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All the Stars Burning Bright
eM/M. Bentley

FOU.13 - All the Stars Burning Bright is an exploration of the universe through sound, an experiment designed by eM to venture beyond our gravity well. Beginning with A Dream of Summer Stars we leave the familiar confines of our horizons and venture into more remote and unearthly sonic realms. Parsecs, constructed largely from heavily processed NASA recordings, propels us across open vacuum, and through the Starswarm that follows. Suspensions and Burning Bright suggest both the immense stillness and roiling activity of the night sky, while Between provides a melancholy respite before the revelations of Others. Our dream fades as we drift Beyond the Shoals of Stars, a piece that elaborates on an earlier composition (The Shoals of Stars on Mote - FOU.06).

These pieces ruminate not simply on the stars, but on the space between them. The compositions emulate no one model, but draw on many sources, from the Voyager recordings to the writings of Brian Aldiss and H.P. Lovecraft. All the Stars Burning Bright also functions as a kind of diary, giving voice to a variety of dreams and memories.

How can I summarize this project... childhood stargazing. I explore the night sky, the deep darkness. Turn the telescope around and things become distant rather than near, a reversed spyglass gazing into a microprocessor. Hidden in strings of numbers, in the mathematical essence of digital sound processing (DSP) are the elder gods, a coded (if not secret) presence... in fact always present. I hear them speak, great nonhuman voices emerging from the mix, a thing as other as any imagined Little Green Man or Bug-Eyed Monster. Funny how the science of the computer allows (or even encourages) such nonscientific revelations. These soundscapes distill science fiction stories read so long ago, stellar vistas unfolding before me. In this way the inner and outer blend... dreams, I suppose... and I am in many places at once: an explorer, a contemplative, a child at play. (from eM's studio journals)

All the Stars Burning Bright echoes the deepest reaches of the night with both a sonic lushness and an alien austerity. Sounds passing through clouds of dust and gas, dreaming in the bejeweled darkness.

With this latest work eM continues to develop a broad palette of techniques and sonic shadings, utilizing them here to form a deep space panorama. All the Stars Burning Bright is one of several projects developed during an intensely productive period and documents the growing confidence and abilities of this unique sound artist.

Michael Bentley, founder of The Foundry label, has recorded under the name eM for six years, and has released a number of EPs and CDs of electronic and experimental music. Recent projects include the Import EP (released by the Irish label FŠllt as part of the invalidObject series); the Click Pop EP (released by the Archipelago, a loose association of Bay Area artists), and Broken Moments (a suite of short pieces released through the .tiln website). eM has also contributed to a CD compilation accompanying the Winter 2000 issue of MIT Press's Computer Music Journal, and to a compilation of No Compression Festival participants.


TRACK LISTING:

1. dream of summer stars [10.26]

2. parsecs [6.16] MP3 excerpt

3. starswarm [5.20] MP3 excerpt

4. suspensions [7.31] MP3 excerpt

5. burning bright [6.39]

6. between [6.06] MP3 excerpt

7. others [10.19]

8. beyond the shoals of stars [7.15]


EXTRAS:
  • All the Stars Burning Bright PDF booklet

  • Non-album track:
    • MP3 burning bright (alternate version) [5.02]


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