Cellular Etudes - A New CD length piece, free for downloading

From about July 2012 until March 2013, I worked on a series of 12 computer music etudes, each one lasting 5 minutes, called Cellular Etudes.  Following on from my earlier Nightshade Etudes, I used a single technique to generate musical information for the piece.  In this case, it was the mathematical technique of Cellular Automata.  Complete notes for the piece can be downloaded HERE.  And you can download mp3 versions of all 12 etudes HERE.

Here are two of the etudes as a sample of the others:

No. 4: A Bureaucrat Tells the Truth

No. 11: Non-Pythagorean Dance for Felix

(which is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Felix Werder 1922-2012)

I hope you enjoy listening to these two pieces, and if you download the whole thing, I hope you enjoy all of them.

A Blast from the Past - 1995 concert tour video!

Back in 1995, I was invited by Dan Senn, then of Tacoma, Washington to be part of a new music festival he was putting on called Six Exquisites.  The participants were Dan, myself, Jaap Blonk, Johannes S. Sistermanns, Jim Staley and Trimpin.  As part of the festival, we toured the show out to Spokane, Washington to the Interplayers Theatre, and Dan videoed part of the performance.  Now, years later, he's made an edited version of the show, and put it up on the web at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHMoUfZl-BA&feature=youtu.be. It's a very nice video.  There are brief excerpts from three pieces of mine: "Tuning the Furniture of Chaos," "Werribee Mitsubishi Minnesota Bonsai," (in a duet version with Jaap Blonk), and "Artists are the Roadkill of the Information Superhighway."  The real delight of this edit though, are extended takes of spectacular performances by Jaap Blonk and Johannes Sistermanns.  A good time was had by all, including the audience, as you'll see.  Enjoy!

Two New Articles On Line

In October I published a review of AudioMulch 2.2.1 (it's now up to 2.2.3) in Wusik Sound Magazine, then in December, I published an article, "Extreme Distortion" in the December issue.  The distortion one deals with the idea of using sound modification software to change source sounds to the point where their origin is almost or totally obscured.  I mention plugins such as Sonic Charge's Bitspeek and Permut8, and dBlue's Glitch, among others.  Here's the link for accessing the magazines: http://www.wusik.com/ww/products/wusik-magazine.  The AudioMulch review is on Page 43 of the October 2012 issue, and "Extreme Distortion is on P29 of the December issue.  Enjoy.

Moths and Mathematics - Dance piece by Tess de Quincey and Peter Fraser - Music by Warren Burt

In November, I had the great good fortune to travel up to Sydney and work with Tess de Quincey, Peter Fraser, Boris Morris Boris Baggatini, Martin Fox, Sian James-Holland and the other wonderful members of the production Moths and Mathematics.  This is a dance - music - computer graphics - lighting piece that deals with the intersections of science and movement. This week was a creative development week, and at the end of it, a 23 minute performance was given to a select audience.  An in-progress video was made, and you can see a provisional edit of the video HERE. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope that work will continue on with the piece, so that we can bring you the full length production (ca. 40 minutes) sometime in early 2014.

 Peter Fraser and Tess de Quincey in Moths and Mathematics, November 2012

Nightshade Etudes now completed. Download Books 3 & 4 here.

In November, I finally finished Nightshade Etudes, 24 pieces, in 4 Books, which use DNA protein patterns from members of the Solanum family (tomato, potato, capsicum (bell pepper), tobacco, eggplant and belladonna (deadly nightshade)) as musical information.  Earlier in 2012, I posted Book 1 and Book 2 on this website (see below).  Now I've finally finished Books 3 and 4 and you can download them to complete your collection.  As well, I've also included the liner notes to the CD which features all of the Etudes in full fidelity, without any compression.  Of course, for those of you who would like to have a signed collectors edition of the CD, just send me an email through the Contact Me page at the top right of the right links column, and we can work out how much postage will be on top of the $23 Aus for the CD.

Click HERE to download Book 3 (mp3 files - 31mb).

Click HERE to download Book 4 (mp3 files - 24mb).

Click HERE to download the CD liner notes.