PLEIN AIR | Silva Datum Musica
TIM COLLINS & REIKO GOTO WITH CHRIS MALCOLM
English | Deutsch
Gruen 187 | Vinyl > [Sold Out | bandcamp]
Reviews
Plein Air the album presents recordings from a plant-driven synthesizer. A custom built instrument that uses scientific sensors and software programming to generate real-time tree leaf data. Light, photosynthesis and transpiration modifies sound: the rhythm, melody, texture, tempo and harmony shift with atmospheric conditions and tree response – electronically.
The sounds of each leaf of regional deciduous trees by scientifically sensored data-sonification are much more musical than one could imagine. Their timbre and volume always depend on light and temperature, number of audience. It varies from site to site and from country to country. We can hear loops of rhythmic sequences, groups of tiny computer generated signals, long drones which change constantly and are hard to describe.
Side 1 includes four short recordings, in total twenty-six minutes, of one leaf from Scottish Elder, Oak, Elderberry and Birch, recorded in one of Glasgow’s historical green houses, June 2017. Due to dramatic light and temperature changes that occur as sunshine and cloud formation changes in proximity to the north Atlantic; the computer generated music is highly dynamic, an intense hearing experience at times as I would imagine a tornado.
Side 2, is one recording, in total twenty-five minutes, of a regional heritage pear tree leaf that sounds more like Minimal Music. During the Cologne Tree Sound Study, we made the recording in a small office room in 2015, we had less dramatic weather changes. A warm summer, smooth light changes, generating a more gentle soundscape to deeply plunge into music. (Georg Dietzler)
Plein Air the album is based on a ten-year artist-led project. In simplest terms our intention is to provide a ‘mind/body experience’ of trees by attending to the sound of physiological reaction (photosynthesis and transpiration) as one leaf adjusts to the day to day changes (rush hour traffic, crowds of people) in ground level atmospheric chemistry in venues and cities. Physiological data is transposed into sound through computer software. We have chosen sound for its aesthetic purity with the goal to hear the trees more clearly as they react to changes in CO2, temperature and humidity. This system is called ‘Plein Air’, a stable single platform system that embraces the portable easel, as a metaphor for the historic practice of open air painting. Where Millet extended the idea of landscape to peasants working in the fields and the impressionists examined the phenomenological exchange between light and material. At the same time, recent work with the system raises questions about what we expect to ‘hear’ when we listen to nature, as it reacts to intense inputs of carbon dioxide?
(Tim Collins)
Excerpts:
Side 1 – PLEIN AIR Live in Glasgow, Scotland, 2017
1 ALDER 5:32
2 OAK 8:04
MP3
3 ELDERBERRY 3:36
4 BIRCH 8:48
MP3
Side 2 – PLEIN AIR Live in Cologne, Germany, 2015
1 PEAR 24:42
5 Tracks (50′42″)
Vinyl (300 copies)
PDF:
Plein-Air-LP-Insert
Plein-Air-Ethics-and-Art
Plein-Air-Book
Tim Collins, Reiko Goto, Chris Malcolm
Plein Air | Silva Datum Musica
Format: 12 “ Vinyl
Style: Experimental, Electronic, Data-Sonification, Computermusic
Recordings by Chris Malcom, Tim Collins & Georg Dietzler
Software Programming: Chris Malcom
Mastering by Dirk Specht, Cologne
Produced by Georg Dietzler, Cologne
Artwork: Reiko Goto with mono prints by Nicola Chambury
Edition of 300 copies | 100 numbered & autographed
PLEIN AIR | Southern Appalachian Forest
Sound Art Series by Gruenrekorder
Germany / 2019 / Gruen 187 / LC 09488 / GEMA / EAN 193483354477
Aurelio Cianciotta | Neural
With the recent upsurge of interest in environmentalism, so-called ‘green’ themes have emerged in both mainstream and Avant Garde cultural outputs. That said, it’s not a new thing that plants and their imaginary worlds are given special attention. This has been a focus throughout the history of the visual arts, architecture, dance and music. So too, this theme goes beyond the borders between primitivism, modernity, post-modernity and contemporary work. Tim Collins and Reiko Goto, featuring the programmer and sound artist Chris Malcom, generate data in real time. Given that the sounds are musical enough to engage the listener, the timbres and the volumes respond to the lights, temperatures and audience. They also change according to different set-ups, with specific parameters for the localization and the kinds of plants the recordings are taken from. These are made mainly by contact microphones. A computer almost never generates music on its own and elements such as rhythm, melody, plot, time and harmony are always working as a function of something else. Tim Collins still manages to surprise us, when he declares that “we have chosen sound for its aesthetic purity with the goal to hear the trees more clearly as they react to changes in CO2, temperature and humidity”, or when he compares his digital recordings to an impressionist’s palette, with the metaphor of ‘plein air’ (outdoor) painting. The plants can be a source of inspiration and here the sounds are very harmonic despite being mostly improvised, modulated on precise data but not impersonal, and adapted to a specific goal: the production of new, interesting music forms.
