progress); The Land/an art site (Mountainair, NM); as part of group show Second Show, curated by Christine Wallers

1998 Emanations — sound installation, Brooklyn College Art Gallery (Brooklyn, NY)

1998 Emanations — sound installation, Harwood Art Center (Albuquerque, NM); as part of group show Some Things in the Air, curated by Steve Peters

1998 Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon — sound installation; Refusalon Gallery (San Francisco, CA); as part of group show Sound, curated by Steve Roden

1995 Emanations — sound/visual installation with artist Claire Giovanniello, Nonsequitur Music Gallery (Albuquerque)

1994 Act Now! — sound installation, American Institute of Graphic Arts (Portland, OR) commissioned for Issues & Causes, group show of activist graphic design

1991 Snapshot Radio — cassette/print assemblage, Mexic-arte Museum (Austin, TX); in Undercurrents, group show of international cassette network artifacts, curated by Daniel Plunket

SOLO RECORDINGS
2009 The Very Rich Hours (CD-R; self-published; limited edition of 100)

2008 Filtered Light (CD-R; Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Seattle; limited edition 250)

2008 Webster Cycles (CD; Cold Blue Music, Los Angeles)

2007 Occasional Music (CD; Palace of Lights, Hawaii)

2007 Three Rooms (CD; Sirr, Lisbon, Portugal)

2004 From Shelter (CD; Cold Blue Music, Los Angeles, CA)

2003 Delicate Abrasions (3” mini CD-R in rusted steel sleeve; limited edition of 100; Pianíssimo, Albuquerque, NM)

2002 Here•ings: a sonic geohistory (CD/book, photos by Margot Geist; La Alameda Press, Albuquerque, NM)

2000 In Memory of the Four Winds (CD; Pianíssimo, Albuquerque, NM)

1998 Emanations (CD; O.O. Discs, Black Rock, CT)

COMPILATIONS

Post-Minimalism – “Ancestral Memory” (CD, Trace, Paris; 2007)

Silents – “Agung, for seven Javanese gongs” (CD, Effe Records, Tokyo; 2002)

Site of Sound: of architecture & the ear – “Sight Specifics: Santa Fe ”, with Ann Racuya-Robbins, text and voice (book/CD, Errant Bodies Press/Smart Arts, Los Angeles; 1999)

Sound – “Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon”, with David Dunn, text and voice (CD, Refusalon Gallery, San Francisco; 1998)

The Aerial, Vol. 1 – “Idumea” (CD/Cassette, ¿What Next? Recordings, Santa Fe; 1990)

Regional Zeal – “‘Lotta Lights T’night” + "Dog Eyes" with Steve Fisk, voice (LP, Palace of Lights, Seattle; 1992)

SELECTED WORK FOR DANCE, THEATER & FILM

Winter’s Bone, directed by Debra Granik (Roadside Attractions; 2010) – soundtrack producer and location recording for feature-length film

With My Back to the World: Agnes Martin, directed by Mary Lance (DVD; New Deal Films, Albuquerque; 2002) – original soundtrack for video documentary on painter Agnes Martin

Flight Path, by Doranne Crable (performed by Kagami Butoh), Evergreen State College (Olympia; 1999)

Faith, choreographed & written by Lane Lucas, KiMo Theater (Albuquerque; 1998)

Shelter, choreographed & written by Lane Lucas, UNM Theater X (Albuquerque; 1997)

Ground Luminosity, choreographed & written by Lane Lucas, UNM Theater X (Albuquerque; 1997)

Planctus, choreographed by Bill Evans & Nora Reynolds-Daniel, ¡Magnifico! Festival of the Arts (Albuquerque; 1996)

Experiments In Living, choreographed by Deborah Slater, Studio 210 (San Francisco; 1991)

Died Suddenly, choreographed by Deborah Slater, Studio 210 (San Francisco; 1990)

Introduction to Dropping Dead, choreographed by John Carrafa, Dance Theater Workshop (New York; 1988)

SELECTED CONCERTS

50th Birthday retrospective concert, Chapel Performance Space (Seattle; 2010)

2004-10 Various performances with Seattle Phonographers Union

1999 Solo tour (Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Denver, Boulder, Seattle, Olympia, Portland, Boise, Salt Lake City)

1999 Beyond Music Festival, Beyond Baroque (Los Angeles)

1998 Santa Fe International Electro-acoustic Music Festival, College of Santa Fe (Santa Fe)

1996 Tumbleweed Tour with Anna Homler & Steve Roden (Los Angeles, Huntington Beach, San Diego, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Austin, Houston)

1993 University of New Mexico Composers’ Symposium, University of New Mexico (Albuquerque)

1992 New Music Across America Festival (Albuquerque)

AS PRODUCER/PUBLISHER

1989-98 Produced 30 releases for Nonsequitur’s ¿What Next? Recordings by artists such as Deep Listening Band, David Dunn, Gamelan Pacifica, Peter Garland, Malcolm Goldstein, Tom Guralnick, Jerry Hunt, Teiji Ito, Jin Hi Kim, Alison Knowles, Annea Lockwood, Loren Mazzacane, Ikue Mori, as well as six volumes of The Aerial compilation series, four volumes of the Radius radio art series, and others.

1982 Regional Zeal (LP compilation, Palace of Lights, Seattle)

PUBLICATIONS

Arcana Vol. 4, John Zorn, ed. – “Making a Place to Listen” (Tzadik, New York; 2009)

Here•ings: a sonic geohistory (CD/book, La Alameda Press, Albuquerque; 2002)

Site of Sound, B. LaBelle and S. Roden, eds. – “Sight Specifics” (Errant Bodies Press, Los Angeles; 1999)

New Music Across America, Iris Brooks, ed. – “Outpost Culture” (High Performance, Los Angeles; 1992)

Cassette Mythos, Robin James, ed. – “Tape Recorder as Audio Camera”, with Rich Jensen (Autonomedia, Brooklyn; 1992)

OP Magazine, John Foster, ed. – feature articles, reviews and composer interviews (Lost Music Network, Olympia; 1980-84)

PROFESSIONAL

1989-2010 Director, Nonsequitur Inc. (Santa Fé/Albuquerque/Seattle)

2007 Visiting Artist, New School for Social Research (New York)

2004-05 Arts Programs Manager, Jack Straw Productions (Seattle)

2004 Guest Lecturer, University of Washington (Seattle)

2003 Advisory Board, Santa Fe New Music (Santa Fé)

2001 Visiting Artist, The Evergreen State College (Olympia)

2000-08 Advisory Board, Subtropics Festival (Miami)

1999 Artist in Residence, Rio Grande Nature Center State Park (Albuquerque)

1999 Visiting Artist, Armand Hammer United World College (Montezuma, NM)

Three Rooms

2007-03-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

2007; CD (US $15 post-paid); Sirr-ecords (Sirr 0029), Lisbon; Listen/download (excerpts)

Documents three sound installations: a re-mastered version of Delicate Abrasions (sounds of "playing" an old building in Santa Fé), a completely remixed version of Center of Gravity (processed breath sounds for one of artist Susan York's "graphite rooms" in Chicago), and the original version of Mountains Hidden in Mountains (orchestral drone from a single strike of the meditation bell at a zendo in Albuquerque).

