jammed by Yannis Patoukas

The music in this album is a result of my ongoing exploration of the common ground which is shared between experimental rock of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the field of electroacoustic music, with regard to studio practices / production techniques and their creative possibilities.

jammed was initially conceived as a score for improvising musicians, to work as the very first step of a compositional process rather than being part of the final stages of realising a musical result. The score was organised in such a way to create a framework for the musicians and conductor to… “jam” (hence the title), by using a number of restrictions/rules which resulted in a “controllable” improvisation of spontaneously performed sonic events.

On 20 March 2022, three takes of the score were performed and recorded in the New Music Lab at the Institute of Sonology (Royal Conservatoire, The Hague). The ensemble was "conducted" using visual cues projected on two screens in front of the players. With this setup, I was able to shape the performance in real time, with very little influence over the sound material being generated. Subsequently, these multitrack recordings were used as the principal material for creating the fixed-media compositions which make up this album.

These consist of a mixture of (slightly and heavily) processed material derived from the recorded performances, as well as electronic sounds which are sonically and structurally informed by those same recordings through the use of voltage-control techniques. Most of the sounds were manipulated using analogue devices, methods and workflows exclusively, while others were processed using softwares for granulation/randomisation and digital effects.

Yannis Patoukas is an electroacoustic composer, improviser and musicologist currently based in Rotterdam (NL). When inside a recording studio, he usually follows a more improvisational workflow; welcoming mistakes, trusting random or open processes and always making the most of the physicality of any analogue device in the vicinity.

yannispatoukas.com