Bjarni Gunnarsson - "Upics" CD

The pieces combined here have emerged as an outcome of my research into database-driven reconstructions based on sound analysis. All the source material has been created with the UPIC system (Iannis Xenakis) a graphical computer system where users draw shapes, waveforms, and modulations on ‘pages’ that form a composition or composed sound.

The material was recorded between September 2006 and March 2007 at the CCMIX institute in Paris. None of those recordings ever made it to a completed work until now, through the use of a newly developed system, SNDArchive (github.com/bjarnig/SNDArchive), that allows to recompose and combine sound parts based on different dimensions discovered through offline analysis processes.

Sounds are analyzed and read to a database. They form an archive that can be queried. The music then emerges through processes that interpret the sound or sound segments, transforming them or developing synthetic sound based on their properties. The idea was to create methods for engaging with sound archives in novel ways, to review them from a different angle, or to reveal previously unknown aspects of material already loaded with meaning.
credits

releases January 6, 2023

Artwork & Layout by Roger Owsley