practice goes to quiet village, a free ambient music “anti-festival” this weekend.
come join us.
hear the set, featured on berlin community radio, here.
the set:
noise artists nic fera and jesse perlstein mix field recordings of daily noises with constructed tones to create an immersive soundscape that re-imagines reality.
inspired by schuman resonances, known as the earth’s natural soothing vibrations, fera and perlstein begin building the set with low, healing tones. they destroy this sense of peace with sounds associated with chaos and consumerism. however, the introduction of these anxiety-producing noises is quickly transformed. implementing filtered white noise, fera and perlstein offer a new experience, mixing and fading the stigmatic sounds in a way that calms and comforts. there is a sense of presenting difficult noises with ease, as a friendly introduction to disagreeable sound. fera and perlstein suggest alternative ways of experiencing life, revealing peaceful attributes of rifts in the midst of the dissonance that surrounds us. as the set reaches a point of surrealism, an addition of vocals grounds the listener to a more personal interpretation of the tones.
by inviting the chaos and uncomfortable noises of our lives, this set does not avoid reality, yet transcends our rote engagement with the soundtrack of our lives. these difficult noises ask the listener to exert more effort to find a place of comfort in the sounds that don’t mesh harmonically. but this is not without the guidance of experienced sound artists who build a pillow of comfort throughout the set to help the listener navigate the unfamiliar aural landscape. wandering through known sounds that don’t fit a specific narrative lacks an intuitive direction. this helps the listener to loosen up associations, connect to focused tones and bring awareness to thoughts. it allows for creative reign. the dichotomy of real and made noises encourages agency within the listener to assign their own associations to the noises of their life. there is the possibility to find comfort in these noises and be soothed in their presence. this re-association of our stressful environment may be generalizable to life to provide a new way of dynamically interacting with reality.
bringing elements of reality into a simulated soundscape, fera and perlstein give listeners imaginary power that is hyper real and yet beyond real, even fantastical.
what is quiet village?
the hudson valley’s free “anti-festival” of ambient music, the quiet village promotes serious ambient electronic music composers and sound artists, presenting environmental music in an outdoor setting that bypasses the traditional concert format and gallery installation paradigm.
presented by the poné ensemble for new music, in conjunction with earwaker studio and the coterminous collectiv.