Reviews: Boomkat, Disquiet, e/i, d'Mute (French), Furthernoise, Gaz-Eta, Kathodik (Italian), Neural, New Media Fix, Octopus (French), Sands Zine (Italian), Tokafi, Touching Extremes (scroll down almost to end), Vital Weekly, The Wire (October 2007, not online)

RECORDINGS | HOME

Releases & Publications

2007-02-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

Arcana IV: Musicians on Music
Hips Road/Tzadik
New York, NY
(Book, 2009; ISBN: 978-09788337-8-7)

Edited by John Zorn, the acclaimed Arcana series provides insight into the work and methodologies of some of the most creative musical minds of our time. Rather than an attempt to distill or define a musician’s work, Arcana IV: Musicians on Music illuminates directly via personal vision and experience, through the undiluted words and thoughts of the practitioners themselves. Elucidating through manifestoes, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, composer/performers address composing, improvising, teaching, living, touring and thinking in and through music. Essential for composers, musicians, students and fans alike, this remarkably challenging and original series has now become the major source on new music theory and practice in the twenty-first century. Contributors: Derek Bailey, Nels Cline, Chris Cutler, Arnold Dreyblatt, Paul Dresher, Toby Driver, David Dunn, Marty Ehrlich, Peter Evans, Fast Forward, James Fei, Miguel Frasconi, Mamoru Fujieda, Kenneth Gaburo, Steve Gorn, Shelley Hirsch, Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz, Vijay Iyer, John King, Alex Lipowski, Bob Ludwig, Keeril Makan, Benedict Mason, Gordon Mumma, Hankus Netsky, Steve Peters, Matana Roberts, Brandon Ross, Ursel Schlicht, David Slusser, Tyshawn Sorey, Katherine Supové, Davey Williams, and Carolyn Yarnell.

The Very Rich Hours
Limited Edition (100 copies)
Seattle, WA
(CD-R, 2009; self-released)

70-minute stereo mix of a site-specific sound installation at the Old San Ysidro Church in Corrales, NM. Environmental sounds and subtle electronic processing; spoken descriptions of the New Mexico landscape by Anne Cooper, Loren Kahn, JB Bryan, Basia Irland, Thomas Ashcraft, Mary Lance, Jeffrey Lee, Ted Harrison, David Dunn, and Lisa Gill; Latin names of endangered species sung by Ben Black, Katherine Hanson, Jessika Kenney, Linda Strandberg, and David Stutz. Available directly from me for $15, or in four segments as free streaming/downloadable MP3.

Gong (Cymbal)/Ear in the Desert
Innova Recordings
St. Paul, Minnesota
(CD, 2008; Innova227)

Gong (Cymbal)/Ear in the desert is a very beautiful recording I made back in 1991 of Philip Corner (esteemed composer long associated with experimental music and his key roles in Fluxus, Judson Dance Theater, Tone Roads, and Gamelan Son of Lion) improvising with his Korean cymbals in a remote canyon in northern New Mexico. Finally released nearly 18 years to the date of the original recording session. Reviews: Allmusic

The Webster Cycles
Cold Blue Music
Los Angeles, California
(CD, 2008; CB0026)

A single 30-minute piece that straddles the fence of structure and improvisation: all of the words in the dictionary that use only the letters A-G, arranged in alphabetical order. Each word is played for the length of one long breath, within which the letters/notes are played spontaneously, as are dynamics, timbre, etc. This very lush multi-tracked version is for six trombones, all performed by the fabulous J.A. Deane. Reviews: Amazing Sounds, Classical Net, Eartrip (scroll way down), Gaz-Eta (scroll way down), Kathodik (in Italian), Musicweb International, Santa Fe Reporter, Sequenza21, Textura, Touching Extremes (scroll way down), Vital Weekly (scroll way down), The Wire (May 2008, not online)

Filtered Light (chamber music 4)
Dragon's Eye Recordings
Seattle, USA
(CD-R, 2008; de5017)

Chamber Music is a series of site-specific sound installations derived from recordings of the empty rooms in which the work is exhibited. Luminous resonant frequencies pulled from thin air, sound that aspires to the qualities of light, slowly shifting in tone and intensity with the passing of time. Filtered Light was a version made for the UNM Art Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2008. Listen/download (excerpt).

Reviews: Cyclic Defrost, Earlabs, Igloo, Signal to Noise (Fall 2008, not online), Tokafi, Touching Extremes (scroll almost to bottom), Vital Weekly (scroll way down), White_Line, The Wire (June 2008, not online)

Occasional Music
Palace of Lights
Hawaii, USA
(CD, 2007; PoL 0703)

Music for real instruments that has been used for dance, theater, and film. Something to confuse everyone: Satie-esque piano (played by Robin Holcomb), swirling minimalist accordions, Javanese gamelan, jazzy trumpets, electro-acoustic mayhem, pretty female voices, Fourth World fusion, drifty electric guitar. You had no idea, did you? Reviewed at Amazon, Earlabs #1, Ectomag, Psyche Van Het Folk, Sea of Tranquility, Terrascopic Rumbles (scroll way down), Textura, Vital Weekly (on Earlabs).

Three Rooms
Sirr
Lisbon, Portugal
(CD, 2007; Sirr 0029)

Documents three sound installations: a re-mastered version of Delicate Abrasions (sounds of playing an old warehouse in Santa Fé), a completely remixed version of Center of Gravity (processed breath sounds for one of Susan York's "graphite rooms" at School of the Art Institute of Chicago), and the original version of Mountains Hidden in Mountains (from a single strike of the meditation bell at a zendo in Albuquerque). Listen/download (excerpts).

Reviewed at: Boomkat, Disquiet, e/i, d'Mute (French), Furthernoise, Gaz-Eta, Kathodik (Italian), Neural, New Media Fix, Octopus (French), Sands Zine (Italian), Tokafi, Touching Extremes (scroll down almost to end), Vital Weekly, The Wire (October 2007, not online)

Post-Minimalism
Trace Label
Paris, France
(CD, 2007; Trace 024)

2-CD compilation featuring 19 composers from 4 countries, all of them found on MySpace by producer Hervé Zénouda. Includes Ancestral Memory, which can also be heard on Occasional Music.

From Shelter
Cold Blue Music
Los Angeles, California
(CD, 2004; CB0018)

Four short pieces composed for Shelter, a 1998 dance/theater work written and choreographed by Lane Lucas: Three Short Stories (a fine powder/nothing but love/lavender) with Alicia Ultan, violas; My burning skin to sleep... with Marghreta Cordero, voice; SP, piano. Reviews: Classical Net, Dusted, The Improvisor, Sequenza21 (scroll down), Sonic Curiosity, Textura.

Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World
New Deal Films
Corrales, New Mexico
(DVD, 2003; ISBN 1-878917-10-2)

Soundtrack for the documentary by Mary Lance on the great abstract painter. Some of the music was remixed from earlier work, some was composed especially for this project, with Ben Daitz on viola. Agnes Martin's work has been hugely inspiring to me, and I am honored to contribute to this project. In 1980 I saw a show of her work in Seattle – a room full of large, white canvases. But if you looked at them long enough, they seemed to glow with different colors; her trademark horizontal bands of color were buried beneath layers of white gesso, seeping through like overtones. I spent the next twenty years trying to figure out how to do that with sound (see the Emanations CD). Reviews: collected reviews, New York Times, Slant, Village Voice. Listen to an interview on WNYC with director Mary Lance.

Delicate Abrasions
pianíssimo
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(3" mini CD-R, 2003; ppp03; out of print)

Documentation of a site-specific sound installation at Klaudia Marr Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Limited edition of 100 copies in handmade rusted steel sleeve with printed color insert, cardboard inner sleeve, clear vinyl jacket. Remastered version available on Three Rooms from the Sirr label (see above). Listen/download (excerpt).

Silents
effe
Japan
(CD, 2002; ef02-002)

A compilation of very quiet works by four composers:

Francisco López (Spain): untitled #120 (2001)
Steve Peters (USA): agung (2001), for seven Javanese gongs
sukora (Japan): Hill
Bernhard Günter (Germany): elliptical entropy (2000)

Here-ings: a sonic geohistory
La Alameda Press
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(Book + CD, 2002; ISBN: 1-888809-38-83)

This book and CD document a site-specific installation created at THE LAND/an art site in Mountainair, New Mexico. With photographs by Margot Geist.

