paravox by Gail Priest - Metal Bitch Recordings

Paravox is an EP-length work comprising five pieces in which I explore the voice and its relation to, through and with machines. It is composed for headphones using binaural spatialisation for maximum immersion. (Stereo bonus tracks for speaker playback are included with download purchase.)

The relationship between voice and machine is an ongoing preoccupation of mine that grows out of the conflicted feelings I have about my own voice. I use machines to mediate my voice so that I can escape its awkward organicness. I also employ machines as improvising and compositional partners. Machines speak their own language and I try to find creative and critical ways to converse with them.

In a recent two-week residency at the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (M.E.S.S.), one of the things I was pursuing was how to inject voices into synthesisers, and how to extract voices from them. ‘Indeciphers’ uses material from experiments with a Doepfer modular system, exploring how the voice can drive the signal chain. ‘Symbiont mantras’ uses the iconic EMS Vocoder 2000, attempting to see just how tightly entwined voice and signal can be. ‘Voltaic voices’ uses no organic vocal material rather I allow the machine, comprising a combination of more contemporary digital modules, to speak for itself, seeking sounds that have voices hidden at the fringes and in the background. Bookending these tracks are two experiments using developing text-to-speech technology. ‘Clone drone’ uses the synthetic version of my voice that I ‘rent’ in order to investigate my mediated self. ‘Babel saints of the sales’ uses voices of one of the developing tech companies selling voice AI. It is composed directly using the website’s sample page. Paravox expresses both the attraction and unease I feel around voice, technology and post-embodiment.

Gail Priest is a sound artist from Sydney/Katoomba, Australia making experimental sound and electronic music that explores the interaction of the figurative and the abstract, the machinic and the organic, the sensual and the brutal. Her practice encompasses performance, recording, gallery installation and sound design.

gailpriest.net