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What is it Like to be a Bat ?

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batPerformer/composers Kitty Brazelton and Dafna Naphtali collaborate on a montage of extremes: textures hard/soft, noises white/red, harmony rooted/disembodied, silence.  Both women sing with startling multi-octave ranges*. Both women play electric guitar / bass. Both women compose hard-core computer music. All this is woven, spliced, patched, threaded, then drummed together by BAT’s third member: Danny Tunick.  Their eponymous CD was released 2003 on Tzadik label.   The band active 1996-2006, on hiatus, but with a new  track “Stabat Mom” still unreleased.  visit What is it Like to be a Bat ? orginal website.    Tzadik CD info here.

!! new!! video from one of their first performances, at the Kitchen in 1999.

full press release..

*Both women sing with startling multi-octave ranges: Brazelton honed her edge as vocalist in rock bands since 1969, and in the 90’s with her large ensemble DadaDah (Village Voice: “Wild-woman vocalist . . . with a wailing intensity in all her genres” ) .  Naphtali vocalizing for years in improv bands as well as classical recitals and new music ensembles.

Both women play electric guitar: Naphtali has toted hers from coast-to-coast, purveying jazz, folk, disco, whatever the gig required , while Brazelton makes unheard-of sounds on a bass guitar, with punk pick, Soviet-made fuzz box, never having played a bass before (though she’s written concertos for the instrument).

Both women compose hard-core computer music: Naphtali (consultant-teacher at Artist in Residence programs at Harvestworks and Engine 27 and former Chief Engineer of NYU’s Music Technology program) conducts live interactive radical ambience processing using her custom Max/MSP programs, while Brazelton ( D.M.A. Columbia University, 1994; now composer/professor, Bennington College) created digital sound tracks and samples from natural sound sources and field recordings using old time software re-synthesis at Columbia’s Computer Music lab or written-from-scratch, CSound code at home on her desktop, unwilling to settle for current off-the-rack plug-in sound.

All this is woven, spliced, patched, threaded, then drummed together by BAT’s third member: Danny Tunick, percussionist extra-ordinaire, whose credits span alterna-rock and contemporary classical realms.   He’s a recorded contributor to bands Barbez, Guv’ner, Camp and Mad Scene as well as the Princeton Composer’s Ensemble, Common Sense Composer’s Ensemble and the Bang on a Can Festival’s Spit Orchestra.

While Naphtali, Brazelton and Tunick alchemize in plain view, for their 2003 CD, sound artist Paul Geluso finalized this strange brew from the mixing board.

Brazelton and Naphtali are still hope to get back to mixing their work StaBAT Mom, which documents their lives as women in a punk digital montage true to what they have done with the Bat? trio since 1997.  This latest chapter is about what it’s like to be a working mom, and incorporates that famous statement on the all-enduring mom — Pergolesi’s 1736 Stabat Mater — singing his gorgeous soprano-alto duet with the achingly poignant major-2nd suspensions,  which they put through a computer as an isorhythmic/morse code cantus firmus, so they could play some math-rock over it. Into that they peppered Naphtali’s outrageous song fragments about losing one’s sense of reality with two active young daughters, weave in Brazelton’s 1992 lullaby written when her daughter was 3 mos. old with colic. In addition to computers and singing, Brazelton plays electric bass and keyboard and Naphtali plays electric guitar, sings, does live sound processing (and of course with Danny Tunick on drums, glockenspiel, custom music boxes, toys).

What is noise to the old order is harmony to the new…”—Jacques Attali “Please ask me if you like it.”—Gertrude Stein.

http://www.kitbraz.com/bndl/bat

photos by Marc PoKempner:  http://kitbraz.com/bndl/bat/pix/photo.html

News Winter 2010 / Spring 2011

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News Winter/Spring 2011
–January 9th — Magic Names performed an excerpt of Stimmung with choreographer Daria Fain
at Dance Theater Workshop — as part of the APAP conference.
Here is documentation of a performance at St. Mark’s Church in September
[vimeo clip_id="16940978" width="400" height="225"]

This past winter, I was busily preparing for recording planned for the Spring, and also for a special performance of a piece I am developed with help from Franklin Furnace Fund —

