Premiered
at the X-space, Documenta, Kassel (1997)This version recorded and mixed at the Giardino d'Inferno, Milan, 2004
My very first sampler, in 1986, was an Ensoniq Mirage, a very primitive machine: it had about 2 seconds of sampling time, 8 bit technology and the results were often surprising (but not always in a good way). It had a display, but being Hexadecimal I've never been that good at deciphering it. Still, I used it a lot.
After a few years of honored service, one day the Mirage decided my music was boring and started to make some on its own, especially in very hot weather. It'd stop obeying to any command, and start producing lovely little note cascades, or complex and threatening drones. The only remedy was to lower the temperature, and I remember more than one live gig with an ice bag on the Mirage. But its music was really beautiful, everchanging yet steady and always mysterious. I would often stop working in the studio to record these events, and I named the author Olindo Mercier.
I've used samples from these tapes in many of my pieces, and I've seriously considered making a Mercier album, using those recordings and remixing some of it. Such is the case of this piece, made exclusively with these samples. It had a long genesis: first assembled for a sound art presentation (in '97), then remade in a more dancy version in 2000 and finally remastered (and speeded up by about 10 bpm) in 2004: this is the version presented here.
Olindo #1 3'36 (2004)
