Category: SliderPhotos

Gordon Beeferman / Dafna Naphtali duo – album “Pulsing Dot”

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Pulsing Dot, is the debut release by the duo of Gordon Beeferman (piano) and Dafna Naphtali (voice, electronics) on Clang label (Denmark) September 2017, with cover art by Julia Stoops.

In settings and improvisations for piano and voice, with kinetic sound processing, fractal rhythms, and generating polyphonic / kaleidophonic disturbances, Gordon Beeferman fleshes out protean fragments into strikingly visceral structures and landscapes that take the piano to its limit, and Dafna Naphtali augments her high energy live processing of Beeferman’s piano with extended vocal techniques/sounds/multi-modal singing and her custom take on hand and voice-activated electronics.  Pulsing Dot press release.

Available here:

downloads:  iTunes  or   Bandcamp
Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xXYtBu3QYM
CDs from: • Downtown Music Gallery (NYC),       Squidco (by mail)
Discogs.com Page: https://www.discogs.com/Dafna-Naphtali-Gordon-Beeferman-Pulsing-Dot/release/11638914
CLANG Label: http://clang.cl/clang054_naphtali-beeferman_pulsing-dot/

“An extraordinary and stunning release…extended and multidimensional..almost of orchestral and theatrical proportions to use an inadequate comparison. The music really breathes and is full of energy, not losing itself in meaningless experimentalism and stays focused and very together.” (Vital Weekly)

Gordon Beeferman & Dafna Naftali - SOUP & SOUND 09-09-17
Gordon Beeferman & Dafna Naphtali – SOUP & SOUND 09-09-17

“live interaction between the collaborators makes for some truly groundbreaking improvisation” (Peter Thelen, Exposé

“The well-thought-out evolution…slowly unfolds into something more like a sonic daylight.” (Chain D.L.K.)

“Naphtali & Beeferman have hit the nail on the head with this release.. a feedback loop of seamless interaction” (Sigil of Brass)

“quirky & playful”, “unpredictable, yet constantly active track that balances scuttling tension with slurred alien tribal-ness.” (Musique Machine)

watch the video: Dafna Naphtali / Gordon Beeferman live at The Firehouse, Brooklyn, NY, January 2015  https://vimeo.com/149483714

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Gordon Beeferman & Dafna Naphtali - SOUP & SOUND 09-09-17
@ SOUP & SOUND 09-09-17 (Scott Friedlander)
Gordon Beeferman & Dafna Naftali - SOUP & SOUND 09-09-17
Gordon Beeferman & Dafna Naphtali – SOUP & SOUND 09-09-1

Clip Mouth Unit: Jen Baker / Dafna Naphtali duo

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Clip Mouth Unit– Jen Baker (trombone/voice) and Dafna Naphtali (voice/live-sound-processing/electronics)– has created a unique set of open form compositions for their multi-faceted performance concept — merging electro-acoustics, multi-phonics, and extended techniques, integrated directly with scalar and rhythmic concepts.


Dafna Naphtali / Jen Baker at NYC Electroacoustic Improv Summit 2016

The duo has been performing and creating together since 2011, including presentations at ISIM (Int’l Society of Improvising Musicians Conference), Bucknell College, and NYC Electroacoustic Improvisation Summit, and preparing a unique set of open form compositions for their multi-faceted performance concept merging electro-acoustics, multi-phonics, extended techniques, integrated directly with scalar and rhythmic concepts.

Here is a review by Eric Lyon of our set at EIS  from the journal “Array” for the International Computer Music Association or ICMA http://www.computermusic.org/media/documents/array/array17.pdf

“Clip Mouth Unit, a duo project of Dafna Naphtali and Jen Baker performed with a high-energy mix of Baker’s trombone interjections and Naphtali’s intense yet urbane vocal stylings, combined with varied and unpredictable computer- generated textures and live processing of the acoustic sound, all presented with a comic’s madcap sense of timing. Despite a wide range of surprising musical swerves, the performance never lost focus.”

BIOs of Jen / Dafna:
Jen Baker, trombonist/composer, has collaborated with artists all over the world in site-specific mixed media performance, concert halls, solo and chamber commissions. As an improviser she is featured on the soundtrack to Werner Herzog’s Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World. She has performed internationally in festivals and has toured with Arijit Singh, Karole Armitage, and Mansour, and new music ensembles S.E.M., TILT brass, and the mobile ensemble Asphalt Orchestra (founding member). Her well received new book, Hooked on Multiphonics, is treatise on extended techniques for trombone for composers and trombonists to aid in understanding and executing the deep complexities of multiphonics.

