Ben Vida / Keith Fullerton Whitman

The third iteration in the Required Wreckers Series, a split LP featuring new and exclusive work from Ben Vida and Keith Fullerton Whitman (AMI-033 R/W). Having collaborated over the last decade as a trio with Greg Davis, this release features new solo-work by two of America's most important emerging sound artists.

The first side of this release debuts a new composition from Ben Vida. In keeping with his recent patchwork-based compositions, AGGREGATEPULSERIPPER (DAMAGED IIII) continues to explore Vida's interest in both digital and analog control sources, a compositional process that refuses to fetishize one technology over another and, more interestingly, appears (though, of course, these appearances are deceptive) to displace the musician's hand from the compositional process. In light of Vida's early work with the acoustic ensemble, Town and Country, and the world music and concrete studies of his solo project, Bird Show, this new compositional method should not be overemphasized. For this piece, Vida creates a complex web of patches that change and morph in what he has contextualized as a series of shifting generative patterns. The subtitle of his piece references how these patterns coalesce in aggressive, almost hardcore, clusters of sound that refuse to slip into contemplative or mystical arenas that so many in today's electronic music reference in relation to their work. Vida's composition opts instead to remain engaged in the phenomenal and spatial forces that shape our perception of sound.

The flipside of this LP features Keith Fullerton Whitman's third in a series of splits (previous releases have included No Fun Production's b/w Carlos Giffoni and Amethyst Sunset's b/w with Mike Shiflet) documenting a particularly productive period in his creative output - a series of "synth concerts" from 2007 and 2008. Recorded on January 14, 2008 at PA's Lounge in Somerville, MA, this piece documents the fourth in Whitman's solo synthesizer sets. His technical set-up is based around a theme (and circuitry) of economy, in which the artist makes use of each CV-source in a variety of fashions. Throughout the recording one can discern talking from the audience and ambient room-tone noise, as well as sound coming from different sources spread throughout the room - a small battery powered speaker on stage right, a giant Barbetta on stage left. Each speaker was fed into a different patch irrespective of its frequency response. Whitman uses a hybrid system of digital and analog sound sources that, with the exception of a single 4096 bd delay, is presented here without treatment, overdub, or sequencing of any sort.

New York-based artist Meredyth Spark provides the cover art and sixteen-page booklet for this release. Sparks has been assisting Amish for the last few years with design and layout. This is the first release to exclusively feature her work. The images and design elements for the cover art come from her Extraction series (in truth, the front and back covers are extractions of her extractions), paintings and collages that draw heavily from the aleatory methods and analog/digital processes that both Vida and Whitman utilize in their recordings.

Mastered at Piethoproxis Studios in Cologne by Marcus Schmickler