Twenty-four hours of field recordings were made over the course of one year at various places on this forty-acre site dedicated to low impact, land-based art. These were edited down to a 72-minute sound collage, mixed with contact microphone recordings of various objects found at the site such as grass, cactus, trees, ants, and wire fences. Short poetic texts evoking the sounds heard during each recorded hour were engraved on stone and steel listening benches that are placed permanently on all of the recording sites. The book contains essays discussing the process and ideas behind the creation of the work, the listening bench poems, and a detailed track list of all the sounds heard on the CD. Also available from Earth Ear, and/OAR, and the Deep Listening Institute. Reviews: 5:4.

in memory of the four winds
pianíssimo
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(CD, 2000; ppp01)

Music composed for Flight Path, choreographed by Doranne Crable for Kagami Butoh. Sound sources include insects, violin, wind, stone, trees, voice, feedback, water, suling gambuh, birds, electronic processing. Available from Earth Ear, and/OAR, and the Deep Listening Institute. Reviews: All Music Guide, Amazing Sounds, Ambient Visions (scroll down), Vital (scroll down). Listen/download (edited/condensed version).

Site of Sound: of architecture & the ear
Errant Bodies Press
Los Angeles, California
(Book + CD, 1999; ISBN: 0-9655570-2-2)

Edited by Brandon LaBelle and Steve Roden, Site of Sound is an anthology focusing on current trends in experimental music, sound art and audio theories, featuring writings, visual works, interviews and artist projects by leading experimental composers, sound-artists, and architects whose work concerns itself with architectural and acoustic space, sound sculpture, field/environmental investigation and recording, and site-specificity. (other artists: Michael Brewster, Loren Chasse, Philip Corner, Moniek Darge, David Dunn, Max Eastley, Rolf Julius, Alison Knowles, Christina Kubisch, Rupert M. Loydell, Tom Marioni, Christof Migone, Tim Robinson, Minoru Sato, Jio Shimizu, Jake Tilson, Giancarlo Toniutti, Jalal Toufic, Toshiya Tsunoda, Ralf L. Wehowsky, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Achim Wollscheid)

Includes a recorded excerpt, score, and essay about Sight Specifics: Santa Fe, one of a series of works in which I invite others to visit particular places and record their spontaneous descriptions of what they observe there. This version is an edited performance by intermedia artist Ann Racuya-Robbins, recorded in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Listen/download.

Sound
Refusalon Gallery
San Francisco, California
(CD, 1998)

Compilation from gallery show, with an excerpt from Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon, performed by David Dunn. (other artists: Bill Fontana, Joe Bloggs, Paul De Marinis, Lewis DeSoto, Gustavo Matamoros, Doug Harvey, horea, Guy Hundere/Totemplow, Brandon LaBelle, Ati Maier, Tom Marioni, Guy Overfelt, Steve Roden, Heather Sparks/Adam Sinykin, Jake Tilson, Illana Zuckerman) Listen/download.

emanations
OO Discs
Black Rock, Connecticut
(CD, 1998; oo34)

Sound from an installation with visual artist Claire Giovanniello. A vaporous cloud of pure tones made with controlled feedback, hovering on the threshold of audibility. Available from Pogus, and/OAR, and the Deep Listening Institute. Reviews: All Music Guide, Amazing Sounds.

Cassette Mythos
Autonomedia
Brooklyn, New York
(Book, 1990; ISBN: 0-936756-69-1)

Edited by Robin James, this overview/anthology of documents from the international underground cassette network ca. mid-late 1980s includes Tape Recorder as Audio Camera: Snapshot Radio/Cassette Magazine, an essay co-written with Rich Jensen about our early work with field recordings and found audio. I thought this was out of print, but it is still listed on the publisher's web site. Robin still maintains an online version with occasional updates. (a companion CD, Audio Alchemy, was also released on Nonsequitur's ¿What Next? label, available from Pogus)

The Aerial - a journal in sound, #1
Nonsequitur
Santa Fe, New Mexico
(CD/Cassette, 1990; AER1990/1)

Idumea, an improvisation on a shape-note hymn for voice, violin, and home-made bass recorder (under name Lost Souls) included on compilation CD that I also produced. (other artists: Christine Baczewska, Floating Concrete Octopus, Malcolm Goldstein, Jerry Hunt, Rich Jensen, Richard Kostelanetz, Loren Mazzacane & Suzanne Langille, David Moss, Bern Porter, Terry Setter, Stuart Sherman) CD out of print, cassette available from the Deep Listening Institute.

Performances

2007-02-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

50th Birthday Concert
September 26, 2009
Chapel Performance Space
Seattle, WA

I celebrated my 50th birthday with a concert of friends playing my music spanning the past thirty years: Chamber Music 5: Stained Glass (2008) site- specific sound installation (pre-show); Paris, once (1984) solo piano, performed by Robin Holcomb; Planctus (1993/94) Javanese gamelan, performed by Gamelan Pacifica; Brief Lives (2008) assorted instruments & objects, performed by members of the Eye Music Ensemble; Improvised set by members of the Seattle Phonographers Union; Webster Cycles (1981) performed by Stuart Dempster, Lesli Dalaba, Jeremiah Cawley, David Marriott, Nelson Bell, and Andy Clausen.

Cold Blue at REDCAT
February 18, 2006
Roy & Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater
Los Angeles, CA

I was honored to have the wonderful pianist Sarah Cahill perform Paris, once, a miniature composed in NYC in the early 1980s, on an evening of short works by various composers on the Cold Blue label (John Luther Adams, Michael Byron, Barney Childs, Rick Cox, Michael Jon Fink, Jim Fox, Kyle Gann, Peter Garland, Daniel Lentz, David Mahler, Read Miller, Steve Peters, Larry Polansky, and Chas Smith).

Phonographers Union at Sand Point
Friday, September 23, 2005
Bldg #27, Sand Point
Magnuson Park, Seattle

The Seattle Phonographers Union performed a three-hour concert in a retired aircraft hangar at Sand Point/Magnuson Park, subjecting their usually intimate sounds to the natural processing of this vast reverberant environment. There was no seating, so listeners were free to come and go and move about the space as they wished. Signal from the main mixing console was also broadcast via mini-FM transmitter to a number of radios placed all around the building, further dispersing the sound.

The Phonographers Union is a collective of sound artists, composers, and recordists who improvise in real time using unprocessed sounds from their personal library of field recordings. Performers for this concert were Steve Barsotti, Christopher DeLaurenti, Mark Griswold, Doug Haire, Dale Lloyd, Perri Lynch, Rob Millis, Toby Paddock, Steve Peters, Jonathan Way

first light, last (2006)

2006-12-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

December 7 - 23, 2006
Portland Art Center, Light & Sound Gallery
Portland, Oregon
Listen/download (excerpt)

Video and multi-channel sound installation with artist Christine Wallers. A meditation on the cusps of darkness and light, sound and silence. The visuals are projected sequences of still photographs of cloudless sky, taken in the moments just before darkness and dawn. The sound is derived from a 40-minute field recording made on the beach at Kalaloch, Washington as night visibly descended. The sound was processed as in the Chamber Music series, but using a very different kind of source recording.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Chamber Music (2005-2011)

2005-12-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

An ongoing series of site-specific sound works derived from recordings of the empty spaces where they are eventually presented. These recordings of "silence" are filtered to extract subtle resonant frequency drones from the room sound, which become the raw materials of each piece. Aside from EQ and gating, no other sounds or processing are used.

