Chrysakis, Thanos / Wade Matthews

Numen

Label: Aural Terrains Country: Greece/UK

"There are various reasons for liking this combined endeavour by Chrysakis (laptop, electronics) and Matthews (digital synthesis, field recordings). The most directly striking is the naturalness springing from certain complicated developments, not necessarily a given in these situations where, quite frequently, scholarly mouldiness tends to overpower the necessity of conveying an accessible communication. But the fact that, in the same record, one can find implausibly embroiled networks of ricocheting frequencies alternated to appearances by barking dogs and a garrulous rooster gives you a clue about the artists' inherent humour. This type of smartness in the mind of an electroacoustic assembler is indispensable, thus guaranteeing that the resultant music will never be heavy on the ears. The dynamic opposition is dramatic but not overly convulsive, the work on the distant regions of the audible gamut is carried out with an accurate idea of what the audience should "experience" more than "hear". For Chrysakis and Matthews, the main line seems to reside in the preservation of a continuous logic, even in the sections where the nervousness of the textural regeneration would appear to fragment common sense and coherence a bit. But it's exactly in those moments that the couple throws us threads of light that we can easily follow to regain the eventually lost balance amidst all those amorphous signals and codes."-Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes

"Thanos Chrysakis

"Thanos Chrysakis' output consists of composition, performance, and installation. He was born in Athens in 1971, residing in the UK since 1998. His work has appeared on various independent labels, and events in several countries. He composes for electronics, acoustic instruments and environmental sounds, focusing on the structural and aesthetic capacity of sonic matter. His work was amongst the selected works at the International Competition de Musique et d'Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges 2005, in the category œuvre d'art sonore électroacoustique, while received an honorary mention in 2006 at the 7th International Electroacoustic Competition Musica Viva in Lisbon. Recent compositions include: ΜΑΓΜΑ (Monochrome Vision 2011) Subterranean Sky (Aural Terrains 2010), EIRMOS I / II (for Wilfrido Terrazas [solo flute/bass flute] 2011), ERRINA (for Alexander Bruck [solo viola] 2011). His current performing projects are: a Trio with Wade Matthews and Dario Bernal-Villegas, a duo with Wade Matthews, and the trio Syneuma with James O'Sullivan and Jerry Wigens.

Current and upcoming projects for 2012-13 include a residency at Visby centre for composers in Sweden, a series of compositions for Chris Cundy (bass and contrabass clarinet), Jason Adler (bass clarinet), Wilfrido Terrazas (flutes), Kate Ryder (piano), Claire Chase (bass flute), Natalia Pérez Turner (cello), Tzenka Dianova (piano), and Dana Jessen (bassoon) + a new CD of electronic music entitled ' ἔκνηψις '.

Wade Matthews

Advanced academic studies in composition helped French-born American musician Wade Matthews realize he was not interested in telling other people what or how to play. In 1989, he moved from New York to Madrid and became part of the international improv community. Drawing on his knowledge of electronic music, he approached the bass clarinet and alto flute as "acoustic synthesizers", rethinking their sonic possibilities, phrasing, and relation to breath in a musical language based on real-time creation. When faster processors made laptop synthesis viable, Matthews returned to his first love, tweaking a virtual synthesizer to allow very rapid control of sound parameters for solo playing and dialog with others. In 2007, he founded INTERMEDIA 28 with photographer Adam Lubroth and guitarist Julio Camarena. There, he began to combine field recordings with electronic synthesis in a 2-computer setup that has since become his main instrument."-Aural Terrains