michael trommer

'edgelands' out now on gruenrekorder:

2012-02-16T17:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=6407

ghostwood:

2012-02-08T16:49:00.000-08:00

a mix of field recordings from the brazilian amazon:

2012-01-20T09:56:00.000-08:00

some rough edges, but i decided to leave it unprocessed except for fades:

Mamori mix by Sans_Soleil on Mixcloud

'outskirts' makes some year-end 'best of' lists:

2012-01-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

it's nice to be in such great company.

http://thefieldreporter.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/2011-final-report-the-noteworthy-the-best-of-lists/
http://thefieldreporter.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/1332/

'outskirts' out on impulsive habitat:

2011-11-15T19:05:00.001-08:00

http://www.impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab032.htm

'in the bleak wilderness of sleep' compilation out now...

2011-05-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

...on audio gourmet.
features myself, simon whetham, francisco lopez and many others:

http://music.audiogourmet.co.uk/album/in-the-bleak-wilderness-of-sleep

'listen to the weather' LP is out - and a nice review:

2011-05-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.realtimearts.net/feature/Earbash/10305

guildwood field-recording session

2011-04-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

...with the boz.
(and yep...i'm listening to a log)

asprovalta video

2011-04-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

a bit late, but i thought i should post this: a video done by jonathan howells for the sans soleil 'asprovalta' EP that came out on truffle music.
'coupe' magazine named it one of their top motion design pieces for 2007.

Sans Soleil, Asprovalta, music video from Jonathan Howells on Vimeo.

field-recording afternoon in toronto's underground PATH:

2011-03-18T04:59:00.000-07:00

my friend brent and i sourcing sounds and images under toronto's downtown core.

http://vimeo.com/21091142

Grey Path Test from Brent Bostwick on Vimeo.

Tanso 'Soundreach' project

2011-02-26T15:08:00.000-08:00

while i'm uploading...

i figured i may as well post some links to videos of the performance we did (as IO Media) with chinese experimental musician zen lu. this was a real-time online collaborative performance done with t-u-b-e software which happened at the art gallery of the university of toronto.

SOUNDREACH - Part 1 from tanso on Vimeo.

SOUNDREACH - Part 2 from tanso on Vimeo.

SOUNDREACH - Part 3 from tanso on Vimeo.

the humming of summer sidewalks - nuit blanche installation

2011-02-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

An excerpt from an audio installation i did for the 2010 edition of the Bank of Nova Scotia's 'Nuit Blanche'. It is one of my first pieces using infrasound, or frequencies on or below the threshold of human hearing. More info can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

PLEASE NOTE THAT, DUE TO THE NATURE OF INFRASOUND, HEADPHONES OR A SUBWOOFER ARE REQUIRED TO PROPERLY HEAR THE AUDIO.

Project synopsis:

When considering the gentrification of a neighbourhood, the discussion often revolves around the process' impact on the 'feel' or 'vibe' of the area in question.

Recent changes in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood have elicited many such comments, often in relation to the shift in demographics engendered by the opening of the Drake Hotel and continuing with the construction of the condo behemoth known as the Bohemian Embassy.

'The Humming of Summer Sidewalks' transforms Parkdale's soundscape to a frequency which is experienced primarily as vibration, and thus feeling, rather than audible sound.

Several audio recordings of walks down Queen Street (from Roncesvalles to Ossington) were made over the course of the summer of 2010. These recordings were then filtered and spectrally processed in order to remove most of the sonic detail and transpose the frequencies to the infrasonic/subsonic level. The length of the piece is that of the length of the walks, with no time-based editing of the audio.

The humming of summer sidewalks excerpt by sans soleil

http://soundcloud.com/sans-soleil/the-humming-of-summer

ghostwood a/v project

2011-02-24T16:48:00.000-08:00

GHOSTWOOD A/V - PROJECT DESCRIPTION

'Ghostwood a/v' is an audio installation which investigates the psychogeography of Ontario's northern wilderness. It is primarily focused on the use of infrasound, provided by specially-constructed bass-cannons, and will be supported with a single-channel video component.

