MIXTHEMIXTHEMIX collective mix project (together with Antanas Kucinskas)
Premier in Jauna Muzika festival, 2005/04
collective mix project based on the initial sample material from "Loop Catalogue" CD by Antanas Kucinskas. project curated by Arturas Bumsteinas for Jauna Muzika festival in 2005/04/20
- A month before the concert, a group of a dozen sound artists are given a CD with the compositions from Antanas Kucinskas' „Loop Catalogue“ .
- - Each of the participants remixes the given compositions and prepares his/her own material.
- - - During the concert, all this material is used in collective improvisation, by live layering and mixing it anew. The duration is indeterminate, as the structure and dynamics of this live mix.
Why mixthemixthemix, and why the music by Antanas Kucinskas as a source material?
Antanas Kucinskas' „Loop Catalogue“ is created by following the mix paradigm – slicing, shuffling and otherwise manipulating and rearranging the existing compositions. Let's call it first level, or MIX1. Each participant of this project creates his/her own version, based on Kucinskas' mix (not on the music by Kutavicius or Schumann). Therefore – MIX2. Later, during the concert, all mixes are performed together as collective improvisation, and the result is MIX3. It is an open and potentially endless form, as the recording made during the concert can be passed to another artists for further remixing (thus moving away from the initial version to countless peripheral derivatives). Or, it can be terminated by sending this concert recording to some of the above mentioned composers.
Arturas Bumsteinas
About LOOP CATALOGUE
What I have been recently making in music, I call „loop music“. It is in a way parasite music, feeding on existing music, growing at its expense and finally destroying it (as a tumour). Essentially it is cutting some existing work into small segments and looping them. As you know, the loop technique is widely used in pop music, on the other hand, it is related to the experiments of Pierre Schaeffer, Steve Reich and other composers (when the beginning of a tape snippet is glued to its end and played in an endless loop). As a typical consumer, I just use this technique, and „use“ the borrowed music with the help of this technique. Of course, I do it with the aid of computer which accelerates and simplifies the process. For example, „The Simple Loop“ from the „Loop Catalogue“ is based on the 1.5 s sample from Steve Reich's „Pendulum Music“, which is being gradually shrunk throughout the piece until it finally „disappears“. „The Krapp's Loop“ is based on the text of Samuel Beckett's play „Krapp's Last Tape“; here I combine looped and unlooped „phrases“, also I play the text in reverse at the same time. „The Beautiful Loop“ is made of the first 16 bars and the last bar from Robert Schumann's „Arabesque“, and the „Jatvingian Loop“ – of the material from Bronius Kutavicius' oratorio „From the Jatvingian Stone“.
The technology of this process consists of cutting the existing work into very small snippets (usually a fraction of second) and then reassemble them into a new picture, as in a jigsaw puzzle. This reassembling is done essentially in two ways: 1) by gradually shrinking, expanding or time-shifting the looped snippet (thus as if retaining a flow of the original piece – although it is excessively slowed down, and therefore functionally different); 2) by placing the segments „randomly“, i.e. in arbitrary order, omitting certain episodes, or playing them in reverse, etc. In the detailed level of composition, I follow my intuition, listening, and improvisation, rather than any preconceived rules. Though I have noticed that most often (and, as it seems, most naturally) this music falls into simple verse-and-refrain and variation forms, such as A B A1 B1 A2 B2 etc, or A A1 A2 etc.