New York, NY (Top40 Charts) On Sunday, June 18, 2023, composer Paula Matthusen and visual artist
Olivia Valentine release a new album, between systems and grounds - the overshot sessions, on Carrier Records. between systems and grounds - the overshot sessions is a set of five pieces created as a product of Matthusen and Valentine's slowly evolving collaboration that began in 2015 when they met in Rome, Italy.
The album brings together two mediums: live-electronics and live-textile construction, to examine contrasting spaces and time scales by interacting with patterns of tone and noise and computational techniques in art making practices. Using audio-responsive software to control hand-woven patterns on the loom and an audio synthesis program developed by the duo, they created an interdisciplinary method of art creation that fueled the album's production and concept.
Through their collaborations, Matthusen and
Valentine have performed and exhibited work in venues spanning art and music venues across the US and internationally, and the first album, Between Systems and Grounds, was released in 2018. This latest work, between systems and grounds - the overshot sessions will be available as both a digital release with five tracks and a limited edition 7" vinyl album, with hand printed and flocked interference. Additionally, Paula Matthusen and
Olivia Valentine will be joined by musicians Ritwik Banerji, Warren Enström, and Sam Wells at the Des Moines Art Week on release date, Sunday, June 18, for a live, continuous performance and release event between 2:00-5:00pm Central Time.
Together they explain that, "Much of the groundwork for the overshot sessions was developed with the intention of sharing the same physical space and time. In response to the disruptions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project became reconfigured through a number of streaming platforms so that audio could be passed back and forth between Middletown, CT and Des Moines, IA where Matthusen and
Valentine respectively are based. The strategy taken was not to fight the latencies inherent in these various streaming technologies, but instead to emphasize them as a series of delay lines to be utilized for their own musical and creative potential. This resulted in a series of performances and presentations, often linking a series of different spaces and geographies."
The collaborative project first made headway in 2016 with a live performance in Budapest featuring real-time textile and electronics construction. Matthusen and
Valentine continued to evolve their work through residencies at The Hambidge Center and ACRE. There, they honed in on the durational aspects of the project and began to embrace site-specificity. With each additional iteration and performance, between systems and grounds grew to incorporate radio signals, feedback, field recordings, and a cue system that all contributed to slowly growing the textile at the heart of the project.
The A/B sides on the vinyl are from sessions hosted by the American Academy in Rome Society of Fellows, with the audio re-amplified through the cryptoporticus at the AAR in Rome on July 6, 2021 with support from Jean Dommermuth, Molissa Fenley, and Anna Serotta. The record functions more as an art object, applying weave patterns over the recorded audio. It is a very limited edition (each one is unique) and it may damage needles on record players.
Paula Matthusen is a composer who writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations. In addition to writing for a variety of different ensembles, she also collaborates with choreographers and theater companies. She has written for diverse instrumentations, such as "run-on sentence of the pavement" for piano, ping-pong balls, and electronics, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker noted as being "entrancing." Her work often considers discrepancies in musical space - real, imagined, and remembered.
Her music has been performed by Dither, Mantra Percussion, the Bang On A Can All-Stars, Brooklyn Rider, Metropolis Ensemble, Loadbang, New York New
Music Ensemble, Splinter Reeds, the Scharoun Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), orchest de ereprijs, The Glass Farm Ensemble, the Estonian
National Ballet,
James Moore, Terri Hron, Dana Jessen, Kathryn Woodard, Todd Reynolds, Kathleen Supové,
Margaret Lancaster, Anna Svensdotter, Nina De Heney, and Jody Redhage. Her work has been performed at numerous venues and festivals in
America and Europe, including the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, the Caramoor Festival, the MusicNOW Series of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Ecstatic
Music Festival, Other Minds, the MATA Festival, Merkin Concert Hall, the Aspen
Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer
Institute of
Music at MassMoCA, the Gaudeamus New
Music Week, SEAMUS, International Computer
Music Conference and Dither's Invisible Dog Extravaganza.
Awards include the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fulbright Grant, two ASCAP
Morton Gould Young Composers' Awards, First Prize in the Young Composers' Meeting Composition Competition, the MacCracken and Langley Ryan Fellowship, a Van Lier Fellowship at Roulette Intermedium, the "New Genre Prize" from the IAWM Search for New Music, and the 2014 Elliott Carter Rome Prize. Matthusen has also held residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hambidge, ACRE, create@iEar at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, STEIM, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, VCCA, CMMAS, Konstepidemin, Copland House, Composers NOW Residency at Pocantico, the Hambidge Center, and Loghaven. Matthusen completed her Ph.D. at New York University - GSAS and has taught at Columbia University, the TU-Berlin as the Edgard Varèse Guest Professor (through DAAD), the Slee Visiting Professor at University at Buffalo, and Florida International University. Matthusen is currently Professor of
Music at Wesleyan University, where she teaches experimental music, composition, and music technology.
Olivia Valentine is a Des Moines, Iowa based visual artist working in textile construction, drawing, photography, and installation, as well as collaborative projects that span a variety of media and disciplines. Through her work she examines the edges and boundaries of spaces, often beginning with the close examination of the edges of fabrics and textiles.
Her work has been exhibited and performed across the US and internationally at museums and galleries including a recent solo exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center (Iowa) and other venues such as The
Round Tower (Copenhagen), Museum of Arts and Design (New York), The Kohler Art Center (Wisconsin),
Heaven Gallery (Chicago), The Constance Art Gallery (Iowa), White Space (Atlanta), The Danish Royal Academy (Copenhagen), The Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), The American Academy in Rome (Italy), The Wilton House Museum (Virginia), The Rijswijk Museum (The Netherlands), Palazzo del Broletto (Italy), Womanmade Gallery (Chicago), The Arlington Arts Center (Virginia), Madison-Morgan Cultural Center (Georgia), and The Powerhouse Museum (Australia). Her work is represented by Olson-Larsen Gallery and is held in museum and private collections in the US and Europe.
Awards include a Fulbright Fellowship in Installation Art (Turkey), A 2020 Iowa Artist Fellowship The Fountainhead Fellowship from Virginia Commonwealth University, and The Founding Presidents Award and the Brandford/Elliot Award from the Textile Society of America. Grants include an American Rescue Plan Grant and a Resiliency Grant from the Iowa Arts Council and a number of research grants. She has had residencies at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, The Jentel Foundation, Florida
State University, The Hambidge Center, I-Park, ACRE, The American Academy in Rome (Italy), Illinois
State University, Sculpture Space, Babayan Kulture Evi (Turkey), Ox-bow, and Ragdale.
Olivia is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Iowa
State University and has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, IE Universidad (Spain). Learn more at https://oliviavalentine.net.
between systems and grounds - the overshot sessions Tracklist:
1. Fitch Wyllys [4:00]
2. [in] [17:40]
3. Mise-En [17:53]
4. [out] [5:38]
5. in memoriam [19:58]
Total Time: 1:05:09
Mastered by Nathan James, Vault Mastering
Record production by Phil Young and Trey Reis
Album graphics by M. Wright | thisisindex.com
