audio installation.
springs & electromagnets.

audio-sculptural installation.
sounding microphone, ballistic gel & 'no-input' (feedback) mixer.

sonic residues of the installation, as presented at the Universität der Künste Berlin. project by Victor Burton.

excerpt of the audio-visual explorations realized as part of a residency at L'interface in Montréal.

more info here: https://www.linterfacedanse.com/leonie-belanger

Léonie Bélanger :: mouvement
Éloi Anger-Roy :: video
Victor Burton :: sound

Collaboration with pianist Karl A. Rozankovic. Limited clear vinyl run of 7 copies, each in a unique custom sleeve with a vacuum sealed antistatic wrapping, created by Alina Madalina Herta. Sold through bandcamp.

Karl-A. Rozankovic :: piano
Victor Burton :: recording/production
Alina Madalina Herta :: visuals/serigraphy
Cristobal Urbina :: vinyl cutting

This arguably clandestine audio installation consists of 7 speakers dispersed around the school's basement. Audio/RF recordings from the school were processed then transduced by 7 loudspeakers back into the source-environment, resulting in a partially condition-based soundscape.

During the pandemic, various structures of control were swiftly implemented, assimilated and normalized. It raised a certain preoccupation as to our psychological malleability and resilience (or lack of...) and how it may influence our political, social and cultural practises.

Transposing this ambiguity in the setting of an elementary school currently being renovated resonates thanks to its intriguing acoustic properties and paradoxical affinity to the uncanny eeriness of an abandoned building. By analogy, the symbol of youth embodies futurity.

The school was sonically scouted the with an RF analyzer and condenser microphones. The bandwidth in which the RF detector operates mostly consists of wi-fi, cellular and other protocols facilitating communication.

Depending on the location within the school the antenna's orientation, the modulating signal varied from poly-rhythmic periodic clicks, sustained harmonic clouds and erratic noisy bursts.

With the intention of maintaining the essence of the field recordings, the rhythmic content has either been kept in its origin form or used as a modulation factor. The sustained textures have been derived from the spectral content of both the RF content and other recordings carried at the school (water pipes, various humming/beeping devices).

Additionally, an elementary schoolyard was recorded on a sunny Friday afternoon. The schoolyard field recording behaves as an unpredictable, glitching element, sporadically erupting in any of the 7 speakers.

Project by Victor Burton. Thank you Hugo for your ear(s) and your generous help on the day of the installation.

excerpts from Line Nault's installation/performance "non de nom" at L'Agora de la danse.

Audrey Bergeron, Tony Chong, Jessica Serli & Peter Trostzmer :: mouvement
Victor Burton :: music

more info: https://nault.ca/project/non-de-nom/

raw studio excerpts. sédimentation electro-instrumental issue de résidus moirés.

Jules Payette :: drums
Victor Burton :: electronics

picture taken from a performance sometime somewhere in the woods, joined by Rodolfo Rueda on electric bass/found objects.

audio-visual work presented at the Livart gallery in Montréal.

Léonie Bélanger and Éloi Anger-Roy :: mouvement & video
Victor Burton :: music

performed @ Champ des Possibles on 2020/09/19
with:
α: Jules Payette (drums) & Antonin Bourgault (sax)
β: Paulo Riccardo (drums) & Ben Boardman (bass)
γ: [vide]
δ: Victor Burton (drums) & Dustin Finer (sax)
ε: Alexis Gagnon (drums) & Jeremy Leon (sax)
ζ: Kyle Hutchins (drums) & Chris Edmondson (sax)
η: Claude Lavergne (drums) & Roberto Murray (sax)  
video: Philémon Crête, Adrien Poulin & Alexandre Burton  
audio: Dominic Jasmin  
composition & production: Victor Burton

Incendiary Weapons (1975), Stockholm International Peace Institute

Below is a comprehensive reference sheet with every "basepoints" (up to 16 beats/strokes), intended to serve as a rhythm glossary for Jaki Liebezeit's dot-dash system.

note: "basepoint" was not a word employed by Liebezeit - he interchangeably termed an organized set of dots and dashes "sequence", "phrase" or "rhythm". Referring to topology, a basepoint is the beginning and ending point of a loop.

