Hear an hour of music that takes the sound of the human voice and alters it somehow, with music from Guatemalan cellist and vocalist Mabe Fratti, American composer Pamela Z, Pakistan-born, Brooklyn-based Arooj Aftab, and electronic composer Holly Herndon.
Listen to music by Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti, now based in Mexico City, who uses synthesiser, vocals, and cello for unexpected & outer-worldly music on her record, "Pies sobre la tierra" (Feet on the Ground). Then, there’s work from Pamela Z, a composer/performer and media artist, who uses live electronic processing to alter her operatically-trained voice. Listen to her work, “Ethel Dreams of Temporary Disturbances,” together with electrified string quartet, ETHEL, and a recording of another Ethel (actress and singer Ethel Merman.)
Listen to music by Indianapolis-based composer, performer, and multimedia artist Jordan Munson and composer/vocalist Hanna Benn. Their work, “Anew,” carefully combines layers of soaring vocals together with rumbling and unsettling sound design, using text of poetry by Gerald Manley Hopkins. There’s also music from Julianna Barwick, and her record, “Nepenthe,” which features countless fragments of her voice electronically layered to create what might sound like choral music.
From Berlin-based composer Holly Herndon and her latest record, PROTO, hear music for vocal ensemble – whose style might encompass shape note folk-singing to the close head-voice harmonies of a Bulgarian women’s chorus. This work combines the human voices of the ensemble together with live vocal processing and disruptive avant-pop “alien song craft.” A most eyebrow-raising factor is that the vocal ensemble also includes Spawn, a modified gaming computer created with long time collaborator Mathew Dryhurst and the programmer and artist Jules LaPlace. They trained Spawn how to identify and reinterpret unfamiliar sounds in group call-and-response singing sessions to update the religious gatherings from Holly's upbringing in East Tennessee.
There’s also music by the London-based vocal group, Shards, who are 12 voices strong, and led by singer, composer and producer Kieran Brunt. This vocal group consists of folks who don’t identify primarily as singers; members are also composers, instrumentalists, folk musicians and teachers. From their record, Find Sound, hear Shards channel the dual feelings of anger and excitement on “Unrest,” one of their sonic paintings built of voice, synths, and percussion. Plus, hear ambient music constructed from Analog synthesizers, loop pedals, delays and reverbs, voice and electric guitar by Pakistan-born, Brooklyn-based composer and performer Arooj Aftab, which her Bandcamp describes as 'spiraling soundscapes for lo-fi dreaming.'
Program #4260, Altered Voices (First aired 8/07/2019)
ARTIST: Holly Herndon
WORK: Eternal [1:30]
RECORDING: PROTO
SOURCE: 4AD
INFO: hollyherndon.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Julianna Barwick
WORK: Adventurer Of The Family [2:55]
RECORDING: Nepenthe
SOURCE: Dead Oceans
INFO: juliannabarwick.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Jordan Munson & Hanna Benn, with vocalist Abby Gardner and violinist Robin Cox
WORK: Jordan Munson & Hanna Benn: Anew, Part 3 [7:09]
RECORDING: Until My Last
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records
INFO: jordanmunson.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Holly Herndon
WORK: Eternal [4:45]
RECORDING: PROTO
SOURCE: 4AD
INFO: hollyherndon.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Mabe Fratti
WORK: Todo Lo Que Querías Saber [4:32]
RECORDING: Pies Sobre la Tierra
SOURCE: Hole Records
INFO: mabefratti1.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Shards
WORK: Unrest [3:23]
RECORDING: Find Sound
SOURCE: Erased Tapes, due out Aug. 30, 2019
INFO: shardsvoices.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Pamela Z and ETHEL
WORK: Ethel Dreams of Temporary Disturbances [6:57]
RECORDING: Light
SOURCE: Cantaloupe 21037
INFO: bangonacan.org/store
ARTIST: Jordan Munson & Hanna Benn, with vocalist Abby Gardner and violinist Robin Cox
WORK: Jordan Munson & Hanna Benn: Anew, Part 2 [5:38]
RECORDING: Until My Last
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records
INFO: jordanmunson.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Arooj Aftab
WORK: Island No. 1 [8:01]
RECORDING: Siren Islands
SOURCE: New Amsterdam Records
INFO: aroojaftab.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Brian Eno
WORK: Music for Airports 1-2 [1:30]
RECORDING: Ambient 1
SOURCE: EEG 17
INFO: Available at Amazon.com