A tribute for our fans

The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole and dragged her into their agency, where they abused her for their projects again and again. And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her.Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.

The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk

Dhamma of John Cage

Happy New Year everyone! 2016 was such a wonderful year for me with so many projects. I’m very grateful to all of you who supported me whether by helping to fund my Hatchfund for EchoZoo and my residency at Ayatana and my field recording trips to the Pacific Northwest, coming to my sleep concerts during my artist residency at <fidget> or with Temple Universities BEEP, coming to see my collaboration with Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet in Ephemeral, my Fringe Fest collaboration with Fran Markey or maybe enjoying my little musical part of Klip Collective’s Nightscape at Longwood Gardens this fall or perhaps support during my Deep Listening certification studying with the late Pauline Oliveros.

I’ve got some exciting projects this year including several sleep music concerts and recordings, an Echozoo research residency in Brazil, a new ballet with NGCB, new albums coming out on Buddy System and NOREMIXES, and a new education initiate teaching Field Recording and Deep Listening with Dutch artist Sharon Stewart with a pilot program funded by American Composers Forum at Village of the Arts and Humanities this March.

Now on to this month’s projects… First I’m teaching a three part series on John Cage and Buddhism…

The Dhamma of John Cage

A three part series exploring the connection between John Cage and Buddhism with periods of meditation, listening and discussion.
Sunday January 8, 15 and 22, 2017
7:30-9pm

Springboard Sangha
530 Carpenter Lane, West Mt. Airy
Free and Open to the Public

Consciousness Hacking Oneironautics Workshop Lucid Sleep Concert

Lucid Dreaming workshop with overnight concert
Saturday February 4, 2017 7pm – Sunday February 5, 2017 ~9am
Sera Phi
715 S. 50th St, Philadelphia, PA 19143
Lecture on Lucid Dreaming by Thomas Peisel, co-author of A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics.
Overnight Lucid Dreaming concert by Michael Reiley McDermott using Sera Phi’s surround and in-floor sound system.
+dream zone plant magic by milksunn(((o)))
Facebook Invite
Eventbrite
Sliding scale / pay-what-you-want tickets, but reserve your spot because space is limited!

Starting out early

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy.

The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole and dragged her into their agency, where they abused her for their projects again and again. And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her.Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.

The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk

LUCID

7th Annual Fall Experimental Music Festival
November 12, 2016 at 9:00 p.m. – November 13, 2016 at 6:00 a.m. http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2698662​
Facebook Event

Press Release:

For the second time this year, composer and <fidget> artist-in-residence Michael Reiley McDermott will perform an overnight sleep music concert.

Lucid will be an 8-hour sleep music performance exploring the liminal space between sleeping, dreaming, meditating and listening. As participants sleep and explore their lucid dream space McDermott will create a soothing, supportive, continuous score exploring the themes of death, bardo and rebirth found in “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”.

The concert begins at 10pm Saturday and will go until 6am Sunday morning. Please bring sleeping bags and blankets for your journey. There will be wine and dream tea available. Come early for a pre-show talk by McDermott and <fidget> co-director Peter Price at 9pm.

Tickets for this 10+ hour event are available at different levels of support named for the six stages of Bardo described in “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”:
Kyenay – $6 (online only)
Milam – $12 (student/artist)
Samten – $24
Chikhai – $48
Chönyi – $96
Sidpa – $192

As preparation for this sleep music concert I took part in a Dream Over at the Rubin Museum in NYC last week. It was a magical night sleeping among ancient Buddhist artifacts and artwork and sharing the space with dozens of other dreamers. You can read a review of the event at Artsy


HOH RAINFOREST

In August 2016 I traveled to the Northwest United States to do some field recording for my Echozoo project. The idea was that I would record some ambient sounds from habitats from a biologically unique place in North America for designing the imaginary sound habitats for Echozoo. My travels took me to Glacier National Park and the National Bison Reserve in Montana, Turnbull Wildlife Refuge and Hoh National Forest in Washington.

Of these four locations I found the Hoh Rainforest to be such a unique land and soundscape. I decided to create a sonic portrait in my Sonic Photography series of sounds recorded in the Hoh Rainforest. I spent two nights staying in a tent at Huckleberry Lodge. TV personality Mick Dodge from the National Geographic show The Legend of Mick Dodge lives at this lodge. Mick and I had some nice conversations about the sonic characteristic of the Hoh Rainforest. He told me about the low growl of Hoh River and its connection with the native Hoh tribe which found its way into this piece.

