New releases – August 2023
Many of my digital albums are very process-oriented and may not make much sense to a listener as a “finished product” since they present a sort of array of ideas that could be experienced like ambient music, perhaps in shuffle mode for long durations. Today (30 August 23) I am releasing two albums that are of contrasting nature: SILLENBUCH PIANI and SYMPHONIC IMPROVISATIONS. The first is focused entirely on piano sounds, to make the various generative processes as clear as possible and the second seeks to present a larger palette of orchestral colors using only the possibilities of four instances of a single synthesizer (Fabfilter’s marvelous Twin3) to create several “movements” which all use recurring and developing thematic material to create a morphing unified field. Moreso than many of the albums, I have made an effort to make them satisfying as organic albums, which may or may not work for individual listeners.
April 2023
In March/April 2023, I deeply enjoyed getting to know the wonderful writer/visual artist Peter Frömmig and some of his work. We presented the fruit of our encounters on 20 April for the opening of his exhibition DER KUSS (The Kiss) at the VHS Stuttgart. To commemorate the occasion, I released a live and a studio version with material from some of our sessions on Rollermusic [German language].
Postcards 2023 - new cross-media work format
SR: Postcard #4 – Buchla Easel V
Music: Scott Roller
27 January 2023
Beginning of a somewhat longer jam with Arturia’s Buchla Easel V through effects by Unfiltered Audio (SpecOps) and Klevgrand (Røverb)
Images: SR + Jasper AI
Presentation: SR
Crunchy West-Coast stridence with psychedelic overtones… Classic 5-step sequences.
SR: Postcard #3 – DroneKing
Music: Scott Roller
Recorded live-session (27 Jan 2021) with the 6-oscillator drone synth Electro Faustus – Drone King EF209 – reworked sound-design (25 Jan 2023)
Images: SR + Jasper AI
Presentation: SR
Most of my postcards are short – 30 sec to 3 min maximum. After posting three such postcards in as many days, here an “anti-postcard”, a drone stream lasting 30 minutes, with morphing images…
POSTCARD #2 – 24 January 2023
Music: ScottRoller – Waiting for M.
(15 Jan 2023)
iPhone 13 – AUM: Animoog Z (-> Rack Reverb) | Animoog Z (-> Bleass Reverb) | Bleass Omega (-> Bleass Granualizer) | Bleass Alpha (-> Bleass Reverb)
live sequenced with 2 instances of Cykel, Snake Bud, Autony/Cality
Images: SR + Jasper AI –Presentation: SR
SR: Postcard #1 – MiniFreak!
Music : Scott Roller
24 January 2023
Images: SR + Jasper AI – Presentation: SR
Arturia MiniFreak + FX (Klevegrand – Rœverb & Unfiltered Audio – SpecOps
SR: POSTCARD ZERO – 22 Jan 2023
Scott Roller: Piano One – 11 January 2023
Generative Bagatelle
Featuring PurePiano by e-instruments of Hamburg – AUM – iPadAir 2019
Images: SR with Jasper AI – Presentation: SR
A teaser for a series of digital albums spinning out from traditional piano sounds – generative sequencers being manipulated live by SR – Stay tuned! –
Scott Roller: Convoluted Studies – Granular Transformations –
Tableax électroacoustiques
Works in progress — 18 December 2022
A notebook of mixes prepared at the request of Linn Friberg (Sweden) for her compilation project INTENT 2023
Scott Roller: cello, synthesizers, sound design
3 December 2022 – Staatsgalerie Stuttgart – Open_Music: BETWEEN COMPOSITION AND IMPROVISATION
Four members of the Open_Music Ensemble (Felix Borel – violin; Scott Roller – cello, electronics; Michael Kiedaisch – Vibraphone, Drumset, NoiseBox; and Roderik Vanderstraeten – Moog Matriarch & Ghost Guitar NoiseBox) with Sasha Shlain (keyboards) and members of the J.A.M. Ensemble from the Stuttgart Musikschule (Alexander Adiarte – director & violin) as guests – in cooperation with the video artist Michi Meier (reactive visuals). Media from two days in the Staatsgalerie will be released early in 2023.
In November, Scott led three Saturday workshops for “gifted” 3rd/4th graders in Ludwigsburg for the Hector Akademie. Three to four rounds of these “creative music” workshops have been offered each year since 2019. To be continued in January 2023.
14 November 2022 – University of Music, Würzburg – Workshop: Introduction to free improvisation for teachers and students.
25 November 2022 – Youth center Komma, Esslingen – Workshop: Introduction to iOS Music-Apps for teachers and older youths. This topic is a high priority for 2023, since Scott has been working intensively with iOS devices in his own creative and pedagogical work, especially during the past year and would like to expand his teaching in this fascinating and powerful field. A website devoted exclusively to this topic is in preparation.
Starting in October, weekly sessions with a 5th-grade class (including special needs students) in the Torwiesenschule (Stuttgart-Heslach) which will go on until Summer 2023. This is an Open_Music project initiated after a pilot phase with 5th-7th graders in June-July 2022.
2 October 22 – Staatsgalerie Stuttgart – String quartet improvisations with musicians from the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in collaboration with the performance artist Nezaket Ekici (as live performance and YouTube stream).
