no.240 |Considering Transitions with Saumon Oboudiyat
PSO is very excited to present a collaboration with sound-based practitioner, music producer, and architectural designer Saumon Oboudiyat. We met during a song-share session during Brian Eno’s class hosted by School of Song. Saumon makes carefully crafted, immersive cinematic compositions that span electromagnetic and field recording, synths, and sound processing. He constructs intricate worlds, drawing inspiration from his near-decade of experience in architecture and a lifetime of working with music.
For PSO no. 240, I sent Saumon a field recording of my front porch dawn chorus. Saumon used this recording as a map to layer a dynamic soundscape that rewards careful and repeated listening.
For the piece, Saumon drew upon Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies. We took the title from a card he drew, which read, “Are there sections? Consider transitions."
Saumon shared his process, writing: "I approached the work by first listening and learning from the inherent inflection points in the recording, asking "what does the recording have to say?". Letting the field recording 'drive' the compositional decisions always brings a spirit of creative submission and constraint. The interventions I made include splicing in field recordings from my personal library, augmenting certain frequencies in the base field recording, and lacing in some improvised synth performances. And, of course, moments of silence - to foreground the inherent beauty of the original recording."
The image combines a photograph of prismatic light cast on the wall of Saumon’s office, which nostalgically recalls an apartment he and his wife shared as newlyweds, with a picture of the fair pecan tree that graces our view from the porch in Austin.
Saumon will release his debut solo album as sohme this summer via the Spirituals Imprint from Phantom Limb UK. Saumon is the founder of sohme production, the hub of his sound-based practice, which encompasses music production, film & podcast scoring, field recording, and sound installations. He is also half of the songwriting duo MVSO. Check out more of his work on his website.
Email us at info(at)porchswingorchestra.org
Saumon shared his process, writing: "I approached the work by first listening and learning from the inherent inflection points in the recording, asking "what does the recording have to say?". Letting the field recording 'drive' the compositional decisions always brings a spirit of creative submission and constraint. The interventions I made include splicing in field recordings from my personal library, augmenting certain frequencies in the base field recording, and lacing in some improvised synth performances. And, of course, moments of silence - to foreground the inherent beauty of the original recording."
The image combines a photograph of prismatic light cast on the wall of Saumon’s office, which nostalgically recalls an apartment he and his wife shared as newlyweds, with a picture of the fair pecan tree that graces our view from the porch in Austin.
Saumon will release his debut solo album as sohme this summer via the Spirituals Imprint from Phantom Limb UK. Saumon is the founder of sohme production, the hub of his sound-based practice, which encompasses music production, film & podcast scoring, field recording, and sound installations. He is also half of the songwriting duo MVSO. Check out more of his work on his website.
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LETS'S MAKE SOMETHING TOGETHER
I love to collaborate, remotely or in person, but if you have a piece you would like to feature on PSO (without contributions by me), by all means, please reach out!Email us at info(at)porchswingorchestra.org
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ABOUT PSO
Porch Swing Orchestra is an art project begun by Barry Stone that explores the interplay between still images and sound.Since 2018, PSO has collaborated with dozens of musicians, artists, poets, writers, and activists to publish over 200 unique combinations of images and sounds.
Most PSO pieces are made on Stone’s front porch in Austin, Texas, but PSO has traveled to Spiral Jetty in Utah, the border town of Del Rio, Texas, Maine, the San Juan Islands, and performed live in the James Turrell Skyspace, The Color Inside as a part of The University of Texas Landmarks Songs in the Skyspace Program.
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