Frontier is Kevin Ireland, Michael Tsoulos, and Stephen Wessley. |
| Drawn together by a
shared fascination with recorded sounds, the members of Frontier
gathered in 1987 to explore a variety of compositional techniques. This
impulse was hardly unique, as music in the twentieth century has been
distinguished by a fairly rapid and widespread evolution of approaches
to composition. Early in this century the Futurist Luigi Rossolo
used noises created with instruments of his own design as an
alternative to the traditional dominance of theme and motif in music
composition. Armed with the new electronic technology of
the 1950's, John Cage created compositions designed to illuminate the
very nature of music. Cage managed to thoroughly dissect
the concept of music, although his primary concern was more with the
process itself, not with the product or the performance. While
this approach is certainly conceptually rich, the exclusion of
aesthetic influence on what results from any given approach, that is,
of the music itself that is performed, is a constraint that we found
difficult to accept. While we have been profoundly influenced by the techniques of electronic music, specifically the use of algorithms to manipulate sound, our approach relies heavily on the relation or mediation between individuals and machines. As Frontier is a band of musicians, our focus is on the performance of live music, on the interaction and improvisation that occurs during a performance. This served as our point of departure from what we found to be present, or rather lacking, in much electronic music: composers programmed compositions rather than performed them. In our compositions, the performers serve as additional filters, functioning as a shifting algorithm generated from each individual. This becomes especially significant because we practice a very dynamic form of composition, one that involves simultaneously composing and performing. Our concern is with both process and content, which in our approach becomes mutually influential: the performers react to the product of a system by altering the system. We use a technique called Multiple Input Resonance, in which the source signals are generated by a resonating object in an amplified partial feedback loop. The resonating objects in this system are not directly manipulated in any way during the performance: they generate signal only by the presence of the amplified sub-mixes in the performance location. The instruments are chosen for their individual resonant frequencies, and the performers' triggering of these frequencies with the amplified sub-mixes is central to the character of the compositions. This source input is then routed through signal processing modules, which function as analog algorithm generators that will generate information when provided with input. These analog algorithms are arranged and structured for each performance, based on the acoustics of the performance space. During the performance, the controls of these modules are adjusted, effectively changing the algorithms through which the input is processed. Each of the resonant sources runs simultaneously through its own multi-stage analog algorithm and this sub-mix is amplified within the performance space. The visual aspect of our performance is also site-specific, and involves projections of both images and light patterns designed to surround the audience. Low-level feedback vibrations are established at the beginning of the performance and slowly adjusted as the music develops. The location of the instruments and participants in the space effects the patterns in the music as each instrument simultaneously effects and is effected by the sounds of other instruments. The reflection of sound varies with the structure of the performance space, involving also the movements of people within the space (both performers and audience). |
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Selected Discography
Frontier presents Foam, Humboldt Pie Reproductions Suture, Perishable Records 4, Emperor Jones Heater, Tug-o-War Records Live at the Empty Bottle, Tug-o-War Records Frontier (self-titled), Humboldt Pie Reproductions |
"The self-titled release from the Chicago group is a sustained low-level drone/feedback piece recorded live in the studio and lasting the entire 73 minute duration of the disc. This is music with the illusion of no beginning or end, at the outer limits of guitar experimentation.” - Tom Ridge, Wire "They pull it off beautifully, with this self titled disc having the power to lull the listener into a dreamstate under layers of thin, pulsating sounds, or distract them from whatever else the mind might have been on at the time - and when the half dozen or so sound pieces that are superimposed on this drone do actually occur, it's like seeing the ocean after a lifetime in the desert." -- Vince Harrigan, Manifold "The first and last band to play that night was the ominous, hard-working Frontier band. Their first set was an ambient ripple of sound that was produced by strategically placing their instruments according to their amps and the ecosystem of the room. Their second set was more of their familiar 'big-throbbing-loud-hypnotic' rock. The ingredients of both their sets was heavy fog, an intense array of eerie lights, and a bunch of freaked-out movie clips. Frontier puts on a real show." -- Twiggy Pawn, Lumpen |
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