The Long Emergency Notification System: The Thick Neck Sessions
05.04.2006Musical experirments with electronica, computers, sequencing, filters and noise rock.
A Pro-Tools studio was built equipped with a Digi 002 rack, mixing board, computers and mic'ed instruments (drums, keys, bass guitar). The following are recordings done over a 2 year period starting in 2005. Experiments commenced with musical forms such as techno-electronica, noise rock and jam rock. Other experiments in noise and sound creation often commenced.
The Long Emergency Notification System: The Thick Neck Sessions
right click each track and save
Disk 01
01 Trials
02 Butter
03 Busters
04 Soft Cream
05 Germs
06 Bubbly Red
07 Tight Rope
Disk 02
D02_Track_01
D02_Track_02
D02_Track_03
D02_Track_04
D02_Track_05
D02_Track_06
D02_Track_07
D02_Track_08
D02_Track_09
D02_Track_10
Several more disks to come!
Description
The LENS (Long Emergency Notification System for short) was a conceptual project band that was interested in exploring the relationships between the production of culture and the political. How can music alter or influence the body politic? How can a musical collaboration between individuals create a situational arena where new interpretations and participatory creations can emerge and develop?
The idea was to create an electronic band that would step away from the traditional venue of 'the stage' to perform in and around the spectators on the floor. In this regard the band 'Lightning Bolt' was influential. (see http://laserbeast.com/) This allowed us to question and critique the use of the stage - where all who attend gaze upon in order to consume a pre-designed 'show' of imagery and sound. We felt that in order for the audience to be participatory they needed to become an integral part of the performance and at times become the performance - much like a 'rave' in this sense except with a live band instead of a DJ/VJ.
Performances became more like original artworks. There was always a 'pre-designed' beat but the structure and sounds would always differ. Because it was instrumental and improvisational, new forms, sounds and structure would emerge to form dense textures of sound - synthesized, sampled, electronic and acoustic (drums).
Electronic instruments were networked together using MIDI. Filters were synchronized to each other and to a beat clock in the computer. The drummer played to the clock and filters.
MIDI information was then sent back to the computer. Video clips were loaded in a customs developed program patch created with the visual programming software max/msp/jitter (see http://www.cycling74.com/). These video signals were triggered by the events of the live music and sent to a digital projector (or several) that were displayed on the wall(s). Performers and participants responded to the imagery. The responses changed the imagery through trigger events. The imagery then changed the performers and so on. This created an improvisational loop between the performers and the imagery that the performers were responding to.
This was very interesting to me because it helped me to understand the relationship between social organizations and computer technologies. Throughout a performance it was observable how each material (whether is be physical, biological, electronic etc) affected one another. As one change occurred in the structure the entire chain of events between all bodies would also inevitably change in reaction.
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