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Łukasz Komła | Nowamuzyka.pl
To pierwszy album tych artystów w barwach Gruenrekorder. Reiko Goto pochodzi z Japonii i jest badaczką skupiającą się na relacjach między żywymi istotami a środowiskiem. Interesują ją m.in. sosnowe lasy kaledońskie, a jej prace często przybierają formę instalacji czy swoistych spektakli. Tim Collins to z kolei amerykański artysta, planista i pracownik naukowy. Zajmuje się opracowywaniem projektów związanych z przyrodą i kulturą. Chris Malcolm jest szkockim programistą z ponad dwudziestoletnim stażem. Ma również spore doświadczenie w muzyce eksperymentalnej, tworząc innowacyjne narzędzia i instrumenty zarówno do pracy studyjnej, jak i na koncerty. Malcolm na scenie korzysta ze starych komputerów i konsol.
Plein Air to system i jednocześnie oprogramowanie dające szerokie możliwości w kreowaniu nowych poziomów ekspresji, które są niedostępne w przypadku tradycyjnych instrumentów i metod związanych z elektroniką. Na albumie Silva Datum Musica / Plein Air znalazły się kompozycje powstałe przy użyciu syntezatora ściśle powiązanego z roślinami. Ten instrument został wyposażony w czujniki i oprogramowanie do generowania w czasie rzeczywistym danych zawartych w liściach drzew. Światło, fotosynteza i transpiracja modyfikują elektroniczne dźwięki – rytm, melodię, fakturę, tempo i harmonię – poprzez warunki atmosferyczne wpływające na drzewa, czyli ich reakcje na zmieniający się poziom CO2, temperaturę czy wilgotność.
Na pierwszej stronie są dość dynamiczne utwory, w których artyści poddają eksperymentom liście szkockiego czarnego bzu, brzozy i dębu. Na ich charakter miały wpływ oczywiście warunki atmosferyczne podczas nagrywania. Trudno jest opisać te zjawiska dźwiękowe. Niekiedy są to krótkie sekwencje rytmiczne, pętle, drony czy nieustannie zmieniające się sygnały generowane przez komputer. Na drugiej stronie pojawiło się jedno długie nagranie stworzone z udziałem liścia gruszy. Ten fragment zarejestrowano w 2015 roku, podczas ciepłego lata i dużego nasłonecznienia, co dało łagodniejszy pejzaż dźwiękowy z okolic minimal music, mogący nawet kojarzyć się z tym, co kiedyś tworzono w studiach eksperymentalnych.
Poza warunkami fizjologicznymi (fotosynteza, transpiracja) wpływającym na proces kreowania dźwięków, ważną rolę odegrały również takie czynniki jak ruch w godzinach szczytu czy liczba osób przebywających w okolicach danego liścia. Fragmentów tego wyjątkowego wydawnictwa można posłuchać na stronie Gruenrekorder albo Soundohm. Chyba najlepszą puentą są słowa Tima Collinsa, który pisze tak: Ta praca rodzi pytania na temat tego, co chcemy „usłyszeć”, gdy słuchamy przyrody reagującej na intensywne działanie dwutlenku węgla?
