Voice Breaker (for Prisms Festival, 2016)

Voice Breaker- for multiple voice and voltage-controlled feedback - looks at alternative ways of programming code using the voice and exploring the contrasting sound materials of vocal utterance and electronic noise. In a large-group performance, the voice adopts multiple roles: as raw data for coding; as a modulator for analogue feedback; and as a sound source in its own right. Singing, humming and screaming become manifest as sequences of feedback, noise-bursts and oscillations. The work looks at the tension that exists between loop and line, gesture and automation, as well as taking an object-orientated approach to composition: how through exploring an object/circuit the music/composition is revealed. As Dirty Electronics, the performance begins on the ‘workbench’ as an extended event with musicians building their own Voice Breaker. The piece is a unique result of this participatory experience: part-devised, part-found, and part-scored.