With this Hoh Rainforest piece and many of these Sonic Photographs, I am attempting to create a liminal journey between the real and imagined sound world of an environment. Like a photographer who would use photographic development techniques, I work with collage, saturation, filtering and creative lighting to reframe the beautiful sounds of this rainforest as a surrealistic journey for the ears and mind.

Philadelphia Fringe Festival 2016

I have music/sound design in two Philadelphia Fringe Festival shows in the next two weeks. 

This Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I’ll be doing some live sound design and music for Fran Markey’s new piece At & About the Edge of.

Then next week I have some brand new music in Zornitsa Stoyanova’s Explicit Female.

Also I’m hard at work on several new music / sound projects including Echozoo – my forthcoming iPhone/Android App which plays sonic portraits of extinct animals from your area.

As part of the research for Echozoo, I traveled to the Northwest United States to do some field recording. The trip was made possible by the support of the Echozoo Hatchfund backers (thank you!). My trip took me to Portland, Forks, The Hoh Rainforest and Turnbull Wildlife Refuge in Washington and the National Bison Range and Glacier National Park in Montana. I captured a lot of great ambient sounds of rain, wind, trees, crickets, birds, elk, owls, squirrels, bison and lots of unidentified sounds for the Echozoo App. Here’s a Flickr album with some photos from the trip. 

Longwood Garden Klip Collective Installation

Hello everyone. Hope you’re enjoying these final weeks of summer here in North America. I have a few outdoor events coming up I wanted to share with you.

Nightscape

Nightscpae at Longwood Gardens

I’m very proud to have been asked to create a piece of music for Klip Collective’s award-winnning garden, light, sound and video installation at Longwood Garden’s called Nightscape. For this show I created a variation of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” (one of my favorite pieces).

The show opens August 3 and runs through October 29
Longwood Gardens
1001 Longwood Road, Kennett Square, PA 19348

Also there’s a vinyl record release of the music from this and last year’s show which is for sale at Klip’s bandcamp.

Nightscape

Deep Listening Soundwalk

A photo from the trail we'll be walking on

As part of my studies in Deep Listening with Pauline Oliveros at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute I’ve started a Philadelphia Deep Listening Study Group. The group meets to discuss Deep Listening concepts, practice sound-based meditations and perform Deep Listening scores. Member William Fields has come up with the name “Sound Sangha” which I rather like 🙂

This month’s meet-up will be a Soundwalk through the Wissahickon Woods on Thursday August 11. We’ll explore the sound field of the southern most section of the Wissahickon, practice listening meditations and perform two of Pauline’s scores along our walk. 

*Note this a make-up of the rained-out Soundwalk from July 23.

Please email [email protected] to sign-up. 

We’ll meet at the Wissahickon Septa Train Station on Rochelle St. and walk north through the woods. The entire walk will be about 3 miles roundtrip.

Soundwalk through the Wissahickon
Thursday August 11, 6pm-9pm
Wissahickon Station
5100 Rochelle Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19128

Echozoo Thank You!

Golden Toad

A huge thank you to all the people who successfully funded Echozoo. Those people who backed the project will get a special thank-you inside the smartphone app once it’s developed as well as access to exclusive content like: A sneak peak track of the sound-world of the Golden Toad from South America which went extinct in the 1990s. Also I’ll be recording some field recording footage and vlogs on my upcoming trip to Washington and Montana to record animals and habitats for the App that will go out to the Hatchfund backers. So if you didn’t get a chance to back Echozoo, the good news is the site will be live and you can still become a backer to get this exclusive content and help support the development of this ambitious project.

Now let me take a couple more lines of this email to specially thank all the backers for Echozoo! It means so much to me to receive this support of my work. THANK YOU!!!!!!

Darcy Lyons, Steffan Schulz, Cory Neale, James Falconi, Jason & Emmalee MacDonald, Melissa & Carl Franke, Mary Kalyna, Kevin Brown, Carla Willard, M Eckstrom, Dave Di Lullo, Es Pisarek, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Mary Niewood, Ian Nauroth, Sharon Stewart, Benjamin Warfield, Patricia McDermott & Jack Malgeri, Pearson Constantino, Brian Wainwright, Jebney Lewis, fidget, Francis Markey, Emme McDermott, Glenn Benge, mauri Walton, Richard Baybutt, Patrick O’Connor, Delia Tash, Jonathan Moniz, Robin Rosecky, Nora Gibson, Katinka Marc, Thomas Reliey, Kim Epson, William Clarke-Fields, Anne C. Cecil, Steven Peltier and two Annonymouses.

