Michael Century (accordion), Chris Fisher-Lochhead (viola and pedal steel guitar), and Zach Layton (17-string bass) — announces Chronolucence, an album built from an unusual instrumentation and an even more unusual collaborator: composer and sound artist Pauline Oliveros's Expanded Instrument System (EIS). The EIS was designed by Oliveros as a “time machine” for expanding temporal perception, so that, in her words, “present/past/future occurring simultaneously with transformations.” Across Chronolucence, the trio's acoustic sound is fed into this system of multiple delays and processing algorithms, producing an evolving, emergent timescape that rewards and requires deep listening.
Sounding in Response
The name “Antiphon” means “sounding in response,” rooted in ideas of concord and concordance — a fitting description of how the trio interacts, not only with one another but with the EIS itself. It is a continuous call-and-response with the deep-seated echoes and future projections of the musicians' own sounds. With the capacity for up to forty-four discrete voices across its delay lines, and ambisonic panners that sculpt what the group calls “spatial progressions,” the EIS builds clouds of sound that envelop the listener.
Bios
Michael Century, pianist, accordionist, and cultural theorist, is Professor of New Media and Music in the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Musically at home in classical, contemporary, and improvisational settings, Century has a passion for experimentation, often interweaving his music with visual images and creating software applications for live performance and interactive installations. Recent performances include the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture, Stanford University’s CCRMA, Harvestworks Art and Technology Center, and The Music Gallery (Toronto).
Vermont-based composer/improviser Chris Fisher-Lochhead has blazed an idiosyncratic path through the landscape of contemporary music. Working across a broad range of styles and media, he has developed a creative practice which seeks to cultivate open, adventuresome, and playful spaces for musical and social experimentation. He has created notated compositions in close partnership with some of the world’s most celebrated performers of new music (including the JACK Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Third Coast Percussion, and Quince Ensemble), toured and recorded as an improviser, and participated in cutting-edge interdisciplinary research collaborations. He is a founding member of the Grant Wallace Band, a recipient of commissions from the Fromm Foundation and Barlow Endowment, and a faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Zach Layton is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, curator, and educator working collaboratively across genres and disciplines. He is a practitioner of a rare and unusual instrument, the 17-string bass. He has performed at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, PS1, and many other venues in New York and internationally. A recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts music/sound award, and a MacDowell Fellowship, Zach is currently Associate Professor of music production at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He earned his PhD in Electronic Arts from RPI in 2017.
