Sam Davidson, Yujin Honda, and Will Howie – Unrealistic Spaces

TRACKS
1. Welcome Home
2. Rainbow Bird Rendezvous
3. Soundcastle / Praeambulum
4. Thunderbreath
5. Beach Eclipse
6. Eclosion
7. Naked Communication
8. Honda X Honda
9. Event Horizon

Unrealistic Spaces is a collection of new compositions for clarinet, whistles, electronic wind instrument (EWI), drums, and live electronics, written, performed, recorded, and mixed specifically for 12-channel 3D audio reproduction (7.1.4, or Dolby Atmos).
ADM BWF Atmos Masters and discrete 7.1.4 master files can be downloaded from: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19542627

CREDITS
Tracks 1-4, 7, 9 written by S. Davidson, W. Howie
Track 5 written by S. Davidson, Y. Honda, W. Howie
Track 6 written by S. Davidson
Track 8 written by S. Davidson, Y. Honda

Sam Davidson: Clarinet, Whistles, Akai EWI 4000s, Electronics
Yujin Honda: Drums, Timpani
Will Howie: Electronics, Spatial Sound Design, Bass

Produced and Mixed by Will Howie
Recorded by Will Howie and Richard King
Assistant Engineers: Tanner Reid and Seungwoo Han
Mastered by Justin Gray
Recorded November 12-13, MMR, McGill University
(Thanks to Sylvain Pohu and Julien Boissinot for their technical assistance)
Mixed at Nova Studios, North Vancouver

Rainbow Bird Rendezvous contains a sample of taiko drums from “朱夏炎炎たれ”, composed by Masaharu Nagano (used with permission)

This project was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, with generous support from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), McGill University, and the University of British Columbia.

Unrealistic Spaces is available from:

PROGRAM NOTES

Welcome Home (3:24) (S. Davidson, W. Howie)
This piece is built around a series of short lo-fi samples of jazz piano, chopped up and spatialized in a highly rhythmic manner. Hard cuts within the sound of the piano and tape hiss emphasize the movement of the samples around the listener. We asked Honda to imagine the drum groove he would play to “welcome someone home” after a long day; Sam then joins in the conversation on clarinet.

Rainbow Bird Rendezvous (4:55) (S. Davidson, W. Howie)
A piece named after a fantastic vegan restaurant in the Gakugei-daigaku area of Tokyo. We began by sampling a short excerpt of a 3D recording of Taiko drums, to which we applied a series of cascading multichannel delays. Inspired by my impressions of the sound of distant flutes I would hear at summer festivals in Japan, Sam improvised a series of harmonized melodies by playing two tin whistles at the same time. We then added spatialized samples from an old cassette of bird sounds, and used granular synthesis to morph some of these sounds into drones. For the main body of the section, Sam and Honda are attempting to evoke the spirit of the imaginary “rainbow bird”, while somewhat paying tribute to the rhythmic textures of early Return to Forever.

Soundcastle / Praeambulum (6:13) (S. Davidson, W. Howie)
A semi-improvised piece in two parts, Soundcastle was transcribed directly from an early test improvisation in the ICICS studio that was recorded to an iPhone. Praeambulum draws its notes from the opening measures of a short piano work by J. S. Bach. The bulk of the sound design makes use of 3D convolution reverb, specifically two multichannel IRs of an oil tanker, filtered to create a sense of vertical expansion of the sound of the EWI.

Thunderbreath (10:16) (S. Davidson, W. Howie)
This piece begins with Sam creating breath sounds with his clarinet, a close microphone signal feeding to a custom multichannel, multi-tap delay. Thunderbreath is largely structured around a crescendo manufactured from an extensive library of 3D rain and thunder recordings (captured with an ORTF 3D array). A static bass groove was added to provide a harmonic foundation for Sam and Honda to improvise overtop of. A simple structure: the drums and EWI build to the peak moment of thunder, followed by a drum solo meant to evoke similar textures.

Beach Eclipse (5:04) (S. Davidson, Y. Honda, W, Howie)
Akira Omoto of Kyushu University provided us with an outstanding 24ch, 3D recording of the sound of waves crashing at a beach. Sam took those sounds, sampled them, and created a series of multichannel rhythmic wave patterns. At the halfway point, a massive chord is introduced, built of layers of pre-recorded EWI and clarinet. The chord’s pitches are derived from a logarithmic transformation of various light wave frequencies. This piece is a showcase for Honda, featuring extensive use of brush work, and extended techniques on the snare drum.

Eclosion (3:54) (S. Davidson)
A series of cascading chords on the clarinet, composed to interact with a custom multichannel delay, as well as subtle changes in 3D ambience. Eclosion describes the process of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.

Naked Communication (4:04) (S. Davidson, W. Howie)
Built with similar techniques to “Welcome Home”: spatialized piano samples treated with various forms of timbral, spatial, and time-based signal processing. (The two pieces were originally part of a larger, 5-movement work entitled “doorways”.) The musical dialogue between Sam and Honda is meant to evoke a deep, intimate conversation in a steamy, open-air onsen.

Honda x Honda (3:35) (S. Davidson, Y. Honda)
We asked Honda to record samples of his various drums at his home in Kanagawa. Sam then created a musical arrangement from these manipulated samples over which Honda could compose and perform a live part. We spatialized the electronics for maximum rhythmic interplay.

Event Horizon (5:12) (S. Davidson, W. Howie)
Essentially a no-tempo blues. The electronic, spatialized drone happened by accident, when some piano samples were loaded into a particular granular synthesis plugin whose arcane control parameters made no sense to any of us. Sam and Honda’s microphone signals are both feeding into an intensely dark, long reverb. We are asking this question: what kind of music do you create when you reach the edge of a black hole?