Espen Sommer Eide: The Waves

Inspired by the novel The Waves, by Virginia Woolf, Norwegian composer Espen Sommer Eide makes an eponymous spatial music album for Marres. During the exhibition, the album will "live" inside the house as well as launched on vinyl under the label SOFA at the opening on November 15. The year preceding the opening of The Waves, and during other exhibitions, Espen Sommer Eide recorded nightly performances in the rooms of the house, together with the voice Mari Kvien Brunvoll and Martin Taxt on microtonal tuba. Jochem Vanden Ecker was asked to document the entire process. With these recordings, Sommer Eide composed a series of works that succeed each other in space and can be listened to either separately or joint together.
 
The tracks take the visitor room by room through the building, following the shadows of the nightly performances, the history of the respective areas explained in detail. They hear songs, melodies and rhythms, with the voices and perspectives of the performers, reproduced simultaneously from multiple angles, as if the house were a mirrored palace of sound. The music turns the building into a place where many worlds are possible—completely free from the view or presence of a particular thing or subject.

For the exhibition, Espen Sommer Eide also handmade a new instrument, "The Sonants" specifically designed for the house of Marres. A centrally placed light rotates in space and triggers the speakers when the light sensors are hit. The speakers react by each playing their own sound, which is sampled by Sommer Eide. With the combination of light and sound, the instrument is both aurally and visually a delight for the senses.

About the artists
Espen Sommer Eide (1972) is a composer and artist based in Bergen, Norway. Using music and sound as both method and medium, his artistic practice involves long­ term engagement with specific landscapes, archives, languages, and rhythms, with an experimental approach to local and embodied knowledge. In addition to installation and performances, he has been a prominent representative of experimental electronic music from Norway, with main projects Alog and Phonophani, and a string of releases on the labels such as Rune Grammofon, FatCat and Hubro.
 
Martin Taxt (1981), born in Trondheim, Norway, finished his studies at the Academy of Music in Oslo and CNSMDP in Paris in 2006. Since then he has established himself in the international experimental music scene. He is releasing albums and touring with groups such as Koboku Senjû and Microtub. Since 2013 he has been a part of the award­winning art collective Verdensteatret.
 
Mari Kvien Brunvoll (1984), is one of Norway’s leading improvisers in song and various eclectic instruments. A graduate of Grieg Academy in Bergen, Brunvoll has performed solo and in groups at some of Europe’s best jazz clubs and festivals and released twisted albums on labels like Jazzland Recordings and Hubro. Mari Kvien Brunvoll is also part of the trio Building Instrument.
 
Jochem Vanden Ecker (1976) studied photography at the Media and Design Academy, Genk and has lived in Antwerp for the last few years. Vanden Ecker’s work is process­oriented, with a hybrid documentary method often in dialogue with other artists, architectures, and situations. Vanden Ecker has released a string of artists books such as "A skydog’s time. A skydog’s place" (2015) and "From Brown to Blue" (2013).

Thanks to
The Waves is made possible with the support of Fonds 21, the BankGiro Loterij Fonds, the Mondriaan Fund, Arts Council Norway, Norwegian Society of Composers, Bergen Municipality, Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, SOFA Music.
 
Marres, House for Contemporary Culture, receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg and the municipality of Maastricht.