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Taiwanese-Brooklyn transplant Calvin “Kai-Wei” Chang’s debut album Reprocessor is musical, dense and seemingly done-based, inflicting it to straddle quite a few genres from experimental to darkwave to IDM, however that’s not what units it aside. It’s the truth that it’s made fully from discovered sounds, recorded by Chang between 2020 and 2022; no additional sounds or samples have been added. Supposed to doc the modifications in life throughout COVID, Chang took these sounds and painstakingly reworked, re-engineered and, after all, reprocessed them till they made the visceral, flowing assertion piece that’s this album. Chang sums it up finest himself:
Reprocessor is a sonic documentation and “musicalization” of Covid19 period discovered sounds, with songs composed between 2020-2022. In lieu of standard “remodeling” of supply supplies, over two hours in size of uncooked recordings are repetitively strengthened, dissected and extracted for expressive sonic occasions.
When one actually stops to consider the truth that the supply materials on Reprocessor is the one materials, it’s form of mindboggling, particularly from the attitude of an EDM producer; that is how digital music was initially fashioned again within the Nineteen Forties via the 60s and even as much as the 80s. Earlier than we had this huge library of sounds for drums, kicks, snares, pianos and strings to switch for synths, all of these issues needed to be recoded, pitched, cleaned up, saved and handed on so there might even be synthesizers and programmers. We’re up to now modernized now that it’s all taken with no consideration and the sounds and house have turn into so clear and correct that new sounds are created from samples of samples of samples. So what occurs when a producer applies all this new tech to the grassroots sound sound loop format? Kaiwei has the reply.
It doesn’t appear Kaiwei’s intention with Reprocessor was to go grassroots in any approach, however moderately to see what it might sound prefer to make full compositions out of discovered recordings utilizing fashionable gear. One might simply glean that even with fashionable advantages, it’s a painstaking and tedious strategy of math, code, and lower/copy/paste to get stated compositions lined up, layered and sounding something like music. The outcome, nonetheless, appears definitely worth the hassle.
With quite a few instrumental musicians additionally contributing sounds to the album, Reprocessor could be very a lot nonetheless within the experimental realm of issues, and listening to it, one can simply perceive how he’s earned a status for his compositions accompanying multimedia artwork instillations and avant garde performing arts items. That stated, it’s additionally very a lot tinged with drone, industrial and even deep home sounds. The musicality of many items, such because the title observe, “Breakbeat Funky 102” (if you happen to assume there’s something resembling a standard breakbeat on this observe, you’d be lifeless improper) and the “Tors” sequence may be arduous to search out on first pay attention, however preserve listening. By way of the drone and chaos, nearly each a part of these tracks it an truly fairly delicate piece of symphony-like composition.
Different tracks, akin to “Identification” (the one observe with a discernable beat), “4u” and the endlessly ambient “Duet” sound extra trad musical however that’s solely as a result of they’re additionally fairly melodic and have recognizable music sounds. What Reprocessor asks of the listener is to take the album as a complete and join the dots so the music could be heard in any a part of the composition. “Chung Yeung,” a our YEDM premiere immediately, is the primary observe on the album and appears to be a preview of this obvious dichotomy, straddling the heavy and the chic and discovering music in each components.
The opening observe of this report, “Chung Yeung” is in of itself a compilation of quick compositional and sonic concepts, that every one sprung from a sequence of freely improvised, live-processed trombone and vocal performances. The multi-sectional kind foreshadows the overarching construction of the complete report, in addition to a few of its key sonic components and themes.
Named after the well-known lunar calendar pageant (loosely translated at “Double Ninth Pageant” because it takes place on the ninth day of the ninth month), a day of remembrance the place the Chinese language and Taiwanese individuals climb mountains to their ancestors’ graves to scrub, keep and go away presents, “Chung Yeung” units a somber tone for the album: that is each a remembrance of the struggles of COVID and maybe those that misplaced their lives, and a clearing out and “reprocessing” of these ghostly sounds and energies from a interval many people are nonetheless making an attempt to course of.
The realm of experimental music serves as a vanguard instance of what could also be potential in business music and stated business musicians look to artists like Kaiwei to push that boundary for them. Nevertheless within the case of Reprocessor, it appears Kaiwei can be saying it’s essential to know ones roots and hone one’s compositional expertise as effectively. COVID confirmed humanity its personal limitations; we’re one photo voltaic flare away from shedding most if not all of our digital assets, however Kaiwei and others who know find out how to create music from their very own loops would doubtless be main the cost in that case. Within the meantime, capturing the vitality and feeling of such a tumultuous time can be essential. If nothing else, Reprocessor reveals that creativity will at all times discover a approach, and that it’s going to even make new methods for sound and expression with just some discovered loops, a heap of persistence and a have to be heard.
Reprocessor releases on Monday, October ninth and will likely be obtainable to stream on Spotify (the place just a few tracks are already obtainable) and could be pre-ordered for buy on Kaiwei’s Bandcamp page.
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