Paracusia II. tethers
Paracusia is an ongoing multi-piece collaboration for saxophone(s) and live electronics. The performer represents a character that is trapped within a reverberation room. Over the course of the movements, the performer navigates the audience through their experience as they slowly lose their ability to interact with their outside world. Each movement represents a different step along their journey, exposing the unique sonic landscape of the different instruments within the saxophone family and their connection with the integrated electronics.
Paracusia is defined as auditory hallucinations involving the perception of sounds arising from outside the mind, most commonly of voices. Individuals who have experienced a traumatic event are often affected by triggers every day, and their interactions with people and reactions to various stimuli are dictated by these external pressures. The actions and reactions within the music, presented by the performer onstage and the responding electronic elements, represent this interaction between a person and the external triggers they experience. In this piece, the performer represents a character that is trapped inside a reverberant room for an undetermined length of time. Through use of spatialized speakers emitting pre-recorded and live-processed sounds, the performer reacts to the psychoacoustic processes of experiencing auditory illusions as the character they portray gradually begins to struggle against the multitude of voices spiraling around them.
Paracusia II. tethers begins immediately following the first piece, during which the character continues to hear violent echos, imitating their actions, emerge from all around them. Throughout this installment, the character begins to struggle more intensely against the multitude of voices spiraling around them, as the tethers connecting them to reality begin to snap.
Paracusia II. tethers was premiered by Justin Massey at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity on June 21, 2018.
