urMix is an interactive listening project based on the idea of multitrack recording and surround-sound listening. It is a metal box, about 16x8x4, with 8 jacks, an LED screen, buttons to control playback, a USB socket and a power cord. Inside is a power supply, a sound card, 8 preamps and wires. A USB storage device containing music formatted as 8 separate audio channels is inserted into the box and it’s ready to go.
A typical song is organized as tracks – individual parts like instruments, voices and effects, that play simultaneously as a so-called “mix”, usually accomplished by an experienced technician. What we normally hear as a unity, therefore, is actually a series of separate performances and processes that magically gel into an ensemble through the art of sound studio technique and technology. I was curious if this unity could be broken down and pieced together again – not by a technician but by the “end user” – the listener – who rarely considers the “constructed” nature of the typical electronic sound piece. The trick is that no more than four tracks can ever be heard at once, meaning the listener has to complete the song by memory, the memory of the other tracks not heard at that particular moment. So, in one instance, only a snare drum, hand clap, bass and a harmonizing vocal may be audible, meaning the main vocal line (as well as other parts) will need to be “added” in the imagination. Or perhaps the kick drum, hi hat, piano and the reverb effect will be heard, foregrounding an effect that’s usually subliminal. As the listener exchanges channels and hears more parts, the full contents become clear, but so too does the inherent boundaries and even disconnect between the parts become apparent. Even as Humpty-Dumpty is put back together, the cracks show.
urMix contains a collection of disparate pieces and “studies”: familar pop songs, newly commissioned works, scales in various tunings, tones played using different timbres, beats split into 8 parts. Contributing artists include Brian Chase, Lee Gilboa, Dan Joseph, Zach Layton and others to be announced.
