Rob Clouth is an electronic musician, sound designer, and new media artist based in Barcelona. Clouth makes a mix between techno music and IDM (intelligent dance music).
He uses various forms of programming to create his music. He uses sound painting, which means he sculpts sounds by painting their spectrums using a digitizer. I think this is cool, because it’s almost like reverse sound-making, because usually a sound is represented by a sound spectrum, rather than the spectrum being created first.
Clouth also carries around different microphones, just in case he hears a sound he wants to use in his music. He uses deep-ear binaural mics, waterproofed contact mics (I guess for recording sounds underwater), and a coil mic that picks up electromagnetic fields of electronic devices. I think it’s cool how he carries microphones around, similar to how a photographer carries a camera and lenses.
The video above is a piece form Clouth called ‘Islands of Glass’. I personally love how the visuals interact with what is going on in his music. I’m not sure how the visuals were made for this video, but Clouth has recently created another piece called ‘Transition’, which is shown in the video below. In this piece, Couth generates the audio with an algorithm that he wrote to scan through his music collection in date-order. The algorithm takes little slices of audio from each track and stitches them together to form one continuous mix. I like this piece, because the visuals were inspired by the growth rings on trees. Clouth loves how trees encode their own history with these rings, as well as the history of its surroundings.
I love how Rob Clouth combines audio and visuals so well. All of his videos are mesmerizing, and the audio is very unique. You can check out some of his other pieces on his website:
http://www.robclouth.com/#home
I really love the comparison you made between the musician/sound engineer carrying around mikes to record and the photographer carrying around their camera. There is so much inspiration in everyday life, and I feel like up until recently, I’ve only thought of sound/music as songs and tracks for films. Like any artistic medium, sound is rich with potential for expression. I recently bought an h4n field recorder and have had similar thoughts about sampling from my everyday life. I’m not at a point where I take it out with me everyday like my camera, but I have taken it out a few times when feeling inspired. Really interesting topic, thank you for sharing!
I think the concept for the “Transition” piece is really amazing, the fact that the algorithm takes small parts of audio and puts them together in one mix. I’m curious to know how exactly he created the visuals for “Transition” as well.
This is awesome! I love how “Transition” is inspired by something from nature but the result is an unreal visualization of experimental sounds. I am surprised that I actually enjoy listening to his music without the visuals. They sound pretty good. I hope you talk more about his work process tomorrow. Is he using both sound painting and recorded sound from nature to make his music?
This is so cool! I like how “Transition”, although it’s set up by an algorithm, has some sense to the sound; it might be a little chaotic, but there’s still some melody. Was that just a lucky coincidence then? I wonder where he gets the inspiration to make these pieces in general (especially since he makes these before he even creates sound), and if he performs his music with these visuals like other live IDM artists?
Its awesome that he brings microphones everywhere, adapting it to optimal situations. I love his philosophy that there is wonderful sound to made and discovered in all environments.
There’s a great history of experimental sound artists who create graphic composition. Hans Steiner did this with Solitude, and John Cage experimented with this as well. How would you construct a score visually?
Your post was really cool! It’s interesting that he’s reversed the process by making the spectrum first. It’s really cool that he’s so dedicated to making sound that he carries around different mics with him. It would be interesting if you could talk about the different mics he uses and the different effects from the mics. Does Clouth make the visuals that go along with the audio?
This is amazing! I love the “Island of glass” piece because as far as visuals go the relationship that it shares to sound is stunning. I was wondering if the visuals have been used in shows or festivals because they feel oddly familiar.
I recently watched Annihilation, and this is close to what is in the movie. Although it’s generated by a code, it almost seems like the code is creating itself– his work is intriguing. It’s interesting how he combined both sound and computer code into his work, the futuristic sound seems like it could be in a movie like the one I watched.