Image © Tim Berresheim
Cologne-based Marcus Schmickler’s quadrophonic performance "Fortuna Ribbon" toys with perception. Combination tones and OAEs, acoustic emissions produced by the cochlea, Schmickler’s interest revolves around the brain’s adaptation to auditory stimuli. In his recent Palace of Marvels release on Editions Mego, Schmickler explores a new interpretation of the 1960’s "Shepard tone" discovery. When listening to a Shepard tone, we are faced with the illusion that the pitch is either continuously ascending or descending though it is apparently never reaching a limit. Starting from such phenomena, Schmickler’s multi-channel piece, "Fortuna Ribbon," twists the fundamentals of musical practice – rhythm, sound, and pitch.
Marcus Schmickler is a Cologne-based researching composer and has produced numerous electronic works, pieces for ensembles, choirs and orchestra. Many of his works are informed by scientific subjects as well as methods. A multi-faceted composer and producer, his interests revolve around the brain and its adaptation to multiple auditory stimuli. Schmickler has written music for ensembles, installations, theater, and radio, meanwhile also producing under multiple pseudonyms like Pluramon, and Wabi Sabi. A recipient of multiple prizes and scholarships, including the Ars Electronica; Schmickler held a lengthy seat as a member of the jury for the German Music Council, and is a co-creator of the eclectic A-Musik record distributor, known for its avant-garde and experimental releases. Schmickler is part of the faculty at Bard College in Music/Sound MFA program in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. In 2014, he was a guest-faculty for composition at Calarts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb3Al8vumjs
Cameron Shafii was born to parents that emigrated from Tehran, Iran and was raised in Darmstadt, Germany before relocating to San Francisco. He studied German and Philosophy at UC Berkeley. He lives in San Francisco and works in the East Bay with machine learning classification systems for natural language processing. Cameron's musical interests include computer-based composition with emphasis on algorithmic panning systems and granular synthesis. He employs object-oriented synthesis languages for DSP and pairs them with regular expression string searching algorithms for filtering use cases. He runs the label Ge-stell. http://ge-stell.net