BYLUR
I think everyone is familiar with the feeling of being safe inside while a storm is blowing. I would describe the feeling as paradoxical, I feel safe and scared at the same time. This feeling is the focal point of Bylur, which means ‘hostile weather’ in Icelandic.

The musical material for Bylur comes from a synth I programmed in Max where I re-mapped a keyboard according to the overtone series. The harmonies that occur in this new mapping sounded paradoxical to me as well, I feel they sound pretty and jarring at the same time and in that way match the paradoxical ‘safe and scared’ feeling I talked about above.

The instrumentalists in Bylur play ‘boxed’ musical passages freely, following a counter in Max that tells them when to move from box to box. This counter uses so called ‘drunk’ or ‘controlled randomization’ which means Bylur can be 14-18 minutes in performance and does not need a conductor.