"In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word"
-Algernon Charles Swinburne, excerpt from 'A Ballad of Dreamland' (1879)
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'The Hand of the Wind' is the eighteenth Sleepbuilding release to be published, originating as an overnight broadcast on February 19, 2023. It explores the unique voice of the Pulsar VCO in Expert Sleepers' Disting Mk4 multipurpose module, playing in the major pentatonic scale. Musically, it seems to recall moments from my 'Statuettes' albums, with a counterpoint between a lower register bassoon-like bass and a higher register flute-like lead profile.
This composition is one of several that feels profoundly close to my own "manually" written work, which brings to mind different philosophical considerations when it is in fact a fully generative piece conceived on my modular system, which has been provided with some basic instructions for possible output configurations, with room for variation based on probabilities, and I myself have spent more time on the shaping of the timbral character of the piece rather than the sequencing or the melodic nature of it.
Where I end, and the machine begins, is a nebulous and undefined area, because the modular is prosaically a mechanical mirror - it only does what I tell it to do, when I instruct it to. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. Yet, when given a list of possible choices I'd make when offered a branch in the path forward, the machine invariably explores avenues that I myself may not have chosen to pursue. If this were untrue, I doubt modular music and generative composition would remain interesting in even a topical way, it would simply be an echo of something I was already more than capable of doing on my own, and in the age of machine assumption in many areas of our lives, I have no issues putting the effort in for a more human result in my work.
And so, in this way, the machine is demystified - it is no longer an advanced collation of factors and moving systems, it is simply a conglomeration of screwdrivers, gardening tools and mindless electrical relays that only react, never truly act. I remain the central motivating force behind everything the machine does, even when I am not even in the same room with it, and this is an interesting consideration for me, because when this happens, I feel as you do - a voyeur looking in on an ecosystem in motion, marveling at it and enjoying it in a passive way - and yet still I remain somewhere buried beneath all the cables and voltage and flashing lights, decisive and direct, my mechanical mirror image echoing my will perfectly.
Generative music has been a continual path of progress toward many different ends for me, across the years I've explored it. First in software systems, then using tape machines, loop devices and samplers, and now within the vehicle of modular design - and each time I find a more efficient way of accomplishing a task that I set out to do, I find several other possible paths that intrigue me enough to feel as if I could become lost all over again. It is in this surrealistic state of superposition that I already exist and do not yet exist within my own work, and the Sleepbuilding sessions illustrate this sensation quite well.
'The Hand of the Wind' is a free download, like all seventeen prior Sleepbuilding releases have been, and I sincerely hope this music aids you in a constructive and pleasurable way during this most invited of Autumns we're in at the moment. Be well, thank you for your support, and I hope to see you again next time.
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YouTube playlist of all Sleepbuilding broadcasts:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbcjgVJRSgeSHy00DZLB8zFFIJbIgcYjo
All prior Sleepbuilding releases to date (all FREE):
campsite.bio/oscillog
For more generative ambient music delivered to your inbox automatically each month, please consider subscribing to my Vibratelepathos series:
vibratelepathos.bandcamp.com
released November 17, 2023
W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded at White Pillar Workshop, February 19-20, 2023 using the R-EW Audioholistics modular system. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Text by Brian. Poem excerpt by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Design by ABM&D using visual sampling of 'Astrazione a Colori' by Frantisek Kupka, ca. 1931-1936. This is Milieu Music number MMD092. (C) + (P) Oscillog ASCAP 2023. All nights preserved.
