30.11.2011
Live Concert at Bar du matin Bruxelles next monday the 09.01.2012. It will be a rather long set in terms of duration where each member of the audience will have a pair of headphones. Starts at 20h!
Einóma will be playing at this years FREEMOTE festival in Utrecht. This year's theme is 'Threshold'. We live in turbulent times: tipping points all over > financial systems > ecological systems > shifting of the balance of power > analogue - digital > etc.
Einóma will play during the night of the 10th of December.
Einóma will also play on the 9th December at the Puzzling pulses as part of the State-X New Forms festival. Puzzling Pulses is a night filled with electronic music from The Hague. There will be multiple live performances with glitchy beats, eerie soundscapes and hypnotizing vocals.
23.11.2011
Cedric Dupire has recently completed two short films/pieces that feature my work. 'Grey Seeds' is made from material created for our performance at the Ephémère series in June.
It features a modified version of my piece which has the same title.
'O SAL DA LUA' is directed by Cedric and Cristiana Miranda and based on images from Paris and Rio de Janeiro and features Roberta Arantes.
22.11.2011
Our new album with MGBG Korabie has been released!
Korabie features six new pieces purely composed or created around improvisations during roughly the last two years. The main focus is the exploration of the combination between voice and electronics. On Korabie a dense fabric of sound is brought to existence where voices and vocal manipulations meet drones and microsounds. The music seems to be coming from multiple sources. Dynamic forms emerge and spaces appear from the intimate relationship of the human voice and electronics.
"it’s the crafting of subtle interactions that stand out on this body of work. At times almost silent and alien in construction, voices — both treated and untreated — subliminally reveal themselves as loosened strands forming a web above the uneven electrical landscape. A warm hum of analog synths bend and contort in the most serene patterns as if naturally expelled from the center of the cosmos. Eerie at times, Korabie also blends microscopic audio slivers through a maze of hiccuped vocal stretches. Often crumpled at the edges, these pulses of articulated eruptions ebb and flow delivering soundtrack inspired layers that will either pull you into its disjointed textural hub or deter you from entering altogether. Either way, Korabie is a sublime collision between organic and inorganic ingredients meant for 3am listening."
Igloomag.com
17.11.2011
Presentation of L'imaginaire du parleur at Sonology concert, a 8 channel piece composed together with Marie Guilleray during our residency at GRM, Paris.
"L'imaginaire du parleur" is inspired by Roland Barthes’s description of the grain of the voice in his essay "Le grain de la voix" (Ed. Seuil 1977). According to Barthes, "the grain of the voice is what is lost in transcription. It’s an exterior body, which, in situation of dialogue with an other body, both fragile, sends some messages intellectually empty, in order to catch the other and to maintain him in a state of partnership. Transcribed, the speech changed recipient and subject. The body, still there, stops to match with the person or more precisely with the personality. The imagination of the speaker changes space. It’s not anymore a request, a call, or a game of contacts; it’s about installing and representing an articulated discontinuation, in other words, an argumentation."
08.11.2011
A Einóma concert at the Ephémère series in Studio Loos nex Thursday.
"Based on material created for a performance at the Lost Theory festival in Croatia last august, Einoma will play a set that explores the more adventurous and experimental part of their sound. Drones and noises meet beats and melodies in a more improvised and unexpected setting than usual for the duo."
25.10.2011
Last week with Marie Guilleray I completed a 10 residency at the GRM studios in Radio France. We completed a new 8 channel peice "L'imaginaire du parleur" that will be premiered soon.
Additionally we did a small performance in the amazing record store 'Souffle Continu'
20.04.2011
Two MGBG gigs in Bruxelles this weekend. On friday in the gallery Abilene and saturday the second a living room concert organized by lamadameaveclechien.
09.10.2011
My one minute piece "Merle" will be presented at the LIVEWIRE festival on Friday, October 28 as part of Ana Rubin´s miniature program.
"Merle A miniature, small poem, resonating bells in conflict with granular textures and an unavoidable short ending"
05.10.2011
My new 4 channel piece 'Pedicel' will be premiered at the first Sonology concert of year.
30.09.2011
My piece Aukera was selected for the Kaija Saariaho masterclass and will be played on the presentation program Monday October 3, 19.30 – 22.00 Varèsezaal, Royal Conservatory.
Saariaho will also give analysis and study the piece on Friday October 7, 11.45-14.15 also in the Royal Conservatory.
