Berlin based composer-performers Catherine Lamb and Bryan Eubanks present the N. American premiere of Lamb’s monumental electronic work Wave/Forming (Asrum), a 4 channel work for 2 digital synthesizers in rational intonation.
Catherine Lamb and Bryan Eubanks are musicians and composers originally from the Pacific Northwest. They moved to Berlin in 2013 after founding the collective and label Sacred Realism with bassist and composer Andrew Lafkas in New York. They have become an integral part of the vibrant underground (and above ground) music culture of Berlin and Europe in both areas of contemporary composition (Lamb) and improvised music (Eubanks). Lamb is easily one of the most important composers of her generation having already written a large body of work in what she terms “extended rational intonation” – expanding on the theoretical and aesthetic possibilities of Just Intonation. She has been commissioned by many of the leading ensembles in contemporary music including the JACK Quartet, Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, and her own collective ensemble, The Harmonic Space Orchestra. Eubanks is extremely active as an improviser in electronic and electro-acoustic settings and is regarded for a raw and idiosyncratic approach to his instruments and collaborations. He has worked extensively with artists such as Xavier Lopez, Joe Foster, Jean Paul Jenkins, Jordan Paul, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Gert-Jan Prins, Michel Doneda, Chris Heenan, and in the quartet Oceans Roar 1000 Drums (with Todd Capp and Andrew Lafkas), and the newly minted Understated Songbook with Koen Nutters and Samuel Hall. A tireless explorer of sound and connection, he routinely reinvents his instrumental approach and currently focuses his music on analog and digital synthesis and electroacoustic saxophone.
For this special concert at the Chapel in Seattle on July 29th, Lamb and Eubanks will give the first performance in North America of Lamb’s 2019 fully electronic work Wave/Forming (Astrum). The piece is unique in the composer’s catalog for a couple of reasons. One being that it is entirely electronic, there are only a few early examples of such experiments. Two, the piece is in many ways a collaboration with Bryan Eubanks and Xavier Lopez, whose long running project Natural Realms was the basis and inspiration for the work. In 2019, the trio received a small commissioning grant from INM Berlin to develop the piece together. Laura Tunebridge describes Wave/Forming (Astrum) succinctly in the liner notes to the release on the UK label All That Dust:
“wave/forming (astrum) continues some of Lamb’s experimentation with pointillism, in which short articulations — points — interact and build towards lines that lengthen into what Lamb calls a ‘more total form’. These are like fugue states, in both psychoanalytic and musical senses. Whereas memory might be temporarily erased in the former, in the latter, fugues build connections. Surface figures are spirited away yet patterns emerge in time, through long arcs of harmonic transformation, and in space, as sounds shift between foreground and background of the stereo fields. While the experience feels organic, the complex, layered material is produced by two synthesisers, built and played by Bryan Eubanks and Xavier Lopez. Their digital fixity allows for the precise tuning necessary for the underpinning harmonic series gradually to be revealed. Each arpeggio, or arch-like figure, slowly expands, its pitches bursting into a star cluster. Their articulation, duration, speed and volume transforms as one ‘arp.’ daisy-chains to the next. Heard in the binaural version, they also move from a frontal position to fully surround the listener’s headspace. Finally, ‘arp.’ is replaced by ‘sweep’, descending bell-like through the harmonic series. The quiet dancing stops and the world seems emptier and fuller.”
This event will be supported by a duo performance from A.F. Jones and Casey Adams.