Sonic Commentary:: All Ears Contributors’ Notes

Jen Reimer and Max Stein: Wellington Tunnel (5:59)
Contact: Jen Reimer and Max Stein. Email: <info@reimerstein.com>. Web: <www.reimerstein.com>.

Composed by Jen Reimer and Max Stein, Montreal, Canada. French horn, field recordings and live electronics. Performed by Jen Reimer and Max Stein in collaboration with Adam Basanta (light design). Recorded live in a subterranean tunnel, 15 November 2012, by Julian Stein.

LMJ 26 Audio Companion

• Wellington Tunnel. The location of Jen Reimer and Max Stein’s Wellington Tunnel recording, which features instruments and live electronics reverberating through a shuttered tunnel beneath Montreal. Photo by Lenka Novakova

• Wellington Tunnel. Track time: 5:59

Jen Reimer and Max Stein, Wellington Tunnel, from the LMJ26 audio compilation entitled Sonic Commentary: All Ears, curated by Bill Bahng Boyer, 2016. Composed by Jen Reimer and Max Stein, Montreal, Canada. French horn, field recordings and live electronics. Performed by Jen Reimer and Max Stein in collaboration with Adam Basanta (light design). Recorded live in a subterranean tunnel, 15 November 2012, by Julian Stein. The LMJ26 audio compilation is the audio companion to Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 26 (2016). (© Jen Reimer and Max Stein. Compilation © Leonardo/ISAST. All rights reserved.)

The Wellington Tunnels were built in the 1930s as a passage underneath the Lachine Canal in Montreal. The tunnels were closed for security reasons and abandoned in 1994. The concrete tunnels are approximately 200 meters in length. Since moving to Montreal in 2008, we became increasingly intrigued by this location, and after visiting the space several times we decided to create a performance there.

When we first entered the tunnels, we walked 30 meters before plunging into complete darkness. The temperature dropped incrementally. From inside the tunnel, you could hear the quiet resonance of cars driving overhead and dripping water from the canal leaking through the ceiling.

The performance took place at midnight. The piece combined horn, field recordings, live electronics and 12 sound-responsive incandescent light bulbs. The light bulbs spanned the length of the tunnel, lining the ceiling from the entrance to the back of the tunnel, where two PA speakers were situated.

The light and sound guided the audience through the dark and resonant space. The amplitude and flickering lights grew in intensity as the performance progressed.

JEN REIMER (Canada) and MAX STEIN (U.S.A.) are sound artists based in Montreal. Their work explores the resonances and serendipities of urban and rural sonic environments through in situ performances, installations and spatial recordings.

Since 2008 they have created a series of immersive performances for horn, field recordings and live electronics in abandoned and public spaces including Wellington Tunnel, St Urbain Underpass, Bain St-Michel (Montreal), Mãe D’Água (Lisbon), Tunnel Bénedit-Jobin (Marseille,), Rotonda Besana (Milan), Vapaan Taiteen Tila (Helsinki) and Sottopassaggio di Porta Vescovo (Verona).

Sarah Hennies: Gather (5:07)
Contact: Sarah Hennies. Email: <sarah.l.hennies@gmail.com>. Web: <www.sarah-hennies.com>.

Original length: 23′00″. Composed by Sarah Hennies, Ithaca, NY, U.S.A. Recorded April–September 2015.

LMJ 26 Audio Companion

• Gather. Track time: 5:07

Sarah Hennies, Gather, from the LMJ26 audio compilation entitled Sonic Commentary: All Ears, curated by Bill Bahng Boyer, 2016. Original length: 23’00”. Composed by Sarah Hennies, Ithaca, NY, U.S.A. Recorded April--September 2015. The LMJ26 audio compilation is the audio companion to Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 26 (2016). (© Sarah Hennies. Compilation © Leonardo/ISAST. All rights reserved.)

Gather is an electroacoustic work that pairs long periods of sustained tones (played on a vibraphone) with field recordings made at a system of waterfalls in Ithaca, NY (Buttermilk Falls State Park), as well as recordings made at home of a faulty radiator steam valve and FM radio static. The piece is the result of several years of research with the vibraphone wherein I mined new and unusual sounds and acoustic properties from the instrument using almost entirely so-called “traditional” playing techniques (i.e. striking the instrument’s keys with mallets in the usual fashion). My work exposes the vibraphone as a largely unexplored and unfamiliar instrument whose timbre has the sonic precision and intensity of sine waves that is then...