EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC UNIT
Experimental Music Unit
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Experimental Music Unit is an ensemble from Victoria, British Columbia featuring Tina Pearson (flute, accordion and voice); George Tzanetakis (clarinets and saxophones); and Paul Walde (bass guitar and percussion). They have engaged in regular exploratory music and sound art practice since 2012.
The trio members are the co-directors of LASAM, a Victoria organization that has produced and presented original conceptually driven compositional projects, tightly curated thematic concerts, and collaborations with likeminded guest artists since 2008. LASAM projects explore sonic phenomena in performance, relationships between the natural world, sound and music, and between notation, improvisation and attention states in music making. In 2015 they released their debut CD Music for Mycologists, and in 2016 they collaborated on a concert length performance with Norwegian/ American sound artist Camille Norment entitled Songs for Glass Island. They are currently formalising concepts and practices related to Biospheric Art Practice which was initiated by Tina Pearson in 2015. Links: |
Earth Day 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth
Land Sea Sky
Played by the Experimental Music Unit from a text score by Tina Pearson
LAND SEA SKY is a text score written for the Experimental Music Unit. It reflects the trio’s relationships of listening and playing closely together through 10 years and multiple collaborative projects, and its increasing focus on land-based artmaking, including Biospheric Art Practice. During the composition of the piece, EMU friend and colleague Raj Sen, director of Victoria’s Open Space, passed away. Raj’s remarkable and generous spirit inspired the final version of the piece, which is dedicated to him.
Biospheric Art Practice is an art-in-the-environment practice that intends a respectful listening interaction with the biosphere, embodying a sensual and perceptual awareness of its complex lifeforms, and its human and other ancestries. It was initiated by Tina Pearson in 2015 in Lekwungen territory (Greater Victoria, Canada) and operated there with Tzanetakis, dance artist Lori Hamar and photographer/videographer Kirk Schwartz with invited and accidental guests. The practice utilizes specific modes of listening within a location’s biosphere as a guide to sounding, moving, photographing and filming - interacting artistically in a non-performance, non-product way.
The practice has developed through guided aural suggestion, listening, sounding and movement exercises and meditations, and text scores. It shares some elements with acoustic ecology, field recording & soundscape composition; the study of attention in Deep Listening® practice; and the focus of slow movement and environmental listening of soundwalking.
The video of Land Sea Sky included in the Embassy Cultural House Earth Day exhibition is an audio and photographic representation of EMU’s realization of the score at Finnerty Cove on the Salish Sea, on March 3 2021. Each musician recorded their own audio track, which were mixed by Paul Walde in a video production incorporating a photographic realization of the score by Lyssa Pearson.
Played by the Experimental Music Unit from a text score by Tina Pearson
LAND SEA SKY is a text score written for the Experimental Music Unit. It reflects the trio’s relationships of listening and playing closely together through 10 years and multiple collaborative projects, and its increasing focus on land-based artmaking, including Biospheric Art Practice. During the composition of the piece, EMU friend and colleague Raj Sen, director of Victoria’s Open Space, passed away. Raj’s remarkable and generous spirit inspired the final version of the piece, which is dedicated to him.
Biospheric Art Practice is an art-in-the-environment practice that intends a respectful listening interaction with the biosphere, embodying a sensual and perceptual awareness of its complex lifeforms, and its human and other ancestries. It was initiated by Tina Pearson in 2015 in Lekwungen territory (Greater Victoria, Canada) and operated there with Tzanetakis, dance artist Lori Hamar and photographer/videographer Kirk Schwartz with invited and accidental guests. The practice utilizes specific modes of listening within a location’s biosphere as a guide to sounding, moving, photographing and filming - interacting artistically in a non-performance, non-product way.
The practice has developed through guided aural suggestion, listening, sounding and movement exercises and meditations, and text scores. It shares some elements with acoustic ecology, field recording & soundscape composition; the study of attention in Deep Listening® practice; and the focus of slow movement and environmental listening of soundwalking.
The video of Land Sea Sky included in the Embassy Cultural House Earth Day exhibition is an audio and photographic representation of EMU’s realization of the score at Finnerty Cove on the Salish Sea, on March 3 2021. Each musician recorded their own audio track, which were mixed by Paul Walde in a video production incorporating a photographic realization of the score by Lyssa Pearson.