Here is a summary of the mentionned system: https://thequietus.com/articles/22327-jaki-liebezeit-can-e-t-theory-drumming-technique

For a deeper understanding of Liebezeit's concept, you may listen to his various 1990s+ recordings with Drums Off Chaos, Burnt Friedman, Jah Wobble, Cyclopean, Irmin Schmidt and B.I.L.L. The superb book entitled "Jaki Liebezeit: The Life, Theory and Practice of a Master Drummer", edited by Jono Podmore is also a ressource to be absolutely considered.

With the purpose of collectively exploring Jaki's approach, 15 outdoor drumming sessions occured at various locations in Montréal during the summer of 2020, each with an interval of 5 days.

Every possible basepoints with 16 beats/strokes and below were generated in python. For each unique basepoint, only the prime form (most dashes towards the right) was included, meaning that there are no permutations and each included basepoint is unique. The musical downbeat (not to say "1") is to be determined [or not] before, during or after the performance of a basepoint.

basepoint :: live@GAMMAE — 2020/07/12

[pdf] of the above sheet
[pdf] for a pair of booklet — to be printed double-sided on an 11/17" sheet, cut and stapled

download code here :: c++ code

MIRROR INVERSION, which will be our chief concern in this study, is a phenomenon not confined music. It is a structural form in nature itself; therefore its appearance in music should not surprise no one. (Rochberg, 1965)

We, human, thinker, creator, composer have always been drawn towards new ways to organize or conceptualize the various components of a given system. Western music tradition makes no exception. At the turn of the 20th century, interest for a refreshing way of organizing harmony and melody arose: twelve-tone technique, or dodecaphony. Leaving out and even avoiding any reference to the codes of functional diatonic music, this radical approach steered abruptly our view of music. The very first individuals that delved into this realm of new possibilities are Charles Ives, Josef-Mattias Hauer and of course the famous Arnold Schoenberg. Although those composers left wonderful and intricate music behind, they did not explicitly discussed nor documented some specific theorical concepts. One of them is around the issue of constructing a distinct type of twelve-tone row that is characterized by its all-combinatoriality.

All-Combinatoriality: the capacity of a collection to create aggregates with forms of itself and its complement under both transposition and inversion. (Babbitt, 1987).

The objective of this project was to create a C++ program that could test a given hexachord entered by the user and output if true/false the hexachord adheres to the all-combinational properties covered (and if so with which point(s) of inversion).

The core reference for this project was “The Hexachord and its Relation to the 12-Tone Row” by George Rochberg (1955, Theodore Presser Company). In this book, Rochberg dissects the subject of all-combinationality when building twelve-tone rows. He proceeds empirically by firstly demonstrating assorted rows taken from various works by Schoenberg, then gradually identifying patterns or laws that he finally consolidate in a set of 3 clear rules. Those rules are the following:

RULE 1. Any one horizontal interval plus the mirror interval (or point of inversion) cannot equal 12 (or a multiple of 12).

RULE 2. Any two horizontal intervals plus mirror interval cannot equal 12 (or a multiple of 12).

RULE 3. Any double one interval plus the mirror interval must not equal 12 (or a multiple of 12).

Notes about hexachordtester.cpp ::

To run the program, the user must first compile the file then run the program entitled “hexachordtester” with the desired hexachord included in the same command, as follow: ./hexachordtester 0,1,2,3,4,5

Five Piano Pieces (H. Brün, 1945) [pdf]

Sieben Kleine Stücke (J.M. Hauer, 1913) [pdf]

Kinderstück (A. Webern, 1924) [pdf]

recorded live@résonance café on 2019/10/07 with
Antonin Bourgault :: soprano sax
Julian Abbott :: tenor sax
Gabriel Lapointe :: upright bass
Jules Payette :: drums
Victor Burton :: vibraphone, composition & arrangement