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Bionic Blue Bubblegum Slurpee
Bionic Blue Bubblegum Slurpee capitalizes on the strengths of the two Phils: Brophy with knowledge of club music sub-genres and their more extreme production styles, and Samartzis and his sharply defined approach to creating shimmering sheets of electro-acoustic noise. Together, they generate a distinctive slant on electronica which combines guttural beats with freaky synaptic sounds. Brophy plays the beats live, triggered by playing drum pads, and Samartzis juggles an arsenal of specially-burnt CDs which he mixes and cross-fades to the beat. The outcome of over a year of playing gigs in a wide variety of venues has culminated in the 40 minute suite Bionic Blue Bubblegum Slurpee.
Originally presented in galleries in surround sound format, the trippy spatialization is retained for the Dolby surround CD. Schizophrenic, disorienting, tantalizing and chemical, Bionic Blue Bubblegum Slurpee will complement your taste buds irregardless of what you have in your mouth at the time.
Frail Plastic Animal
Frail Plastic Animal developed after Bionic Blue Bubblegum Slurpee had been performed for about a year. The intention with Frail Plastic Animal was to not have any pre-sequenced passages, which in Bionic Blue Bubblegum Slurpee had across time developed into a score which both Phil's 'read' as a series of cues to perform their parts. The new set featured Phil Samartzis performing Roland SH1 synths analogue-synched to an 808 drum machine; Phil Brophy performed drum pads triggering samples, as well as additional keyboards. Rehearsals determined a set of songs each with their own tempo, with the different patterns on the 808 being the temp-clock for each track. Unlike the atmospheric soundscapes of Bionic Blue Bubblegum Slurpee, the Frail Plastic Animal tracks are minimalist techno pulsations.
Janet Leigh (Dead)
Janet Leigh (Dead) was developed originally for a public sound installation in the central outdoor plaza of Coppenhagen's city square. Philip Samartzis had presented solo work there and a Ph2 work was proposed and accepted. Following funding from the New Media Arts Board of the Australia Council, the work was completed, centred on recordings and processings of voice and water recordings. This was in reflection of how the speaker system for the Coppenhagen's central outdoor plaza was contained within the drainage system. The title Janet Leigh (Dead) references the famous last shot of Janet Leigh's death in Alfred Hitcock's Psycho. Ironically and unfortunately, a flood destroyed the multi-speaker/amp playback system of this underground infrasructure before the completed work could be presented there. The work was then presented at a number of galleries in quadraphonic presentation.
The final work results from a number of improvized live quadraphonic performances across a year where a random database was used to move through the various sections. This ‘random’ function in the live setting pushed both Philips into an attentive act of listening to the other’s textures and finding ways to meld one into the other across time. The final sequencing of textures was settled on by the time of the CD recording. Performed in one take, the Dolby Surround recording has been edited into 6 discrete sections.
Not strictly a minimalist work, the overall atmosphere of Janet Leigh (Dead) is quite dense and alive with internal rhythms. Long fades performed by Philip Samartzis function as drawn-out breathes, while Philip Brophy’s waveform editing creates a series of micro patterns which pulse in idiosyncratic ways. Despite the somewhat morbid title and its oblique reference to Psycho, Janet Leigh (Dead) is a contemplative flow through a series of vocal waves and watery sighs. Sensually sonic and spatially tactile.
Secret Acts Within Four Walls
The idea to develop Secret Acts Within Four Walls came from improvizations both Phils had been conducting on non-electronic instruments: Phil Samartzis was exploring the banjo, with a sound more akin to Toru Takemitsu's KAIDAN than the score to DELIVERANCE; Phil Brophy had been experimenting with hand and finger on large roto-toms, creating rumbling tone more than percussive events. Both also owned Roland SH1 synthesizers with expander modules, so the idea to intergrate these instruments in a new performance grew. Performed only a few times to date, Secret Acts Within Four Walls is a complexly scored interaction between these instruments.
For the live performance, both the banjo and the roto-drum are close miced, with the banjo being fed into variable reverb effects and the roto-drum fed into a voltage-controlled fuzz-wah filter. In each case, the level of intensity brought to bear on the instrument accents the effected component of its sound. The score is a visual chart that dicates a series of directions controlled by each Phil at different times, with each Phil deciding alternatively when to move to the next movement. The piece starts with the roto-toms, then after an improv on the instrument, Phil B punches in the mixer so as to unleash the programmed patches of the synths, which in contrast to the isolated gestures of the drum rumbles and taps generate a thick sheet of noise. This noise is allowed to develop, with each Phil slowly and subtly altering the settings of their synth patches. Phil S then cuts out the sound and launches into a solo improv on the banjo. While he does this, Phil B changes the setting on his synth, then gets ready to cut back in the synths once Phil S has finished his improv. This is then repeated but with the tasks changed between the Phils.
Silence & Cry
Following Phil Samartzis' recent ideas to improvize with extremely minimal textures and tones, Silence & Cry is an exploration of how his operation of a set of sine-wave CDs and antique analogue synth modules can interface with Phil Brophy's improvization on a glass vase full of water connected to a metal bowl. Phil B plays continually, moving from the glass vase full of water to the metal bowl, perfoming dronal ringing textures by fast-paced 4-finger tapping. The piece is based at the very low threshold of these acoustic events, with Phil S's synth and CD tones emerging from the acoustic ringing and resonance of the glass vase and metal bowl.
Heat
Heat is a loose improvizational project based on both Phils creating a series of textures to accompany a video by Dominic Redfern. Dom's video is actually a set of movie clips which he processes live, so the 'score' for Heat is accordingly improvised. as Dom's visuals function as a landscape interpretation of the typically dry and heated rural Australian environment, so does the score evoke a series of searinginly dry textures.Northern Void
Devised to accompany a video by Philip Brophy, the soundtrack for Northern Void capitalises upon and extends Ph2's working practices. These are largely based around field recordings and captured textures which are then processed and multi-layered into dense fields of sound. Sometimes carved and sculptured into monolithic forms, other times distilled into near-silent aural quivers, the sonic investigations of Ph2 heighten the act of listening.
As part of the development of Northern Void, various location recordings have been assembled and then workshopped through a series of improvisations. These segments and passages have then been matched and shaped according to the visuals of Northern Void as they were being produced. With the visuals complete, work concentrated on articulating the dramatic momentum and arcs within the three parts. This involves extensive experimentation to uncover the most innovative yet involving way of reflecting and intensifying the subtextual nuances of how the onscreen landscapes and locations are being transformed across time.
(For full information on this project see Northern Void)
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