Chamber Music 9: Northern Light (for Julius) (2011)
March 4 – March 27, 2011
Anchor Art Space
Anacortes, Washington
Listen/download (excerpt)

Ten-channel sound installation derived from a one-hour recording of the empty gallery, referencing the mysterious phenomenon of auroral sound associated with the Northern Lights, and dedicated to Rolf Julius, the influential German sound artist and maker of "small music" who passed while I was working on this. The space was shared with the lovely, reductive work of artist Jasmine Valandani.

Chamber Music 8: Particles/Waves (2010)
September 10 – November 19, 2010
Jack Straw New Media Gallery
Seattle, Washington
Listen/download (excerpt)
Podcast interview
Sixteen different microphones were used to record the same hour of empty room tone. A single frequency from each mic is heard in each of sixteen corresponding speakers placed all around the gallery.

Chamber Music 7: Solar Ring (2010)
March 22 – April 17, 2010
Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Sound in Space, curated by Scott Sherk
Listen/download (excerpt)

A circle of twelve small speakers, each assigned a different tone, with the listener situated in the center (on a classic chrome wire chair designed by Harry Bertoia).

Chamber Music 6: Two Ways of Listening to Nothing (2009)
February 26 – March 29, 2009
Bass Museum
Miami, Florida
SOUND, curated by Gustavo Matamoros
Watch video

For this four-channel collaboration with Miami artist René Barge, we each used the same field recording (made by René) of the museum's empty freight elevator as source material to create separate stereo pieces that were then played simultaneously inside the elevator.

Chamber Music 5: Stained Glass (2008)
November 1 – 15, 2008
Chapel Performance Space
Seattle, Washington
Ashes to Ashes, curated by Mary Welch
Listen/download (excerpt)

Six-channel sound installation to accompany a visual art show consisting of twenty life-size coffins made of biodegradable materials, suspended from the 28-foot ceiling of the space.

Chamber Music 4: Filtered Light (2008)
March 28 – May 11, 2008
University of New Mexico Art Museum, Studio Gallery
Albuquerque, New Mexico
UNM Composers Symposium
Listen/download (excerpt)

Four-channel sound installation. A limited edition CD-R is available from Dragon's Eye Recordings.

Chamber Music 3: Silent Room (2007)
May 11 & 12, 2007
Seattle Public Library, Greenwood Branch
Seattle, Washington
Listen/download (excerpt)

Four-channel sound installation in the library's Silent Room, a glass-walled room within the library designated as a quiet study area.

Chamber Music 2: Atrium (2007)
March 16 – April 26, 2007
Atrium Sound Space, College of Santa Fé
Santa Fé, New Mexico
Listen/download (excerpt)

Four-channel sound installation in the lobby of the new Contemporary Music Program building at the College of Santa Fé.

Chamber Music 1: Suyama (2005)
The first real piece in the series was made in 2005 as a proposal for a show at Suyama Space in Seattle, but was never exhibited. Listen/download (excerpt)

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Correspondence (2005)

2005-11-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

November 30 - December 3, 2005
Light Box Gallery at Miami Light Project
Boomerang (group show)
Miami, Florida
Listen/download

Collaborative sound installation with Rene Barge, created by exchanging recordings through the mail between the far corners of the USA. The sonic materials were all of domestic origin: Rene's sounds were recordings of things and moments around his home in Miami that carried memory and meaning for him; mine were drones derived from a field recording made in an empty house in Seattle. He sent me his material, I added mine and sent it back. Rene built the little table and bench to create an intimate space in the gallery that encouraged attentive listening. This was the first piece I made using the techniques later developed in the Chamber Music series.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Morning Ragas (2005)

2005-06-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

June 18, 2005
Port Angeles Fine Arts Center
Port Angeles, Washington
Art Outside #6, curated by Jake Seniuk
Listen/download (edited, remixed)

All of the sounds in this site-specific work were recorded in Webster's Woods, the art center's five-acre outdoor sculpture park, during one weekend in early May, 2005. The source material includes environmental sound (birds, a ship's horn, etc.), natural objects, and some of the many sculptures encountered in the park. The raw field recordings were edited and electronically processed, resulting in a series of birdsong "solos" over gradually shifting loops and drones. The piece is intended to be heard at low volume through headphones on a personal audio player while wandering the trails, mixing amiably with the live sounds.

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Center of Gravity (2004)

2004-10-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

October 8 – November 19, 2004
Betty Rymer Gallery, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Implicit Plasticity, curated by Dubhe Carreño
Listen/download (excerpt, condensed)

Collaborative installation with artist Susan York for one of her "graphite rooms," in which the walls and floor are coated with a neutral paint base infused with powdered graphite, buffed to a silver-grey sheen (note: photo is color, not B&W). A wooden pier extended from the doorway out into the middle of the room, so that the viewer was surrounded by a grey expanse punctuated with several blocks of solid graphite and a stack of white porcelain shards, evoking the contemplative space of a Japanese rock garden. The sound was made entirely with my own breath and real-time electronic processing. Each individual breath was treated as its own miniature composition. These short pieces are separated by silences of random length. A remixed and much shorter version is on the Three Rooms CD.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Mountains Hidden in Mountains (2004)

2004-07-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

July 2 - August 13, 2004
Santa Fe Art Institute
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Transmit + Transform, curated by Diane Karp
Listen/download (condensed version)

A bell was hung inside a tower located near the main entrance to the Art Institute. When rung by a visitor, it triggers a recording of the bell that fades in imperceptibly as the real sound decays, creating the illusion of an endless tone. The sound changes subtly over 22 minutes, gradually mixing in layers of pitch-shifted bell tones that finally evaporate into silence. A remixed version is on the Three Rooms CD.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Window Seat (2004)

2004-07-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

July 2 - August 13, 2004
Santa Fe Art Institute
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Transmit + Transform, curated by Diane Karp
Listen/download (edited)

Site-specific sound installation located in a small, closet-like space in the administrative office of the Art Institute with a full-length window looking out on the main entrance to the building. Four participants (David Dunn, Jackie M, Ann Racuya-Robbins, Gene Youngblood) were invited to sit in this space at different times for about 30 minutes and describe what they saw out the window; their voices were recorded and edited to form a woven narrative. Visitors sat in the chair looking out the window, listening on headphones to a mix of ambient sounds recorded outside the window, live sound picked up by a wireless microphone hidden outside, and the speaking voices. An attentive listener might notice random correspondences between what they were seeing, the sounds they were hearing (both past and present), and the events described by the voices.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

From Shelter

2004-04-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

2004; CD-EP (US $9 post-paid); Cold Blue Music (CB0018), Los Angeles.

Four short pieces composed for Shelter, a 1998 dance/theater work written and choreographed by Lane Lucas: Three Short Stories (a fine powder/nothing but love/lavender) for multiple violas, with Alicia Ultan; My burning skin to sleep... for piano and voices, with singer Marghreta Cordero.

Reviews: Classical Net, Dusted, The Improvisor, Sequenza21 (scroll down), Sonic Curiosity, Textura.

RECORDINGS | HOME

Luminous Bodies on Galileo's Inclined Plane (2003)

2003-10-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

October 4 - November 2, 2003
Albuquerque Contemporary Art Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Photos/video

"...a mesmerizing theoretical space, a speculative construct, and a hypnotic abstract machine, manifest as a room inside a room." John Carver, THE Magazine, November 2003.

Collaborative installation with architect/artist Reggie Stump. Using Galileo's theory of perpetual motion as a conceptual reference point, Stump created a physical structure within the gallery that investigates the relationship between space, time and motion. The work is a poetic approach to a literal assignment: to design a living space to be shared by two individuals with very different mobility needs – one with cerebral palsy, one without. As an imaginative study for this larger project, Stump constructed two converging mirrored corridors that challenge the observer's own comfort and ease of movement. Each corridor (made of perforated steel, plexiglass and wood) houses a video projection of the bodies in question, rendered as living constellations, traversing the same piece of raw rural terrain - the future building site - with differing degrees of ability. The eight channels of environmental sound evoked a fictional landscape while electronically processed grasshoppers "flew" across the room between speakers, and impossibly sustained bell tones marked the passing of time and map out an audible terrain of subtle standing waves that change perceptibly with the listener's own movement within the gallery.

