Month: January 2018

Soundscapes for Mazes in Six Movements

Eban Crawford aka Senator Jaiz is the Audio Engineer and Sound Designer for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh NC. I met Eban at my first Moogfest, where he was facilitating a community music making workshop and an interactive exhibit from Natural Sciences. Both of these were highlights of Moogfest for me as I got to play around with an Ableton Push, make music with strangers (that Eban uploaded to Soundcloud later to hear) and meet Senator Jaiz.

A year and a half later, iBoD (idiosyncratic Beats of Dejacusse, my improv group) played a show with Senator Jaiz thanks to Ted Johnson and Triangle Electro Jam at Nightlight Bar in Chapel Hill. So I was thrilled when Senator Jaiz contacted dejacusse to collaborate on a soundscape for a Museum of Natural Sciences exhibit. The company of collaborative conspirers for this project is rich and includes Raleigh’s own SkidMatik, Boston’s Petridisch, New York composers Michael Harren and AfroDJMac. My assignment was to create a 10 minute drone in Gm in a particular tempo range. What fun to have clear constraints and freedom within those constraints. I sent him the finished drone piece in early November.

Now the exhibit Mazes and Brain Games is happening at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences till September 2018 and includes our 50 minute soundscape. Here is one of the first things you see when you walk into the exhibit:

The soundscape is now available on Spotify, iTunes and most online music retailers. Thank you for purchasing the album! Your support means the world to me!

dejacusse’ Soundscaping Tool for 2018 – Novation Launchpad for Ipad

Novation’s Launchpad app has been around for years. I have it on my phone and Ipad, and have created several remix contest entries with it. The Launchpad app is fun, but provides a limited pallette unless one springs for the in-app upgrade, which I did during a Black Friday fit of consumerism. As it has turned out, this is the best dime I’ve spent in a long while! Now I can setup the trigger pads with my own audio loops. The basic effects can be modulated and layered to many satisfying ends. The sounds that come out of it are ever changing and evolving as my fingers do the walking on the Ipad screen.

So, for December’s SundaySites performance, I created a Launchpad project to accompany Jody Cassell’s movement story. Jody has shared recordings of playful, intense story dialogues she has with her Mother, of her own writings about grief and loss, and other vulnerable moments. She has entrusted me with a treasure trove of sound memories to shuffle through and bring in to the soundscape. The Launchpad app allowed me to move the narrative with greater improvisational freedom.

I pulled a simple narrative from their stories. To paraphrase: Jody is small and short because her Mother squished her, her Father agreed to this, the squishing made her small but mighty, her Mother went to Alaska and turned into a salmon, Jody could have accidently eaten her, and remember I love you. These snippets of dialogue/monologue were built into the soundscape. The main theme of the soundscape was a “music box” piano line and lots of driving rythmns, hissing cymbals, odd beats and sound manipulation. On December 3, 2017, we improvised for 90 minutes inside the Durham Visitor’s Center at 120 E Main Street. Fabulous space with a big reverby soundbowl at the entryway that narrows into a shoebox hallway. Here is a nine minute sectioned where I solo’d while Jody caught her breath. You can hear how powerful the Launchpad audio filters are at 1:20 to 1:40, where the gated audio actually gate-effects the voices talking in the background.

On February 16 Third Friday 2018 at The Fruit, all the 2017 SundaySITES artists will be celebrating Stephanie Leather’s wonderful community awareness/expression project. Jody and I will bring a fresh pallette of takes on our stories to this event. I am creating a piece about the magnitude of giving voice. There is a theme of “crying” along with catchy, glitchy drums and some rumbling vastness. Jody and her Mother have more stories to tell, and I am voicing overtones and mouth sounds, and possibly live vocals at the moment of performance. We are learning how to play with emotional baggage.

Most of the dance, music, sound performers and the photographers who documented the 2017 performances will show their work. It will be a great way to see the bigger picture of what SundaySites is bringing to Durham.