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An extremely subwoofer-dependent stereo electroacoustic composition (skirting the borders of music-concrete and ideally performed on a large acousmonium, ), like UN LUGAR INHABITADO, is, in 2010, seldom regarded as state-of-the-art, innovative or cutting-edge.

Created in the private studio of H.E.R. Kryptic Visions, in Berlin (Germany), in the winter 2009/2010, this nearly ten minute stereo musical composition was created, essentially as an act of desperation and out of sheerest need, for so much contemporary computer-generated or computer assisted art-generation is driven and spawned by the aesthetics of the software or hardware used to create it. Much of the rest of such creation is inspired by engineering and scientific indulgences, blind to existing notions and well-established aesthetics of music (all genre), in its simplest sense.

That often results in sound-art works of the highest definition (HD: full-range/full-frequency), pristine, crystalline, sterile, precise and accurate the point of merely illustrating mathematical, engineering or design theory, while aesthetically inducing chills, fever, allergic reaction and nose-bleeds, figuratively speaking.

Innovatively, this piece explores and aspires to exploits the scope and minutia of achieving sensual balance and seamless integration between LoFi and HiFi. This piece strives to incite a psychoacoustic and temporal illusion, defying the physical confines of the concert space and disrupting the sense of drilling forthright time. This piece toys with and teases complexity by adhering to transparent structure while simultaneously addressing a cornucopia and cacophony of emotions.

This piece employs hi-fidelity and lo-fidelity sounds/samples, signal-processing, digital and analogue recordings, and “harvesting” techniques to egalitarian ends, the art of such being the unidentifiability or total integration of the results, whether hifi or lofi, with but one common aspiration: integral musical symbiosis.

This electroacoustic work was conceived of, designed and physically composed within six months, using a personal computer, employing the CDP software suite and SOUNDLOOM, the latter designed by Trevor Wishart.

No sounds were explicitly recorded for this work; although, all “real-world” sources were taken from my personal collection of live recordings. Few “real-world” events were exploited, unaltered, and some “real-world” sounding events are wholly digitally synthesized contrivances.

This piece is dedicated to: Anton Oscar Behles, born on 12-March-2010.

PROGRAM NOTE:

The question "why, inhabitado?" is trivial when compared to "how inhabitado?", least of all because nothing independently isolated or innately means anything; that's why we have intelligence, to construe and ascribe significance to events (real, simulated or imagined) where there simply is none.

Consequently, this title affords dual contemplations: is this place somewhere where no one lives? Is this place possibly a place where no one could live?

UN LUGAR INHABITADO is a place, sometimes buried in fog, smoke or clouds, sometimes hot, sometimes on fire, sultry. It is also, sometimes, a place sequestered in darkness, pitch darkness. One of its voices, dark and grounding, is haunting, droning and seemingly omnipresent; though, does this same voice spawn silence, momentary, sculpted and punctuated silence? Is this thickness a presence or an absence? Is there ever, really, any silence?

This place, UN LUGAR INHABITADO, is sometimes calm, harmonious and enticing, recurrent conditions, yes, though fleeting. This same place is intermittently threatening, aggressive and disquieting, until the convergences, convergences which are not necessarily resolution nor explicitly denouement.

The convergences, of which there are three, are, sometimes physical illusions; as, sometimes there are more or even fewer of them. They manipulate time, in both conscious and subconscious ways. Sometimes they simply defy time, without the need to manipulate it.

This place, will not and can not be confined to “interior”; as well, it can not be definitively identified as “exterior”, drifting as it does, caged and winged, like dreaming, between dimensions and perhaps converging momentarily “nowhere”.

UN LUGAR INHABITADO is sometimes drenched, moist or humid, sometimes rank and musky, sometimes lushly scented, fragrant and arid. Although mostly “high-temperatured”, this placed is filled with chilling winds, howling and virtually silent shifty desert drafts and frigid arctic gushes.