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Duncan Simpson | Musique Machine
Gruenrekorder are a label with a reputation for bringing truly novel experiences in sound to the listening public and PLEIN AIR: Silva Datum Musica is no exception. It’s ostensibly a multidisciplinary project bringing together artists Tim Collins and Reiko Goto with sound programmer Chris Malcolm to create an interface to „initiate an ethical consideration of trees, using sound to focus the attention and the imagination“. This approach has been refined to a point where the whole „performance“ is centred on a single leaf where sensors measure the rates of photosynthesis, transpiration and other plant biochemical processes. The data from those sensors is then manipulated and transposed by Malcolm into composed sound. The four pieces on side A of this handsomely presented vinyl were recorded live in Glasgow, Scotland and the side-long piece of side B in Cologne.
From the extensive sleeve notes which accompany the release we can immediately see the collision of approaches that went into the production of this sound-art/scientific/musical project. Producer Georg Dietzler emphasises the technological triumph of PLEIN AIR, which „opens up rigorous sensor data to an immediate and intuitive experience through sound“. Artists Goto and Collins have a more lofty ideal, connecting the rendering of these biochemical processes in sound with an ethical imperative. For the artists, that we can now „hear“ the sound of a tree breathing opens up new ethical considerations about the role of trees in our environment and even their place as a condition of the public realm.
Prefaced by such weighty thoughts the sound of Silva Datum Musica comes as something of a surprise. The record’s opener Alder rather creeps out of the speakers with creaking tones, distant minimal percussion and what could be the ticking and popping of a detuned radio or other analogue device. At first listen what is heard could not be further from the sylvan revelation promised by the notes and instead could have feasibly come from the vaults of the GRM. The main tonal element sounds somewhere between an organ and a hurdy-gurdy, the expansions and contractions of which could perhaps give us a trace of the experience of vegetative breathing. In effect it actually sounds more like a modernist take on the organ fugue. Oak is all swaying, weaving repetitions of phrases, again with the background percussion, which, scarcely keeping to any known rhythm, adds to the distinctly alien funereal quality of the music.
There is perhaps an obvious disconnect in these pieces. They were all performed live and as the notes make clear, the interaction of the environment with the apparatus is an integral part of the performance, as light, shade and even air content affect the output of the plant’s biochemical signals. The other disconnect is the overtly mechanical nature of the sounds, both in compositional and purely sonic terms. It sounds like music produced by a machine not by an organic entity and if it were not for the extensive information given in the notes you would think this were a mid 20th century experiment in automatic or process music.
The 26 minutes piece Pear which takes up side B is more successful in suggesting something living beyond the algorithmic interpretation of data. The lilting organ tones are replaced by lively, almost twittering electronic harmonics which despite sounding even more synthetic than the organ seem to have additional life to them. There’s also more going on with the percussion which tinkers along behind a slowly bobbing bass harmonic which could almost be produced by the rubbing of strings. Every couple of minutes the whole piece seems to shift key adding another dimension of movement that was lacking on the Glasgow pieces. Although the sleeve notes give ample details about the ideas behind the project and the source data, there is little about what software or compositional processes are being used to convert that data into sound. Nevertheless over an extended time period the music has an undeniably unique and strangely hypnotic quality, certainly justifying the producer’s comparisons with minimal music.
But despite the artist’s best intentions there is little here that leads me to an ethical revelation about the nature of trees and plants. If anything the triumph of technological innovation that makes PLEIN AIR possible also alienates the listener from the simple experience of being close to nature. This would appear to be a blind spot in the artist’s imagination as it takes only the most cursory survey to recognise that it is through technological mediation that our experience of the nature has been so disastrously transformed in the modern period. Perhaps, rather than attempting to produce an ethical imperative towards nature by placing technology between us and it, we’d be better off simply taking a walk in the woods.
