Drift Multiply

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Tristan Perich's Drift Multiply (New Amsterdam / Nonesuch Records), for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics, the composer's largest work to date, is conducted by Douglas Perkins. Scored as one hundred individual lines of music, the piece blends violins and speakers into a cascading tapestry of tone, harmony, and noise. The violins perform from sheet music, while the speakers are each connected to custom-built circuit boards programmed to output 1-bit audio, the most basic digital waveforms made of just ones and zeroes.

Description

Tristan Perich’s Drift Multiply, for fifty violins and fifty-channel 1-bit electronics, was released November 13, 2020, on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records, as part of the partnership between the two labels.

Drift Multiply, Perich’s largest work to date, is performed by fifty violins and fifty loudspeakers and is conducted by Douglas Perkins. Scored as one hundred individual lines of music, the piece blends violins and speakers into a cascading tapestry of tone, harmony, and noise. The violins perform from sheet music, while the speakers are each connected to custom-built circuit boards programmed to output 1-bit audio, the most basic digital waveforms made of just ones and zeroes. “I am interested in the threshold between the abstract world of computation and the physical world around us,” Perich explains.

Journalist Ben Ratliff wrote, “Drift Multiply uses ingredients which have become well-known in Perich’s work: strings or one-bit tones entering a section in layers of evenly-spaced notes or drones; quickly advancing depths and densities; harmony spreading across the space of the music in flickering, cascading, or wave-like motions; white noise, rendered in pulses or fields of sound.” He continues, “Steve Reich has been a fan since hearing 1-Bit Symphony. ‘I started listening to it, and I thought, my gosh … In some ways it reminded me of [Stravinsky’s] Petrushka. Who would think of electronic chips as summoning up anything as beautiful, musically, as that?’” Drift Multiply premiered at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine for the 2018 Red Bull Music Festival. In 2019, it traveled to the Netherlands for Big Idea #01, where Lucinda Childs was commissioned to create a new large-scale dance to Drift Multiply, performed by 66 dancers in front of the live music.

New York–based composer Tristan Perich’s work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics, and code. The Wire describes his compositions as “an austere meeting of electronic and organic.” 1-Bit Music, his 2004 release, was the first album ever released as a microchip, programmed to synthesize his electronic composition live. His follow-up circuit album, 1-Bit Symphony, has received critical acclaim, with the Wall Street Journal saying “its oscillations have an intense, hypnotic force and a surprising emotional depth.” The New York Times called his latest circuit album, Noise Patterns, “techno for silicon-based life forms.” As an electronic musician, he has performed internationally, from Sonár, MUTEK, and the Barbican to the National Gallery of Art and The Kitchen. As a composer, he has received commissions from Sō Percussion, the LA Philharmonic, Vicky Chow, and more, as well as an award of distinction from Ars Electronica for his work for violins and 1-bit electronics, Active Field. As a visual artist, his audio installations, video works and machine drawings have received commissions from the likes of Rhizome and L’Auditori in Barcelona, and his artwork has been exhibited internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, VOLT Festival, the San Diego Museum, and bitforms gallery.

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Recorded at De Doelen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, October 2019
Engineered by Han de Jonge
Edited by Douglas Perkins
Mixed by Patrick Burns
Mastered by Patrick Burns, Justin Dennis

Production and Ensemble Coordinators: Jan Kuhr, Katarzyna Kalinowska
Stage Crew: Adrian Bartolome Manzanos, Pablo Moreno Miras, Zach Smithson, Dani Dominguez Gimenez, Simo van de Vosse, Sophia Price, Raff Pringuet
Sound Assistants: Hans Neels, Aram Visser

Produced by Douglas Perkins, Tristan Perich
Assistant Producer: Josh Modney
Executive Producers: Neil Wallace, Léon van Geest

Design and Cover Image by Tristan Perich

ns_album_releasedate
Album Status
Artist Name
Tristan Perich
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Douglas Perkins, conductor
Violins: Josh Modney (concertmaster), Diego Virguez Maseo, Yvonne Lam, Karolina Walarowska, Gideon Nelissen, Çisem Özkurt, Annerieke Nentjes, Laura Riverol Mitchel, Lauren Cauley-Kalal, Ricardo Moreira de Silva Baylina, Merel Varcammen, Bélen Pérez Carreras, Ana Nedobora, Celeste Engel, Marina Meerson, Ania Szafraniec, Ian de Jong, Luna Hallenga, Tosca Opdam, Robin Veldman, Natsja Klomp, Lucas Bernardo da Silva, Alicia Poblacion, Yujing Zhang, Julie Adalsteinsson, Constatijn Bolscher, Javier Carranza, Stijn Brinkman, Carlos Yeung, Manon van de Kempe, Angela Moya Serrat, Kaja Majoor, Angelos Schioinas, Sander Kuiter, Victor Ros Bouche, Martine Velthuis, Marco Silva, Albert Lincan, Iryna Neprorzhynya, Yolanda Kuijper, Jana Vukicevic, Maureen Ruth, Patricia Kujik, Nadia ten Kate, Lucie Saliou, Yuting Lu, Liyuan Lin, Idil Yunkus, Moniek de Leeuw, Giannis Antonopoulos

reissues?
new-release
Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
CD+MP3
Price
13.00
UPC
075597918137
Label
96/24 HD FLAC
Price
10.00
UPC
075597918175
Label
MP3
Price
9.00
UPC
075597918182

Track Listing

News & Reviews

  • About This Album

    Tristan Perich’s Drift Multiply, for fifty violins and fifty-channel 1-bit electronics, was released November 13, 2020, on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records, as part of the partnership between the two labels.