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Delicate Abrasions

2003-06-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

2003; 3" mini CD-R (limited edition, 100 copies); Pianíssimo (ppp03), Albuquerque; out of print; Listen/download (excerpt)

Stereo mix documenting a 12-channel site-specific sound installation in the Shack Obscura at Klaudia Marr Gallery in Santa Fé, New Mexico. All sounds derived from tactile interaction with the interior surfaces and materials of the building: nails, dust, sliding door, cement, metal, glass, wood. Packaged in handmade rusted steel jacket with printed color insert, cardboard inner sleeve, clear vinyl slip cover. Remastered version available on Three Rooms.

RECORDINGS | HOME

Delicate Abrasions (2003)

2003-06-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

June 6 - July 19, 2003
Klaudia Marr Gallery, Shack Obscura
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Listen/download (excerpt)

12-channel site-specific sound installation with six listening benches made of steel and stone. The Shack Obscura was once a small warehouse area for an old neighborhood grocery, and is now used as a raw project space in the alley behind Klaudia Marr Gallery. All sounds were derived from tactile interaction with the interior surfaces and materials of the building: nails, dust and grit, sliding door, concrete, metal, glass, and wood. A remastered version is on the Three Rooms CD.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Here-ings: a sonic geohistory

2002-07-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

2002; CD + Book (US $20); La Alameda Press (ISBN: 1-888809-38-83)
Listen/download (excerpts)

Documents a site-specific installation created at THE LAND/an art site in Mountainair, New Mexico. Photographs by Margot Geist.

Twenty-four hours of field recordings were made over the course of one year at various places on this forty-acre site dedicated to low impact, land-based art. These were edited down to a 72-minute sound collage, mixed with contact microphone recordings of various objects found at the site such as grass, cactus, trees, ants, and wire fences. Short poetic texts evoking the sounds heard during each recorded hour were engraved on stone and steel listening benches that are placed permanently on all of the recording sites. The 72-page book contains essays discussing the process and ideas behind the creation of the work, the listening bench poems, and a detailed track list of all the sounds heard on the CD.

Reviews: 5:4.

RECORDINGS | HOME | PUBLICATIONS

Alchemy (2000 - 2007)

2000-09-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Originally titled Alchemy of Desire, this collaborative installation with visual artist Christine Wallers was first presented in September 2000 as a site-specific installation at the historic San Ysidro Church in Corrales, New Mexico. The sound is derived from the whispering voices of 32 people reading written responses we received from over 300 people in fifteen countries to our invitation to imagine change in the world. Individual voices are heard through a series of large bowls made of spun yellow brass (with transducers affixed to the underside), set upon steel plates suspended from the ceiling. The voices are electronically transformed into increasingly abstract tones as they flow through the space and gradually subside into silence. Random groupings of unprocessed voices are played at very low volume through small speakers distributed throughout the gallery.

March 1 - 30, 2007
Portland Art Center
Portland, Oregon

August 30 - October 9, 2005
Center on Contemporary Art
Seattle, Washington
In Resonance, curated by Fionn Meade & Rob Millis

January 17 - May 31, 2003
Nicolaysen Art Museum
Casper, Wyoming

September 22 - October 1, 2000
Old San Ysidro Church
Corrales, New Mexico - review in April 2001 Art in America

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Confluences (2000)

2000-08-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

August 18 - September 24, 2000
Albuquerque Museum
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Water, juried exhibition (received Award of Merit)

Six speakers were placed at various locations throughout the exhibit, each one playing a recording of a different confluence of the Rio Grande with one of its tributary streams. These recordings were part of a series gathered in the summer of 1999 during a field trip from Albuquerque to the source of the Rio Grande in Colorado.

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

In Memory of the Four Winds

2000-07-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

2000; CD (US $10 post-paid); Pianíssimo (ppp01), Albuquerque; Listen/download (edited/condensed)

Music composed for Flight Path, choreographed by the late Doranne Crable for Kagami Butoh. Sound sources include insects, violin, wind, stone, trees, voice, feedback, water, suling gambuh, birds, electronic processing. A mysterious soundtrack for a journey through the bardos.

Reviews: All Music Guide, Amazing Sounds, Ambient Visions (scroll down), Vital (scroll down).

RECORDINGS | HOME

Celebrating Nature: the Landscape Underground (2000)

2000-01-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

January 2000 - Present
Albuquerque Convention Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Commissioned by City of Albuquerque Public Art Program

A collaboration with visual artist Barbara Grothus, this is a permanent neon light and sound installation in a pedestrian tunnel joining the Albuquerque Convention Center and the underground parking garage beneath Civic Plaza (seen in the 2009 film Crazy Heart). The neon lights are based on abstract line drawings of natural forms: mountains, trees, birds, etc. Ten channels of sound are placed throughout the length of the tunnel, which is situated East-West. The environmental field recordings were all made by myself in north-central New Mexico, and correspond to different times of day, beginning with a dawn chorus at the east end of the tunnel and midnight crickets at the west end, and a flowing stream in the center. Those sounds are all continuous, while others appear more randomly. Some of them pan between speakers, suggesting movement through the tunnel. [NOTE: the sound system is currently non-functional, and the City has declined to repair it for the time being due to "budget restrictions."]

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Here•ings: a sonic geohistory (1999-2007)

1999-10-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

Based on a practice of listening as a way to connect to place, this work began with 24 hours of ambient field recordings made at different locations at THE LAND/an art site in central New Mexico. Additional contact mic recordings were made of various plants and objects encountered there. A series of short poetic texts evoking events witnessed during each hour of recording were sandblasted onto stone listening benches placed permanently on the recording sites. Listen/download (excerpts)

Independent radio producer Paul Ingles won a Murrow Award for a feature he did on this piece for the Living On Earth program - listen & read a transcript (scroll down to "Sonic Sculptures").

September 7 - October 27, 2007
Saranac Art Projects
Spokane, Washington
(sound-only version)

March 27 - April 28, 2004
Dorsch Gallery
Miami, Florida
Subtropics Festival, curated by Gustavo Matamoros
(sound-only version)

March 19 - May 14, 2004
Sun Valley Center for the Arts
Sun Valley, Idaho
Sound of Place/Place of Sound, curated by Jennifer Gately
(listening station with CD & book)

June 5 - August 28, 2003
University of Texas Art Gallery
El Paso, Texas
(sound-only version)

October 6 - 27, 2002
THE LAND/an art site
Mountainair, New Mexico
Fourth Show: Nothing to See
(completed version with 24 listening benches installed on recording sites)

July 12 - August 10, 2002
516 Magnifico Artspace
Albuquerque, New Mexico
being, here: work from the land, curated by Steve Peters
(sound installation with 24 stone and steel listening benches)

December 14, 2001 - April 21, 2002
Museum of Fine Arts
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Organizing the World: Sculptural Interventions, curated by Aline Brandauer and Christine Wallers
(sound-only version, with sandstone markers)

October 3 - 24, 1999
THE LAND/an art site
Mountainair, New Mexico
Second Show, curated by Christine Wallers
(In-progress version of five wooden listening benches with screen printed texts placed on corresponding recording sites, and a rough mix of the first five hours of recordings heard at the opening at a nearby gallery.)