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Ed Pinsent | The Sound Projector
Silva Datum Musica (GRUENREKORDER Gruen 187) by Plein Air has unusual sounds, and it’s an LP that starts out nice, but sadly I soon sensed it’s not really going anywhere. Tim Collins and Reiko Goto have, with the help of other scientists, found a way to process “plant bioacoustics” into sound, much like Michael Prime (a legitimate predecessor who is not even mentioned in the notes) did in the 1990s. They do it with one leaf on one tree at a time, and a number of species / varieties are “played” on this record, one side in Glasgow and another in Cologne. Not to deny the scientific basis for this (I think it’s mostly to do with photosynthesis), and I’m prepared to believe we are hearing a tree “breathing”, and Collins and Goto are serious about their work. But the end result is just not very interesting to listen to; (a) very limited harmonic range; (b) monotonous, samey pulse-rhythm for each piece; (c) a distinct lack of progression or development, no depth. Ultimately I feel this is just process art. The creators assume that the ecological theme trumps everything, and that they aren’t obliged to explain any further as to the significance of this work.
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Robert Barry | The Wire Magazine (The Wire 429)
The photo on the innersleeve shows the interior of a glass domed building. In the centre sit two young trees in big black plant pots. They are surrounded by equipment stands, wires snaking from the leaves to the ground and up to a chipboard box. A pair of human legs, with what looks like a computer keyboard resting on their lap, extend from beneath the box to the floor. If the image conjures up some bizarre plant-machine-human hybrid straight out of the pages of a Donna Haraway manifesto, the truth is not far off. All the bulbous electronic bloops and clattery percussive slashes on Plein Air are derived from realtime data on the photosynthesis and transpiration rates of different plants. Must be one of the few shows where the band get their instruments from a tree nursery.
Tim Collins and Reiko Goto first conceived of the project in Duke Forest, North Carolina. While visiting the Duke University Teaching and Research Laboratory there, the artists assisted a team of scientists measuring the reactions of the trees to carbon dioxide levels. From a forty-foot tall structure, they set up sensors and took measurements. And then a cloud passed momentarily in front of the sun. Immediately the sap rose, photosynthesis rates went up. It was the speed of the reaction, that sense of living immediacy, that proved such a revelation. They set out to “hear the tree” and enlisted Scottish programmer and software developer Chris Malcolm to help them realise the project.
Plein Air the album collects two live performances from Collins, Goto and Malcolm’s bio-acoustic set-up. The first recorded in the botanic gardens in Glasgow (the glass domed structure on the innersleeve) in 2017 and the second, a single 25-minute track drawn from a heritage pear tree, was produced in a small office in Cologne in 2015. Producer Georg Dietzler points out that the weather was calmer that day and, reflecting this, it’s a mellower, more minimal and repetitive take. On side A, however, under Scotland’s uncertain skies, the sound is as wild and untamed as nature itself.
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Soundohm
A ten years project by Tim Collins, Reiko Goto and Chris Malcolm culminates on ‚Plein Air | Silva Datum Musica‘.
By nature, experimental music is defined by singular, radical thinking. It is a push, joining ideas and sound, toward the unknown and unheard. Yet, setting the ambitions of this remarkable creative context aside, it remains rare to encounter objects which veer so far from the beaten path that they feel like their own quiet revolution of one – challenging the very conceptions of music, as the architects of the avant-garde once did. This, in the simplest terms, is what Plein Air | Silva Datum Musica, the culmination of a ten year project by Tim Collins, Reiko Goto, and Chris Malcolm, has seemingly managed to do. Comprised of recordings made on a custom built, plant-driven synthesizer, issued by the German imprint Gruenrekorder – it is an extension of their long standing dedication to musical and sound-art efforts built from field recordings, a stunningly beautiful and radical rethinking of the base notions of organized sound.
Encountering three artists joining forces, driven into new realms by interfaces with technology and chance, Plein Air | Silva Datum Musica is one of those rare LPs which can instill even the most weathered experimental music fan with faith. There is still ground to be broken and adventures to be had. Created with a custom built, plant-driven synthesizer which uses scientific sensors and software programming to generate real-time tree leaf data. Light, photosynthesis and transpiration modifies sound, giving way to electronic rhythm, melody, texture, and harmonic shifts, directly linked to atmospheric conditions and a tree’s response.
