Offering “a tone so pure it is almost a sine-wave” (The Wire), ADAM LION is a percussionist/vibraphonist investigating enabling constraint, acoustics, repetition, surprise and coincidence. His experimental performances blur acoustic space, creating opportunities for new sonic frameworks to naturally emerge. Within this process new realities grow, encouraging listeners to investigate the hidden potential of reimagined sound. Based in Los Angeles, his work has been featured in The New York Times, Pitchfork Media, Artforum Magazine, and Bandcamp Daily.

His new vibraphone album When a Line Bends is a repetitious study on the possibilities of acoustic phenomena. Sound floods the room with music one would only expect from amplification or supplementary electronics. Bars are bowed for sustained durations producing an effect similar to a sine tone, and textural adjustments occur spontaneously. Slowly evolving ostinatos result in pulsating, dissonant overtones whose frequency beatings bring about scintillating clouds of polyrhythms. As bars are bowed, struck, scraped, and touched, Adam explores the vibraphone hoping to surprise himself.

SFSOUNDGROUP performs two iconic sound works for ensemble and tape:

ALVIN LUCIER'S Two Circles (2012)

ROBERT ERICKSON'S Pacific Sirens (1969)

PERFORMERS
Sam Weiser, violin
Monica Scott, cello
Kjell Nordeson, percussion

Lisa Mezzacappa, bass
Hadley McCarroll, piano
Brendan Lai-Tong, trombone
John Ingle, saxophone
Matt Ingalls, clarinet
Diane Grubbe, flute
Tom Dambly, trumpet

Pacific Sirens (1969) was commissioned by the Contemporary Group of the University of Washington. Ever since childhood I have wondered about the song of the sirens who sang to Ulysses and his men. I became more intrigued when I read an account of a certain cliff in southern Italy where passing sailors often hear quasi-musical moans and sighs. I decided to do something with the "whispered" and "half-voiced" sounds which some musical instruments are able to produce.

I set out to make a piece which used "singing" waves together with conventional instruments. The tape portion of the music was produced from a tape recording of the waves at Pescadero Beach, about fifty miles south of San Francisco. These natural sounds were electronically filtered to make sixteen different pitch bands, which were retuned, equalised and remixed to produce the performance tape.

The players play into the wave sounds, sometimes matching and sometimes counterpointing the sounds on the tape, to produce a continuous, seamless siren song. 

-ROBERT ERICKSON

ALVIN LUCIER (1931-2021) elegantly transformed acoustical phenomena into aesthetic experiences. His Two Circles (2012) explores the phenomenon of “beat frequencies,” where slight discrepancies in tuning between two pitches result in a variety of rhythmic and spatial effects - pitch transmuted into other aspects of sound. Two Circles uses precisely notated pitches to unfold the geometric design of its title.

-CHRIS BURNS