ELECTRIC LADYLAND:
Adventures in Electroacoustic Performance

FIG. 8: Kaffe Matthews uses her modified violin and signal processing rig during a 1997 solo performance at the Green Street Grill in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Click for image).

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Kaffe Matthews
Kaffe Matthews describes herself as a “live converter.” Although she electronically processes sound events in real time, every aspect of her performance is improvised, and her spontaneous reactions to the surrounding environment define each performance. That approach highlights an event’s temporal nature as she samples, resamples, alters, and regenerates found sounds with her live-sampling setup.

“By working with sound generated at the performance or in another space at the same time as the performance, you’re bringing in another place with all its dimensions and history,” Matthews says. “It doesn’t just expand the sonic palette. It also means that the musician is actively using place and event as material for real-time perversion.”

An impromptu trip to study drumming in West Africa laid the foundation for Matthews’s complete immersion in electronic music. The journey came at a time when she was open to deep listening and could sense the effect of small changes on a complex sound’s tonal characteristics.

Audio Harvest
Matthews’s exploration of musical color and texture developed during an intensive phase of performing solo improvisations. She wanted to develop new ways to play the violin while introducing sounds outside the instrument’s traditional realm (see Fig. 8). However, the more she performed in public, the more she found inspiration in the unforeseen nuances of each location. A courtyard’s ambience, bar noise, even sounds from the band downstairs became source material to be layered into the emerging sonic fabric (see Fig. 9).

FIG. 9: Performing within the safe confines of a tent, Matthews busily samples and reconstitutes sounds from the surrounding environment in real time (Click for image).

Matthews revels in the experience of creating something fresh and unexpected every time she plays. She occasionally works with prerecorded material but only if the sounds are extraordinary, such as the kite-flying samples she created during a recent trip to the Scottish Isles.

Matthews arrives to performance venues early to assess their layouts. Before a show begins, she places lavaliere and PZM microphones around the venue to capture diverse sound material. Then Matthews pulls out the gaffer’s tape and judiciously embeds the microphones within the environment. Often the best material comes from close-miking a sound that changes regularly, such as a fan, water faucet, or beer tap. Matthews usually designates another mic for ambience and might strategically hide it beside unsuspecting diners, patrons at the bar, or near another club’s sound system. The artist reserves the third microphone for a prime location within the performance space so she can resample herself as she plays.

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