Stunningly beautiful, rich, and challenging for its raw sounds and ideas alone, Collins, Goto and Malcolm’s Plein Air | Silva Datum Musica is made that much more compelling by the perceptible absence of ego of its creator’s hands – an engrossing work of unadulterated, abstract sound – at once calling to mind the efforts of the mid-20th century orchestra and synthesis based avant-gardes, while delving toward the future entirely on its own. It would be hard for us to recommend this one enough.
Issued by Gruenrekorder on vinyl in a strictly limited edition of 300 copies, so don’t sleep. It’s not going sit around for long.
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textura
Only on Gruenrekorder, it seems, would a release appear claiming to present “recordings from a plant-driven synthesizer” and focusing on “plant bioacoustics.” The German label has a reputation for bringing unusual projects into the world, and its dedication to the strange and fascinating is one of the things to admire most about the imprint. This latest outing (issued in an LP edition of 300) certainly qualifies as different: to record the material, Tim Collins and Reiko Goto worked with a custom-built instrument that uses software programming by Chris Malcom and scientific sensors to produce “real-time tree leaf data.” Said device transcribes into sound form (data-sonification, in other words) the ‘music‘ produced by leaves, material whose timbre and volume are determined not only by the specific tree type but also conditions in the immediate environment such as temperature, light, carbon dioxide, and humidity.
Photos of the instrument setup show it to be an easel-styled construction that instantly establishes a through-line to visual artists such as Van Gogh and Monet who transcribed the outdoors into painted form. The Plein Air collaborators differ from open air painters, however, in that their generative sound recordings are facilitated using software. As described by Collins and Goto, the project isn’t only about sound content; there’s an ethical dimension in play, too. One of their goals involves exploring the empathic interrelationship between humans and trees and more generally the relationships of people-plant and culture-nature. If we’re presented with evidence of a tree as a live entity, how, they ask, does our sense of moral duty change towards it, especially when the nature object has historically been regarded as property, utilitarian resource, and non-sentient.
Adding to the recording’s appeal, the opening side’s four pieces were recorded in Glasgow under different conditions than the flip’s side-long setting, produced in Cologne. The Glasgow recordings were made at a curved, Victorian-era glasshouse, which allowed fluctuating weather conditions to influence the dynamic range of the sounds produced; a sheltered, quiet office room with one window was the setting for the Cologne piece, which is more soothing and less characterized by change than the others. In short, anyone who thinks one tree sound is the same as the next need only compare the two halves to conclude otherwise.
Each track on the Glasgow side was generated using a different leaf, namely Scottish Elder, Oak, Elderberry, and Birch. “Alder” features lurching, vaguely dissonant melodic meanderings and percussive punctuations resounding amidst a backdrop of soft, industrial-styled textures. In some strange way, the slow, meditative result doesn’t sound completely unlike the sound of an improvising raga ensemble with harmonium and percussion as the main instruments. The intensity level increases in “Oak,” with this time the melodic material rising and the overall tonality of the material dark and aggressive compared to the opener. The sound mass creaks and groans with forceful intent, the track’s stepwise dissonances disturbing, its mood nightmarish. “Birch” concludes the macabre, unsettling first half with nine minutes of intense melodic flurries, percussive batterings, and siren-like howls.
In the twenty-five minute “Pear,” whose sounds were sourced from a regional heritage pear tree leaf, the timbre of the primary melodic element shifts from harmonium or organ to high-pitched, warbling synthesizer; in fact, the sound details on the side are all brighter than those on the first. Stylistically, however, the second side shares with it the explorative feel of an improvising group birthing a meditative, slowly evolving drone in real-time. With the ringing of a tambourine, the bass pulse of a hand drum, and the shimmer of a tamboura all part of the sound design, the image of an Indian ensemble performing live is again evoked. As producer Georg Dietzler correctly notes, the recording is invaluable for bringing the listener “face-to-face with the sound of the breathing of a tree.” We’ve all seen, felt, and even climbed them, but we’ve probably never heard them before in the way they’re presented here.
