Cobra

for 4 channel tape (20′)

1988

Recording available on DaCapo Records: http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recording-electro-acustic-music-from-diem.aspx

Cobra (1988) was commissioned through the Danish Art Council by the Randers Art Museum in celebration of the museum’s 100th anniversary and realized at DIEM’s studio in Aarhus, Denmark. The piece has since been presented at the Rostrum for electronic music in Stockholm, the Bourges festival, the International Computer Music Festival in Columbus, Ohio and as a ballet at the South Bank Centre in London. The work is available on CD on the Da Capo label.

The sound material is derived mostly from the voice of the Danish alto, Hanne Stavad. The material has been digitally processed using the Karplus-Strong algorithm and cross-fading to create hybrid instruments – essentially crosses between sung vowels and plucked string instruments. The work is a strict twenty- voice canon with a delay of 1.5 seconds between each voice. These twenty voices are distributed between the four speakers in a large circle.

Download programme note as PDF: Cobra