Collaboration in the Barossa - Dan Thorpe

Below are two variations of the collaboration with Dan, rendered from the indeterminate composition.

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An improvisation by Dan Thorpe

This is the first piece to use the Fields of Possibility instrument for the purpose for which it was designed (a purpose which was later abandoned indefinitely). Although the piece appears above exactly as Dan performed it, each sample was being output to a separate recording channel, and so the each component was captured as a distinct raw material which feed into the indeterminate software piece.

As it is, this is a rich and beautifully unfolding work which shows great harmonic and rhythmic agility in navigating a dense palette of samples.

Created in Lyndoch, South Australia - 5/5/13

Samples: Christopher Roberts qin, Dan Thorpe piano, Melanie Walters flute, Sebastian Phlox organ

Software: Fields


Commentary from Dan:

"I was looking for hidden, complex inharmonicities within samples that seemed to be more pitch centric, distorting the sense of pitch and the fidelity or "wholeness" of the sample.
In considering the ability to make fast changes in the software, I was bringing over something from my own performance practice. I played with the idea of reifying and inspecting the moment - reducing it to a single atom then distorting and stretching that to find more information. Dismantling the relationships between the components of a sound."


My sense of this place:

There is a pall of yellow-grey smoke rising off the rolling Barossa hills today. Its scent is rich in the cool country air. Next to me, with headphones on, Dan loops bass guitar. I can hear harmonics and string scratches.
Outside, birds sing in clusters, more vivid than in the city.
Simplicity and complexity in music. Taking the next step as one needs, when approaching the limit of what can be expressed of the inspiration coming through.
My feelings about the Barossa are very mixed. To me it seems so artificially European, I can't imagine what it was like before it was transformed in this way. But nonetheless, this is how it is now, and it is still the beautiful and inspiring place that I spent all my childhood years.