"For decades Kaija Saariaho´s music has been regularly performed by the greatest musicians, orchestras and opera companies in the world. All of The Hague’s major musical institutions will join forces to give you the opportunity to experience one of new music’s most unusual and extraordinary voices. We all hope you will join us in October in discovering the astonishing beauty and poetic power of some of the most spellbinding music of our time."
01.07.2011
Einóma will be playing at this years Lost Theory festival in Croation 17-22 August.
We will play two times, the first one early friday morning with a more drony and experimental set and the scond time on saturday night with a more beat-driven performance.
25.06.2011
Mars der Beschaving
I will play a duo with Marie Guilleray (MGBG) for the 'After Mars der Beschaving', at SuperMarkt, The Hague 26.06.2011
To ensure that the walkers of the Mars der Beschaving have a night to look forward to arriving in The Hague, there are a number of cultural initiatives on Sunday evening from 11 pm until Monday morning.
20.06.2011
On june 23 my piece "Aukera" for 2 channels will be performed and on the 23rd of june Marie Guilleray and me will have a live performance with voice and live electronics.
"In the process of composing many different choices are usually made that in
the end form a piece of music. After completing a piece a composer might
reflect on its creation and think which of the choices he took had the most
influence on the final outcome. This reflection might also take into
consideration the relationships between the choices he took and the possible
hierarchy they form, where some influence each other directly and others do
not. In many cases an initial idea or concept can have a very strong
impression on the final outcome of a piece of music and is something
composers usually would talk about in program notes like these. What about
all the other choices a composer takes later in the process? Are they less
important? Could they apply in other contexts? Could the order they are
taken in be altered to drastically affect a piece? Could the choices maybe even
be considered as material for a composition? These relationships of choices
inspired the creation of my piece 'Aukera' where the aim was to keep track of
every step of the process in order to enable backtracking for all actions taken.
A hierarchy of events was created that could be changed at every moment so
the piece could remain completely dynamic and open until it was recorded.
The idea was to put focus on the formal choices and how those choices could
be manipulated and composed with. After the recording was finally made the
material was reduced even further to explore what remained important and
what was essential for this piece composed around its own creation."
01.06.2011
Audio // Visual Performance from Bjarni Gunnarsson on Vimeo.
29.05.2011
My piece 'Angst' has been selected for diffusion at the 2011 ICMC in Huddersfield. The piece will be played in the listening room – an immersive, multi-speaker environment containing a looped sequence of delegates’ works throughout a full day of the conference.
The ICMC is the preeminent annual gathering for computer music practitioners from around the world and its unique interweaving of professional paper presentations and concerts of new computer music.
'Grey Seeds' was also accepted for this years Sound, Sight, Space and Play (SSSP) symposium. Whish is a conference for postgraduate students working in the creative sonic arts, organised by
postgraduate students of the Music Technology and Innovation Research Centre (MTIRC) at De Montfort University. The ideals of this event are to stimulate co-operation and inspiration between postgraduate students, across institutional boundaries, leading to new perspectives on current works and research.
24.05.2011
Audio visual performance by Bjarni Gunnarsson (electronics) and Cedric Dupire (visuals)
After collaborating on a video for the piece 'Dried up' for the release of the album Safn 2006-2009, Bjarni & Cedric are now preparing a new audio-visual work that penetrates the audible microcosm and visual nature. Although the techniques used vary, one constant is emerging, to compose the smallest offered in sound and image, to engage the micro-events. The performance will feature two new pieces to be performed live, both image and sound.
30.04.2011
Duo performance with Marie Guilleray at the Trashvortex series in Paris
28.03.2011
Diffusion of 'Grey Seeds' at the CASS concert, 28.03
"Shortly after returning from a long vacation in my native country Iceland last summer, I came across recordings that I had made two years earlier of trees and broken branches in a forrest in Germany. I felt that these trees somehow sounded lifeless and empty and they got me to think about the great contrast between the green and wooded landscapes of Holland or Germany and the rough and vast spaces in Iceland, where almost a third of the country is an official desert. I thought that the sounds of the german trees deserved a more interesting destiny and decided I would make them stronger, more energetic, more unique and more capable to operate in a ruthless surrounding. This resulted in my piece 'Grey seeds' where the conflict between the far and the near, the empty and full, the lonely or the crowded has become the main topic. Initially inspired by contrasting elements in nature, I now realize that what for me appears to be an internal struggle of elements in this piece has started to mean something else, something more personal and inspiring than the green woods of Germany or the black deserts in Iceland ever ware to me."
