ECAS Carousel »Let’s merry-go-round!«

Artists from all over Europe have created works for the ECAS carousel. Five years ago, musikprotokoll started together with eight ECAS partner festivals the project "Networking tomorrow's art for an unknown future". To mark this anniversary of a joint search for tools for an unknown future, the partner institutions invited those artists who then set this carousel in musical motion. A merry-go-round for advanced players.

The carousel – an object of yearning from childhood days. Once in motion, its centrifugal force elicited screams of joy. Although the musikprotokoll carousel looked like the ones in days of old, every ride took the visitors to a different acoustic present and, at the same time, to a new world of sound. The pieces could only be heard and felt while the bodies were rotating.

( - Post Scriptum September 2015: In 2015 four composers from Upper Austria were commissioned by musikprotokoll to compose another four works that until 18th of October can be consumed while spinning around on the carousel at „Höhenrausch 2015“. - )

Single work descriptions

„Schwindel – Trugbild – Phantasie [Vertigo – Delusion – Fantasy]“
by noid
(nominated by musikprotokoll)

When I was a child, I always enjoyed exploring all kinds of apparatuses or activities that challenged my sense of balance. Today I even get sick to my stomach listening to electro-acoustic compositions where sounds move around me. Too old? Too late? I’m glad that with this carousel at least the speakers stand still, providing something steady to hold onto – acoustic handles, so to speak.

read about and listen to noid: Schwindel – Trugbild – Phantasie [Vertigo – Delusion – Fantasy]

„Untitled“
by Martins Rokis
(nominated by Skanu Mezs)

In electro-acoustic music sounds usually are moved around static listeners. The merry-go-round project was a chance to rethink this model of sound/listener relationships. In my piece, each speaker produces 2x repetitive motifs – deconstructed cliché carousel music loops and percussive sine tones. Each element has slight differences in timing and pitch, creating complex interactions between the sounds without having to move them around per se. Spinning listeners can hear the “same but different” motif that, which seems to spin, while actually staying still.

read about and listen to Martins Rokis: Untitled

„One Man, The Mule – And Another“
by Callum Higgins
(nominated by FutureEverything)

This composition was created using recordings of run-out grooves of records. The sounds produced by the run-out grooves are instantly recognisable to any listener of vinyl, the characteristics of which lend themselves to the unique listening experience of the carousel, whilst the motion of the carousel mimics that of the records from which the sounds originated.

read about and listen to Callum Higgins: One Man, The Mule – And Another

„carousel 1-4“
by Assimilation Process
(nominated by TMA's CYNETART Festival)

The carousel starts moving, accelerating gradually, and with each rotation gets faster and faster. Snippets of music fly towards the riders; fragmented sounds that are here one moment and gone the next. Our brain tries to fill in the missing parts. Everything is spinning at such a mind-boggling speed! We fall into a kind of trance … until the ride comes to an end.

The earth revolves, and we revolve with it, while we press the “fast forward” button. We try to perceive and understand everything, but we fail, because everything is going too fast. This is why we can only register fragments. A reflection of our society?

Music is usually consumed head-on or in surround sound, via headphones etc. Here, the listener moves around the sound source: four different channels – four different sounds. There are superimpositions, repetitions, stretches of silence. The challenge here was to find adequate synthetic and natural sounds that work perfectly well together and individually and seem interesting and complex. It required a lot of experimentation to come up with an original work that could fascinate the riders; that at the beginning seems abstract but bit by bit produces a complete picture. Or is it just an illusion?

read about and listen to Assimilation Process: carousel 1-4

„Carousel Madonnas“
by Zenial
(nominated by Unsound)

The current piece Madonnas also contains an idiosyncratic mix of samples drawn from a transformation of text files into sounds. One of them is Carousel with Madonnas, a well-known poem by the famous Polish post-war poet and writer Miron Białoszewski. Inspired by the folk culture in the surroundings of Warsaw, it describes an old dingy carousel at a small town fair and young ladies riding it. The author compares them to Madonnas with child, and soon the scene reminds him of pictures by Rafael and Leonardo da Vinci. The famous music to this poem was created by Zygmunt Konieczny – in his work the music corresponds to the verses of the poem, which symbolize the rhythm of the carousel. For me the poem is just an inspiration – because of its subject as well as the fact that it has been used in popular culture so many times. But for the audience it might just be another random sample and not influence the interpretation of the whole piece. I leave that open.

read about and listen to Zenial: Carousel Madonnas

„Relatively Scary“
by Pia Palme and Electric Indigo
(nominated by musikprotokoll)

Using her specific techniques of playing the contrabass recorder, Pia Palme reflects the dynamic instability sensed by the person on the carousel. Acceleration overcoming gravity is present in her sounds. Electric Indigo contrasts them with industrial noises to accentuate the rotation. Her uncanny pulse increasingly disintegrates as an incisive reminder of the finite nature of the experience.

read about and listen to Pia Palme & Electric Indigo: Relatively Scary

„ear choreography“
by Lars Kynde and Jeroen Uyttendaele
(nominated by TodaysArt)

An audio choreography that expresses speed and the sensation of movement. This piece explores relations between the glissando sounds of a cello and acoustic glissandos produced from fast movements in relation to the sound source.

read about and listen to Lars Kynde & Jeroen Uyttendaele: ear choreography

„String Quartett N°1 (electronic version)“
by Maxime Denuc
(nominated by Cimatics)

When I composed String Quartet N°1, I did some intensive acoustic research and used oscillators to simulate strings. I adapted this concept for the musikprotokoll merry-go-round, so that now each speaker represents an instrument of the quartet. Through the rotation of the carousel, listeners can be inside the compositional process, allowing them to discover how each part is evolving.

read about and listen to Maxime Denuc: String Quartett N°1

„Repeat:Then:Repeat“
by Per Martinsen
(nominated by Insomnia)

When I was presented with the idea of composing a musical piece for a merry-go-round, my initial thoughts were that this was probably the most perfect place for cyclic, repetitive music – something I’ve spent quite a bit of my time on during my years as a producer of electronic music for dark clubs. My hope is that those who already enjoy this type of organization of sound might find the new listening situation a different way to discover small subtleties and “change by repetition”, while those who consider such musical structures “music for goldfish” (and people with similar attention spans) might just enjoy the ride in itself. In any case, I’m looking forward to playing around with these ideas.

read about and listen to Per Martinsen: Repeat:Then:Repeat

„Cyclical Entrainment“
by Pierce Warnecke
(nominated by CTM Festival)

This composition is based on the very simple geometric motion of the carousel: a circular shape with acceleration and deceleration. The circle is translated into sine waves, which undergo transformations of “endless” acceleration (Risset glissandos). These create the illusion of endlessly rising sound, which I hope will give the rider/listener a modified perceptual experience.

read about and listen to Pierce Warnecke: Cyclical Entrainment