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TJ Norris | Toneshift
With each names for trees, this latest collaboration between Tim Collins, Reiko Goto, Chris Malcolm (here as Silva Datum Musica) is a unique journey into the great outdoors via a custom-built plant-driven synthesizer – you heard that right. An instrument that “uses scientific sensors and software programming to generate real-time tree leaf data. Light, photosynthesis and transpiration modifies sound: the rhythm, melody, texture, tempo and harmony shift with atmospheric conditions and tree response – electronically.”
The trio act like performative sound painters on Plein Air. The outcome has a droopy quality on Alder, that seems like a retro flashback, like the accompaniment to a silent movie. This continues with gaseous exhaust and flourishes of organ and mysterious tones right into Oak and through the manipulated forest. Having taken a decade to orchestrate this, there were obviously a lot of technical aspects to overcome in the process – but this blend of scientific photosynthesis, etc. has a great impact on the pleasant awkwardness of the chords. This has the presence of something circus-like, or perhaps an organ grinder in the streets of Paris circa the 1950’s – it’s impossible to peg, and exciting to contemplate. Having been recorded in Scotland there lays the essence of the place in the tonal shadows.
The contraptions they’ve built (have a closer look here) seem more akin to those used by old school land camera photographers, and those who engage in the camera obscura than your typical musician – but they have successfully fused sound and vision with natural science to deliver an awesome ear-opener as well. The computer generated sounds are within their own world of improv, and the artists here definitely had to rely on chance for all of their inventiveness, in part. As light and temperature effect the sounds that come alive, this is one of those projects that would rightly deserve a fine museum exhibition, if you could bring the outdoors in (I’m thinking of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with its open air courtyard that already has plant life). But the idea of seeing a sight such as this trio upon a hillside or in a public park would be a head-turner for sure.
Side two is fully dedicated to the solitary Pear as it runs just about twenty-five minutes: ” (the) regional heritage pear tree leaf that sounds more like Minimal Music. During the Cologne Tree Sound Study, we made the recording in a small office room in 2015, we had less dramatic weather changes. A warm summer, smooth light changes, generating a more gentle soundscape to deeply plunge into music (Georg Dietzler).” This track stands out from the rest, and it’s great to be reserved as such. The effect is a tad psychedelic, almost like music within Eastern traditions (like a snake charmer), and a bit removed. Though this also has plenty in common with German electronic music of the 1970’s, in all its futuristic, minimalistic glory. Plants are earthly beings, here given voice in a most unique way.
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Frans de Waard | VITAL WEEKLY
A subject about I surely have very little knowledge of is that of bioacoustics; you know, where biological events turn into sound. I know John Cage experimented with plants, Michael Prime also, and I’m sure there is much more out there, but I have not much idea about that. Silva Datum Musica is a duo of Tim Collins and Reiko Goto and together they created a ‚plant-driven synthesizer‘. It uses sensors and software „to generate real-time tree leaf data. Light, photosynthesis and transpiration modify sound: the rhythm, melody, texture, tempo and harmony shift with atmospheric conditions and tree response – electronically“, which is a pretty cool idea. Ideally, every plant sounds different, one would think. Here we have two different recordings, both live. One side has four pieces, recorded in 2017 in Scotland and one long piece from Cologne in 2015. The four pieces are ‚Alder‘, ‚Oak‘, ‚Elderberry‘ and ‚Birch‘ and ‚Pear‘ is on the other side. The interesting thing is, but perhaps also sad to note, is that those four pieces sound kinda similar. I have no idea if that is the trees, leaves or perhaps the software; basically, because I have very little knowledge of how this software is supposed to work. Are there elements of sound in there that are activated by the plants and as such maybe that’s why some of this sounds the same. It makes it, perhaps, more the result of a scientific experiment, rather than some music that works as a standalone thing, which is, I think, what this should boil down to. No matter how interesting it is to translate the sound of leaves into music, one should also consider the fact that it is now ‚out there‘, on an LP, to enjoy. One doesn’t see or smell the plants, nor the machine to translate them, and therefore it is a bit difficult to understand why these pieces sound relatively the same. The long piece on the other side, curiously enough, sounds a bit different, although one can link both sides together. The sheer minimalism of all of the pieces is, however, something I enjoyed very much about this. It is slowly evolving and that is always a great thing!
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