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Maroc (1998, 19:10)

An audio postcard, or abstract travelogue, composed from over 500 found (live) and imaginary (constructed) recordings, which were drawn from a trip I made to Morocco in December 1997. The sounds include many street scenes made in the medinas (old cities) of Fez, Tanjer, Marrekesh, and Chef-chaouen. Both secular and sacred life of the country is represented.
The piece spans roughly one day in the life of Morocco, compressing 24 hours down to about 20 minutes.

The piece traces my passage to seven cities in Morocco in quasi-chronological order, however Morocco is not the least bit “linear." It's studded with twists and turns, and therefore the work makes no attempts at one-to-one correspondences between the original and compressed time scales.

The resulting piece is much like the country itself: Getting one’s bearings and staying on course are not easy tasks, but trying is a lot of fun.

Maroc -- Passages/Roadmap

1. Night train from Casablanca
2. A thousand welcomes/Alf-marhabat
3. Outdoor reception/The Pond
4. First call to prayer
5. Door’s open: rocked innocent & pure
6. Inculture shock
7. Second call
8. a’maze’in’ Medinas (Fez & Chaouen)
9. Third call
10. A twist in the maze — mint tea & kif
11. Square ecstacy (Marrakesh)
12. And so it goes, In’sha-Allah
13. Last call
14. And on it goes, Allah willing

All of these raw recordings were digitized into an Apple Macintosh computer (a "IIci" to be specific), and then mixed and processed by the composer using a variety of sound-processing software of the day, including Turbosynth and Sound Designer II (Digidesign), Cloud Generator (Roads & Alexander), Hyperprism (Arboretum), Deck II (OSC), and MF-DSP (Muscle Fish). The work was realized over a four-month period, from December, 1997 through March, 1998 in the composer's personal studio.

©+℗ 1998 Thom Blum (ASCAP)

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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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