Series of improvisation workshops with an 11th-grade music class from the Georgii-Gymnasium in Esslingen which led up to a concert with them on the TonArt festival on 20 October in Esslingen, where Scott also performed as a soloist (cello/electronics).
On the weekend of 8/9 October, Scott performed in the Open_Music studio with Roderik Vanderstraeten, Michael Kiedaisch and the video artist Michi Meier for an Open House weekend in the Stuttgart Wagenhallen.
On Friday evening, the 1st of July 2022, Scott Roller performed a 20′ live set for the closing of the 2022 edition of IBA27 (Internationale BauAusstellung) with projections by L2M3 Kommunikationsdesign GmbH, Sven Thiery & Co. – onto the facade of the Weissenhof Museum im Haus Le Corbusier, built in 1927.
This is a 5′ clip starting around the late middle of the set –
Video by Thomas Arns ((thanx!))!
Rollermusic is the new Scott Roller Bandcamp label founded in April 2022:
rollermusic.bandcamp.com
Open_Music Prospects 2021
OPTIONS was the first issue in the Open_Music series PROSPECTS, which ran throughout 2021. In each issue, a member of the ensemble was given the opportunity to deliver material to inspire and inform improvisations by the others. These initiating impulses could be in any form the featured artist chooses: musical notations, sound files, graphics, texts, video or anything else the composer/producer wishes. This resulted in five digital albums released at roughly bi-monthly intervals through 2021.
Scott Roller was the composer/producer of Prospects 1. On March 21st, he offered the musicians a series of sixteen electronic “reference tracks” entitled OPTIONS. These were made up of four “Songs The Void Sings,” six “Free Agents,” and several independent tracks in which the synthesizer is more prominent and rhythmically articulated, to which “Eight Tempi” and “Hymne” belong. The musicians chose freely from the modules which spoke to them and uploaded tracks during the next two weeks to the Open_Music server, which Scott produced and Roderik Vanderstraeten then mastered.
Musicians:
Scott Roller – composer/producer, synthesizers, bass guitar & live electronics | Felix Borel – violin, live electronics & pre-production | Felix Behringer – clarinet & bass clarinet | Michael Kiedaisch – drumset, percussion & pre-production | Roderik Vanderstraeten – audio engineer/mastering
PROSPECTS (German = AUSSICHTEN) was made possible with the generous support of the City of Stuttgart and the Wüstenrot Foundation, for which Open_Music is very grateful!
More information about Open_Music:
Website: openmusic.de
Bandcamp: open-music.bandcamp.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/OM.Stuttgart
Vimeo: vimeo.com/scottroller
On the 3rd and 4th of December 2021, the Open_Music Ensemble and several guests convened at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart for two days of audio/video recordings, for which the musicians chose highlights from their respective productions to serve as the basis for new improvisations. Together with several tracks suggested by the pianist Jürgen Kruse, who had played on several of the albums, and improvisations to the film TUNNELSCAPES by Michi Meier, the result is Prospects LIVE, released 15 March 2022. In the notes to the individual tracks are links to the corresponding video by Michi Meier on Vimeo.
Musicians: The Open_Music Quintet (Felix Borel, violin; Felix Behringer, clarinets; Scott Roller, cello/electronics; Michael Kiedaisch, vibraphone, percussion, drums; Roderik Vanderstraeten, Moog synthesizers) with special guest Élise Dabrowski (double bass/voice). For Felix Behringer’s CARTOGRAPHY, the ensemble was also joined by the cellists Céline Papion and Delphine Henriet. Recording, mixing and mastering by Roderik Vanderstraeten.
AUSSICHTEN (Prospects) was made possible with support from the City of Stuttgart and the Wüstenrot Foundation.
Daily Studies - Electronic Journals
“During the recurring Corona lockdowns in 2020/2021, I built up my home studio as I had long wished and dove deep into modular synthesis, first on a hardware basis and, starting in the Fall of 2021, increasingly exploring the rich possibilities of iOS musicmaking (which I had used in the early days when the possibilities were much more limited than they are now). Here are some examples of that work, which saved me during that time and which plays a very significant role for me today.” -SR
This is a short excerpt from the feature-length video RASHŌMON STUTTGART, directed by Nina Kurzeja, and produced by Blomst! gUG, for which Scott Roller and Roderik Vanderstraeten made all of the music in Late 2020.
“I love making music for video/film, and was very happy to make this delicate music for the wonderful and multi-talented dancer Luis Hernández González.” -SR
20 Celli was produced in Roller’s home studio in Stuttgart between 24-28 May 2020 at the request of two friends (a Lufthansa pilot with a passion for video and a musician) who were looking for music improvised for a 10-hour video documenting (with real time video of the flight seen from the cockpit) a Lufthansa flight in March 2020 from Peking to Frankfurt.
20 Celli uses only the first 20 harmonic overtones the low C-string on the cello (about 67 Hz), presented in layers up to 20 tracks. This visualization by Michi Meier was developed in June 2020. It vibrates with fine sensibility to the harmonic developments and portrays the spectral nature of the sound beautifully.