The installation is part of a series of sound-art projects investigating the psychogeography of the liminal spaces which exist between humans and the natural environment. Previous iterations have focused on peripheral suburban developments, urban environments in states of disuse and decay, and dead malls or 'ghostboxes'. The project title is a reference to those suburban neighbourhoods where the sole memory of what has been displaced or eradicated as a result of development and construction survives in the now-prosaic street names ('Valleyview', 'Forest Hill', etc.).

This version of the project focuses on the 'near north', rural areas where the encroachment of civilization has clearly begun, but in which nature has yet to be suppressed as a dominating force. Drawing from precedents such as the work of the Group of Seven, the stories of author Algernon Blackwood and First Nations mythology, 'Ghostwood a/v' seeks to reference their notion of the natural environment as a fearsome, awe-inspiring force imbued with quasi-mystical powers. In this case, the viewer is to come to the realization that this natural environment is a sentient, arcane power which is communicating a blunt rage for its debasement via sound.

Conceived as a semi-abstract narrative, 'Ghostwood a/v' relates the story of two artists venturing into northern Ontario, ostensibly to shoot a landscape documentary. As the trip progresses, audio anomalies begin to manifest themselves with increasing frequency - campfires begin to burn silently and events are heard to happen in impossible acoustic spaces (e.g. outdoor conversations sound as though they're occurring in a closed, reverberant interior space).

The primary component of the installation, however, will consist of the use of field-recordings shifted to both the infra- and ultrasonic frequencies. Infrasound, frequencies that are lower than 20 Hz (Hertz) or cycles per second, tends to be felt rather than heard, and is known to have unusual effects on people (scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost). The natural environment thus begins to 'haunt' the protagonists via sound in a disconcerting, but not overtly malevolent way. Implied is an intent: a tenebrous, inscrutable message that the environment is trying to sonically impart upon the travellers. Sound's already ephemeral nature, its ability to exist without a defined projecting body, provides a clear parallel to the notion of spirits or ghosts.

Visually, the piece will detail the sweeping beauty of the landscape in rich, saturated colours. Beginning with conventional documentary-style scenes, the video will subtly fragment and transform in parallel with the audio. Wide panoramic vistas, long rocky shorelines, deep forest imagery, macro images of the forest floor and waterways and the suggestion of wildlife will begin to distort and slow, lending to the premise of the environment's rejection of the visitors.

Although there are human protagonists in the film, their presence is solely acoustic: they are not seen, merely heard. In parallel with the increasing abstraction of the environmental sound, their conversation gradually becomes more abstracted, cryptic and fraught with silence, eventually ceasing altogether.

The film culminates with a time-lapse sequence of aural and visual acceleration - from a remote lake back to an urban centre, during which the acoustics re-establish themselves to greater, though not complete, normality.

Video for this project will be by Brent Bostwick: http://vimeo.com/user5083021

Please note that the sound files below require headphones or a subwoofer in order to be heard properly.

http://soundcloud.com/sans-soleil/sets/ghostwood-tests-1/

my track 'february lakes' mentioned by The Charlatans as one of '10 Tracks That Shaped 'Who We Touch'

2010-12-15T17:58:00.000-08:00

who would've thought ?
...but nice company.

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=125&p=9050&more=1&c=1

contact microphone recordings on 'hidden sounds'

2010-11-28T10:10:00.000-08:00

i have some contact mic recordings featured on 'hidden sounds':

Gene Pool#34: Hidden Sounds

these are stereo contact mic recordings made of hollowed out concrete light poles on toronto's leslie spit.

eindhoven GLOW festival

2010-10-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

my piece 'champs de mars' is the soundtrack for teresa mar's 'equilibrium' installation @ the GLOW festival of light in art and architecture in eindhoven:

http://www.gloweindhoven.nl/glow2010/projects/proj_06/6_index_gb.html

http://www.gloweindhoven.nl/

http://www.teresamar.com/

'listen to the weather' track is up

2010-10-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

my piece 'august drift' is now up on the 'listen to the weather' website:

http://soundcloud.com/listentotheweather/august-drift-michael-trommer

August Drift - Michael Trommer by listentotheweather

interview for HMV japan

2010-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

i had forgotten about this one:

sans soleil interviewed for HMV japan

upcoming shows:

