numen - self titled (cd)

Thanos Chrysakis, Wade Matthews

Duration 49.19

THANOS CHRYSAKIS
LAPTOP COMPUTER &
ELECTRONICS

WADE MATTHEWS
DIGITAL SYNTHESIS &
FIELD RECORDINGS

RECORDED DEC 2010
AT SMILING COW STUDIOS, MADRID

Thanos Chrysakis' output consists of composition, performance, and installation. He was born in Athens in 1971, residing in the UK since 1998. His work has appeared on various independent labels, and events in several countries. He composes for electronics, acoustic instruments and environmental sounds, focusing on the structural and aesthetic capacity of sonic matter. His work was amongst the selected works at the International Competition de Musique et d'Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges 2005, in the category œuvre d'art sonore électroacoustique, while received an honorary mention in 2006 at the 7th International Electroacoustic Competition Musica Viva in Lisbon. Recent compositions include: ??G?? (Monochrome Vision 2011) Subterranean Sky (Aural Terrains 2010), EIRMOS I / II (for Wilfrido Terrazas [solo flute/bass flute] 2011), ERRINA (for Alexander Bruck [solo viola] 2011). His current performing projects are: a Trio with Wade Matthews and Dario Bernal-Villegas, a duo with Wade Matthews, and the trio Syneuma with James O'Sullivan and Jerry Wigens.

Advanced academic studies in composition helped French-born American musician Wade Matthews realize he was not interested in telling other people what or how to play. In 1989, he moved from New York to Madrid and became part of the international improv community. Drawing on his knowledge of electronic music, he approached the bass clarinet and alto flute as “acoustic synthesizers”, rethinking their sonic possibilities, phrasing, and relation to breath in a musical language based on real-time creation. When faster processors made laptop synthesis viable, Matthews returned to his first love, tweaking a virtual synthesizer to allow very rapid control of sound parameters for solo playing and dialog with others. In 2007, he founded INTERMEDIA 28 with photographer Adam Lubroth and guitarist Julio Camarena. There, he began to combine field recordings with electronic synthesis in a 2-computer setup that has since become his main instrument.