Experimental Music Unit and Camille Norment: Songs For Glass Island

Songs For Glass Island

PART 1
I The Pour
II Unbounded Vanishing Points
III Abyssal Space
IV Tendency Toward a Primordial Consciousness
V Resolution of the Organic and the Crystalline
VI The Spiral

PART 2
VII Threshold Into Elsewhere
VIII Violent Analogies
IX Avalanche in the Mind
X Entropic Processes

Created and performed by Camille Norment, Tina Pearson, George Tzanetakis, and Paul Walde.
Audio Director: Kirk McNally
Audio Editing: Experimental Music Unit
Recording and Post Production: Kirk McNally
Photos: James Bill, Lyssa Pearson, Paul Walde
CD Jacket Design: Nick Patterson and Paul Walde

Songs For Glass Island is available from:

Songs For Glass Island is situated in the world of glass – its sounds, textures, and contexts – and references the unrealized land art work “island of broken glass” by artist Robert Smithson. In 1969, Smithson proposed encrusting Miami Islet, in the Salish Sea off Vancouver Island, in 100 tons of tinted glass. Although the Canadian government granted permission for the work, public pressure resulted in the project’s cancellation.

Songs For Glass Island was created by Oslo-based American/Norwegian artist Camille Norment and Canada’s Experimental Music Unit: Tina Pearson, George Tzanetakis and Paul Walde, during a residency in Victoria, BC in 2016. Concerts took place at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and at Pyatt Hall, hosted by the Contemporary Art gallery, in Vancouver. Kirk McNally oversaw live recording sessions at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

Sound sources include Camille Norment’s glass ‘armonica, a crystal instrument invented in 1762 by Benjamin Franklin as a mechanical version of its ancestor, the glass harp, a set of tuned crystal glasses played with water-dipped fingers. The University of Victoria’s scientific glass blower, Sean Adams, was commissioned to create glass flutes and tuned glass overtone tubes played by George Tzanetakis. Tina Pearson’s glass harp (crystal glasses and bowls played by rubbing and hitting) was expanded, and micro-tuned to blur and beat with the equal tempered tuning of Norment’s glass ‘armonica , while Paul Walde repurposed large sheets of glass from tables and shower enclosures to create very low frequencies with mallets, bowing and rubbing.

No samples, overdubbing or signal processing were used in the creation of Songs For Glass Island. Hidden and unusual sounds were coaxed from the eclectic collection of instruments – only acoustic and amplified glass activated with water, fingers, mallets, voice and breath were used.

Songs For Glass Island was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts / le Conseil des Arts du Canada; the Office for Contemporary Art Norway through its Program for International Support; the University of Victoria’s Distinguished Women Scholars Fund, Orion Fund in Fine Arts, and the Department of Visual Arts; the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver); and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Thank you to Nigel Prince, Michelle Jacques, Hollis Roberts, and Lyssa Pearson.

For more information: lasammusic.wordpress.com/projects/786-2/

Camille Norment www.norment.net
Paul Walde www.paulwalde.com
Tina Pearson www.tina-pearson.com
George Tzanetakis www.gtzan.org