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.

Vinculum

Vinculum is Coppice’s archive of sonic artifacts. It collects different perspectives of air and edges of a shruti box (a small bellowed organ), accordion, tubing, sphygmomanometer, and funnels. Sounds were recorded and reduced to highlight some aspects at the expense of others.

The archive is resource for a series of “performed installations” that study the relationships between audio and audience in spaces: Copse (2010), Vinculum (Courses) (2011), and Vinculum (Coincidence) (2011); and the relationships between audio and objects: A Vinculum Variation (2012), Vinculum (Passes) (2012), and Vinculum re: Screens for Mutual Attractions to Related Objects (Some Impossible) (2015).

Selections from the Vinculum archive are present in many other recorded compositions, most notably The Pleasance & The Purchase (2010), Bluing/Blueing (2012), Soft Crown (2014), and Bramble (2012).

Between 2010–2016 Vinculum was offered as unique/made-to-order hand-embroidered pouches stuffed with three different CD-R’s inscribed with their catalogue number, and additionally as individual discs in hand-painted sleeves. The listener is encouraged to play the discs simultaneously on repeat using multiple players when possible.

2012’s Vinculum Specimen Edition collects twelve CD-R’s housed in wooden boxes custom-designed and handcrafted by Andrew Furse, in an edition of five. The edition is featured in Stuart Tolley’s book Collector’s Edition: Innovative Packaging and Graphics (Thames And Hudson, 2014). The contents of each box are:

A twine vinculum integrated on the sliding lid
A copper mesh vinculum
Twelve specimen glass-mounted/code-inscribed CD-R recordings selected from the archive: S-1 01.01 020:00, S-1 01.02 012:40, S-1 01.03 010:00, S-1 02.01 004:44, S-1 03.01 005:36, T-M 01.01 003:50, BK-1 E1.01 019:48, PC-1 01.01 006:54, PC-1 01.02 006:52, PC-1 02.04 004:33, PC-1 04.01 003:57, and F-GS 01.02 030:01
A brass tube
A brass free reed integrated into the box (activated by the mouth)
A small index scroll indicating the presence of each recording in other works

Supporters of Vinculum in 2013 were offered a Vinculum Blowing Kit, containing a free reed, brass and plastic tubes, a cork-USB containing an obviously produced memory, and Red Scroll, a short video and 32-page PDF, all stuffed in a tall hand-embroidered Vinculum pouch.

Year: 2009–2014
Format: Multiple handcrafted editions
Label: Self-released
Artwork: Coppice, Jenny Vallier, Andrew Furse
Including: Accordion, Free Reed Boxes, Handheld Funnels, Shruti Box (Orange), Sphygmomanometer
Date: October 2012