UN LUGAR INHABITADO has its own microscopic world, swarming, pestering and, simultaneously, oddly soothing. As biologically implicit as they may seem, at first, are they the givers and drivers of rhythms, the keepers and beaters of time. Do they exist, minute and miniscule beings, just to make room for larger imposing illusive beasts, the takers and stealers of all things large and small, melody, pulse, meter. Some take without force and not all stealers are looters.

“Nebulousness” is a lingering sensation incited by this place. One simply sits there, when it converges around you, but finds oneself abruptly, impromptu or simultaneously somewhere else, when, without warning, the convergences drift and dissipate.

Listening carefully to UN LUGAR INHABITADO, one might have the impression of recognizing events or transitions which are reminiscent of goings and comings (traffic or transport), though it never becomes clear whether these suggest arrivals in or departures from this place.

UN LUGAR INHABITADO, which will be channelled here, through which you will be channelled and which you will help to create through your indulgence, does, in fact, not exist, real or fictive.

This place, however, contravening some implications of its name, might not necessarily be derogatively "uninhabited" or “uninhabitable”.

Superlatively "uninhabited" could signify a place so irresistibly wonderful, in all those simple ways, that no one chooses the risk of finding it inescapable (once experienced) once entered, a place, consequently, avoided.

As the subjectivity of the medium "music", without words, defies "explicit description or explicit expression", this place, this musical contrivance, this piece will not and can not, of its own accord, communicate my personal "uninhabitability" of a world devoid of my (recently deceased) parents, a world now lacking dimension and curiously apathetic, a world strained in its search for meaning, a world defined by social acceptance (as a replacement for family).

UN LUGAR INHABITADO is, potentially, a happy prosperous place where everybody's wishes are fulfilled, a place where there is no war! There is no poverty, no natural disasters! There is no torture, exploitation or
suffering, a place where everyone's needs are fulfilled.

STOP!

Impossible: UN LUGAR INHABITADO is the waste-land produced by this "reality" of our insatiable and infinite wants and needs as we know them, our worlds, private, individual, driven exclusively by desiring more.

So, this place, for "citizens" whose homes are neither national nor political, is nameless (or maybe celestial).

This place, for those who build "good" conservative and religious futures for their kids, is exclusive (discriminatory), perhaps wonderful in its utter delusion, but doomed.

This place, for those whose success and joys are only measured in "buying power", is but a function of profit, is but an illusion for the few, a struggle for most and, consequently, ultimately doomed.

BUT!

The doors are open and your assistance, like your on-going existence, is required (and inevitable); listen carefully, "resistance is futile!" for even you can't conquer UN LUGAR INHABITADO.

Please surrender, now, to "UN LUGAR INHABITADO: triple torrid convergences (TTC)"

general: Some Electroacoustic Basics

This music is created to be listened to on large "full-frequency" sound-systems with precision subwoofers.

This music is not intended to be listened to on "computer mini-speakers", with or without a subwoofer, as few are designed for high-fidelity.

It is not intended to be listened to with headphones, as much of the spatial "distance" detail is lost and THE DANGER OF DAMAGING YOUR EARS IS VERY REAL.

This music is not compressed, nor normalized (for those of you who know what that means), as doing either would minimize the degrees of subtleness to every level of acoustic detail.

Consequently, the volume on your sound-system has to be turned up "relatively" high to make the extremely quiet sounds audible; accordingly, the loudest sounds will, likely, be startlingly loud. These extreme contrasts allow for profound shades of emotional expressions and will push your sound-system to the extremes.

You are STRONGLY ADVISED to gradually experiment with increasing the volume from below YOUR NORMAL LISTENING LEVEL, until you find the point at which the music "works" (brilliant imaging and
refined detail) without rattling or destroying your system. You may also want to reduce the bass at first (from "no boost") and gradually return it to "no boost" or slightly raised, experimenting for "earthiness", to protect your bass speakers.

This music has been performed on systems from modest to high-powered, WITHOUT DOING DAMAGE.

Thusly, listen to this music AT YOUR OWN RISK; I CAN NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGE DONE TO YOUR EARS OR YOUR SOUND-SYSTEM!