TRACECORE

Listen here … https://soundcloud.com/emilefrankel/tracecore

Premiered by Syzygy Ensemble at the Melbourne Recital Centre. For Laila Engle (flutes), Robin Henry (clarinets), Jenny Khafagi (violin), Campbell Banks (cello), Leigh Harrold (piano) + Electronics. 21:34

This piece was made possible by the generosity of patrons Mark Lazarus and Kingsley Gee.

Recording made at ABC Iwaki Auditorium, with sound engineer Chris Lawson

Interview with producer Jennifer Mills

http://www.abc.net.au/classic/new-waves/syzygy-frankel-dargaville/9623136

“This concert also presented the world premiere of Emile Frankel’s piece Tracecore, which was magnificent. The introduction of electronic sound and amplification was used along with the full ensemble. The piece consisted of simple melodic ideas counterbalanced with a high level of technique and intricate rhythms. Using simple foot stomps on the hardwood floors of the Salon of the MRC was clever; whilst using the artists’ abilities to hum simple drones rounded the piece into one of pure perfection.” -- Nicholas Collins, Cutcommon Magazine

Chart pop is recorded through a live-streamer’s laptop or camera microphone. Lyrics become nearly indiscernible and the spectrum of the music is muddied. For me, these recordings sound readily intimate - music through the walls of your neighbour’s house, music heard from the bathroom of a party. I wanted to emphasise this intimacy but also the voyeurism of streaming culture. I used the basic autotune software Melodyne to contrast a machine heard and interpreted version of these songs, against my own listening. The ubiquitous ‘Audio to Midi’ algorithm on many DAW’s has its own set of listening biases. In my animation, humanoid avatars float and move with the sound, lyrics from the music hanging off them and flying in an imagined wind.



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