This album is the second in the collection made in collaboration with the Amsterdam based Echonance Festival. After volume 1 and the wonderful Phill Niblock, volume 2 features two pieces by composer and sound artist Gabriel Paiuk that were premiered at the festival in 2024, and recorded later that year. Paiuk gives us two thought provoking pieces centered on the piano. They are rendered with exquisite precision and depth by the extraordinary musicians, pianist Reinier van Houdt, Maurice Quartet, and Paiuk himself.

Tracklist

1. Degrees of Transparency (2024) 19:18
2. Rhythm, Presence, Voice (2024) 20:31

Degrees of Transparency (excerpt)

Rhythm, Presence, Voice (excerpt)

DIGITAL ALBUM ON BANDCAMP

Liner Notes by Gabriel Paiuk

Degrees of Transparency is part of a series of works I elaborated in the past decade that explore the material and spatial aspects of sound as it takes part in processes of technological mediation. In these works, I interrogate the boundary between that which is perceived as a characteristic of a recorded source and that which is perceived as a characteristic of the act of sound recording and reproduction.

The relation between language, meaning and music has an extensive history. Often this relationship is bound to the habitual setting of words into music. In those cases, meaning is presumed to emerge from the capacity of language to refer to entities or events in the world. Nonetheless, language also produces meaning through rhythm (prosody), melodic articulations (intonation), stresses, pauses and the fundamental possibility of coupling different sensing agents. “Rhythm, Presence, Voice” delves into the space in-between music and language, exploring the material and rhythmical qualities of prosody as a realm where the possibility of meaning appears.

Given that sound is always the product of coupled material oscillations, the border between that which is distinguished as a material or as a spatial property of sound is ambiguous. How sound propagates in a room or how it behaves within the material structure of a musical instrument or any resonant object are both fundamental conditions of what a sound is. Its material and spatial aspects can therefore be understood as two folds of the same phenomenon. As sound takes part in circuits of sound propagation and mediation – and bear traces of the artefacts and protocols of the recording and reproduction process – it simultaneously expresses material and spatial conditions we affectively engage with.

“Rhythm, Presence, Voice” is dedicated to composer Peter Ablinger and composer and pianist Andew Hill.

In “Degrees of Transparency” I tap into a personal archive of field recordings and excerpts of my own improvisational practice at the piano, many of them imprinted by the contexts in which they were produced, to pose questions on how processes of mediation inform our engagement with the realities we take part of.

Credits

Degrees of Transparency

Soundtrack version (2024)

Rhythm, Presence, Voice

For piano and string quartet (2024)

Reinier van Houdt - piano
Maurice String Quartet
Georgia Privitera and Laura Bertolino - violin
Francesco Vernero - viola
Aline Privitera - cello

Recorded on February 1, 2024 at Orgelpark, Amsterdam, during Echonance Festival#2

All music composed by Gabriel Paiuk.
Mastered by Yannis Kyriakides.
Liner notes by Gabriel Paiuk.
Album design by Isabelle Vigier.
This project was made possible by Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Stichting Solaris, Johan Luijmes and Orgelpark.

Biographies

Gabriel Paiuk

Gabriel Paiuk is a composer and sound artist whose work addresses the variable forms in which listening occurs. His work includes sound installations, compositions for instruments and electronic sources and collaborations with other disciplines. These have been presented in festivals and venues internationally and performed by ensembles such as ASKO ensemble, Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Slagwerk Den Haag, Ensemble Modelo62 and soloists such as Francesco Dillon, Ekkehard Windrich and Arne Deforce. In 2006 his work “Res Extensa” was the first sound installation to be awarded the Gaudeamus Composition Prize.

In 2023 he completed a PhD in Leiden University, and teaches since 2014 at the Institute of Sonology (Royal Conservatoire – Den Haag). He is a guest lecturer at the Master in Scenography (HKU, Utrecht), the Master for Experimental Opera (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires) and has led workshops at the Master Artistic Research (KABK, Den Haag) and KASK-School of Arts (Ghent). He was academic director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Contemporary Music in Buenos Aires (2009) and taught sound design at the Center for Cinematographic Investigations in Buenos Aires (2004–2009). His music has been published in labels such as Another Timbre, Cut, Sedimental and Unsounds and his research has been published in Organised Sound magazine (Cambridge University Press, UK) the Orpheus Institute research Series (Leuven University Press) Kunstlicht Tijdschrift Journal (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Reflexiones Marginales (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).

Maurice Quartet

Since its creation in 2002, Quartetto Maurice has been characterized by its unwavering commitment to the exploration of sound. The quartet embarked on extensive research into 20th and 21st century repertoire, fostering a meticulous approach to sheet music and close attention to performance detail. Over the years, the Quartetto Maurice carried out an intensive training in the contemporary music repertoire, together with the greatest performers and composers of the international scene. It is active in promoting new music through commissions to young composers, keeping an open mind on the complex contemporary music panorama.

Reinier van Houdt

Reinier van Houdt started working with tape-recorders, radios, objects and various string instruments at a young age. He studied piano at the Liszt-Akademie in Budapest and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He developed a fascination for matters that escape notation: sound, timing, space, physicality, memory, noise, environment - points beyond composition, interpretation and improvisation. Aside from his own music he premiered music by Robert Ashley, Alvin Curran, Kaikhosru Sorabji, Francisco López, Christian Marclay, Charlemagne Palestine, Yannis Kyriakides, Maria de Alvear, Jerry Hunt, Michael Pisaro, Walter Marchetti, Jürg Frey, Nomi Epstein. He has also worked with Annea Lockwood, John Cage, Alvin Lucier, Luc Ferrari and Peter Ablinger. He is also one of the moving forces behind the experimental music collective MAZE.