Coppice Compound Form

Coppice was founded by Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Kramer in Chicago in 2009, as an inquiry into the capture and generation of music and its relationship to its physical sources.

Its compound studies include Bellows & Electronics (prepared pump organs, shruti boxes, and tape processors) between 2009–2014, and Physical Modeling & Modular Syntheses between 2014–2018; focusing on the interactions between direct and reproduced sound, and the perceptual links between original and emulated sources, respectively.

Its third study in Phonography & Fiction (in progress since 2018) scrutinizes the dynamics between its previous two studies, and their relationship to architecture and time: the acoustic preservation and obsolescence of the Yerkes Observatory’s refractor and reflector telescopes in Williams Bay being the locus of investigation.

With sustained interest in sound’s capacity to cross domains, Coppice crafts pathways between music and technology in a cross-disciplinary language, resulting in work that is an overarching documentation of experimental music in-formation. Operating in cycles of instrument construction and modification, recordings, and live presentations, its productions incorporate sound design, sculpture, installation, software, images, and video.

Compound Form

2012

Photo by Emily Walley

Prepared pump organ (Kinder)
Modified Boombox(es)
Transmitters
Acoustic filters

Compound Form is a composition for amplified prepared pump organ (Kinder) and tape processes in an extended musical arrangement of various compositions.

Bramble (2012), Scour (2009), So Lobes Drape As Such Gills Over A Hanger’s Pit (2013), Pivot (2011), While Like Teem or Bloom Comes (Tipping) (2012), and Brim (2009) are present in Compound Form, none of which are revealed as wholes but as a “summer amalgam” at full dynamic expression.

Compound Form was performed numerously in Chicago and throughout tours. Its instrumentation sprung compositions that formed the core of Coppice’s live repertoire between 2012–2014, staged stereo recitals presented close-up to the audience.

March 22, 2015 – Space4Art; San Diego, CA
March 20, 2015 – AD HOC # 12 presented by The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS), Council Chambers West Hollywood Library; Los Angeles, CA
March 19, 2015 – Canessa Gallery, San Francisco, ;A
March 17, 2015 – Life Changing Ministry; Oakland, CA
March 16, 2015 – The Boreal; Eugene, OR
March 14, 2015 – Wayward Music Series, The Chapel Performance Space at Good Shepherd Center; Seattle, WA
March 13, 2015 – Quiet City series, Skylight Gallery; Vancouver, BC
March 23, 2014 – Weighter Music Series, Community School of Music and Arts; Ithaca, NY
March 22, 2014 – Ecstatic Yod; Florence, MA
March 21, 2014 – Issue Project Room; New York, NY
March 20, 2014 – PearlArts; Pittsburgh, PA
March 19, 2014 – Robinwood Concert House; Toledo, OH
June 18, 2013 – Apop Records; St. Louis, MO
June 15, 2013 – New Media Art and Sound Summit, Salvage Vanguard Theater; Austin, TX
March 13, 2013 – The Burlington; Chicago, IL
October 27, 2012 – Cedar House; Milwaukee, WI
October 26, 2012 – crow with no mouth series, Studio Z; St. Paul, MN
July 27, 2012 – Experimental Sound Studio; Chicago, IL
July 13, 2012 – Southside Hub of Production; Chicago, IL

View photos