Ouroboros is a durational work for acoustic instruments, room feedback and adaptive signal processing. Commencing with the acoustic performance of Heenan and Vorfeld, a custom-designed algorithm records the music and plays it back into the room over and over again. At first, the effect is one of allowing the musicians to perform with iterations of their past actions. However, as a slow feedback loop builds up through the multiple playback iterations, the room resonances and digital processing smear the playback to generate a texturally rich and resonant sonic environment where acoustic and digital ecologies merge.

Chris Heenan: contrabass clarinet
Michael Vorfeld: percussion and string instruments
Adam Pultz Melbye: feedback and signal processing 

FLAMINGO

Chris Heenan, contrabass clarinet
Adam Pultz Melbye, contrabass
Christian Windfeld, snare drum and objects

Flamingo is sound artists Chris Heenan, Adam Pultz Melbye and Christian Windfeld. The trio explores sound, texture and dynamics in the context of a highly stylized sonic aesthetic. Since 2015, Flamingo has developed a disciplined approach to group performance, the results of which are immersive and engaging sonic landscapes. Flamingo has performed at festivals and venues throughout Europe and the US and has released three albums on the labels Barefoot Records, Lydhør and Relative Pitch. 

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Photo: Peter Gannushkin

Since 2005, Half Cloud, Half Plain has been creating a music of shimmering textures and ringing sustained tones, of lightning interaction and sudden changes of texture through the combination of cymbals, clanging percussion, the deep spectral timbres of
contrabass clarinet and the liminal reaches of the alto saxophone.

Chris Heenan, contrabass clarinet, sopranino and alto saxophones
Michael Vorfeld, percussion and self-designed string instruments

TRIGGER

Chris Heenan, contrabass clarinet
Matthias Müller, trombone
Nils Ostendorf, trumpet

Trigger works in the context of improvised music with the shaping of a homogeneous overall sound. The three instruments act as generators of noise and sound using advanced playing techniques such as circular breathing, split-tones, multiphonics and air sounds. The result is a complex, dense and driving music in long forms that is permanently changing and renewed.

In addition to trio projects, Trigger has also worked with the audio-visual collective Ouïe/Dire in GOING UNDERGROUND and with electronic musicians Thomas Lehn and Jérôme Noetinger in the projects Trigger Plus.

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PIVOT IS…

Liz Allbee and Chris Heenan.
a language of spontaneous repetitions that brush up against an autistic world.
a contrabass clarinet and a trumpet hashing out a bad marriage.
a strategy of recursive cycles and quick fixes.
an acoustic duo of discrete players creating a unitized system.
a three-legged horse in a two-legged race.

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