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Sight Specifics: Diablo Canyon (1994, 2009)

1998-12-05T21:17:00.000-08:00

The first piece in the Sight Specifics series (originally intended as radio art), this version was composed in 1991 and revised in 1994 and features spoken text by composer David Dunn, mixed with environmental sounds (and electronic processing) gathered at Diablo Canyon, near Santa Fé, New Mexico. Listen/download

August 1 - September 19, 2009
516 Arts
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Second Site
Previews in Art in America (June/July 2009) and Los Angeles Times
(two-channel sound installation)

December 1998
Refusalon Gallery
San Francisco, California
Sound, curated by Steve Roden
(listening station with headphones)

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Not Me

1998-07-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

We are everywhere. I think we should have a convention.

Accounting Program Advisor
Acting Student
Actor in Dr. Who (UK)
Alternate Reality Game Designer
Amazon Movie Reviewer
Anti-Smoking Advocate (Canada)
Architectural Salvage Guy
Art Packer (Australia)
Artist-in-Residence
Astronomer
Attorney
Aviator (deceased)
Award-Winning Truck Driver
Baseball Player
Bicycle Racer (Holland)
Biochemistry Professor
Blogger Dude
Boat Owners Association Council Member (UK)
Bow Hunting Expert
Boxer
Burning Man Photographer
Camp Counselor (deceased)
Car Dealer
Christian Anti-Rock Crusader
Christian Rock Keyboardist
Civil Servant (UK)
Comedian (UK)
Comics Artist/Prog-rocker
Confused Tree Owner
Country Music Drummer
Crash Investigator
Cricket Player (UK)
Critical Thinker
Death Metal Guitarist
Demolition Derby Racer
Digital Imaging Artist
DJ/Barry White Impersonator
Eco-tourism Guide/Film Maker (Australia)
Elementary School Associate Principal
Engineering Student
Environmental Health Specialist
ex-Emo Rocker
Fantasy Gamer
Fictional Character
Fictional Character II
Film Character in "The Slender Thread"
Film Production Assistant
Fireman
Flesh-Eating Virus Survivor
Flickr Photographer
Foundation Manager
Gay Christian
Geneologist
Geology Professor
Geology Professor as Bridegroom
Graphic Designer & AI Geek at MIT
Grateful Dead Writer
Gypsy Jazz Bassist (UK)
Halloween Fisherman
Harley Rider
Heirloom Horticulturist
High School Grad, Class of '68
Highschool Basketball Player
Hillbilly Musician
Hockey Fan
Hockey Player (Canada)
Hockey Video Coordinator
Honourary Canadian
Horse Handler
Hotel Manager (Canada)
Human Resources Staff
Interactive Media Sound Designer
Investment Banker
Investment Officer
Jazz Drummer
Kinky Porn Writer
Labor Minister (Canada)
Leather Accessories Designer (Australia)
Legislator (deceased) (Canada)
Lifeguard (New Zealand)
Male Stripper
Man of Many Quotes
Media Executive
Medical Advisory Council Member
MIT Energy Club Board Member
Motivational Speaker
Native American Marine Biology Lab Guy
Neuropsychologist
Obama Blogger
Performing Arts Dept. Chairman
Philatelist
Photo Finder
Photographer of Trains & Buses (UK)
Poetic Beer Enthusiast
Professor of Pathology
Psychotherapist (UK)
Public Facilities Manager
Publishing Production Assistant
Radio Presenter (Holland)
Radio Station Owner/Manager
Radiologist
Real Estate Agent
Robotics Engineer
Rock & Roll Drummer
Roof Framing Master
Rugby Player
Rugby Player II (UK)
Runner
Runner II
Runner III
School Board Member
School Custodian
Screenwriter
Sign Artist (Canada)
Singing Marine
Soccer Player (UK)
Social Studies Teacher
Software Consultant
Soldier
Steel Company Executive
Stevie Ray Vaughn Fan
Streetrodder
Symphonic Bassist (deceased)
Tea Party Guy
Techno Musician
Tennis Player
Tiki Wedding Bridegroom
Timberframe Home Builder
Trekking Guide
TV Sit-com Character
Vietnam Veteran (deceased)
Voiceover Talent
Water Quality Specialist
Web Designer
Woodwind & Trumpet Player (UK)

Emanations

1998-07-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

1998; CD (US $10 post-paid); OO Discs (oo34), Black Rock, CT; available from Pogus.

Sound from an installation with the late visual artist Claire Giovanniello, whose white three-dimensional paintings wrapped in gauze and geometric sculptures made of nails and aluminum rods seemed to gently pulse out of the gallery walls. The sound was intended to be equally ethereal: a vaporous cloud of pure tones made from controlled feedback, hovering on the threshold of audibility, punctuated by long silences.

Reviews: All Music Guide, Amazing Sounds.

RECORDINGS | HOME

Emanations (1996–2001)

1996-02-16T20:55:00.000-08:00

Originally a collaborative installation with the late artist Claire Giovanniello, presented as a four-channel sound installation made from very quiet electroacoustic feedback recorded in the gallery space. Claire's work consisted of a series of white, three-dimensional paintings covered with gauze, and two wall sculptures made of roofing nails and aluminum rods. It has also been presented as a sound-only version, and as a CD release.

August 2001
Harwood Art Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(sound/visual installation with Claire Giovanniello)

July 1998
Harwood Art Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Some Things in the Air, curated by Steve Peters
(six-channel sound installation)

May 5 - June 2, 1998
Brooklyn College Art Gallery
Brooklyn, New York
(four-channel sound installation)

February 16 - April 12, 1996
Nonsequitur Music Gallery
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(sound/visual installation with Claire Giovanniello)

INSTALLATIONS | HOME

Publications

1992-08-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

Click on titles for details, or for the actual online publication.

SOLO
Here•ings: a sonic geohistory (2002)

EXHIBITION CATALOGS
Land/Art (2010)
Sound in Space (2010)
In Resonance (2005)
Sound of Place, Place of Sound (2004)

ANTHOLOGIES
Arcana IV: Musicians on Music (2009)
Site of Sound: of Architecture & the Ear (1999)
New Music Across America (1992)
Cassette Mythos (1992)

INTERVIEWS
SP on Winter's Bone at Largehearted Boy (2010)
SP interviewed by Dan Godston for Examiner (2010)
SP interviewed by Mark Peter Wright for Earrooms (2009)
SP interviews the late media theorist Tony Schwartz (1985)

Interview with Tony Schwartz (1985)

1985-08-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

I had been making a radio program on KAOS in Olympia, WA called Snapshot Radio with my friend Rich Jensen, in which we only played homemade recordings of sounds from everyday life, made by ourselves and sent to us by people from all over the world. As we became more aware of the precedents for this kind of work, we came across the work of Tony Schwartz and his many LPs on Folkways, some of which Moses Asch was kind enough to send us. In 1984 I moved to New York to do an internship for my last year of college, and while I was there I contacted Tony to see if I could interview him. I was young and inexperienced, and I am sure my questions were not very interesting to him. But he invited me over and graciously indulged me. This interview was typed up 26 years later from my original handwritten transcription of the audio cassette, then compared to the tape to make some corrections. It has been lightly edited for the sake of conversational continuity. — SP, Feb. 2010

TS: Alright, ask questions...

You had the first portable tape recorder in the country? Is that true?

TS: In the world!

And how did you go about doing that? I mean, did you have to modify them, or...?

TS: I always have said that no recorder is built for you, everything has to be modified, because your uses are generally unique. So the first recorder I had was a Magnacorder. That was an old standard before the Ampexes. Well no, the first recorder I had was a Webcor wire recorder. I still have it downstairs. That was [recording] on a spool of wire. Then I had a smaller model made by a recording wire company. They manufactured recording wire and this recorder. Then the next thing I had was a Pentron tape recorder, which was a small home-type recorder. Then the next thing I had was the Magnacorder, which was a professional unit. And the Magnacorder was a heavy unit, required AC power and so forth. It was a large, heavy recorder and I was interested in going out and recording things outside. A friend of mine lent me his Renault and I built a portable battery-operated generator, it operated on a 12-volt battery. Cars had 6-volt batteries at that time, and the only 12-volt battery was an airplane battery. So I got airplane batteries for it, and I found that I couldn’t work the dials and be out on the street, so for that I built a little control panel that I’d hang around my neck and on my chest. I had a VU meter and a volume control, and plugs for the mic which I could have on a 6-foot cord and hold in my hand. And then I had the line going to the mic input and to the earphone output of the recorder, I had a hundred foot [power] line, so I would start the recorder and I could control the volume and hear it and see it on the VU meter. So that was my first remote ability. And I would go out and do street interviews, I would record street musicians that way, and go out and get the sounds of nature.

But that was still pretty bulky, though, huh?

TS: Oh yeah, that was heavy. The next thing was, I found the Amplifier Corporation of America made a portable unit that you had to wind. It had an old phonograph motor in it. But this unit was built to work in the same way you’d use a professional recorder. That is: go to a location, open up your recorder and so forth, but then you had the winder for the motor and you had dry cell batteries inside for the power. Then I took that unit and I extended the meter to the top side of it outside. I extended the mic input to the top side. I put a strap on it and I drilled holes in the cover and put extension rods on the On/Off switch and the volume control, so I could control the volume and watch my meter here and so forth. I think there’s a picture of it – see that Sounds From My City album there [hanging on the wall]? It’s down by my foot there. And that one was really the first portable recorder in the country. You might say I had the first Walkman in the world. And with that I’d go out and record all sorts of things. I’d record auctions, street vendors, I just would carry it wherever I went.

Then I bought the first Nagra in the country. It was a wind-up Nagra. There was a Mr. Ski [?] here from Connecticut, who brought over the first one and he was showing it to a doctor friend of mine, Victor Whitten [?], uptown, and I was in the office then and I said, “I’ll take it!” I bought that one. Then I had the first electric Nagra in the US. In fact, years later when I had other Nagras, someone wanted to buy the old wind-up one I had, and he went to Switzerland one time and they took it away from him at the Nagra factory because it was their first one and they wanted it for their museum. So they gave him a brand new electric one in place of that. He just went there to get it checked out and they said, “We’d like to keep this one and give you a brand new one.” And so they did.

And that’s been my experience with recorders. I’ve always wanted to get smaller and smaller. This one [my Sony TCD-5M] is a fantastic recorder. I had the miniature Nagras but they weren’t convenient with tape, with reel to reel and so forth. And then the Walkman Professional is a fantastic unit, almost as good as this, not quite. So there are really top quality recorders that you can carry. I have four of the Walkman Professionals and two of these [TCD-5M], and the larger Nagras over here.

So what was the beginning of your obsession with all of this? How did you get started? You were doing advertising or something, right?

TS: I studied advertising design at Pratt Institute as an art director. And then I was a gadget hound all the time. And I remember when I was a kid I used to see the disc recordings, where you cut the discs, and I always thought, “Gee, I’d love to have one of those.” And later on I bought one. Eventually I bought a really good disc cutter with which I’d cut discs from wire and tape.

So you could make your own records?

TS: So I could give records to people of the stuff they recorded. I had a lot of friends who were interested in folk music and folklore. And I started recording the programs off WNYC. There was Oscar Brand, had a folk music festival. And one day I met one of the people I’d recorded, and I found out that the average singer of folk songs had no money, couldn’t afford to get an air check, and so forth. And when I mentioned that I’d recorded him – ”Oh, could I come and hear it?” And he came and listened and he said, “Gee, could I try recording a few songs?” And so every week I would just call the people who were on the program and say, “If you want to hear yourself you could come over and I’d be glad to play it for you.”

So they were performing live on the radio?

TS: Yeah. So then they’d come over and listen to themselves and record other things. I recorded people at that time like Burl Ives, Josh White, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Yma Sumac, dozens of people. And I started exchanging folklore with people around the world. I started putting ads in foreign journals and sending out tapes to foreign radio stations, and I got probably 30 to 40 thousand folk songs that way.

Now, you were just looking for folk songs at this point?

TS: For folk material – folk songs, folk sayings, and so forth.

And this was when?

TS: In the 40s and 50s. Then I did a program once on WNYC on how folk music spreads. I was a guest on someone else’s show and I was telling the story of my exchange. And some very wealthy man called me afterwards and said he’d like to come and see me. He and his wife came over. The next day they came over again and he said, “I’d like to offer you time off to do anything you want to do in the world of sound.” And he supported me for about three years. And I decided that if I was going to ask people of the world to exchange with me, I really should know my own neighborhood in depth, so I could advise people about how to get to know theirs. Well, I did a study of the non-commercial musical life of my postal zone, which was New York 19, which was the West Side of midtown Manhattan. And it was interesting because it was a very rich area of folklore and it was also the commercial music center of the United States. So I worked on that for a few years. I met Moe Asch of Folkways Records, and he heard my stuff and asked if I would produce some records for him, and I did. The first one I did was 1-2-3 and-a-Zing-Zing-Zing, which was the story of children’s street songs and games. The second one was New York 19. Then I did TheWorld in My Mailbox. I worked nine years on Nueva York, which was a study of Puerto Rican life in New York. And I did many albums for him, the innate musicality in people and so forth.

On some of the records there’s narration, and I assume that’s because they were produced originally for radio. Maybe not, I don’t know. But my question is, if you were going to do it again do you think that the sounds themselves are strong enough? Would you still have that narration or would you just have a printed supplement to go with it?

TS: Well, the Folkways records were generally done without narration except where they were broadcasts. Like, The Sounds of My City was a broadcast. It won the World Radio Festival.1-2-3 and-a-Zing-Zing-Zing has no narration, it’s just structured material. But then I’ve gotten involved in developing a much more intense form of editing.

Like, I though that Nueva York was great in that it didn’t need any narration. A Dog’s Life, that wasn’t even you narrating. That was very “radio,” it was really slick...

TS: That was a radio broadcast. That was CBS Radio Workshop. I did a radio program on sounds of the city for 35 years. And I did a nightclub act with sound, with recordings, for about five years. And I’ve done all of these Folkways records.

Then one day I was invited to speak about my hobby at the Art Director’s Club, and when I did a bunch of art directors came up to me and said, “Gee, would you do sound for commercials? We can’t get the type of thing we’re interested in.” I started doing that, and every commercial I did just blew the field apart.

You did that [President] Johnson commercial, right?

TS: Well, the first one I did was Johnson’s Baby Powder! Then the second one was Johnson’s Baby Power [laughs]. No, I mean, that I did many years later.

I still remember that commercial.

TS: How old are you?

Twenty-six.

TS: Did you see it when it ran?

I believe so, yeah. That was, what, 1960...?

TS: ‘64. So you were 3 years old.

No, I was five.

TS: You remember it?

Oh, sure, I remember...

TS: It was only shown once [during the campaign].

Just one time? Then I must have seen it somewhere else.

TS: It’s been shown every year, dozens of times.

Then that’s probably how I saw it, because I know that I’ve seen that.

TS: Of course! It’s probably the most famous commercial ever made.

When you started doing this were you more interested in sound, per se, or people making sound? I ask because myself, I came to it from music and abstract sound.

TS: No, I didn’t come to it from the point of view of music. I came to it from: What is the relation of this music to the people who make it and listen? That’s what I was interested in.

But it very quickly got away from...you weren’t just looking for folk music, you started to record people talking, and various...

TS: I was interested in folk music and folklore.

