Drift Multiply Tristan Perich

DRIFT MULTIPLY

TRISTAN PERICH

New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records release Tristan Perich’s Drift Multiply on November 13, 2020, as part of the partnership between the two labels.

Drift Multiply, Perich’s largest work to date, is performed by fifty violins and fifty loudspeakers and is conducted by Douglas Perkins. Scored as one hundred individual lines of music, the piece blends violins and speakers into a cascading tapestry of tone, harmony, and noise. The violins perform from sheet music, while the speakers are each connected to custom-built circuit boards programmed to output 1-bit audio, the most basic digital waveforms made of just ones and zeroes. “I am interested in the threshold between the abstract world of computation and the physical world around us,” Perich explains.

Journalist Ben Ratliff wrote, “Drift Multiply uses ingredients which have become well-known in Perich’s work: strings or one-bit tones entering a section in layers of evenly-spaced notes or drones; quickly advancing depths and densities; harmony spreading across the space of the music in flickering, cascading, or wave-like motions; white noise, rendered in pulses or fields of sound.” He continues, “Steve Reich has been a fan since hearing 1-Bit Symphony. ‘I started listening to it, and I thought, my gosh … In some ways it reminded me of [Stravinsky’s] Petrushka. Who would think of electronic chips as summoning up anything as beautiful, musically, as that?’” Drift Multiply premiered at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine for the 2018 Red Bull Music Festival. In 2019, it traveled to the Netherlands for Big Idea #01, where Lucinda Childs was commissioned to create a new large-scale dance to Drift Multiply, performed by 66 dancers in front of the live music.

New York–based composer Tristan Perich’s work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics, and code. The Wire describes his compositions as “an austere meeting of electronic and organic.” 1-Bit Music, his 2004 release, was the first album ever released as a microchip, programmed to synthesize his electronic composition live. His follow-up circuit album, 1-Bit Symphony, has received critical acclaim, with the Wall Street Journal saying “its oscillations have an intense, hypnotic force and a surprising emotional depth.” The New York Times called his latest circuit album, Noise Patterns, “techno for silicon-based life forms.” As an electronic musician, he has performed internationally, from Sonár, MUTEK, and the Barbican to the National Gallery of Art and The Kitchen. As a composer, he has received commissions from Sō Percussion, the LA Philharmonic, Vicky Chow, and more, as well as an award of distinction from Ars Electronica for his work for violins and 1-bit electronics, Active Field. As a visual artist, his audio installations, video works and machine drawings have received commissions from the likes of Rhizome and L’Auditori in Barcelona, and his artwork has been exhibited internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, VOLT Festival, the San Diego Museum, and bitforms gallery.

Album Credits + Tracklisting:

Tracklist

Drift Multiply: Section 1
Drift Multiply: Section 2
Drift Multiply: Section 3
Drift Multiply: Section 4
Drift Multiply: Section 5
Drift Multiply: Section 6
Drift Multiply: Section 7
Drift Multiply: Section 8
Drift Multiply: Section 9
Drift Multiply: Section 10

Tristan Perich: Drift Multiply

for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics

conducted by Douglas Perkins

Executive Producers: Neil Wallace, Léon van Geest

Produced by: Douglas Perkins, Tristan Perich

Assistant Producer: Josh Modney

Engineer: Han de Jonge

Editing: Douglas Perkins

Mixed by: Patrick Burns

Mastering Engineer: Patrick Burns, Justin Dennis

Production and Ensemble Coordinator: Jan Kuhr, Katarzyna Kalinowska

Album design: Tristan Perich. Cover image: Machine Drawing (2020) by Tristan Perich

Violins: Josh Modney (concertmaster), Diego Virguez Maseo (CO), Yvonne Lam, Karolina Walarowska (KC), Gideon Nelissen (DE), Çisem Özkurt (CO), Annerieke Nentjes (DE), Laura Riverol Mitchel (KC), Lauren Cauley-Kalal, Ricardo Moreira de Silva Baylina (CO), Merel Varcammen (DE), Bélen Pérez Carreras (KC), Ana Nedobora, (DE), Celeste Engel (CO), Marina Meerson (DE), Ania Szafraniec (KC), Ian de Jong (DE), Luna Hallenga (CO), Tosca Opdam (DE), Robin Veldman (KC), Natsja Klomp (CO), Lucas Bernardo da Silva (KC), Alicia Poblacion - Brel (CO), Yujing Zhang (KC), Julie Adalsteinsson (CO), Constatijn Bolscher (KC), Javier Carranza (CO), Stijn Brinkman (KC), Carlos Yeung (CO), Manon van de Kempe (KC), Angela Moya Serrat (CO), Kaja Majoor (KC), Angelos Schioinas (CO), Sander Kuiter (KC), Victor Ros Bouche (CO), Martine Velthuis (KC), Marco Silva (CO), Albert Lincan (KC), Iryna Neprorzhynya (CO), Yolanda Kuijper (KC), Jana Vukicevic (CO), Maureen Ruth (KC), Patricia Kujik (CO), Nadia ten Kate (KC), Lucie Saliou (CO), Yuting Lu (KC), Liyuan Lin (CO), Idil Yunkus (KC), Moniek de Leeuw (CO), Giannis Antonopoulos (KC)

* KC: Royal Conservatory den Haag, CO: Codarts, DE: Doelen Ensemble

Partners:

Rotterdam: Big Idea Foundation, Codarts Conservatory, W&G Theatertechniek, the Doelen Ensemble, Doelen Concert Hall

The Hague: Royal Conservatory

With thanks to:

Big Idea Foundation: Neil Wallace, Léon van Geest, Lique van Gerven

Droom & Daad: Wim Pijbes, Laura Dufour, Gwen Rodenburg, Maryline Preesman

Codarts: Jan Kuhr, Wim Vos, Hans Leenders, Caroline Harder, Ellen Dijkstra, Keith Randolph

De Doelen: Janneke Starink, Anton Vliegenthart, Masa Spaan, Lotte Wieffer, Thijs van der Berg, Miriam Duiker

De Doelen Ensemble: Maarten van Veen, Katarzyna Kalinowska

Royal Conservatoire: Wim Vos, Henk Vandermeulen

W&G Theatertechniek: Rob Wagelmans, Han de Jonge

Design: Tristan Perich

Recorded at: De Doelen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, October 2019

Stage Crew (Codarts): Adrian Bartolome Manzanos, Pablo Moreno Miras, Zach Smithson, Dani Dominguez Gimenez, Simo van de Vosse, Sophia Price, Raff Pringuet

Sound Assistants (Codarts): Hans Neels, Aram Visser

This project and recording were made possible through support from the (stichting) Droom en Daad Foundation, Rotterdam.

Thanks also to the Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation, the BNG Foundation, and the Elise Mathilde Foundation, the Netherlands.

Tristan Perich: Drift Multiply was commissioned by Issue Project Room, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.