Monica and I have spent two months living in Berlin focusing on our work and the Listening Bodies project. We taught a nice workshop here at Lake Studios Berlin. We’re doing a movement and sound duet this weekend at Tanzfabrik. Afterward, we will be touring and giving workshops in Croatia, Denmark, UK, Ireland, and Italy for the rest of the summer. Check out our new website for more info: Listening Bodies.
Also , I was honored to have a short remix in this latest project from Cities and Memory focused on outer space (to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the US moon landing). Hear my remix of John F. Kennedy’s famous speech about going to the Moon. Listen to Space
Greetings from Berlin, I hope you’re enjoying your early fall /
late summer days and nights. I had a wonderful time in Iceland. The
other artists at Listhus were very inspiring. I got to take many walks
in the mountains, fields, shores, towns and volcanic plains taking in
the otherworldly sights and sounds of that lovely country.
I recently uploaded one of the tracks built around fields recordings from Iceland. You can listen here on Soundcloud:
My travels continue this month with a residency in Berlin at the prestigious soundart gallery/venue Liebig12. The space has a really great sound system where I will be working on some mediation / sleep music and Echozoo
sounds. Also as part of my residency I’ll be taking part in three
concerts (many with my old friend, Bilwa, from Philadelphia who lives in
Berlin now) and a Deep Listening workshop. If you’re in Berlin it would
be great to see you!
Saturday Sep 16
Opening soundscape at Liebig12, 15:00-19:00
for Natsuko Tezuka + Tomomi Adachi Duo, 19:30
Friday Sep 29
18:00 – Deep Listening Workshop at Liebig12 with Sharon Stewart
CITIES AND MEMORY PROTEST SOUND MAP
I created a sound collage piece that I recorded at a Black Lives Matter Protest in Philadelphia for the Cities and Memory Protest Sound Map.
This sound map is an amazing collection of over 200 recordings and
remixes from protests all around the world. The project has been
featured on Wired, BBC, The Guardian, Mashable and dozens of other news
outlets. Check it out!
http://citiesandmemory.com/protest/
Protest and Politics is the first global mapping of the sounds of protest, demonstration and political activism.
Sourcing field recordings from our own archive as well as from dozens of
field recordists around the world, we assembled a database of protest
sounds over summer 2017, and opened this up to artists and musicians to
recompose and reimagine, bringing to bear their own experiences and
memories onto these sounds.
You can explore the documentary field recordings of protests, spend time
in the alternative sound world created by their reimagined
counterparts, or flip freely between the two as you choose.
MIXES FROM THE FIELD
Sharon and I are ramping up our Field Recording, Deep Listening, Sonic Works project Mixes from the Field
with some exciting projects in 2018. Check out our latest Newsletter
detailing all we’ve been up too and having coming up, including a Deep
Listening outing in Arnhem, NL in October. Also please get on our
mailing list to find out more about our upcoming events and projects!
Hello and happy holidays! I wanted to thank
everyone for their support of my musical projects throughout 2015. Below
is a recap of projects I worked on in 2015 with some free downloads,
videos and other media.
In a River the Color of Lead
Early this year I released my 8th solo studio album on NOREMIXES.
The album is a continuation of my exploration of the piano as an object
of beauty and noise. It was released digitally and as a vinyl record
(with support from Kickstarter backers). I’m very proud of this work and hope you all got a chance to listen to it.
In February I was delighted to perform with my long-time choreographic partner Nora Gibson and her company Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet in the premiere of 257,885,161-1. This ballet was a meditation on the mathematical concept of twin primes. The premiere was well received and sounded and looked gorgeous. Excerpts from the premiere can be viewed here on Vimeo.
In 2016 I’ll be working again with NGCB on an even more ambitious project EPHEMERAL, a work about time for dance, light, and environmental sound score.
EPHEMERAL
Christ Church Neighborhood House Theater, Philadelphia
Feb. 19-21
This year I began to really explore the
sound world of actual places through field recording. I published
several works through the brilliant UK based site Cities and Memory. Here are three pieces they published:
Turtle River (Philadelphia) presented on World Listening Day and at the Oxford Contemporary Music Festival.
Corca Dhuibhne (Western Ireland) field recordings and reimagined sounds recorded in Dingle and the Cliffs of Moher.
