Fresnel Album

Notes:
Fresnel features Seth Paynter playing soprano saxophone, mizwiz, a north African double-reed double-flute, and bahu, a Chinese metal-reed bamboo flute. He is playing through Kevin's listening instrument brundleFLY that responds to elements of Seth's playing through audio analysis. A dense sound-world that is as frequently solitary as it is wild, Fresnel explores the solo improvisation in prosthesis. The computer wraps itself around Seth, extending and altering his sound to create a multiplexed monophony that sounds as ancient as it does futuristic.
Fresnel was recorded at the REMS Lab studios, Rice University, Houston Texas.Cover image courtesy of Maria del Carmen Montoya, a still of her piece, I Could Have Danced All NightReview by Barbara Rose Lange:
Fresnel features the duo of Houston’s Seth Paynter on sax and ethnic reeds, and brundleFLY. brundleFLY is an interactive processor created and directed by Kevin Patton. In real time, brundleFLY analyzes Paynter’s multiphonics, trills, moans, and pitch glides and responds to them. brundleFLY  removes an overtone or two from Paynter’s gradually morphing meditations on timbre and layers the altered sounds back in, judiciously adding analog-sounding beeps and static bursts as well as metallic clanks. Both Paynter and brundleFLY oscillate pitches narrowly; sustained electronic tones and reverb derive from Paynter’s own sound. As Paynter stops, layers pause slightly and electronic comments murmur to an end.