BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Based a the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, electroacoustic ensemble the West Australian Laptop Orchestra (WALO) brings innovative new works to the forefront of the live music scene. For their 2014 program, Music Director (and proud CutCommon contributor) Sam Gillies has commissioned works from a diverse range of young Australian composers, one being James Paul. The young Melbourne composer’s ‘Thirteen Minutes on Floor 23’ fuses sound design and electronic performance into a “hellish, organic sound world of death, decay and well-dressed cats,” according to Sam. James, who studied at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts until 2010 and now attends RMIT, chats with us about the work and explains what makes good electronic music.
When did you first become interested in composition?
It was kind of a snap decision to become a composer. At the time, I was finishing high school and trying to decide between pursuing music as a cellist or composer. I got my hands on a laptop and copy of Logic 7 and that was really a turning point for me. I remember a very distinct feeling of obsession and wonder when I first began working with electronics and synthesis – a feeling I often experience when I’m working on electronic compositions in more recent times.
Tell us what ‘Thirteen Minutes on Floor 23’ is all about.
‘Thirteen Minutes…’ is a live sound design performed by an ensemble that must be evenly divided between 5 mono sound sources. It is a keyhole look into Hell – were Hell a forgotten art deco hotel. The audience finds themselves in the halls of Hell’s 23rd floor, where five doors stand before them. They must listen.
‘Thirteen Minutes’ was inspired by ‘23 Minutes in Hell’, a memoir of sorts describing the trans-dimensional experience of Bill Wiese, who claims to have spent a total of 23 minutes in Satan’s domain.
It’s really about exploring discomfort and confronting time. Five strange aural ‘rooms’ fill the world of the audience, briefly transforming their reality into a hellish inferno.
What equipment have you used to portray these sounds of Hell?
Each performer is using their own equipment, though I understand most will be using Max/MSP to varying degrees. Considering the work as a sound design it was very important that there was a 5-channel multi-mono sound system available – I’m a firm believer in discretely located sound sources for live sound design, it’s essential in achieving a sense of immersion.
How did the idea for this project come to you?
I think a couple of really important questions to consider when writing performed computer music are, ‘why use a computer?’ and, ‘does this material require a performer?’. The second question is the easiest to answer: if I’m delivering to the performer an essentially autonomous system, or a system that could be autonomous, the work does not require the performer. This question is really about balancing the role of the performer against the role of the computer.
The first question is harder to answer. There are many things a computer can do, but I find it useful to think of a computer as a device that interprets instructions. There are many devices that follow instructions – a Casio keyboard, for example, produces a sound once a key is depressed – but the exciting quality of a computer is its ability to use logic to interpret and extend a variety of instructions.
To answer the question, though, I needed to make a work that needed multiple computers, but also multiple performers. For me the choice of sound design was pretty obvious, it would allow me to create an instructional framework that both the performers and their computers could interpret in a variety of ways, and it required computers.
Describe the experience of ‘Thirteen Minutes’.
The work will be performed by an ensemble of five great WAAPA composition and music technology students that participate in the WALO program. Each of their designs will come through their own speaker (five in total), and can be thought of as ‘rooms’, spread across the space in a wide concave arc.
In such an experimental genre and era of electronic performance, what do you think qualifies for a good work that distinguishes it from the rest? What do you look for?
This is a very important question that is extremely difficult to answer. I think, in simple terms, that a good work is one that: expresses that a composer is irresistibly drawn to something (e.g. a theme, an instrument combination, etc.), why this is so and why the listener should be compelled; demonstrates engagement with material; and offers an unlocking or perspective on a sensory phenomenon. I find that the works I have consistently admired for years feel like they are unlocking a part of my brain that allows me to think or experience in a mode unique to this specific sensory experience. A great example of this, for me, is the first 21 seconds of the ‘Mélanges’ movement from Xenakis’ ‘Pleïades’.
James Paul’s new work will be performed alongside commissions by Thaddaeus, The Exile, and Mitchell Mollison. the WALO event will be held on September 8 at 8pm in The Bakery, WA. Tickets will be available at the door or through The Bakery. Check out www.jameswpaul.com for more about the composer.
Image supplied.
