Mesh Collaborative + Seattle Phonographers Union

Gift Tapes/DRAFT presents the Seattle Phonographers Union & Mesh Collaborative for its first installment of its 2018 program at the Chapel Performance Space, in association with the Wayward Music Series. The Seattle Phonographers Union, a unique collective with an ever-changing lineup, performs site-specific sound works using unprocessed field recordings. Mesh Collaborative is a computer network music collective that creates synthetic sonic environments by means of realtime cross-compositional systems. Both sets of sound/music will be performed over a 4-channel sound system.

Engaging in collective improvisation using only unprocessed field recordings, the Seattle Phonographers Union explores the ways in which we recognize, differentiate, map and navigate our sonic environment. Our intent is to move beyond habitual experience of sound and uncover what is foreign in the familiar and familiar about the foreign; to explore what we hear and relearn what we know. Some sounds will be familiar; others less so. Both novel and familiar sounds are juxtaposed in ways unique to each event. Our intent is to investigate and enrich both our intuitive and analytical relationship with sound. The goal is not to excite, confuse or entertain per se, but to attend to the world, which is much more detailed and diverse than any one person’s perception of it. Performers will include: Steve Barsotti, Mark Cooper, Doug Haire, Jake Muir and Steve Peters.

Mesh Collaborative’s debut performance will feature a single desktop computer performing digital synthesis in response to control messages sent by four human performers with laptops. This system, built using the SuperCollider programming language, is designed to exploit the inherent volatility of the network, complete with lag, race conditions, and possible system crashes. Performers include: a 2007 iMac, Jeff Huston, James Watkins, RM Francis & Jason E Anderson.