15.03.2011
'Grey Seeds' will be presented at the Pentacon conference for music technology in McGill University next week. The conference will take place in Montreal, March 17-18, 2011.
The focus will be on music technology, particularly in areas such as live electronics which will be a central focus, but also in research fields such as sound composition and
signal processing, human-computer interface design for music, motion capture, instrument design, musical informatics, and sound recording.
10.03.2011
With Marie Guilleray we will premiere a new piece 'Duality' next Tuesday at the Sonology discussion concert.
'Duality' is based on the process of hypnosis and the theory of a
hidden observer as discovered by Ernest Hilgard. In hypnosis, the
hidden observer is the part of the self that is aware of things
outside conscious awareness. The question of a divided consciousness
inspired the unfolding of this piece where multiple controls in human
thought and action operate at the same time. The piece fluctuates
between states of order and disorder where a tension is created
between the conscious and unconscious. The text was created from
segment of Andre Breton's text voayge dans la duality.
09.03.2011
02.03.2011
Premiere of 'Voyage dans l´espace' and 'Grey seeds'
This weekend is the premiere of the piece Voyage dans l'espace (2010-2011) by Kees Tazelaar at BEAST Festival, Birmingham, England.
His piece features vocals by Marie Guilleray.
As the first part of his one hour program I will diffuse a new piece of mine 'Grey seeds' composed in 2011.
Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST) is one of the leading international systems for the presentation of 2011
music. Relatively unique as a large-scale touring loudspeaker orchestra, BEAST is now capable of mounting systems with in excess of 100 discrete channels, and has for more than 25 years been an innovator and leader in the field.
28.02.2011
MGBG website online!
Me and Marie just put up a new website with recordings of our music. Mostly the music is from last years improvisations
and one live recording from the concert in Villa Ockenburgh (In-between).
Expect more to come.
MGBG
22.02.2011
Bruxelles, living room concerts, LMALC
Friday, February 25 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Rue Alphonse Hottat 42 1050 Bruxelles
20:00:
Bjarni Gunnarsson (live electronics)
http://bjarni-gunnarsson.net/
21:00:
Giovanni Di Domenico & DJ soFa (Fender Rhodes & FX vs. turntables & FX)
www.myspace.com/giovannididomenico
www.facebook.com/DeejaysoFa
22:00:
The Crappy Mini Band
www.facebook.com/thecrappyminiband
23:00:
Steindor Kristinsson & Michiel Claus (live electronics & drums)
www.myspace.com/gamilacollective
18.02.2011
MGBG in concert
Bjarni Gunnarsson and Marie Guilleray at 330 Live
Live set of composed and improvised music.
This evening we play some of our compositions "In Between" and "Duality" and we also improvise using samples and recorded materials.
10.02.2011
The new Einóma EP, Lost&Found is out next week!
"Lost&Found" is Einóma's new EP, out in February 2011 on Shipwrec records. The record features one long new track on the A-side as well as two older and previously unreleased pieces for the B-side. The main track, 'Bla' was conceived after editing real-time and live sessions made for gigs after the release of last years 'Tvenna' EP.The sound material 'Bla' was initially made from was quite old and the idea and title of the EP, 'Lost and found' came about, reworking of older ideas in a new setting. The A-side demonstretes the more dancefloor sides of Einóma while the B-side explores the more dark and dense regions Einóma have become more known for.
08.02.2011
Two concerts this week. First I will play in the fifth edition of the Ephemere series at Studio Loos thursday with Jaike Stambach and then a solo-set as part of the Icelandic music days in Amstersdam on saturday evening.
"Bjarni Gunnarsson and Jaike Stambach will play a set of improvised music where live electronics meet guitars, the sound of found objects and various types of real-time processing. Having recorded and performed together in Paris, this is the first time Bjarni and Jaike will play together in the Netherlands."
10.02 Ephemere 5
Studio Loos
De Constant Rebequeplein 20.B
Den Haag
Minimarginalia
Icelandic Music days
Zaal 100 De Wittenstraat 100
Amsterdam
20.12.2010
"A new Spezial Material compilation will be released on the 01.02.2011. The fourth label compilation SM4 documents the expansion of the spectrum.
A double CD containing 22 projects presents do-it-yourself in the next generation."
The compilation features a previously unreleased track by Einóma called LF. Einóma did a very nice Spezial Material tour with label owner Cio and artists Intricate and Traject around Europe in 2006.
