ben vida: esstends-esstends-esstends

In collaboration with Keith Fullerton Whitman and Greg Davis, Ben Vida explores cross-control voltage-integrated improvisation and real-time automatic group composition. Ben has worked with artists Hisham Bharoocha (duo as Soft Circle), Siebren Versteeg, Doug Aitken, Nadia Hironaka and Mathew Suib. He has played in ensembles led by Tony Conrad, Rhys Chatham, and Werner Dafeldecker. As an improviser, he has performed with Milo Fine, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Chad Taylor, Kevin Drumm, Yamatsuka Eye and C. Spencer Yeh, among many others. He has released over 20 records on such labels as Thrill Jockey, Drag City, PAN, Amish, Bottrop-Boy, Häpna and Kranky. In 2011, Ben was Composer in Residency at Diapason Space, NYC and at EMS Studios, Stockholm and was awarded a Swedish Arts Committee Travel Grant, ISSUE Project Room Emerging Artists Commission and Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona "Composing with Process" Exclusive Works Commission. Esstends-Esstends-Esstends is a collection of spatial compositions in which audio focal points shift between external and internal emanation sources. The intent with this work is to escape the stereo image and create an activated listening space of expanded spatialization. Using just intoned pitch combinations to produce difference tones and harmonic distortions, sound materials are created that emanate from both the playback speakers and inner ear of the listener. By engaging the listener's sense of aural perception and sound localization in relationship to compositional structure, these pieces act to reframe the listening experience and encourage an engagement with, not only the form and aesthetic of the music, but the sonic space a recorded piece of music projects. Higher amplitude will help to reveal. Limited edition of 500 copies, pressed on 140 gram vinyl. Housed in a poly-lined inner sleeve, packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silk-screened PVC sleeve with artwork by Kathryn Politis & Bill Kouligas.