mnant is a first collection of material recorded and assembled by
re:, a project of Aden Evens (Boston) and Ian Ilavsky (Montreal). re:
uses all available means to create rhythmic and harmonic fragments and
loops. The eleven pieces on mnant were culled and coaxed from an unruly
pile of four-track cassettes, DAT tapes and hard drives in Montreal, Canada
and Arlington, USA between 1997 and 2000 that involved numerous cross-border
journeys. The process was immensely interesting to the two participants
but (they believe) less so when described in any detail. The syntax of
accident and design helped things along but mostly dissolved in the light
and sound monitors. re: spends a lot of time monitoring.
mnant features densely layered songs formed by overlapping loops and
filter treatments as well as spare compositions using only one or two
fragments, similarly overlapped and filtered. re: relies heavily
on the 'cut & paste' technique popularised by microcomputers, though
some pieces were executed largely in real time, just as in real life.
All pieces, with a couple of obvious exceptions, are comprised (to some
degree) of fragments performed in real time, out in the open air, with
resonant devices, amplifiers, microphones etc. Various filters were also
often applied in real time, with hands on knobs turning and calibrating
and whatnot. In other cases, with reference to all of the above, the computer
did the work and time was suspended. At one stage or another, all sounds
were binarised and dealt with as such.
re:mnant is what remains of the process. Song titles are supposedly arbitrary. The songs themselves, as well as their sequence on the record, are not. The entire process was guided by an attempt to make the right decisions at every turn. re: does not believe such decisions are possible, owing to too much thinking and listening, which re: cannot avoid.
mnant is definitely the deepest that Constellation has yet plunged into the depths of machine-created music. The half of Constellation who is not part of re: (and who retains some objectivity re:re:) believes this foray to be as masterful and nuanced as anything we've done to date.