    Drift Multiply, Perich’s largest work to date, is performed by fifty violins and fifty loudspeakers and is conducted by Douglas Perkins. Scored as one hundred individual lines of music, the piece blends violins and speakers into a cascading tapestry of tone, harmony, and noise. The violins perform from sheet music, while the speakers are each connected to custom-built circuit boards programmed to output 1-bit audio, the most basic digital waveforms made of just ones and zeroes. “I am interested in the threshold between the abstract world of computation and the physical world around us,” Perich explains.

    Journalist Ben Ratliff wrote, “Drift Multiply uses ingredients which have become well-known in Perich’s work: strings or one-bit tones entering a section in layers of evenly-spaced notes or drones; quickly advancing depths and densities; harmony spreading across the space of the music in flickering, cascading, or wave-like motions; white noise, rendered in pulses or fields of sound.” He continues, “Steve Reich has been a fan since hearing 1-Bit Symphony. ‘I started listening to it, and I thought, my gosh … In some ways it reminded me of [Stravinsky’s] Petrushka. Who would think of electronic chips as summoning up anything as beautiful, musically, as that?’” Drift Multiply premiered at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine for the 2018 Red Bull Music Festival. In 2019, it traveled to the Netherlands for Big Idea #01, where Lucinda Childs was commissioned to create a new large-scale dance to Drift Multiply, performed by 66 dancers in front of the live music.

    New York–based composer Tristan Perich’s work is inspired by the aesthetic simplicity of math, physics, and code. The Wire describes his compositions as “an austere meeting of electronic and organic.” 1-Bit Music, his 2004 release, was the first album ever released as a microchip, programmed to synthesize his electronic composition live. His follow-up circuit album, 1-Bit Symphony, has received critical acclaim, with the Wall Street Journal saying “its oscillations have an intense, hypnotic force and a surprising emotional depth.” The New York Times called his latest circuit album, Noise Patterns, “techno for silicon-based life forms.” As an electronic musician, he has performed internationally, from Sonár, MUTEK, and the Barbican to the National Gallery of Art and The Kitchen. As a composer, he has received commissions from Sō Percussion, the LA Philharmonic, Vicky Chow, and more, as well as an award of distinction from Ars Electronica for his work for violins and 1-bit electronics, Active Field. As a visual artist, his audio installations, video works and machine drawings have received commissions from the likes of Rhizome and L’Auditori in Barcelona, and his artwork has been exhibited internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, VOLT Festival, the San Diego Museum, and bitforms gallery.

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Douglas Perkins, conductor
    Violins: Josh Modney (concertmaster), Diego Virguez Maseo, Yvonne Lam, Karolina Walarowska, Gideon Nelissen, Çisem Özkurt, Annerieke Nentjes, Laura Riverol Mitchel, Lauren Cauley-Kalal, Ricardo Moreira de Silva Baylina, Merel Varcammen, Bélen Pérez Carreras, Ana Nedobora, Celeste Engel, Marina Meerson, Ania Szafraniec, Ian de Jong, Luna Hallenga, Tosca Opdam, Robin Veldman, Natsja Klomp, Lucas Bernardo da Silva, Alicia Poblacion, Yujing Zhang, Julie Adalsteinsson, Constatijn Bolscher, Javier Carranza, Stijn Brinkman, Carlos Yeung, Manon van de Kempe, Angela Moya Serrat, Kaja Majoor, Angelos Schioinas, Sander Kuiter, Victor Ros Bouche, Martine Velthuis, Marco Silva, Albert Lincan, Iryna Neprorzhynya, Yolanda Kuijper, Jana Vukicevic, Maureen Ruth, Patricia Kujik, Nadia ten Kate, Lucie Saliou, Yuting Lu, Liyuan Lin, Idil Yunkus, Moniek de Leeuw, Giannis Antonopoulos

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Recorded at De Doelen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, October 2019
    Engineered by Han de Jonge
    Edited by Douglas Perkins
    Mixed by Patrick Burns
    Mastered by Patrick Burns, Justin Dennis

    Production and Ensemble Coordinators: Jan Kuhr, Katarzyna Kalinowska
    Stage Crew: Adrian Bartolome Manzanos, Pablo Moreno Miras, Zach Smithson, Dani Dominguez Gimenez, Simo van de Vosse, Sophia Price, Raff Pringuet
    Sound Assistants: Hans Neels, Aram Visser

    Produced by Douglas Perkins, Tristan Perich
    Assistant Producer: Josh Modney
    Executive Producers: Neil Wallace, Léon van Geest

    Design and Cover Image by Tristan Perich