Egregoros at ALL Gallery June 16, 2017

Christos & Walter

This is our last performance for this season. Christos leaves soon, in two weeks, for Cyprus, for the summer. Perhaps, in anticipation, he has been playing his saz. I’ve been playing acoustic, on-the-floor percussion. The sound is traditional.

Several months ago, Christos joined Joe Burgio’s ensemble inédit ?!, a group of musicians and dancers exploring improvised movement and sound. I’m a long-time member. We invited two of the dancers Katerine and Ofri to join us, the lineup –

Chrsitos Kolendrous – saz, modular synth
Walter Wright – acoustic percussion
with
Katerine Gagnon & Ofri Rieger – movement

Our event is a first for the ALL Gallery, usually reserved for visual art. We developed a plan –

ALL Gallery

We moved out the desk, clearing the main gallery space and set up chairs along the two side walls. Christos & I sat on the floor, at either end, with our backs to the columns.

We played two sets: the first a more traditional set weaving Christos’ traditional Persian melodies with my off-kilter percussion, and the second a ‘score’ for dancers and musicians. In the second set we paired up – Katerine and Christos, Ofri and me. A simple score, musicians follow the dancers, 50% rule. That is, musicians play only when their partners are moving and are silent when their partner are still. We relaxed the 50% rule, each pair would be still/silent 33% or 1/3 of the time.

I find the difference between the two sets, the first sounds like music. It is structured using traditional rules for musical composition. The second however sounds very different, the composition is structured as movement, Christos and I are interpreting the dancers gestures. I was pleasantly surprised listening back to the second set. It holds together –

track 01
track 02

w2 recorded June 16, 2017

patch

Three tracks recorded one after the other without listening back to the previously recorded track. Track 1 PeterB miniSynth pushed 40% left, track 2 PeterB miniSynth 40% right, track 3 acoustic percussion in the middle. Edited in Audacity.

Same patch, however I did re-patch before recording tracks 2 allowing for more ‘notes’, less white noise in contrast to track 1.

Here’s the result –

mix

Egregoros recorded June 13, 2017

Christos Koulendros – saz, sampler
Walter Wright – acoustic percussion

Final practice before playing at ALL on Friday. Persian licks on saz, sampler filling out the space, off-kilter percussion is coming along.

track 01
track 02

Egregoros recorded June 6, 2017

Christos Koulendros – saz, sampler
Walter Wright – acoustic percussion

Persian licks on saz, sampler filling out the space, off-kilter percussion.

track 01

w2 recorded June 3, 2017

patch

Three tracks recorded one after the other without listening back to the previously recorded track. Track 1 PeterB miniSynth pushed 40% left, track 2 PeterB miniSynth 40% right, track 3 acoustic percussion in the middle. Edited in Audacity.

Using feedback on the miniSynth, SPROTT outputs patched back into FOURSES, produces a lot of sound, although this recording is somewhat subdued !!!

Here’s the result –

mix

w2 recorded June 1, 2017

patch

Tracks recorded one after the other without listening back to the previously recorded track. Edited in Audacity, track 1 PeterB miniSynth pushed 20% left, track 2 PeterB miniSynth 20% right. Here’s the result –

mix

w2 recorded May 24, 2017

patch

Tracks recorded one after the other without listening back to the previously recorded track. Edited in Audacity, track 1 PeterB miniSynth pushed 20% left, track 2 percussion 20% right. Here’s the result –

mix

Egregoros recorded May 23, 2017

Christos Koulendros – saz, sampler
Walter Wright – acoustic percussion

Persian licks on saz, sampler filling out the space, off-kilter percussion.

track 01

w2 recorded May 11, 2017

setup

patch

Still using the new patch.

Track 1: PeterB miniSynth, a mix of the SPROTT band pass and chaos outputs, 30min long, recorded in real-time.

Track 2: uses the percussion setup pictured and described above, 30min long, recorded in real-time.

Tracks recorded one after the other without listening back to the previously recorded track. Edited in Audacity, both tracks straight on, no left right separation. Here’s the result –

mix

Egregoros recorded May 9, 2017

Christos Koulendros – a things modular!
Walter Wright – acoustic percussion

Some new tricks, not mic’ed well, have to get used to the new setup.

track 01