The Score

“It’s not just about finding a new sound, but finding the right
process to change a sound,” insists Matt Shoemaker, one of
Seattle’s preeminent makers of experimental electronic music. The
distinction often means the difference between a rote, standard-issue
piece and a breathtaking composition. Electronic processing seems easy;
anyone can yell through a delay unit and with a flick of the dial (or
mouse click) retain just the echo (called the “wet” part of the
signal) to create an instantly strange atmosphere.

Shoemaker, by contrast, is a virtuosic sound sculptor,
polyphonically embedding processes from imperceptible shifts to
startling, jagged transformations. “A field recording of birds,” he
explains, “resonates with people—everyone recognizes it. Start
changing it, filtering, and gradually subtracting certain frequencies
so it sounds thin and raspy, then new, maybe scary, things
emerge. Listeners hear that; the altered resonance becomes a specific
feeling.”

Our long conversation about field recordings, unorthodox transducers
(yes, a metal tine can filter sound), and composing (“Everyone knows
when there’s too much reverb,” he warns) deepens my regret about
Shoemaker’s upcoming move to the Bay Area. I don’t know him well, but
after we shared a gig at I-Spy back in 2000, I began following his
releases avidly, including Warung Elusion (Trente Oiseaux), the
regrettably impossible-to-find Forking Path Navigator (Oblast),
and Spots in the Sun (Helen Scarsdale).

His upcoming farewell concert (Sat July 18, Chapel Performance
Space, 8 pm, $5–$15 sliding-scale donation) not only marks his
departure but celebrates the release of his latest disc, Erosion
of the Analogous Eye (Helen Scarsdale). “For the first two
pieces on Erosion, I was trying to imagine an orchestra of
instruments,” he says. “Some of the sounds are ‘real’
instruments—guitar and cymbals—but played differently and
layered.”

Indeed, Shoemaker so completely shrouds those “real” instruments
that I cannot spot them anywhere on the album. What I do hear on
Erosion is captivating. My favorite track, “Erosion A,” begins
with a slowly thawing siren. The wail widens, careening higher and
lower with each breathlike cycle and dividing, a chilled meiosis, into
subterranean throbbing and shimmering pure tones. By the end, it all
evaporates into lonely, receding bells.

Live, Shoemaker’s music is raw yet richly layered; he conjures
the same sorcery, eliding field recordings and digital processing.
Don’t miss him.

The following night (Sun July 19, Meany Hall, UW Campus, 7 pm,
$16–$19), the Northwest Mahler Festival Orchestra serves up
richly detailed orchestral music: The funeral march from
Wagner‘s Götterdammerung, the still-sexy “Dance of
the Seven Veils” from the scandalous Salome by Richard
Strauss, and Gustav Mahler‘s Symphony No. 6, which
Seattle composer Phillip Arnautoff once described as “Mahler
crucifying his audience with orchestral polyphony.”