I formed KUBOV with Emma Lloyd in 2012. KUBOV is a live band of electronics with violin. We’ve been lucky enough to travel the world performing in some of the most amazing venues. Below are some live recordings, as well as a preview to our album being released in the next month.
We’ve made an album – Invisible Soundscapes
Here are a few old electroinstrumental pieces I’ve written over the years.
The Confines of light and Shade:
This piece was developed algorithmically using slippery chicken. The piece was commissioned by the Colourscape festival and first performed on 21st September in a Colourscape dome. It demonstrates later use and development of my algorithmic techniques, perceptual translation and dealing with commissions and communication with a patch operator . It also explores performances in unusual venues.
The Augmented Piano:
The Augmented Piano is a work for solo piano and live electronics. By exploring the implicitfeedback of electroacoustic instruments and extended piano technique during composition, this piece explores different forms of interaction between acoustic and digital media.Of im-port to the work is the practice of electroacoustic performance and its current concerns,whichrequired a brief interrogation of audience expectations and the aesthetics of laptop performance.Also,being largely improvisational, The Augmented Piano necessitates a critical engagement withthe nature of spontaneous music, particularly in digital music, in order to successfully advise it.
XYRE:
Written for residency at the Highland Connections Project.
Three pieces for Violin and Computer, with Emma Lloyd
These three violin pieces (104, Mechanica, and Softly, softly) were formed early on in my research. They explore different ways of generating and presenting material collaboratively. The intricate nature of these works demonstrates how Emma Lloyd and I explored instrumental material as sound objects – looking at different qualities of different notes and how best they could be presented alongside a computer part. Mechanica also contributes to my exploration of algorithmic composition.
Article: Breaking Boundaries of Role and Hierarchy in Collaborative Music-Making
Published in March 2017 in a Contemporary Music Review special issue “Collaboration in Contemporary Music”
Abstract: This paper explores the collaborative relationship between Jess Aslan and Emma Lloyd in the context of two projects: a set of three pieces for violin and computer and an electro-instrumental duo album under the band name KUBOV. Beginning with discrete roles as composer and performer, our working relationship progressed naturally into one of equal authorship, and equal performative contribution. In exploring this creative relationship, we will examine the effects of working primarily with sound, over notation.
We look at how building and extending our instruments affected the hybridity of our sound and contributed to the development of our musical language. We will analyse the importance of improvisation to our development as a duo, in the generation of ideas and the discovery of new sounds and potential in our instruments. This allowed us to retain a certain freedom when we returned to a loosely composed format to record our album.
Over the course of this paper, we will examine the terms of our collaboration, with reference to other relevant work. We contextualise this collaboration with theoretical analysis and we reflect on the practicalities of our joint musical development and the growth of our musical partnership. The initial classically informed hierarchy of the composer/performer duo dissolved as we each took on a balanced creative and performative role.