The SM people seem to have been rather quiet the past years but this compilation seems interesting.
06.12.2010
Two concerts this week, the first in the Wave Field Synthesis system in the Scheltema Complex in Leiden Thursday, my piece Fallacies with Miguel Negrão will be diffused. It«s the first of this years Sonology concerts with the WFS in Leiden.
On Saturday, Einóma will play live at Cramers in Den Haag. We will play bits from the current live set we have been evolving but also older bits and pieces and material from the new Lost&Found EP.
24.11.2010
Fallacies, my piece with Miguel Negrão will be played several times this week at the STRP festival in Eindhoven. The whole system has been moved from Leiden and
will be playing constantly during the week.
The program looks interesting with pieces from Robert Henke, Kees Tazlaar, Arthur Sauer, Miguel Negrão, Bjarni Gunnarsson, Ji Youn Kang, Barbara Ellison, Wouter Snoei, Iannis Xenakis, Yutaka Makino, Yannis Kyriakides, Jeroen Visser
23.11.2010
Playing with Einóma friday night, for the first time since the spring. A very exciting concert since we will be playing material from the new EP
but also things from Tvenna and the live show we developed in the spring. With two other good artists and friends, Krakkbot and Duel Protocol this could be an excellent night.
23.11.2010
Einóma has just completed a new EP for the new and exciting Shipwrec label in Rotterdam. The EP contains three unreleased tracks
and will be released on vinyl only in early 2011. More info later..
12.11.2010
5/5 ".. an outstanding record from beginning to end."
"In just seven tracks of stark minimal abstract electronic compositions, spread over nearly fifty minutes, Gunnarsson creates an incredibly complex and haunting sonic universe with very few equals around. His soundscapes are often broken and twisted, fragmented into vibrant sub-sections,
themselves articulated around tiny sonic particles and miniature themes. Each of these tracks work on so many levels that it is difficult to actually grasp what is really going on in one seating, yet the way Gunnarsson presents all this is so extremely attractive that it doesn't actually matter much."
Great review on themilkfactory!
28.10.2010
Playing at the CASS concert seried on monday at the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag.
The piece will be a revised and longer (almost 12 minutes) version of 'Angst', a piece that I composed last winter.
"Angst started as an experiment in composing with various microsound techniques. The piece quickly shifted direction when I
unexpectedly found the heater of my house producing similar pitches to those of the textures I had been generating for my
piece.
I recorded the heater and then created a flow of sounds directed by the slow movements the heater produces when put
into motion. The sound material is a mixture of very short sounds, granular textures and transformations of the low pitch
drones produced by the heater. These sounds interact in various ways producing a very dense and introverted world which
fluctuates between states of order and disorder. The piece was premiered on the 19 of January 2010 at the third discussion
concert of the Institute of Sonology in Den Haag. I recently extended its final section."
01.10.2010
Playing sunday at Z-zondag, het land van X en Y, Villa Ockenburgh. The venue is fantastic, a small house far from the noisy city of Den Haag. Various artists will showcase their works and I am very happy
to be playing with Marie Guilleray, performing a new piece that was specially written for the location.
"Our piece "In between" is inspired by the way resonances can connect together, disturb each other and create new sonic and imaginary environments. The idea is of a pure tone that gives birth to other and more complex acoustic experiences and invites both the performer and listener to participate in this journey. "In between" is the path taken from and to very pure points and examines what happens in the more chaotic states between these two. This could be understood as a parallel world where the listener can witness how a simple sound can evoke images of places, explosions, sounds from nature or mirrors of a performer own sound. "In between" is composed for computer, voice and three gongs."
22.09.2010
Playing thursday night in Berlin, TU WaveField synthesis, 832 speakers a new 24 min piece composed with Miguel Negrão.
"Fallacies is a collaboration piece between Bjarni Gunnarsson and Miguel Negrão. It concerns the real-time interaction and relationships between gradually evolving sine wave drones and dense, dynamic microsounds. The idea is of journey in an indeterminate direction: a global movement carried by an intense current of enfolding sound-masses that get disturbed and affected by streams of high-density subatomic events. Fallacies is a multichannel creation and is to be performed by the two performers in the Wave Field Synthesis system. The project is created around ideas developed after composing for the WFS system in Leiden."
08.06.2010
Playing 12.06, Saturday night at Studio Loos in Den Haag.
This concert is the first one I will play with Marie Guilleray, a very talented vocalist/improvisor/composer whom I have been working with for a few months now. The project explores the use of voice and electronics and for this occasion Marie also
plays accordion and small harps.