Peep Croak Growl

Echozoo

Happy Summer Solstice! Thank you to everyone who has supported the Echozoo Hatchfund project. If you missed the last email, Echozoo is a new smartphone App I’m developing which will play a musical score of re-imagined extinct animal sounds that lived in your part of the world. The App seeks to foster a sense of connection and wonder with our biological sound world past, present and future.

This is going to be one of the biggest projects I’ve even undertaken. It’s really a culmination of my work as a composer, sound design, meditator and Deep Listener. This Hatchfund will enable me to take the time I need to work on this project and not just work on it in my “spare time” away from work. I’m so grateful for the support I’ve received for this project so far.

However, we still need to raise about $1700 to make our minimum goal and there’s less than two weeks to go! If you’re thinking of pledging to the project, now is the time. Please spread the word and support this project if you’re curious about the largely untapped world of extinct animal sound design. Any level of support is appreciated and all donations are 100% tax deductible.

http://hatchfund.org/project/echozoo

The hood of the Ayatana van "Jellymoon"

I just returned from my week in Canada at the Ayatana Artist Research Program. I had the honor to live and work with a group of artists as we met with animal and field recording experts for various outings during the week.

Recording bird sound. Photo by Alexis Williams

We went on at least two excursions each day to listen to the rich biophony found in Ontario and Québec. Above is a photo when we went on an expedition with a local bird expert.

Below is a photo of us at an animal acoustics lab at Carlton University. This team of scientists work with the audible communication and listening of caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers and crickets. 

Listening to Insects in the Lab

One of my favorite nights was listening to bats using an Arduino bat detectors we built with maker Michael Grant from Krazatchu.

Listening for bats at dusk. Photo by Nadya Edelstein

We all recorded so many sounds. Ayatana setup a SoundCloud page with many of our samples of birds, frogs, insects, bats, beavers, wind, earth, water and some man-made sounds.

Many of the sounds I recorded at Ayatana will make their way into Echozoo. I have another field recording trip planned for August in the Northwest US where I hope to record more animals sounds for the project.

Finally, I made this collage of sounds from the week in Canada. Please enjoy:

Ayatana Collage

Thanks for reading, watching, sharing and listening.

-Michael

Echozoo

Hello everyone! I’m writing you this week from Canada at the Ayatana Artist Research Program. I am honored to be one of the artists selected for this week’s Biophillia Sound Art Residency

This week I’ll be traveling with biologists and researchers to record sounds of animals. I’m super excited and hope to post lots of photos and sounds when I return.

Today, I’ve launched a Hatchfund to raise funds for my next big project (which ties in directly with this Artist Residency) called Echozoo.

Those of you who know me, know that I’ve been talking about this project for a while and asking these questions:

  • What did extinct animals sounds like?
  • What would our current landscape sound like if some of these animals were still alive?
  • How connected are we to our current sound world?

Echozoo is going to be a smartphone app that uses geo-location to determine where you are in the world and will play re-imagined sound-design of the calls of extinct animals that lived in your region.

If you’ve ever watched behind the scenes features for some of your favorite films (like Jurassic Park and Star Wars) you know that sound designers like Ben Burtt would mix the sounds of many creatures together (like the slowed down croak of a frog, the pitch-shifted quack of a duck and the reversed growl of a tiger) to make the other worldly sounds of the creatures in the film. This is essentially what I’ll be doing. I will take field recordings of living creatures to try and extrapolate the calls of extinct animals from them. What would a dodo bird sound like? No one really knows for sure, but I imagine like a deep percussive penguin chirp mixed with an ostrich.

This Hatchfund will go to pay for the expenses of this artist residency at Ayatana, travel expenses to Canada and other sites around North America this summer and studio time spent sound designing and developing the iPhone and Android applications.

There’s some great rewards for backing the project including downloads of exclusive creature calls not found in the app, having a variable named after you in the code or even adding your own voice to the synthesized creature calls!

My hope it have it released by the end of the year.

Thank you for taking time to read, watch and listen. Any support you can give is much appreciated.

Also all Hatchfund donations are 100% tax deductible.

Like Kickstarter and other platforms, Hatchfund is do or die! If we don’t make the goal, the project won’t be funded. Please spread the word. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

http://hatchfund.org/project/echozoo

Sleep Concert, Attune and Beep

SLEEP MUSIC CONCERT

Last month I played an all-night sleep music concert during the Spring Equinox at thefidget space. The 12-hour concert was a beautiful night / morning with people doing yoga, dancing, reading, and sleeping throughout the night as I played. The piece was covered in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Here’s a video taken of some of the music and projections that were happening throughout the night:

Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State

Here’s the entire 12-hour concert audio at archive.org.

