Ch. 2.1 The art of transmutation
Live remixing is a captivating and innovative approach to music making that empowers musicians to create, manipulate, and transform music in real-time. At its core, live remixing leverages a wide array of technological solutions and methods that allow for the spontaneous composition and performance of music.
Utilizing digital audio workstations (DAWs), mixers, samplers, and a variety of input/output devices such as MIDI controllers and sequencers, remixicians blend recorded audio clips, loops, and live inputs into a cohesive musical experience.
The process involves on-the-fly recording to capture live audio channels from other musicians and sound sources, enabling remixicians to layer instruments, sonic gestures and motifs, create complex rhythms, and build musical textures dynamically. Through various techniques of deconstruction, recontextualization, distortion, time warping and stretching, algorithmic processing and pitch modulations, the recorded or live processed sounds take on new roles, shapes and forms.
The sound itself is like the clay we sculpt with. What we create is everchanging and fleeting, a sonic flux in the present moment, temporarily solidified and crystallized until the constructs are broken down again or recast into new forms.
Furthermore, advanced effects processing and real-time manipulation of audio parameters allow for the sculpting of sounds as they are being played, offering an unparalleled level of control over the auditory experience.
Through these technological means, live remixing dissolves the boundaries between composition and performance, inviting both musicians and audience into a shared space of musical exploration and discovery.
Ch. 2.2 Sonic symbiosis
Live remixing happens in a creative space where music is not bound by external, predefined compositional constraints, but emerges organically from the interactions and decisions happening live within the musical experience. The musical narratives and spontaneous compositions are not predicated upon anything residing outside of the musical domain where it emerges into actualization. Live remixing is a process oriented approach where one is not aiming for a specific composition or sometimes even genre, but rather exploring how the sound itself can be the fertile ground for sprouting new musical experiences.
In live remixing, the musician, or remixician, engages with music in a fundamentally interactive way. Instead of using traditional instruments or following a pre-determined score, the remixician samples and manipulates existing sounds and musical fragments. They weave together loops, effects, and live inputs, effectively using the very fabric of sound as their instrument. This process can be thought of as using the 'strings of music' to play music, where each action by the remixician - each press of a button, twist of a knob, or slide of a fader - is akin to plucking a string or striking a chord on a guitar. The remixician's craft is akin to sculpting sound in real-time, crafting a sonic landscape that is fluid and responsive, shaped by intuition and interaction with the music as it unfolds.
There is an inescapable interdependency within live remixing, a need for a collaborative space that facilitates interagency and possibilities for interconnectiveness. This interdependency in live remixing, where the music is both the medium and the instrument, reveals a kind of sonic symbiosis. Which is to also say; do not piggyback another musician's art as a shortcut for your own gain. That should rather be called a sonic "parasitism", something that unfortunately is a pitfall many lazy remixes succumb to if the artist lacks the needed integrity and authenticity.
Unlike traditional music, which often relies on scores, arrangements, and pre-determined structures, live remixing thrives in the moment, engaging directly with the ever-present "now." This approach allows the remixician to "play the process" itself, manipulating and transforming sounds in real-time, rather than merely executing predefined material.
This mode of music-making highlights the dynamic, fluid nature of sound, emphasizing process and becoming over static being and identical representation of predefined structures. It encourages embracing the potentialities of the moment, exploring the vast possibilities that lie within sounds themselves, and crafting auditory experiences through transmutation.
Ch. 2.3 Necessity teaches the naked lady to spin.
“Nød lærer naken kvinne å spinne” is a Norwegian saying meaning that once one is in need or in an emergency of sorts, that situation will teach you what you have to learn to overcome the challenge. Spin in this context pertains to spinning yarn, if you wondered.
This mindset is to me a crucial part of the approach of designing hybrid live electroacoustic performance rigs and facilitating adaptability and flexibility.
There is a good chance one has to deal with the limitations of transporting heavy flight cases, bags and numerous different gear and equipment to perform on-stage or when going to record in a studio. This means that compromises usually have to happen to make the rig pragmatic and portable enough for transport and touring. Many venues and recording situations also present technological limitations like number of available return channels, constraints of the room or stage size, challenges of the digital/analog domain (e.g. compatibility with ADAT, patchbay re-routing, tracking options etc.).
Working with technology, cross-communication between sensors, analog and digital domains, software, hardware, electric and acoustic instruments - you are bound to encounter problems at some point, and it can happen at the worst thinkable time. I still remember when my synthesizer failed to play a single note due to a network gate overlap between my RTP-MIDI distribution device (over ethernet) and my audio interface at the very start of a concert. It feels like what I can only imagine a rock band would feel if their lead guitar suddenly melted on stage. In those moments one has to balance a delicate knife's edge between solving the issue and finding a new solution to "the show must go on".
I have changed batteries to my keyboard/trackpad mid-concert when I suddenly lost control over the rig, I have re-routed jacks directly on stage when return channels from the mixer malfunctioned, even entering BIOS settings of my computer to disable and re-enable Thunderbolt after a power outtage at an outdoor festival made my interface refuse connection.
After many of these hiccups, you will find the necessary safety mechanisms and flexible backup plans for most situations, but live electronic music will still never be as operationally safe as a playing a trumpet. That is a risk the remixician has to be willing to take.
Being a remixician requires a solution-oriented attitude and embracing the unexpected, whether the surprises are technical, practical or musical.
Ch. 2.2 The original remixician
I initially encountered Jan Bang's approach to music when he performed in a live remixing duet with Jason Moran at Moldejazz in 2013. The endless curiosity between the two, their expansion of possibility within instrumental limitations and Jan's courage to dive into unknown sonic territories with playfulness and integrity, left a lasting impression that would later pull me into learning the craft.
In Luca Vitaly's brilliant book "The Sound of the North", there is an excerpt from an interview he did with Jan in 2010. Here Jan presents the very beginning of his technique back in 1996.
Bugge [Wesseltoft] asked me "I'm putting together a band and I'd like you to be part of it. What could you do live?" And I thought that I could use the Akai sampler that I had and could sample the sounds from the musicians on stage, instead of from records. So we decided to call this thing, which was totally new at the time, "live sampling", a definition that is still used today. This approach created a new opportunity for me to improvise with electronics, a difficult kind of work that requires great speed in order to keep up with the musicians - between present, past and future! (Vitaly, 2015)
Jan Bang and Erik Honoré would later go on to found the Punkt Festival in 2005, a groundbreaking celebration of live remixing, where whole concerts would be sampled and reinterpreted live immediately after. Punkt and the possibility of learning from Jan Bang was the deciding factor that made me study Electronic Music at University of Agder in Kristiansand.
In the last years, I have had the pleasure of doing several performances at the festival:
- 2018: Solo live remix set
- 2019: Ambisonic, immersive live remix of Spurv w/Zack Bresler
- 2020: Live remix of Moskus w/Kristine Hoff
- Live remix of Jan Bang and Eivind Aarset w/Nils Petter Molvær and Audun Kleive
- 2021: Live remix of SKRIM w/Alessandra Bossa
- 2022: Live remix of Joanna Duda and Erlend Apneseth w/Even Sefenias Sigurdsen Frodesønn Røstad, Michał Nietyksza and Kacper Krupa.
During an interview together with composer Rolf Gupta and Jan Bang, in relation to the premiere of Gupta's "Jordens Sang" performed by Kristiansand Symphonic Orchestra (KSO), which I did a live remix of, Jan described my way of music making using a quite hilariously fitting analogy:
"Often, I describe Kristian 's way of working, like a sort of ginger root (...) it does not have a starting point or an end point, but it grows out from some sort of center." (Røysland, 2019)