Wallpaper Music IV, by Erik Griswold

Wallpaper Music IV

by Erik Griswold

supported by

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$9 USD or more

	1.	Wallpaper Music IV 30:33		buy track
	2.	Wallpaper Music IV (Excerpt) 06:00		buy track

about

From Erik Griswold

Returning to the Wallpaper Music series after 13 years, I wondered how I could extend it, when I had already altered the sound of the piano beyond recognition in volumes 1-3. I knew I wanted to create a really unusual sound, and to create a durational experience that would stretch one’s sense of the passing of time.

Earlier in the year, I had been working closely with pianist Margaret Leng Tan (long term collaborator of John Cage and George Crumb), creating the music for her one woman show “Dragon ladies don’t weep.” One of the elements we worked on together was bowed piano, and Margaret generously showed me her techniques and methods. During the COVID 19 lockdown I had plenty of time in my home studio to further experiment, constructing and practicing with my own bows, and this became my focus for WM4.

In Wallpaper Music 4, I use 11 “bows” (actually rosined strands of fishing line) to build up accumulating layers of tones across the piano – a giant, pulsing chord. There is an organic quality to the sound; within each tone is a detailed world of grain, texture, shifting harmonics and strange undertones. I introduced a slow breathing cycle into the sustaining notes, using an arithmetical pattern – 6 bows / breath / 5 bows / breath / 4 bows / breath / 3 bows / breath, 2 bows / breath, and then the reverse. I used prime numbers to offset the lengths of the rhythmic cycles, ensuring that each would be always out of sync with the others, creating constantly new relationships.

In the same way that one has to “look away” to see certain constellations of stars, or to see dark patches in the Milky Way, one can “listen away” – or deflect one’s attention away from the individual tones and surface details, in order to hear the shifting aural patterns of overtones, undertones, phasing, and modulation of sounds.

I’m very grateful to Brisbane Festival director Louise Bezzina and series curator Lawrence English for commissioning this work.

credits

released November 13, 2020

license

about

Room40

Room40, a beacon of sound...ringing out from the deepest south. Also home to our sibling labels Someone Good and A Guide To Saints.

contact / help

Contact Room40

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Wallpaper Music IV, you may also like:

Appearance
by Chris Abrahams

supported by 18 fans who also own “Wallpaper Music IV”

Time doesn’t exist here. Fabio Viola
go to album
Approach
by Lawrence English

supported by 18 fans who also own “Wallpaper Music IV”

Award for Best Soundtrack For Staring Into The Void 2022 Mark Norgate
go to album
Lassitude
by Lawrence English

supported by 16 fans who also own “Wallpaper Music IV”

Lassitude: my favourite 20minute OM moment this year. usually on repeat wolf k.
go to album
Nocturnal Machines
by Marc Kellaway

Marc Kellaway combines prepared piano with other acoustic and electronic elements on this mysterious new LP. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 14, 2023
go to album
Boat
by Low Altitude

The gorgeously minimalist “boat” blends long, sustained major chords with the sound of lapping waves. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 18, 2024
go to album
Re-Cartographies
by Luis Miehlich

A combination of looping, spacial effects, and modular synthesis turns modern classical sounds into submerged, haunting ambient. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 20, 2024
go to album
Performances & Recordings 1998-2018
by Charles Curtis

supported by 15 fans who also own “Wallpaper Music IV”

Sounds like lines. Conducive to bringing out the unknown forms that lurk in our minds. sylvain-levier
go to album