Finally, I wanted to share this beautiful poem that Glenn Benge, who attended the event, wrote in response:


ATTUNE

ATTUNE
Image by Shaily Shah

As part of my training with Pauline Oliveros to becoming certified as a Deep Listening practitioner, I’m co-leading a sound and movement workshop with Darcy Lyons next week. I’ll be leading some sound meditations, Deep Listening exercises/scores and playing some music for the dance/movement portion.

“In this two hour workshop participants will be guided through improvisational movement structures, gentle bodywork, still/moving meditations, and listening practices that foster compassion, healing, and connection. Everyone is welcome. No experience required.”

Saturday April 16, 11:30-1:30 PM
The Iron Factory

118 Fontain Street, 3rd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19122
Tickets $12 in advance (Sales End April 14)
$20 Cash or Check at the door


NOREMIXES NORESIDENCY

The NOREMIXES monthly at The Art Dept continues in April with sets by Mikronesia, Jeff Zeigler and Oh! Pears

Friday April 22, 7-9 PM
The Art Dept

1638 E. Berks St. Philadelphia, PA 19125
Doors 6:30pm, Show 7-9pm, $10


BEEP COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCY

BEEP class

This semester I am Composer-in-Residence at Temple University’s BEEP (The Boyer Electroacoustic Ensemble Project). For this residency, I’m guest lecturing and developing a piece using my “Sonic Photorgraphy” techiniques for the students that they’ll perform at the end of the semester. More info on this premiere next month. Here’s a photo from my first BEEP class:

Discussing artistry, community, and Deep Listening with composer in residence @mikronesia. @beep_TU @BoyerCollege pic.twitter.com/cZi0ZGDYCE — Adam Vidiksis (@vidikulous) April 1, 2016

NGCB + Consciousness Hacking

Hi everyone, I wanted to share some upcoming events and some new music I’ve released today


Unplugged: Consciousness Hacking

Tonight (March 1) there’s a meet up in Philadelphia of mediators, coders and seekers. These gatherings are always a mind opening event. Beginners and those with no meditation experience are welcome!

I’ll be presenting a binaural beats system as a way to hack your consciousness and create altered states.

PromptWorks
1211 Chestnut Street Suite 400, Philadelphia, PA (map)
6pm
http://www.meetup.com/N3rd-Street/events/228705518/


Ephemeral

Two weeks ago Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet debuted their seminal work Ephemeral, for which I composed the score. I am really proud of this piece and I feel like it’s the culmination of my working relationship with Nora over the past six years. The dancers and technical crew performed flawlessly to packed audiences over three shows and it was wonderful.

Here’s two glowing reviews of the piece:

Also for the first time ever, I’m releasing the score of the ballet as an album today. You can download (MP3, FLAC) the hour long album from Bandcamp.


Sleep Music Concert

Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State

Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State
March 19, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. – March 20, 2016 at 7:00 a.m.
$10-$20 sliding scale
thefidget space (1714 N Mascher Street)

<fidget> Artist in Residence Michael McDermott will be performing an all night sleep music concert.

For the past 10 years, Michael has been performing as an ambient music artist under the moniker Mikronesia. For this concert he will be presenting a long-form work based on the themes of death, bardo and reincarnation found in the sacred Buddhist text known as The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The live performance using synthesizers, tape loops and slow motion surround sound sonic landscapes will warp the audiences’ perception of time as the music will reach the level of near stillness through the wee hours of the morning. This part of the concert will be meant to be experienced subsciouslessly as McDermott will cycle through his interpretation of themes of death and rebirth found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The score will culminate at sunrise concluding the sonic lullaby. On display will be video tape loops by artist Alex Bond.

The show is twelve hours long. We invite you to bring blankets, sleeping bags and pillows. We’ll also have sleep inducing dream tea to aid in the journey.

Preview McDermott’s first foray into “Sleep Music,” Quiescent to get a taste of the sonic landscape: https://mikronesia.bandcamp.com/album/quiescent


Blackstar Video

Finally, last month I had the pleasure to play at a night celebrating the life and music of one of my heroes, David Bowie. Every set was really powerful and beautiful. I played synthesizer with the band Professor Maybe. We did two instrumentals from Low and Bowie’s last epic song “Blackstar”. Here’s a video from the show: