{"id":4807,"date":"2023-06-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephaleo.com\/blog\/?p=4807"},"modified":"2023-06-11T00:10:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T07:10:08","slug":"soundwave-160-cole-peters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephaleo.com\/blog\/soundwave-160-cole-peters\/","title":{"rendered":"SOUNDWAVE : 160 : COLE PETERS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s guest deejay is Cole Peters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

I had the good fortune to meet Cole through Yann Novak (listen to Yann\u2019s mixes four Soundwave here<\/a>). I asked Yann who he thought would share a mix with us, and he highly recommended Cole. I could have sent Cole an invitation to guest deejay on Soundwave without listening to a note of his music. I trust Yann\u2019s taste in music and artists that<\/em> much. But of course, I listened to Cole\u2019s music. Yann was spot on.<\/p>\n\n

Cole\u2019s mix is a unique blend of electronic and organic elements, creating a captivating sonic landscape that will take you on a mesmerizing journey. It\u2019s okay if you lose yourself. That\u2019s part of the journey, too.<\/p>\n\n

Be sure to lose yourself in Cole\u2019s latest album, Traces Blurs Signs<\/a>, where he continues to eschew categorization.<\/p>\n\n

Cole has much to say about the mix you\u2019re about to experience, so I will get out of his way, except to mention that next week\u2019s guest deejay is Carmen Rizzo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

See you then.<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Cole
Cole Peters<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

I realized not long ago that so much of my work in music over the past 20+ years has been based on the practice of collage. When I started assembling my own music in the early 2000s, it was awful techno cobbled together out of random samples scavenged off the internet. In the mid-2000s, I\u2019d transitioned into producing instrumental hip hop, composed from samples pulled from old vinyl records. From 2010\u20132013, my work took more experimental turns, and sampled material merged with my recordings of effects-laden guitar. Collaged electronics and field recordings were the recipes that helped me find my way back to music and sound art in 2019, and these have remained at the core of my work since then.<\/p>\n\n

Through all of these eras, assembling mixes of other artist\u2019s work has been a constant practice alongside creating my work (though often, these mixes have remained a private exercise). A mix is, to varying degrees, also an exercise in collage. In some ways, I view my approach to constructing mixes and assembling my work as complementary and mutually instructive.<\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve always been somewhat obsessive about the transitional moments that string a mix together \u2014 those passages where one work seeps into another, the interplay of compositions that, for a short time, enter into an unexpected dialogue. These moments largely guide me in the composition of a mix, as opposed to selecting tracks first and then determining their sequence. I work best when starting with a single piece of work and letting that piece\u2019s tone, texture, pace, dynamics, and nuances inform my following selection and onwards until the mix feels complete.<\/p>\n\n

Often, this leads me to identify previously unrealized sympathies between otherwise unrelated works, such as the complementary tonalities between Alyssa Moxley\u2019s \u201cNight smoke over the caldera\u201d and Chloe Alexandra Thompson\u2019s \u201cGlass Bits\u201d or crys cole\u2019s \u201cA Piece of Work\u201d and Ayami Suzuki\u2019s \u201cGlade.\u201d I found that these pairings especially seemed to merge hypnotically. Similarly, I appreciated how well B.P. and Masaya Ozaki\u2019s pieces on this mix came together \u2014 both titled by GPS coordinates, both exploring textures between the subtle and the barely contained.<\/p>\n\n

Of course, a mix doesn\u2019t need to be composed solely of perfectly seamless transitions. I quite like the sudden shift between \u201cGlass Bits\u201d and B.P.\u2019s field recording and the melodic tension between \u201cGlade\u201d and Philip Samartzis & Eugene Ughetti\u2019s \u201cKatabatic Winds Part 1,\u201d where Ayami\u2019s voice and the electronic tone in \u201cKatabatic\u201d seem to drift awkwardly in and out of harmony. Elsewhere: I hadn\u2019t initially intended to place John Bence\u2019s \u201cDisquiet Part 1\u201d immediately after Lawrence English\u2019s \u201cEvocation at Peron,\u201d but the transition between the caustic layers of wind and the soft choral voices turned out to be an unexpectedly haunting shift in texture and intensity. And I never would\u2019ve expected that \u201cDisquiet\u201d would flow so perfectly into Jeremiah Cymerman and John McCowen\u2019s \u201cGospel Hill\u201d \u2014 this was truly the happiest of accidents. (I was also amused that \u201cDisquiet,\u201d being based on reconstituted choral voices, matched so well with a track titled the word \u201cgospel.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n

For me, these moments where previously unrelated works come together to form new and complementary statements are something truly fascinating and worthy of considered enjoyment \u2014 not because of any cleverness on the part of the mixer, but because of the sheer delight and beauty of unexpected synchronicity.<\/p>\n\n