Alexander Wendt’s Unreleased Music for Visualisers is the first imprint for the newly formed Miatera, a sub label of his umbrella 12×50 Recordings. It acts at once as a document of his research into psych-acoustics and interactive sound as it does a sonic text in the loosely termed domain of ambient music. Wendt has been a lecturer at London’s Metropolitan University in film, sonic arts and media design since 2006 and producing the Frequenzen radio program for Resonance Fm in London.
If one can talk of life as interactive, in as much as it is a contemporary word, such words as environmental, ambient and communication act as other signposts to the nature of the sonic domain that interests Wendt. Including field recordings, sub-bass and ultrahigh frequencies the recordings map sonic territory of both the pure frequency and highly manipulated sound palate for listeners familiar with an effects laden sonic environment. The first section of the disc is compositions to the photography of Anne Berndt, included as the cover shot, a depiction of the Confluence of Indus and Zaskar. The second section meditations on three letter words, which oblique to the listener of these minimal sound sculptures build glinting forms, wayward frequencies and robust lower register compositions. The track Bus is also represented by a Quicktime video which as a form of oscilloscope art acts as a visual sonic form to lull the viewer into an immersive state.
Descriptively, without being circular, these present sonic maps of landscapes, both linguistic and visual and map a sound frontier at the same time as indicating the particular direction and terrain of Wendt’s future endeavors to be as much filmic as this survey of his works compiles his movement in composition towards an experimental and psych–effective documents for use in immersive and interactive environments. People familiar with the work of Lawrence English or Philip Samartzis may find this territory akin to their sonic interests.
Innerversitysound
*
