Nicholas Maloney is a Mississippi based sound artist and composer. He’s back with a new album called Stilling. According to the press release, it is a two-part piece composed using highly transformed and manipulated field recordings. It was originally commissioned by Crosstown Arts (Memphis, TN) to be performed at the “A Change of Tone Music Exhibition” concert series in April of 2020. The series was postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic. The four-part, four-day event was to feature a selection of four musical acts, one act per night, who would “exhibit” their music for a listening audience over loudspeakers in one venue as they simultaneously perform it in another, creating a non-traditional listening experience
.
The theme of the exhibition was “in/out of sync.” “What does it mean to be “in or out of sync”–with something, with nothing, with anything…with everything? In what ways do you feel or observe things as being in or out of sync with one another…”

The two movements of “Stilling” focus on sound as it relates to synchrony in my subjective human experience on a: 1) micro-level: exploring day to day experiences and shifts of mood, especially as they relate to my immediate surroundings and the ever-fluctuating environment. 2) Macro-level: exploring environmental phenomena on a larger scale (i.e. shifts in temperature, extreme weather), as well as shifts between feelings of inner-peace and anxiety as they relate to my contemplation on the immediate now.

Throughout the composition, duplicated layers of manipulated source sounds are staggered to further exaggerate on the theme of synchrony. This not only results in constructive/destructive phase interference but also a wider, and richer, stereo image, bringing to mind the larger question of what does it mean (for an audio track, or human perception) to be out of sync, if the disorientation is causing a unique, harmonic, sonic richness (and perhaps a more composed and attentive state of mind)?

Check the full streaming below.