anti-correlation

[anechoic <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

yikes! I didn't think my little release announcement would stir up so much
weird shit!...but it seems like I now have to explain a bit about my
hommage to Xenakis...which btw isn't the first time I have brought him up
in public as an inspiration to my work over the past 25 years...I also
mentioned him in a press release for my 1990 release titled "Fetish" with
Arcane Device...

history: I bought a copy of "Electro-Acoustic Music" by Xenakis while
studying privately in NYC around 1977, was very taken with his ideas
concerning density, random distributions and how all this informed his
musique concrete work...in the early 80's I started to listen to other work
as I was able to afford to buy it...

my interest in non-standard synthesis actually started a couple of years
ago with a software app called Wigout that I found while researching
non-standard synthesis techniques when I was Director of Content at
Staccato Systems...a tidbit: while I was at Staccato my name wound up on a
patent for an algorithm I helped to develop that uses a Poisson
distribution in the playback of soundfiles for non-repeating sonic events
in video games (car crashes, footsteps, ambiences, etc)...I was not all
that interested in DSP while at Staccato and was casting about for some
techniques that went against the grain (excuse the pun) of all the
frequency domain work I was exposed to while at Staccato...after my release
from Silicon Valley I was speaking and performing at a Computer Music
Conference in Australia where I met a person who was directly involved with
CCMIX and heard some music he composed using the GENDYN system...the music
made use of very interesting textures and this rekindled my interest in
stochastic waveform generation as a composition and sound design tool (as
it works on both the micro and macro level)...after some correspondence
with this person I was sent some stochastic waveform generation software to
play with (I was not supposed to mention this to anyone but I guess my feet
are being held to the fire)...in conjunction with this synthesis
experimentation I have been reading "Formalized Music" by Xenakis and
re-reading a copy of Denis Lorrain's article from Computer Music Journal
titled "A Panoply of Stochastic Cannons" (which btw is a great
refresher/tutorial on probability/distributions) as well as a recent issue
of Computer Music Journal which features an excellent article on the work
Xenakis written by a collegue of mine, James Harely, who studied under
Xenakis...
the process of my creating "Anti-Correlation" was very similar to my
"Pulsar Studies": I immerse myself in a synthesis technique (i.e. Pulsar
Synthesis, Stochastic Waveform Synthesis, etc), study it in order to grasp
the math as much as possible, get an intuitive feel for its parameter space
and then start experimenting with it in my own way...
I have read much of Xenakis' writings over the past 25 years (and am trying
'stimulate' the publishing of "Musical Architecture" in English) and have
always found I held similar ideals concerning music and sound:
anti-emotional, mathematically based, intellectually informed, listener
produced meaning, and aesthetically compelling...

FYI: I will be doing a residency at CCMIX (Xenakis's studio in Paris) next
year in order to develop my compositional ideas and SWG processes more
fully...I have been in contact with them and they seem to like what I
do...in the meantime, my "anti-correlation" CD is merely a collection of
studies which was inspired by the GENDYN/UPIC work of Xenakis...

OK...so now for a little brutal public honesty (since that door has been
opened):
Andrei, to be blunt: although my post seemed to evoke a strong emotional
response in you, what you think of my work or ideas matters very little to
me...so please don't waste my bandwidth with your (negative) comments
regarding my work as I am sure you could use that energy for something much
more meaningful in your life...I also do not wish to get into a debate with
you regarding pop vs. academic music, spectacularization of media, and
laptop music as a cultural commodity...if you really did know my work
(example: my essay for Parachute Journal titled "Laptop Music") you would
not have made the comments you made... 'nuff said...

note: for those of you who aren't familiar with my ideas please come hear
me speak in August with Michel Chion and Jacques Attali at UC Santa
Barbara...

as for intellectualizing music: I have made my thoughts very clear on this:
I do not position what I do either as pop music or academic music...I
operate in a middle ground informed by both and gravitationally linked to
neither...and I find the violent outbursts against constructing a highly
"informed" (read: intellectually legitimizing) music rather sad and empty
headed...every artistic discipline has an intellectual component and
microsound is no exception...so deal with it or fire up MTV and forget
about it...

over and out,
KIM