"But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away."
-Robert Frost, excerpt from "Wind and Window Flower"
Like 'Creation' and 'A Small Fire in the Snowy Woods' preceding it, 'Zephyrean' is a long-form generative ambient work totaling fifteen hours, which was broadcast live as it came into being from the evening of February 9th to the afternoon of February 10th, 2023. The weather throughout the day on the 9th consisted of heavy winds that bowed my house in different directions, animating the metal chimes in my kitchen window with a constant frenzy, and so this patch developed in unison with that atmosphere, although it has been presented only partially, with the sound of the wind, the feeling in the air and the glittering metal chimes not reproduced as part of the recording.
In the week leading up to this, I'd been exhausted by a heavy grief that hung over me like a shadow, which finally relented and resolved itself as the wind blew through the valley. It felt cathartic, to be able to really breathe freely again, and to have the world inhaling and exhaling along with me. As it usually tends to be, my modular system and the sound it unspools are particularly useful mechanisms for processing emotional and physical stress, and so 'Zephyrean' was both a reaction to the receding shadows and the colorful weather, as well as a presence all its own that filled in the empty spaces between these ideas and events.
I enjoy broadcasting these sessions as well, if only for the secondary effect they have on the voyeuristic participants who can look into my studio with curiosity, and hopefully then a sense of calm disconnection. Many such listeners have remarked to me during these broadcasts that they wish they'd go on forever, that they enjoy being able to drop in and out of them as if they were a radio station somewhere, and so it is all the more fruitful for me to polish them up afterward, and publish them here free of charge. It brings me so much joy to know that this system of machines that I've arranged in such an esoteric way can provide similar comforts to people I've never met, will never see or know, regardless of their geographical location, language or perspective.
I am continually in a state of two minds about creative acts such as these, however. In one sense, there is a duty to know yourself and have something cogent to say when you decide to express yourself, etched into the stone for all artists, baked into our minds as they are still forming their understanding of this work, and I don't necessarily disagree with it. While there is always room for "art for art's sake," the richer experiences are always going to be those that are designed with a sense of purpose or interactive usage. On the other hand, when I am dealing in such abstracts as these long-form broadcasts, with my machines operating on a deep well filled with my own decisions, using those to generate their musical shapes in real-time without any additional input from me, there is a very real sense that even I do not yet know what these things could mean - that for artistic purpose to be fulfilled, it must first be defined by a meaning of some kind - and if I do not yet understand that meaning, does this mean the music is without any purpose? Is it uncouth of me to release this ambiguity upon the rest of the world?
Or is this simply the nature of things, both human and artistic? That there is never a rigid relationship between the artist, the work and the world they inhabit - that these things are not plateaus but gradients, and understanding can only come where and when it is naturally in alignment between those three things. It begs the question: Is something more or less useful if its purpose is only revealed over an indeterminate amount of time? And with extended, and operatively endless, works like 'Zephyrean,' is the amount of time these things require to fully communicate their purpose relative to how much runtime they actually occupy?
I don't really have any answers to any of these questions, but in the end, I don't think I need to. The work can exist as a monument outside of me, outside of my understanding, even if I am the person who allowed it to exist in the first place. I relish this superposition, this state of ambivalence I am allowed to work within, where generative and procedural art are accommodating. It feels enthralling to be a passenger, like yourselves, rather than holding the reins of some wild horse that I pretend to hold dominion over. The truth is, I've never made anything - it's just happened.
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Twelve hours of the original broadcast have been archived here on my YouTube channel. Please feel free to subscribe to me there to be notified of future broadcasts when and where they occur:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVvWsq-ztFE
For more generative ambient in the same vein as 'Zephyrean' please check out my ongoing Vibratelepathos monthly series:
vibratelepathos.bandcamp.com
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Patch notes:
Voice: Doepfer A-121-3 bandpass filter (self-oscillating)
Time: Missed Opportunities, CMOS Party (Boolean), Doepfer A-160-1 clock div
Sequencing: Ornament (Black/Hemispheres/Squanch, Lydian scale) sent into Ornament (Silver/Vanilla/Harrington 1200)
Modulation: Behringer 150/1004
EG: Ornament (Black/Hemispheres/ADSR), Doepfer A-135-2
Filters: Behringer 1047/1006, 2HP LPF, Disting Mk4 (D5 bandpass)
FX: Strymon Magneto, 2x Clouds (Vanilla & Miverb), Multi Versio (Micro Looper)