Mathew Adkins

[60]Project is a continuous 60-minute work that Monty Adkins made in 2008 to mark the 60th anniversary of musique concrète and the work of Pierre Schaeffer. Commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, whose artistic director Graham McKenzie first discussed the idea with Adkins, it set out to show that Schaeffer’s ideas still matter to people working across experimental electronic music, rather than to offer a historical survey. It premiered at the festival on November 28, 2008.

In the early months of 2008 Adkins invited composers, sound artists, laptop improvisers and turntablists from around the world, and 66 took part. Each first sent one sound object or a short improvisation with one; in a second stage everyone was asked to make treatments of any of the shared material. In July Adkins took everything to the Ina-GRM in Paris and assembled the piece, following limits similar to those Francis Dhomont had set for his Frankenstein Symphony (1997): cutting, layering and a little transposition, but no further processing.

The result is in three sections of about 20 minutes: abstract electronic and concrète sounds, then a seascape and an urban soundscape, then a return to ambient electronics and finally voices. Along the way Adkins formed imaginary ensembles, some obvious (Christian Fennesz in duet with Tim Hecker and eRikm, a vocal trio of AGF, Iris Garrelfs and Maja Ratkje), others less so. Contributors also include François Bayle, Natasha Barrett, Christina Kubisch, Francisco López, Conrad Schnitzler, David Toop, Terre Thaemlitz, Jonty Harrison and Åke Parmerud.

Born in Leamington in 1972, Adkins read music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, then studied electronic music with Harrison in Birmingham, performing with BEAST, and with Simon Waters at the University of East Anglia. He is professor of experimental electronic music at the University of Huddersfield.

CD in OGpak, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 0898, 2008.