01.06.2010
Playing 03.06 with Einóma at Pipp Den Haag.
Playing with Einóma thursday night. Other artist playing are Acid Police, Krakkbot and Duel Protocol.
12.05.2010
Premiere of "dia de mucho, vispera de nada"
Das Plateu has a new piece called "dia de mucho, vispera de nada" for which I participated in the sonic territory. The music was created by Jacob Stambach and me during recording sessions in Paris in February 2010. The result was later edited by Jacob for "dia de mucho, vispera de nada".
"Aprés Le Bon Chemin et SIG Sauer Pro, Das Plateau propose avec Dia de mucho, vispera de nada, son troisiéme travail sur l'écriture de Jacques Albert. Dia de mucho, vispera de nada, une divagation sonore et lumineuse, une zone de doute ou de frottement, entre fiction dramatique et abstraction plastique."
8 OCTOBRE 2010 (21h00) | FESTIVAL ACTORAL.10 | MONTEVIDEO
03 ET 04 JUIN 2010 | FESTIVAL 360 | LILAS EN SCENE
21 MAI 2010 (21h45) ET 22 MAI 2010 (19h00) | FESTIVAL LES TJCC | CDN DE GENNEVILLIERS
02.05.2010
A new piece 'Windveine' premiered.
On the 11th of May there will be a premiere of a new piece of mine called "Windveine" composed especially for the Wave Field Synthesis
system in Leiden. I have been working in with the system in Leiden these past weeks, experimenting with various stretegies of sptializing my sound material for this new piece
and I am very excited about the result. When working directly with sounds surrounding you by 192 speakers I feel I have been guided towards something else, something new for me.
I hope to continue working with the WFS technology.
"In 1988 professor Berkhout (Technical University of Delft) invented the principle of Wave Field Synthesis (WFS).
Wave Field Synthesis is based on the Huygens' principle. In his TraitŽ de la lumire Christiaan Huygens stated that a wavefront can be reconstructed from a continuous distribution of secondary sources on the wave front.
Lord Rayleigh advanced this theory by demonstrating that one can achieve the same result using secondary sources in a planer configuration.
Professor Berkhout subsequently conceived the idea that it is possible to reconstruct a virtual source.
An advantage of WFS is that the "sweet spot", typical in stereo reproduction, is enlarged to a "sweet area". This is because the reproduction is not based on psychoacoustical principles but on a physical reproduction of the sound field.
A "sweet spot" means that there is only one listening position where the spatial effect is rendered correctly. A "sweet area" means that there is a listening area and as a result many listeners can perceive the spatial rendering correctly at the same time.
A consequence of the physical reproduction of the sound field is that Doppler effects (i.e. sound of a passing siren) are rendered in a natural way.
In WFS sounds can be placed in front of the speakers. This is called a "focused source"."
20.04.2010
Download Blindni
In this months edition on Textura.org my composition 'Blindni' is featured as a free download -> Textura.org
Blindni was composed in 2007 and features the voice of Benoite Schpilberg.
03.04.2010
Playing 09.04 with Einóma at the afterparty for the Autechre concert in Bruxelles.
A brand new one hour set we have been working on during the past weeks. The venue is also very interesting. In addition to this I will also play a quite intimate
set in a friends living room on the Sunday afternoon. Not sure of the address of that one, but stay in touch if you are interested in coming.
10.03.2010
Review of Safn 2006-2009 on Ambientblog.net
"On Safn 2006-2009, Bjarni Gunnarsson creates fascinating soundfields that are calm and unnerving at the same time."
"... explores both ambient and noise music at the same time - crossing the borders with a stunning result."
http://www.vancooten.com/blog/?e=281
05.03.2010
Solo set for the Wonderwerp series at Studio Loos
I will be playing a new live set created after my album release for the monthly edition of Wonderwerp at Studio Loos. It features
material from the album as well as new pieces I«m currently working on. Also playing are Marie Guilleray and Federico Casagrande, improvised music for guitar
and voice which could be very interesting, and the electronic act Lumisokea.
15.01.2010
A premiere of my new piece 'Angst'
I will be diffusing a new piece of mine called Angst. The piece was created from various experiments with microsounds combined with recordings made of the heater in my house
that appears to have some sort of misterious behavior in the wintertime. There will be 24 different speakers and I will be playing in real-time with diffusing the piece in the
big space of Shoenberg Hall at the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag.