The third installment of the ongoing Autochromata series, which utilizes a foundation of low-bitrate and lossy file formats to explore digital texture and unexpected tonal possibilities. This volume began with a provenance of extremely pitch and FFT processed recordings of Erik Satie piano pieces, played backwards from vinyl and sampled at extremely low bitrates. From there, dozens of automation envelopes were designed across the length of the recordings, affecting filters, pitch, stereo separation and reverberation in both musical and non-musical ways, essentially becoming (to some degree) a form of generative music. Length, as ever, is something that goes further and further off the deep end in the White Pillar Workshop, and thanks to the abilities of computing power, extreme runtimes are more and more within reach. What began as 40 minutes of sound mutated across just over half a day, and arrived at 13 and a half hours of seemingly endless Autochromatic microcosms.
So then, what does such a forest of sonic overgrowth sound like? To begin, a rhythmic anchor was needed to provide evidence of forward motion, and to maintain the deep pulse of distant Halifaxian life, beyond these light years of alien forests. This was accomplished by sampling (again, at a very low bitrate) the tiny blur of low end frequency pushed out of a cassette deck the moment you press play. This was processed, looped and subsequently layered at three different octaves to create a slowly evolving heart-throb drum sound. From this point, the expanse of generative work begins to approach across what feels like eons, rendering the hands of a pianist performing the compositions of a man who described his work as "furniture music" into a gently lapping stream in a pastoral wood, which slowly swells and overflows into a flood of harmony and vibration that takes your field of view down to the molecular level of sound itself. Here, at this depth, you can no longer discern how much time has passed - has it been two minutes or twenty? - and instead are left to focus your senses on what little you're actually able to comprehend: aural DNA strands as massive as galaxies, splitting and multiplying themselves forever. Autochromata III is a demonstration of music at the point of its genesis, illustrating the movement of centuries in a mere thirteen hours.
Additionally, an alternate beatless low-resolution mix of De-Sat has been produced here:
coppicehalifax.bandcamp.com/album/de-sat-ph-apm