Poke It With A Stick / Joining The Bots

TrondheimEMPCoverAlbum by Trondheim EMP.

Øyvind Brandtsegg’s project explores cross-adaptive processing as a radical intervention in the communication between performing musicians. Digital audio analysis and processing techniques are used to enable features of one sound to inform the processing of another. This allows the actions of one performer to directly influence another performer’s sound, and doing so by means of the acoustic signal produced on the instrument. This may be reciprocated, too: the sound of the second performer may in turn influence the sound processing of the first.

The project includes researchers, performers, programmers and a philosopher. From 2016-18 it was funded by the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme and the Norwegian University for Technology and Science, with collaborations from De Montfort University, Maynooth University, Norwegian Academy of Music, Queen Mary University of London and University of California San Diego.

The work is strongly based in practical experimentation, to explore these novel techniques in real musical interaction. For this, we rely on collaboration with a large group of excellent performers, many of whom are presented in the performances here. We are deeply grateful for the relentless energy and creative effort that the performers have contributed in trying to negotiate the pitfalls, swirls, vortices and uphill struggles of cross-adaptivity while at the same time integrating it with their existing deeply rooted practice.

These two albums represent different stages of the process of working with cross-adaptive techniques. The first album (“Poke It With a Stick”) represents the exploration, stumbling, finding, missing, and trickle of possible ways to tackle these challenges. These tracks were recorded during the main research period from late 2016 to early 2018. The second (“Joining the Bots”) represents the assembly, knitting together, gathering of explored solutions, and composing of (still wildly) running streams. These tracks were all recorded in May 2018.

 Poke It With A Stick

Unwitting Accomplice (03:02)
Voluntary Convolution (05:10)
Vision Of Hope Surpassed (5:23)
Rapid Random Response Unit (5:35)
Just Add Gravity (2:20)
Artist in Resonance (2:29)
Backbeat Sketch (2:58)
Now We Try It My Way (5:56)
I Confess (3:41)
Poke It With A Stick (3:23)
Total Internal Reflection (4:59)
Heavy Meta (5:50)
Not Invented Here (4:00)
So Much For Subtlety (2:54)
Zero Credibility (5:57)

Joining The Bots

Hollow World (11:55)
You’ll Thank Me Later (8:31) (with Maja)
Within Reason (10:43) (with Maja)
Irregular Apocalypse (5:17) (with Maja)
Tactical Grace (12:08)
Joining the Bots (5:01)
Synchronize Your Dogmas (4:18)
Echo System (8:49)

All researchers and performers in the crossadaptive project: Simon Emmerson, Gary Bromham, Joshua Reiss, Victor Lazzarini, Miller Puckette, Marije Baalman, Solveig Bøe, Andreas Bergsland, Sigurd Saue, Carl Haakon Waadeland, Tone Åse, Trond Engum, Bernt Isak Wærstad, Gyrid Kaldestad, Bjørnar Habbestad, Mats Claesson, Maja S.K. Ratkje, Siv Øyunn Kjenstad, Ola Djupvik, Rory Walsh, Stian Westerhus, David Moss, Michael Duch, Ingrid Lode, Sissel Vera Pettersen, Heidi Skjerve, Kyle Motl, Steven Leffue, Jordan Sand, Kjell Nordeson, Iver Jordal, Ada Mathea Hoel, Kim Henry Ortveit, Ylva Brandtsegg. Students of the Institute of Music at NTNU, both in the Jazz department and the Music Technology department.

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