subsurface speeds by Felix Nussbaumer

A common attribute I hear in – or possibly project into – every prolonged sound or organized noise is what I could only describe as a kind of subcutaneous pulsation, even a subcutaneous twitching or shaking, depending on what music I'm listening to. I always assumed it had to do primarily with the musicians' reaction time and their awareness of every sound's dimensions (especially precisely and intently placed beginnings and endings). This initial way of thinking about what I was intuiting is most definitely a function of my background in music that concerns itself with groove in one way or another. Looking at it now, groove is just that process of locking into either a common unstated pulse, or a set of harmonizing, possibly periodic, intersubjective pulses. This sense of (inter-)subjective pulse has stayed with me to this day. No matter what a musician is playing, the pulse they feel while playing influences their performative presence in a substantial way.

What I want to explore in this piece for solo tenor saxophone is, on one level, an exercise in what I call subsurface speeds. What if I perform the same structures at different points during the set, but with varying felt pulses or subdivisions? What if I measure or subdivide a length of time microscopically, but only populate it with sounds very sparsely? Can you feel what I'm feeling as opposed to what I'm doing?

Tracklist

1.	subsurface speeds	17:13

Credits

released October 15, 2023

Felix Nussbaumer – tenor saxophone, amplification

Recorded and mixed by Felix Nussbaumer.
Mastered by Emilio Guim.

License