In the late 1950s I took a group of kids from the Walden School, and we decided to do a study of the religions in the city, and we ended up doing an in-depth study of a Puerto Rican Gospel Church and the relation of the people to this church. Actually, that year I won the – when was Eisenhower president? – in that period I won the Valley Forge Freedom Foundation, and I have a plaque signed by Eisenhower, the school has it. I was selected the best social studies teacher in the country that year because of doing this project. I didn’t even know that the school’s principle submitted it to the foundation. Then over the years I’ve taken kids on different kinds of projects. Last year I took a class of kids who were supposed to be involved in community service and I taught them how they could use media for community service. And they could take any subject they wanted, and any position in relation to that subject, and I would teach them how to create materials to speak for that area. And we would do it in commercial form.

And then in the course of time I got interested in the whole field of communications. In later years I got a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to do a study of our changing communications environment. And really, it was very interesting because the records I did were really the end of an era in which people were mainly interested in external sound. The main sound that’s of meaning to us today is internal sound.

Like what comes over the radio...?

TS: What comes over the media, yeah. And the fascinating thing is that the whole interest in noise pollution came about when that shift took place. Because what was “communication” outside was now “noise.” See, noise is unwanted sound. There is no [such] “thing” as noise. Noise is unwanted information or unwanted sound. So if someone was walking down the street singing while you’re trying to listen to your records, that’s “noise.” It used to be communication: Someone’s coming home drunk, or someone’s coming from a party or something. It was information. But now you were interested in the information on the radio or the TV or your records.

First off, the fascinating thing, the most important thing in this work, is people are born without earlids. Therefore, what determines what they listen to? They listen to what interests them. And I mean, if we two were talking and someone had the radio on in the next room and we heard my name or your name, we’d pay attention to it. Talking about a tape recorder or something like that, we’d pay attention to it. But see, the interesting thing is that we can create...There are two types of things you can do with a recorder: environmental re-creation, which is what we’re doing right at this minute, and environmental recreation. Now, once you start editing you’re into recreation. When you just record people talking and play it back to someone, that’s re-creation. You’re re-creating the environment here to the people you’re playing it to. But once you’re into overlays and editing and so forth, then you’re creating something that is original to this form. It’s not a copy of something else. Right now you’re copying my voice.When you start editing you’re creating a new entity with that.

So, what else?

I’m interested to know how many tapes have you got in this archive, and what percentage of them are tapes made by you and what percentage are tapes that you got through the mails?

TS: Well, I’d say at this point probably 90% is made by me. And I have another apartment upstairs this size filled with just tapes. And I keep working everyday on new things. So we produce maybe two or three commercials a day, things like that.

So are you still gathering raw material in the field? Or do you pretty much just work in the studio now?

TS: No, no. I’ve become interested in the design of words, and I’ve created a whole new form of speech, which is “word design.”

So tell me about this, because I want to hear where all of this other stuff that you’ve done has led to now.

TS: Well, the main area...have you read my books?

I’ve read The Responsive Chord.

TS: I have another one, I’ll give you a copy, Media: The Second God. But where it’s all led is to the use of media for social purposes. That’s what I’m most interested in. Use it to prevent nuclear war. Use it to get money for kids for education. Use it to stop the use of drugs, use it to stop people from smoking. A thousand people a day in this country die from smoking, the effects of smoking. So, these are things I’m interested in.

And so that entails making commercials? I see a lot of video stuff here. Are you making video tapes or film strips, or...?

TS: I do video and radio commercials. I do a lot of political campaigns. But I’m losing interest in that because I find that the same techniques applied to community service can do phenomenal things. This year I’m into an anti-smoking program. I’ve gotten the full support, from kindergarten through the City University. I got a vote of 180,000 students to get involved in a no smoking program. And I just got a call an hour ago from the Mayor’s Office that he’s putting my program into law for the City, and he’s making the toughest anti-smoking laws for the City.

Can you elaborate on these techniques? You were talking about “word design” – what exactly do you mean?

TS: Well, I could show you examples of it, but...For instance, I learned that one of the most effective means of social control is shame, in primitive cultures. And it is again today with media. It worked in primitive cultures because you had a closed communications environment in the village or the community. And in today’s world, with sound we can reach anyone anywhere and everyone everywhere in this country in less than a 62nd of a second. I really ought to change that statement, because I do recording from California, and I’m using two satellites, so I’m going 90,000 miles,so it takes about two thirds of a second or something. But that way we’re able to reach whole communities. And I’ve been able to prevent strikes in the city, of the police and the firemen. I’ve been able to get money for students to go to college in Massachusetts. The federal government cut out student loans, so I embarrassed the state into covering for that. The first year I got 34 million dollars, the second year I got 50 million dollars. Third year I got 57 million dollars.

And this was all in the form of radio commercials?

TS: Radio commercials to socially embarrass the powers that be. I’m doing it now in relation to smoking. I took the Mayor’s statement about closing down the baths because of AIDS – he said, “They’re selling death, and we can’t let that go on.” So I made a commercial saying, “When the Mayor closed down the bath houses because of AIDS, he said...” Then I said, “But Mayor Koch, you could say the same thing about cigarettes.” And then I put, “They’re selling death.” And when you allow cigarettes to be sold on city buses...” – I put it in his words again – “you’re selling death. When you allow cigarettes to be sold on public property, they’re selling death. When you allow them to be advertised in the City station’s program guide, they’re selling death.” And I said, “Like you, Mayor Koch, we feel...” And then I had his words, “We can’t let that go on.” Well, the tobacco companies said I took his words out of context. I didn’t, because I told where they came from. So then I just got this call from the Mayor’s Office, he’s making everything I said in that commercial into law. So I’ve used it to deal with the AIDS question, I’m dealing with the water crisis, with smoking...My main interest is in using media for social purposes.

So now, these spots you’re producing – are they coming out on commercial radio, or NPR or what?

TS: Through commerical radio.

Nationwide, or mostly local?

TS: Starting local, but I’m building a network of people around the country. I have Austin, Texas. Pittsburgh, the whole of New Mexico...various places.

I want to go back to getting tapes from people around the world. Have you ever hooked up with any of those people? Have you ever ended up meeting them because of tapes sent through the mail?

TS: That’s an interesting question. Yes, I met a woman from Pittsburgh that I’d recorded one time, that I exchanged tapes with. But very few, very few. Ask one more question.

I’m not sure I have a great one to end with.

TS: Well, all I can say is, it’s like if you were to relate it to photography, the world is your studio and your workshop is your darkroom, where you develop your pictures you’ve taken and you edit and develop them and so forth. And both aspects are very important. And I would say to anyone going into this, put your money into recording equipment. Don’t worry about amplifiers and speakers until later. Because the one thing you want the best on is your tape. So get good microphones, get good recorders. And recorders today that sell for $200 are better than things that sold for $2000 or $3000 thirty years ago. And the fascinating thing is that this is a hobby where anyone who’s making a modest income can get a recorder for, say, $250 for a Walkman Professional, get several editing decks, which might be a few hundred dollars. And you can produce stuff that is equal in quality to anything that anyone in the world is producing on broadcast. And therefore, the only limitation of what you can go into is your own mind. I always say that sound is a swinging door to the mind. It’s a way to get in and a way to hear what people have to say. And we have had such a visually oriented culture that people really haven’t put much thought into the real uses of sound, but...I use it every day.

To Olympia, with Love

1984-07-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

1984; Cassette (limited edition, 50 copies); Self-published, Olympia; Out of print.

This was made when I moved from Olympia to New York, literally as a gift. Fifty copies were dubbed in real time and individually gift-wrapped, then left around town in various public places for anyone to find: bus stops, phone booths, alleys, cracks in walls... One side consists of some of my favorite field recordings I had made around town; the other side consists of friends and neighbors (including many future 90s alt-rock luminaries) talking about why they liked living there. If you found one, please let me know.

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