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Beautiful Cyborg 1
Beautiful Cyborg 1 was developed through a series of exchanges between Philip Brophy, Francois Tetaz & Darrin Verhagen. The original concept involved a modular matrix, where each would compose either a baseline, a chord sequence or a melody for 2 tracks, then pass it on to someone else. This way eventually 6 pieces would organically evolve, each fused as a tri-voice composition.
The approach was adapted slightly due to logistics in rehearsals, yet generating similar outcomes: each track contains co-authored components. It was stipulated that there would be no composing to screen, and that rather the attempt would be to dramatically evoke or infer a psychological state of portraiture with each completed composition. The original animations to be featured were watched prior to composing, but without clearly attaching any one piece to any one character.
The near-completed tracks were then matched to the edited portraits. After this, rehearsals continued timed to the finished edits. Sound design was comstructed and completed at this stage.
The 4-channel mixing for Beautiful Cyborg 1 involved Philip Brophy generating discrete 4-track sound from his ASR10 sampler; Francois Tetaz used an Ensoniq keyboard and a Korg drum machine and sent them through effects units for live spatialization during the performance; and Darrin Verhagen did similar FX spatialization using CDs, Reaktor on laptop, and shortwave radio. The resulting live performance allows for a detached, asynchronous and overall floating accompaniment to the edited images.
Beautiful Cyborg 2
Beautiful Cyborg 2 involved a more streamlined compositional process, being a solo work by Philip Brophy. The concept behind this version was to generate a series of song-format compositions in contrast to the mergerd ambient soundscapes of Beautiful Cyborg 1. The result is a series of highly melodic tracks of a clearly plastic electronic bent, with verse/chorus/refrain-style structures and elements being set against the rush of images.
Beautiful Cyborg 2 is performed live on the ASR10 sampler in accompanment to a specially-mixed stereo CD. The overlay of live melodic parts coming predominantly from the rear channel outputs of the ASR in time to the stereo CD playing in the front channels creates a 'harmonic surround spatialization' as opposed to the normal textural approaches used for spatialization.
BUY Beautiful Cyborg 1 directly through Sound Punch Records online using PayPal.
BUY Beautiful Cyborg 2 directly through Sound Punch Records online using PayPal from March 2009.
Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy