For Steelpan and live electronics
First performance: Colin Malloy, 26 March 2022 at University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
The video above is the world premiere performance by myself at University of Victoria on 26 March, 2022 for my PhD recital.
Crushed Atmos explores the space between signal and noise. The original version used a four speaker setup surrounding the audience. The steelpan audio was routed through long, lush reverbs and then fed into two parallel bit crushers per speaker – so eight bit crushers in total. The bit crushers are level triggered with their sensitivity mapped to the expression pedal on my floorboard. They are triggered in such a way that they are active for an extremely short period of time before deactivating again. These bit crushers create random, static-like incursions on what would otherwise be a beautiful, spacious reverie.