Michael J. Schumacher
Weave CD (E78)
Michael J. Schumacher is a composer, performer and installation
artist based in New York City. He works predominantly with
electronic and digital media, specifically computer-generated
sound environments that evolve continuously for long time
periods. These environments are created using multiple speaker
configurations that relate the sounds of the installation to the
architecture of the exhibition space. Architectural and acoustical
considerations therefore become basic structural elements.
In 2007 Schumacher and Nisi Jacobs began DRAW, an audio-
video performance group. They create immersive live sets based
on collaborative compositions.
Schumacher is founder and director of Diapason in Brooklyn,
a gallery devoted to sound art. Since 2001, it has presented the
work of over 300 sound and media artists, including premieres
by David Behrman, Jacob Kirkegaard, Stephen Vitiello, Leif Inge
and others. Diapason will present work by Theo Burt and EVOL’s
Roc Jiménez de Cisneros in March 2010.
About Weave
Loom is an exploration of song form: intro, verse, solo,
verse, outro. Sounds include recordings of various motors,
pumps, musical ensembles drastically sped up, traffic,
guitar, organ, synth.
Malaise is a set of unrelated improvised recordings played
simultaneously and unfolded in time through algorithmic
processes.
Part Music is an algorithmically edited (distorted) version
of an algorithmically manipulated two-part acoustic guitar
performance.
ErosIon was commissioned by the 2008 Ear to the Earth
Festival organised by the Electronic Music Foundation in
New York. It was presented at the festival in eight-channel
surround with a four-channel video by Nisi Jacobs. The
piece is built up from an array of field and object record-
ings: traffic, power tools, a cement mixer, a revolving door,
staples, hammering, a cafeteria in Princeton, New Jersey,
an elevator, the composer pushing a large subwoofer across
a wooden floor, as well as a ‘found’ drum track and an
extended guitar improvisation.
Refrain is composed of similarities, punctuated by ‘causes’.
Sounds: recordings of a children’s birthday party, a windy
day in Estonia, an old bicycle, out-takes by a well-known
pop band, a blues musician, the composer rapping on the
body of a piano, plucking its strings, etc.
The CD also includes two DRAW videos:
Two Weeks: “Somewhere, a motor played.” Dialogue.
A man, a girl, an audience. The title, whispered.
A Dream I Had: A ten year-old’s dream and yet... not
failure, not self-realisation. Thanks to Jane Rigler. Nisi
Jacobs used spectrographic analysis to generate the raw
material used in the videos. These moving heat graphs
turn sound into drawing. The size, palette, density and
speed of sound files are the stars of these movies.
First edition of 300 copies
£8
Six top notch instrumentals. The first, Loom, is undoubt-
edly the most convincing: it groups together ordinary
or almost ordinary instruments (guitar, organ, motors,
samples) in an atmospheric music which instantly grabs
the listener. Part Music focuses on the guitar (wherein
Schumacher reappraises finger picking) while Refrain
recalls the work of Four Tet, before abandoning itself to
the whims that are rhythm and noise.
As for the other compositions ,Schumacher seems to
stroll through light structures, with Malaise turning
to the anecdotic and Urge sounding refreshingly and
sarcastically like experimental pop, à la Stereolab. Yet,
the truth of Michael J. Schumacher is elsewhere, in all
that Weave does not have the time to say but leaves
in its wake.
Pierre Cécile at Le son du grisli
—
I often use the term ‘loopy’ to describe a kind of synth
approach that generally rubs me the wrong way and, to
an extent, that’s the case here. Some of it, like the track
Malaise, reminded me strongly of Patrick Gleeson’s work
circa Hancock’s Sextant; I vacillated between thinking of
that as a good or bad thing, but overall, nah, I’d rather
hear the original. When he reins things in a bit, as on the
lovely Part Music, the results are enchanting while still
retaining enough glitchiness to provide a welcome itch.
Finally, on ErosIon, Schumacher manages to up the loopy
energy to an insane enough degree (and add synthesised
percussion) that the stew begins to bubble ’n’ boil. Pretty
rockin’, actually, good stuff. Worth it for these 18 minutes
alone, the intensity and giddiness strongly maintained
over its length.
Brian Olewnick at Just outside