2010-09-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

i'll be performing 'greyfields' live at the following festivals:

september 29th: spark festival, university of minnesota, minneapolis.
11pm @ 'lovepower church', 1047 south washington avenue

http://spark.cla.umn.edu/

october 2nd: pixilerations (with vj nokami), brown university, providence, rhode island.
8pm @ grant auditorium, hope st., /young orchard ave.

http://www.pixilerations.org/

musicworks interview

2010-09-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

i've been interviewed for the 'lok8r' article in the spring 2010 issue of 'musicworks' magazine:

http://www.musicworks.ca

audiovoltaics interview

2010-09-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.audiovoltaics.cc/?p=802

IO Media on vague terrain

2010-06-26T11:33:00.001-07:00

http://vagueterrain.net/journal17/IOmedia/01

'greyfields 1' on audiogourmet

2010-06-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

http://music.audiogourmet.co.uk/album/greyfields-1

wake turbulence tests

2010-06-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

sans soleil - live in kitakyushu

2010-04-17T08:46:00.001-07:00

Live in kitakyushu - october 09 by sans soleil

A stripped-down, hardware-based set done in support of the 'simple machine' release on fountain music...performed with an Akai MPC1000 / Dave Smith Mopho/ Dave Smith Evolver/ 2 x Korg Mini-Kaoss pads.

sans soleil - live in eindhoven

2010-04-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

Live in eindhoven - january 08 by sans soleil

2010-04-02T09:00:00.001-07:00

Icefield (Wake Turbulence) from vjnokami on Vimeo.

Wake Turbulence is a music visualization based performance that uses sound and midi data as input for the graphic display of air travel related information graphics.

The sky is filled with aircraft that transport people from place to place, perform utilitarian duties, assist in communications, and enact military missions. Wake Turbulence combines science, statistical display, and contemporary art by presenting these mechanical patterns and behaviors as a dynamic visual experience. The artwork is intended to be viewed as a live performance with video projected on 3 independent screens (16:9).

The visual composition consists of 2 parts:

The first part is comprised of a graphic interface providing visual technical references to a variety of data environments, such as air traffic control, weather systems, GPS positioning, etc. The graphics are built into a 3D stage in quartz composer as "composition" and loaded in VDMX for live manipulation in the X/Y/Z axes. This part will not be interacting with the sound, but will be manipulated by the visual performer using various bluetooth electronic devices for spacIal positioning.

The second part will be integrated into this 3D environment and will consist of several quartz composer paths. Each path will be loaded into VDMX for live manipulation and will interact with the music (sound and/or midi data driven). The content of these compositions will consist of visual data used in air space technology, such as air traffic control information, weather systems, flight vector information, etc. This content will respond to various input variations, affecting parameters such as zoom, positioning (x,y,z,), size, colour, layer triggering, layer fading, etc.

greyfields - TD PATH

2010-03-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

Greyfield land is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe economically obsolescent, outdated, failing, moribund and/or underutilized real estate assets or land. The term was coined in the early 2000s as a way to describe the sea of empty asphalt that often accompanied these sites, which may also be referred to as "dead malls" or "ghostboxes".

'Greyfield' is an ongoing project which investigates the acoustic trace of these spaces; its most recent incarnation is based on sounds recorded in Toronto's downtown underground pedestrian network. This network, known as the PATH system, is recognized as the world's largest underground shopping complex. It traverses the entire downtown core and interconnects many notable buildings, including Mies van der Rohe's Toronto-Dominion Centre complex and Santiago Calatrava's BCE Place galleria.

My fascination with the PATH network stems from its haunting/haunted atmosphere - the high tech cathedral of branding stripped entirely of its human element.. For this reason, the recording sessions for the project occur late at night or on Sundays, when the network is virtually empty. At these times, the predominant sounds are those of the climate control systems and electronic banking and communications networks, these accompanied by the soft haze of muzak.

Though the intent and sound of the pieces may reference sound art, the techniques employed in the creation of the pieces bear similarities to those of a live remix. Sounds are collected using a variety of dynamic and contact microphones, and immediately downloaded to a laptop where they are processed; the final pieces are then improvised on location as a soundtrack to the space's apocalyptically empty, surreal cinema.

'greyfields' being performed @ pixillerations, brown university, providence RI:

greyfields video sample:

greyfields from michael trommer on Vimeo.