All of Hall’s projects involve some form of structure. Except EAR-CAM. With this group, the only rule is there are no rules: everything is permitted.
The members of the group are vocalist Christine Duncan, widely known for her work with throat singer Tanya Tagaq, Plunderphonics innovator, John Oswald on alto saxophone, Tomasz Krakowiak, whose playing is so delicate as to be perceived as much through watching his gestures as by hearing, and, when available, visual/sound artist Nobuo Kubota
The name of the group is a play on IRCAM, the Paris institute for musical research and experimentation. Where IRCAM researchers aim at micro control of musical and sound resources, EAR-CAM aims at unbridled freedom. The name also refers to an ‘ear-cam’– ear camera – like a steady-cam in film making. Sometimes performances ‘accompanied’ by ambient sounds —a coffee shop, a Chinese street market, a tourist attraction, a horse stable. The ‘ear’ brings its ‘camera’ (a recorder) and ‘photographs’ an environment that becomes, for a time, EAR-CAM’s sonic landscape.
In addition to flute, bass flute, soprano saxophone and bass clarinet, Hall improvises using Kyma X, a powerful sound design workstation, and concatenative synthesis ‘instruments’ cataRT, developed by Diemo Schwarz of IRCAM, and audiomosaic, a cataRT variation, developed at Matralab by Navid Navab . With these computer-based instruments, Hall’s sound palette has become limited only by his imagination.
Christine Duncan – voice
John Oswald – alto saxophone
Tomasz Krakowiak – percussion
Glen Hall – woodwinds, percussion, Kyma X, cataRT
*Nobuo Kubota – voice
Recordings: Here To Go, Open The Way