Babau & Bienoise / LOOONG PLAY

Loongplay was born in 2022 during a SHAPE+ and Nextones artistic residency in Valdossola, Italy, centered around BABAU’s nomination as SHAPE+ artists 2022/23. Initially conceived as a tutorial and tongue-in-cheek artistic text conceived by Babau, 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 was built with a playful approach to music theory exploring the research on audio, listening and improvisation of scholars and musicians such as Pauline Oliveros, Micah Silver, Jace Clayton and Jem Finer.
Influenced by the approaches of computer music pioneers such as David Behrman, Carl Stone and John Bischoff, 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 #1 & #2 were composed starting from two canons written by means of electronic arpeggios that were later expanded thanks to Max/MSP sound extraction patches. The patches took a portion of the initial audio, generating longer and longer sound patterns. From this initial unpredictable structure, the musicians have included further improvised overdubs including wind instruments (alto saxophone and toleat), field recordings, and additional synth lines.

The result is an immersive two-piece work in which the architectures of the composition change continuously at a slow, unpredictable pace.