derek piotr: tempatempat

Derek Piotr is a Poland-born sound artist currently based in New England, whose work focuses mainly on the voice. He has been an intern to Meredith Monk, collaborated with AGF and Richard Chartier, and had works featured on ResonanceFM. His second record, Airing, was nominated by the Jury for the Prix Ars Electronica Prize 2012. Tempatempat could be seen as Piotr's "gamelan album"; after records focused on the sound of bells (Airing, 2012) and Eastern tonality (Raj, 2013), this focus was the next logical step. Unlike Raj, where straightforward rhythms aimed to express simple, primal energy, Tempatempat sees Piotr construct deeply layered and largely complex song-based tracks, the majority of which veer close to pop territory. Piotr sings in English on the majority of tracks, an extreme departure from his primarily wordless back-catalog. Tracks "Bhadrakali" and "Yogyakarta" were sung entirely in Indonesian during an experience Piotr had being possessed by a Sufi. The English translation of these tracks was discovered only months after they were recorded, with the aid of a translator. Tracks "Rift." "Encloses" and "Conifers" are constructed entirely from Piotr's voice. A remix of "Encloses" produced by pioneering sound artist Steve Roden appears as a bonus track. Polish composer Szymon Kaliski and accomplished multimedia artist Bartholomäus Traubeck both contributed to "Slow March," Traubeck providing sections of his successful YEARS project for the intro and outro, and Kaliski processing Piotr's original piano and voice into fluttering drones. Many of the gamelan samples on this album were provided courtesy of Elisa Hough. Kent Williams provided engineering assistance on a handful of tracks, and Antony Ryan of acclaimed duo ISAN mastered the record.