March 26, 2011 — Music with a View with Robotica!!
video of the first workshop performance is here:

April 29th, 2011 — recording of Panda Half-Life (American Composers’ Forum Commission) at NYU’s Dolan Studios.    With Magic Names vocal sextet (Robert Osborne, Nick Hallett, Peter Sciscioli, Gisburg, Daisy Press)

Performances 2010

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Recent Performances 2010
Europe tour — workshops / performances:
Nov. 4 Orbis-Pictus Gallery, with Michael Delia (opening of “Play” exhibition), Prague
Nov. 5 Workshop at FAMU (Film and TV school), Prague
Nov. 6 Skolska — solo performance
Nov. 8 Altes Finanzamt – with Thea Farhadian, Berlin
Nov. 9 Workshop at Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hamburg
Nov. 10 Hörbar – solo performance

back in NY:
Nov. 13 Magic Names Ensemble (Vital Vox festival) premieres work by Gisburg

Nov. 16 annual “in-C” reading Darmstadt New Music at Poisson Rouge
http://lepoissonrouge.com/events/view/1498
Nov. 22 quartet with Ras Moshe, Shayna Dulberger, Andrew Drury Evolving Voice series Local 269

Franklin Furnace Grant 2010

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Franklin Furnace Fund grant for 2010 to continue work on a “Robotica” – for Eric Singer’s GuitarBot and various percussion bots plus gestural controllers. Inspired by the work of Al-Jazari, a 13th century Mesopotamian/Iraqi inventor of the first musical automaton and many other ingenious devices..

The work was presented at Music with a View —  March 26, 2011.

New Instruments For Improvisation and Experimental Approaches 6/28/2010

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Symposium on June 28, 2010 at HERE ARTS CENTER, New York: New instruments for Improvisation and Experimental Approaches with Laetitia Sonami, Dafna Naphtali, Matthew Ostrowski and Hans Tammen

New Instruments For Improvisation And Experimental Approaches, an investigation into contemporary sound art and experimental music using custom made electronic instruments, will consider the methods and intentions of 4 artists building new instruments and specialized interfaces. In a day-long series of presentations, talks and performances these artists will discuss how their practice as improvisers, sound artists and experimental musicians lead to inventing their own tools, and how these inventions in turn influenced their musical performance techniques.

New Instruments for Improvisation and Experimental Approaches at HERE ARTS CENTER

Flickr photostream of event:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/harvestworks/8228050123/in/set-72157632128783264/lightbox

 

 

compositions: What is it Like to be a Bat ? – 1997- present

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In collaboration with composer/performer Kitty Brazelton, these are the compositions written for What is it Like to be a Bat? (our “digital punk” trio with Danny Tunick).

She said, She said, “Will you sing ‘Sermonette’ with me ?” 1997

5 dreams: marriage (NYSCA commission) 2000

StaBAT.mom (recorded, unpublished, presently being mixed..) 2006

 

 

News: Spring 2010

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“Panda Half-Life”, my piece for Magic Names vocal sextet plus electronics premiered 6/17/11 at Issue Project Room  (plus we performed an excerpt from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Stimmung!). Dense and sparse, composed and aleatoric, sung and wheezed.. with 6 singers, 15 audio speakers, 6 game controllers.

Made possible with funding from American Composers Forum and support from Harvestworks.

6/28/10 I participated in “New instruments for Improvisation and Experimental Approaches” a day-long symposium June 28th organized by Harvestworks. I will present projects created during my residency this year and perform as well. Also presenting / performing are Matthew Ostrowski, Hans Tammen, Laetitia Sonami.

Panda Half-Life — 2010

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Panda Half-Life is a 20-minute work for 6 voices, live audio processing / electronics, multi-channel sound and gestural controllers (Nintendo Wii and iPhones) — commissioned for Magic Names vocal ensemble by Jerome Commissioning Program (American Composers’ Forum) and with support from Harvestworks.

The work makes use of extended vocal technique percussive vocalizations as well as more traditional vocal writing, and spoken word.   It is influenced by Stockhausen, Meredith Monk, Ligeti, Trevor Wishart, and also many early music and non-western vocal ensemble traditions (i.e. use of phonemes and overtones,  abstract but very human vocal gestures and melody, clusters, and complex interwoven  rhythmic patterns).

I also wrote a custom computer program for the live audio processing components of the work, using Max/MSP.  The piece is fully scored using traditional and graphic notation, and includes a few aleatoric/improvisational sections.   I explore the musical and acoustic interaction of six voices with a variety of textures and structures.   With six separate live audio processes, I create a uniquely enhanced and interactive electronic vocal ensemble sound using polyrhythmic textures. aleatoric musical gestures, audio triggers, and Morse Code to create rhythmic structures out of text, all controlled via. live pitch tracking, envelope following, with live sampling and vocal processing.

Magic Names ensemble (with Gisburg, Peter Sciscioli, Robert Osborne, Daisy Press, Nick Hallett, Dafna Naphtali) formed in 2007 to perform Karlheinz Stockhausen’s seminal vocal  work, Stimmung.

In June 2010, Magic Names vocal ensemble premiered Panda Half-Life paired with an excerpt of Stimmung, at Issue Project Room  (Brooklyn). as part of the month long 2010 Darmstadt Institute series.  Both pieces made use of the venue’s unique 15-channel sound system to enhance and clarify the electronics and the pure and extended vocal sounds in both pieces.

In April 2011 we recorded Panda Half-Life at New York University’s Dolan Recording Studios and plan a repeat performance in the next season.

 

Robotica

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music for music robots / voice / electronics

image: Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Al-Jazari, 13th century)

Robotica is inspired by the person and work of the ingenious early 13th century scholar/inventor Al-Jazari, the Mesopotamian creator of the some of the very first musical automata (as well as many other devices).    Robotica is written for Eric Singer’s “GuitarBot”, his array of percussion “ModBot” robots and “XyloBot”, as well as my spoken and sung texts and live sound manipulations.

I am intrigued by Al-Jazari’s drawings and descriptions of his mechanical inventions in his  “Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices” written over eight hundred years ago in 1206.    “Robotica”  is my imagined music for his automata and in part reflecting on mechanical aspects of his many remarkable inventions, musical and non-musical some of which are still in use today.

The piece has been and ongoing project since 2008 when the first ideas and music were developed with the LEMUR music robots during a residency at Eric Singer’s LEMURPlex (see video bottom of the page).    Through funding from Franklin Furnace Fund it was further developed and presented in 2011 during Music with a View at Flea Theater.
(see video below).    And in March 2016, the piece was once again expanded for performance at Avant Music Festival 2016 (with the Bricolo Music System).

Wil “maraca” controllers of the xylobot

In performance, I control both the notes being played by the LEMUR robots and my audio processing via computer programs which I write (in Max/MSP) and with 2 Wii controllers in tandem physical gestures.     Many of the texts I speak and sing were originally generated using an online poetry robot and I created rhythms and melody and embedded meaning using Morse Code for the word “robot” and texts related to Al-Jazari.  These ideas, plus my use of polyrhythmic metronomes have all been part of my long-term musical work and inquiry.

LEMUR xylobot

This performance/variable media art work was made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.  Major support of the Franklin Furnace Fund was provided in 2010-11 by the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, and Jerome Foundation.

Performance and development of the work started during my 2008 residency at LEMURPlex (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, then in Brooklyn, run by Eric Singer).   In 2011 with funding from Franklin Furnace fund and support from Harvestworks (rehearsal space and material support), I finished the next part of the work, recorded and presented the work-in-progress during a Music with  View concert curated by Kathleen Supové at Flea Theater.

In March 2016, songs from Robotica were included on a solo evening performance as part of Avant Music Festival 2016 – Tuesday Tangents series at Wild Project, NYC.  This was an expanded full-evening version of the work, using a mechanical music system by Nick Yulman (Brooklyn). More information about the concert here..

As part of the concert I was interviewed by Steven Swartz for (now defunct) SoundNotion podcast in episode #229.

Documentation from Avant Music Fest 2016:

Working on the piece in my studio prior to the Avant Music Festival show in 2016:

Photos from the concert:
Robotica at Avant Media 2016

Here is some earlier documentation from back in 2008 when developing the first version of the pieces at a residency at Eric Singer’s LEMURPlex (Brooklyn).