Category Archives: Audio

These Days

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These days I’ve been helping sound artist Micah Silver with his upcoming installation, The End of Safari, at MassMoCA. It’s part of an exhibit called These Days that opens on Saturday 4/4.

Micah asked me to build a way to aim a Holosonics Audio Spotlight speaker on a pan/tilt head using MIDI messages. I worked with a MidiTron he already owned, a handful of relays and the usual baling wire, duct tape and chewing gum. The setup provides an uncanny sense of localization–much more ghostly than panning a sound around an array of speakers.

Here’s a shot of the altogether messy electronics.

MidiTron pan/tilt controller

Al Tharp on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog

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Go find some delightful Al Tharp clawhammer banjo at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. I haven’t listened to Tharp enough to discern the secrets of his style, but I love the heavily accented thumb-picked slides in his version of Boatin Up Sandy. (At least, that what they sound like to me…)

Thanks to Eric Hardiman for bringing this to my clawhammer-crazed attention.

Dipping a Toe in the River

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Ray Hare (photo by Chris Bassett)

Ray Hare swims in the River (photo by Chris Bassett)

Here are some excerpts from ASACs recent River of Drone marathon. I grabbed snippets at random from the recordings I made and appended them into a single, condensed track. These excerpts were from noon to 3pm and 8pm to 11pm in case you’re keeping score.

[audio:river_of_drone_excerpts.mp3]

River of Drone excerpts

Also, Mark Lunt has posted some captivating photos from the event here.

One 4 One on 8/4/8

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I’ve just added a new album on amiestreet.com. One 4 One is a live recording of interactive electronic music from a performance at the Impulse/Response series in Troy, NY. The title of the album is a play on the direct, one-to-one relationships between performer and computer that I was deliberately avoiding. Plus, the performance took place on January 4, 2001, hence the title. Every 390 days since (give or take) I’ve been meaning to do something with the recordings. Luckily I got around to it before 2013. (Drop me a line if you figure that one out and I’ll send you a special little something.

Check it out on amiestreet, or listen to the tracks below.

ASAC on WAMC

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Eric Hardiman of the Albany Sonic Arts Collective recently appeared on WAMC 90.3 FM. Listen to the archive of the show here. It kicks off with a few seconds of my piece Telephone Temple

[audio:http://hollandhopson.com/music/asac/04_hopson_telephone_temple.mp3]

Then Eric and his Roundtable hosts chat about the collective, upcoming events, and attempt to describe experimental music for the average upstate public radio listener. My favorite moment: hearing an excerpt of a piece by Brendan Murray on WAMC.

Albany Sonic Arts: 4 Solo Sets for April

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I never posted a proper announcement for last weekend’s Albany Sonic Arts Collective show at the Upstate Artists Guild Gallery featuring Ray Hare, myself, Eric Hardiman and Travis Johns. Here are recordings of the pieces I played.

[audio:http://hollandhopson.com/music/asac/02_hopson_turnover.mp3]

Turnover – I improvised the melody and lyrics for this one inspired by Ray Hare’s hair raising performance.

[audio:http://hollandhopson.com/music/asac/03_hopson_my_own_true_love.mp3]

My Own True Love – an arrangement of a traditional tune

[audio:http://hollandhopson.com/music/asac/04_hopson_telephone_temple.mp3]

Telephone Temple – an arrangement of a piece I wrote to be performed with LEMUR‘s musical robots.

Visit the UAG site to view photos from the event.

Nine Tas

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I recently heard a recording of the premiere performance of Nine Tas by the Austin New Music Co-op and thought I’d share it here. The singers are Ashley Gaar, Kathy Hatch, Wendi Olinger and Brandon Young

[audio:http://www.hollandhopson.com/music/various/nine_tas.mp3]

Nine Tas

The rest of the concert is knockout good. Let’s hope the Co-op makes it available soon.

Gates Ensemble on Austinnitus Audio Series

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I’ve posted previously about Josh Ronsen’s newly launched Austinnitus Audio Series. He’s recently added some great new audio including sounds from Alex Keller, Doug Ferguson, Thomas Fang and an incarnation of E.C.F.A sans myself. I’m particularly fond of the Gates Ensemble recording from a 2003 appearance at the Church of the Friendly Ghost that’s now online. Listen to it below.

[audio:http://ronsen.org/austinnitus/audio/GatesEnsemble_ChurchOfTheFriendlyGhost2003.mp3]