Abstractions 2, by Thom Blum

Abstractions 2

by Thom Blum

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1.	Walkways of the Hopeful and the Hopeless 07:49	info	buy track
2.	Reset (tabula rasa) 09:49	info	buy track
3.	Cascade 07:20	info	buy track
4.	Epenthesis 12:24	info	buy track
5.	Couplings 06:36	info	buy track

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Collections: Music by Thom Blum
Abstractions 2 (2012 – 2018)

Unlike “Passages”, the “Abstractions” series contains compositions that are “pure” (or purer) music, meaning that the sounds used do not denote or refer to any world of sounds outside of their own. They do not attempt to render a location, or a person, or the composer's experience of those.

And while compositions in the "Abstractions" series do not describe places, they are always inspired by some extra-musical phenomena, an observation, a hypothesis, an experiment, or the pursuit of some sonic curiosity.

These pieces model the sources of their inspiration with various compositional devices. For example they may create sonic metaphors by mapping attributes from the inspirational sources into the composition's sound attributes. For example near the middle of the piece “Couplings”, recordings of a 1970's analog clock ticking were edited, stretched, mixed, and repeatedly processed. The goal of the result was not to render a uniquely beautiful sounding clock but rather to use the clock material to create a dense nest of sounds in which other sounds (of a flapping nature) would be born and then flutter away, creating the sonic pun, "time flies".

©+℗ 2020 Thom Blum (ASCAP)

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released August 28, 2020

artwork: "feverish dream 320" © 2020 Tuyen Q. Nguyen | www.odyssey7.zone

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Thom Blum San Francisco, California

Thom Blum has been composing electroacoustic music since 1974.

Recent performances and installations include "[You Are [Here] You [Are] You Here]", a sound installation established in 2022 in the Prelinger Library in San Francisco, and "Telescopic 1 (zoom out)" at the San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2024. ... more

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