Coppice ‘Vinculum (Coincidence): Indexed Conjectures Of Coincidence Imprints Once Happened’ (13)
Vinculum (Coincidence) is the latest installment from Coppice’s archive of sonic artifacts. The original piece was conceived as a site-specific performance and was presented at Without You I Am Nothing: Interactions, a performance series curated by Tricia Van Eck for the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The composition revolved around the intersections between two accordions, four speakers with aleatoric pre-recorded material, spatial / temporal intervals and audience flow. It was performed for a total of 14 hours between February 8-13, 2011.
A special studio arrangement of the recordings, cut to the length of this CD, was developed between May 2011 and November 2012. The accordion duo score recordings were engineered by Todd A. Carter in June 2011 at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago.
From Tricia Van Eck’s liner notes:
‘Vinculum (Coincidence) consisted of four speakers placed in the gallery amidst large works by Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Dan Peterman, Adrian Piper, and Andrea Zittel. The speakers – reverberating through the normally quiet space – played aleatoric pre-recorded sounds that initially seemed like breaths or wind blowing but then altered or transformed as if mechanical parts hissing and whooshing across and through the space. Once these speakers were on, Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Kramer stoically entered, each with an accordion. People walking by the galleries – where sound is not normally present – upon hearing the hypnotic yet enigmatic sounds from within, would often stop and try to locate what it was and where it was coming from. Seeing one or both of the performers and their accordions would not necessarily answer their confusion. Some would walk away perplexed, while others would be drawn in. Once inside, the effects of the performance were individualized and subjective. Some, perhaps realizing that their movements intersected the score, chose to remain motionless, while others moved around the gallery seemingly looking and testing how the different sculptures absorbed or reverberated the sounds. Some, perhaps musicians, appeared to be acutely listening as if discerning patterns and phrasing of melodies and breaths. Still others were interested solely in the performers – imitating their stances or interrupting their silences by talking with them. Most intriguing to me, was how sculptural the performers, the sounds, and by extension, the audience became. It was as if Vinculum (Coincidence), with its continuous droning of tones, breaths, and modulations, froze or at least slowed the viewers as they walked among the objects in the gallery, as if coalescing into a spatio-temporal synchronous whole. It was if by listening, the audience could tenuously hold the experience, the shifting sounds, and themselves together, in space with each other.’
Further info about the composition can be found here.
1st edition of 100 copies (December 2014): red CD-R’s in plastic jacket stuffed with nesting booklets and sticker.
Cover & Design: Coppice
Liner notes: Coppice and Tricia Van Eck
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“What is audible on record is a rawer, more cleanly ‘acoustic’ sound from the two accordions compared with the multiple layers of tape manipulations that Coppice is known for. The simplicity and directness of the first track, for example, in which pumping sounds flick from left to right over a quiet background murmur, earns its place amongst the duo’s finest work to date. At other times, the lack of refinement and variety perhaps suits intermittent attention better than full-on sustained engagement (the liner notes’ suggestion is that the album should be listened to on ‘shuffle’). I would love to see a live realisation of “Vinculum (Coincidence)” and explore the numerous coincidences of space, installation, performer, and audience opened up by the work. In lieu of that possibility, this recorded version offers a fresh and stripped-down take on the music of Coppice.” (Fluid Radio)
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Since its foundation in 2009, Chicago-based Noé Cuéllar & Joseph Kramer have departed from bellows and electronics to create original compositions, installations, discography, instruments, arrangements for performance, software, and sculptural objects. Drawing from their expanding glossary of study, the duo is currently focused on the development of new technologies and objects for installation and live repertoire with custom instruments, and electromagnetic and pneumatic processes. Recently praised for “blurring sounds and centuries,” Coppice music has been released internationally, recently by Quakebasket (US), Triple Bath (GR), Consumer Waste (UK), and Senufo Editions (IT). Coppice has appeared at numerous settings and festivals in Chicago and the US, and internationally in Iceland, Sweden, Greece, and the Netherlands.
http://www.futurevessel.com/coppice/