Utopia part of an international collection of artists who created an imaginary sound world for the Thomas More novel Utopia (1515)
The last piece I wanted to share was from the Papal visit
to Philadelphia in September 2015. The piece contains recordings I
gathered over three days as about a million people descended on center
city Philadelphia to celebrate the historic visit by Pope Francis. As
with many of these recordings, I sought to remove the element of time
and create a shifting landscape of timeless space.
dark matter
This season I am Artist in Residence at <fidget> along with choreographer / artist Zornitsa Stoyanova. In November we collaborated on the performance film dark matter. It was premiered at the <fidget> Fall Experimental Music Festival.
The above photo is by Glenn Benge from the premiere.
In March 2016 I’ll be performing another
concert at <fidget>. This is going to be a 12-hour long concert of
sleep music! Bring a sleeping bag, pillow and blanket, enjoy some dream
tea and snuggle in for 12-hours of dream drones and tape loop
lullabies. I’ll be performing ambient music all night with visuals from
Alex Bond focusing on themes of Bardo, reincarnation, Dream Yoga and
sleep (un)consciousness.
To get a taste of the kind of music you’ll hear, please check out my 2014 sleep music album, Quiescent. It’s an eight hour mix of music for the four sleep cycles.
Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State
March 19 7pm – March 20 7am
thefidget space
Hi folks, it’s been a few months since my last update. I’ve been working on lots of studio projects with some occasional shows.
Here’s a rundown of recent projects I was involved with this fall.
Utopia
Over the past few months as I’ve gotten more into field recording and Deep Listening, I’ve been producing sounds for the site Cities and Memory. The most recent piece I did for them was part of a project to imagine sounds for the 16th century Thomas More’s novel Utopia.
For my piece I focused on a darker aspect of More’s work: slavery. This
seedy aspect of this well known concept of Utopia seemed to echo the
modern day issue of hidden slavey in our “advanced” society.
Another recent sonic piece I created was an audio collage of the sounds
of Pope Francis’ historic visit to Philadelphia in September 2015.
Approximately one million people visited Philadelphia creating one of
the largest gatherings in the city’s history on the Ben Franklin
Parkway. For three days I walked around with my field recorder and
captured the sounds of the crowds, choirs, vendors, singers, chanters,
musicians and ambiance to create an sonic photograph of what this
beautiful weekend was like.
The Monday after the Papal visit I was honored to perform along side two giants in the electronic music scene: King Britt and HPrizm (from Antipop Contortium) for their Buddy System series at Johnny Brenda’s. Myself, finger drummer phenom OddKidOut and Matthew Law
(AKA DJ Phsh) joined King and Priest for a smoking improvisational set
of electronic music. I’ve heard the recordings back and they’re quite
good. Look for some excerpts coming soon once the Buddy System site
launches.
<fidget> Residency / dark matter / Fall Experimental Music Festival
I’m also excited to announce that I am artist in residence at one of the most vital performance laborites in Philadelphia, thefidget space, for their 2015/16 season. As the resident composer/musician I’m sharing my time with choreographer/artist Zornitsa Stoyanova.
We’ve been working together off and on for almost nine years!
Throughout 2015 we’ve been doing some experiments with sound, dance,
reflective mylar and modular lighting. On Friday November 6 we’ll be
debuting a new piece that showcases some of that work. dark matter will
contain four channel surround sound music, video, dance, mylar, smart
phone media and live music. I’ll be joined by another old friend,
violinist Carlos Santiago, for this performance.
Friday, November 6, 8pm
at thefidget space (1714 N Mascher St) Space Pulse Pattern Presence, with: dark matter, by Michael McDermott and Zornitsa Stoyanova (2015/16 <fidget> artists in residence) SP3, by <fidget>/Peter Price & Megan Bridge (work-in-progress)
and guest curator Flandrew Fleisenberg welcomes: ID M Theft Able, Himself (Portland, Maine) Bromp Treb, Performance (Western Massachusetts)
Tickets: $10- $20 sliding scale
New Website
Finally I’d like to welcome you to my new website SoundofListening.com.
For years I’ve done sound art, film and dance scores, ambient music
albums, performances, etc. all under the umbrella of Mikronesia. The Mikronesia
moniker will still live on, but that will refer specifically to ambient
music recordings, shows and productions. With Sound of Listening I want
to highlight my work with Deep Listening, Field Recording, Sonic
Awareness and Interaction. Check it out!