Dafna’s bio is here.

Clip Mouth Unit scores are in the form of a deck of cards/PostIts each with a different behavior or electroacoustic process outlining relationship between instruments and processing  ======>

score for June 2015 gig at TransPecos

score for June 2015 gig at TransPecos

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Below are the last moments of our performance at TransPecos — (the video is dark,but the sound is good.) See below for more videos and the rest of the concert.

PastConcerts/Activities:
— Live on WKCR radio NY, with Nicola Hein (guitar) and Ramin Amir Arjomand (piano) (April 2018)
— Penn State University School of Music (Feb 2018)
— Bucknell College (Sept 2017),
— New York University Society for Women in Technology (SWiTCH) concerts (’17, ’15) see videos
— TransPecos – June 2015
— Panoply– duo performance 2013
— Firehouse Space– trio with Ras Moshe (saxophone)
— ISIM 2014 (Int’l Society of Improvising Musicians) presentation/performance
— presentation on Clip Mouth Unit on WTF is Experimental Music Series, Panoply Lab
— recording @ Harvestworks (unreleased)
— duos plus one:   with Ras Moshe, with Andrew Drury, with Sarah Bernstein.

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Rest of the SWiTCH concert:

Rest of show at TransPecos:

mechanique(s) duo w/Hans Tammen

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Mechanique(s) is a long time aleatoric/improvised electro-acoustic computer music project of mine using live electronics, prepared guitar, voice, and sometimes reeds or other guest instrumentalists, a duo with Hans Tammen with frequent guests.  Working together since 1998 in various configurations, Mechanique(s) has been drawing on many traditions in improvised and electronic music, investigating the overlap of various elements of the performers’ technical and aesthetic practices.

In our performances I create textures, musical elements and gestures using live audio processing of my voice, the sound of the other musician’s with whom I perform, and some audio samples. I use Max/MSP, and an outboard sound processor, both with control in real-time via my voice, MIDI and Wii controllers, Morse code and my various musically mitigated algorithms and composed music processes.

I play my “instrument” by controlling and triggering these processes as musically needed and this has been my primary method of performance since 1995 — in many different musical contexts, with my electronics processing not merely acting as a supplement my voice, but as an important live compositional tool.

Hans Tammen (“endangered guitar”) works in innovative ways with mechanical preparations and for guitar (at times including brushes, small stones, a small electric fan, a cigarette lighters, an Ebow and chopsticks) and Max/MSP sound processing, with further control via the use of pitch-tracking and and a rotating cast of gestural controllers (at one time an infrared-controller to capture some of his head motion during performance). Tammen’s approach has evolved as well and since the mid-2000’s also incorporates Max/MSP in his Endangered Guitar projects.

In our trio are we have recorded with Martin Speicher (saxophone, clarinet, Germany), (recorded in the eponymous CD “Mechanique(s) 2001 live at Logos in Ghent). We have also been joined by Pascal Boudreault (Montreal), and many others over the years with intuitive, sound-oriented approaches to their instruments.

Throughout the collaboration of Mechanique(s) we have focused on the relationship of prepared and acoustic sounds to my electronics sounds, and at times with strikingly similar timbres with completely divergent means. The audio processing algorithms I use are as varied as the possible musical gestures, registers, and density of musical sounds we make, and the various kinds of audio processing intentionally create elements of surprise for each of us — as we listen and adapt our phrases, timing and sound.

ACOUSTIC FORMULAE PERFORMANCE BY DAFNA NAPHTALI & HANS TAMMEN – 6/5/14 from reverseartspace on Vimeo.

reviews:

All About Jazz – Eyal Hareuveni at Hafarot Seder Festival 2005 curated by Ilan Volkov in Tel Aviv:

Mechaniqe(s) Duo, featuring Hans Tammen on “endangered” guitar and lap-top and Dafna Naphtali on vocals and lap-top, came from New York, triggering their sound sources from Tammen’s “endangered” guitar, laid on a table with the strings manipulated and mutilated with sticks, straps and other objects, then with real time processing on his and Napthali’s interacting lap tops. Tammen opts for more minimal sounds that only loosely reference a conventional guitar sound and more often sounds like a distant relative of the Japanese koto; while Naphtali deconstructs these sounds into more detailed ones, pushing them into abstract and noisy realms, then layering her four-octave range vocals on top.

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).