Talman’s fifty-minute piece spellbinds the listener with his artistry and the artistry inherent in our universe.
[Release page] Jeff Talman (b. 1954) has exhaustive studies in composition and the visual arts behind him and is, according to his online bio, considered a ”pioneer of the use of resonance in artworks” on the strength of a process he developed for transforming the ambient resonance of an installation site into its own sound source. He has exhibited at The Kitchen in New York, MIT Media Labs and in the Bavarian forest. The nature of sound and its interaction with its built, human and wild environment is his métier, often on a large scale.
So how much larger than the night sky does it get?
As an exception to the rule that making electronic music is not rocket science, “Nature of the Night Sky” sculpts the sounds of the stars as replicated by a NASA astrophysicist. In the field of stellar seismology—the oscillation of star masses—the sound of the physical body of stars can be computerized to make audible that which otherwise cannot reach our ears, just as the amazing, chromatic photos of deep space delivered by the Hubble telescope are actually computer interpretations of its incoming data.
Like those images, Talman’s fifty-minute piece spellbinds the listener with his artistry and the artistry inherent in our universe. It is the context, its distant source, that makes Nature of the Night Sky such a captivating at-home listen—obviously it must be a radically enhanced experience outside, in an empty field, far from the city lights, at night. But even indoors, it raises that agreeable chill, when the cold plays on your skin before it seeps down into your bones. Your mind reels with the marvel of life and what a talented artist can do with it. It makes for some enchanted evenings.
Nature of the Night Sky is available on New Domain. [Release page]
