ListN Up is a series of artist-curated playlists that offer an intimate sonic portrait of contemporary artists by showcasing the diverse and stylistically varied music that influences their creative practice.
Anıl Çamcı is a composer and professor of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan. His work explores worldmaking across a variety of media from electronic music to virtual reality. His album Dekagon has been recently released by innova Recordings as part of their first national call. The album consists of works discussed in his book, The Cognitive Continuum of Electronic Music, which was published by Bloomsbury in early 2022
Hi everyone, I’m Anıl Çamcı, composer and professor of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan. Some of the works that I picked for this playlist are by pioneering composers who have been influential for me going back several decades. There are also more recent pieces by artists who are shaping modern electronic music. As with many works in this genre, these pieces display rich spectral and dynamic qualities that are best experienced with a good pair of headphones or speakers, so if you happen to have access to such equipment, I would highly recommend taking advantage of those while listening to this playlist. I hope you enjoy it.
Moderato by Astrid Sonne
This is a piece from the composer Astrid Sonne’s 2021 album, outside of your lifetime. It’s an ambient piece that expands and evolves so beautifully that I thought it would be a perfect opener to the playlist.
Mirror by Lyra Pramuk
The next one is from the composer Lyra Pramuk’s 2020 album Fountain. It’s a powerful display of the composer’s vocal processing, which marks her unique style.
Murmureln by Beatriz Ferreyra
Speaking of vocal processing, the pioneering composer Beatriz Ferreyra’s 2003 piece Murmureln leverages a plunderphonic aesthetic in this masterful play of rhythm and space.
Arenas by Horacio Vaggione
Taking sampling to the level of micro-sounds, Arenas (2007) is one of the most impressive showcases of the composer Horacio Vaggione’s pointillistic style.
Little Animals by Natasha Barrett
In one of my favorite works of electronic music, the composer Natasha Barrett assembles micro-sounds into a lively and mysterious habitat of electronic creatures in this piece from 1997.
Pictor Alpha by Curtis Roads
One of the trailblazers of granular synthesis, my former teacher Curtis Roads showcases a particular flavor of this technique called pulsar synthesis in this 2003 piece.
Guero by Helmut Lachenmann
Exploring a similar sound world but this time with an acoustic instrument, Helmut Lachenmann’s Guero for solo piano epitomizes his instrumental musique concrète.
light machine by forbnl
The opening track from forbnl’s 2013 EP goajtskra takes us back to a plunderphonic style, this time in a beautifully dizzying blend of sampling and jazz.
A Field of Social Tension by Li Yilei
The next piece is from the 2020 album of Li Yilei, who has been among my favorite modular artists as of late. This one continues on a similar thread as the previous track, but leaning further into a noise aesthetic.
Patchwork by Laurie Spiegel
I wanted to wrap it up with another pioneer of electronic music. This track from Laurie Spiegel’s 1980 album The Expanding Universe leverages synthesized sound as it intertwines timbre with rhythm.
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