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APPRENTICESHIP
Myster Shadow-Sky began the practice of music at the age of seven (and eight in the school of music). As a child, he discovered electronic music with Joanna Bruzdowicz, Pierre Henry, and other composers, and the avant-garde art of the 60's with Natalia Piontek among the famous Polish Avant-garde canvas artist group. Instinctively his first sound generators were the turntable played slower and faster with the short wave radio and he was recording his playing on cassette.
In the 70's, together with his classical guitar studies, he became an electric guitar player. He founded and performed in rock bands, which inflamed audiences in the suburbs of Paris in a "punk" environment.
In 1977, he met in the Autumn of Warsaw (contemporary music festival in Poland) the German composer Josef Anton Riedl who encouraged him to compose music away from the "straight-jacket" note-thinking. The same year the Warsaw Music Conservatory admitted him to study composition and electronic music with composers as Kotonski, Wiszniewski, etc. In addition, he was playing free jazz in the renowned jazz club Hybrydy with Polish musicians around the trumpet player Tomasz Stanko. Parallel to his electric guitar activities he performed classical guitar recitals in Poland and France.
He came back to Paris in 1979 and starts at the University of Paris VIII his musicological studies: composition with Costin Miereanu, musical mathematics analysis with André Riotte, computer music with Giuseppe Englert (from the famous team of Patrick Greusset), electronic music with Marc Battier, and musical analysis with Ivanka Stoianova, Francis Bayer and Davorin Jagodic. In addition, he attended courses by Gilles Deleuze at the Department of Philosophy and Jacques Lacan at the Department of Psychology. He has also attended the classes by Pierre Boulez at IRCAM and at the Ecole Normale de Paris, by Iannis Xenakis at the University of Paris 1 and by Karlheinz Stockhausen in Metz and Paris. In 1982-83 he participated in the Atelier de Recherche Instrumental directed by Pierre Yves Artaud at IRCAM. He completed his physics acoustics studies in the laboratory of Emile Leipp at the University of Paris VI. His attachment to the scenography has driven him to work the scenographique techniques and the spectacular productions with Jacques Polieri and other theater designers. He finished his master degree with Daniel Charles (1987) and his doctor degree with Iannis Xenakis (1991). "Formalization and expansion of scales' systems field (music materials' mystery) vol. 1 and 2," is the title of his master thesis and doctor dissertation theme.
His passion for sound attracted him to work as a sound engineer and producer in several recording studios. At Le Centre de la Bombe, his free music company, among the creative activities, he records, mixes and mastered music with his analog and digital devices.
THE EXPERIENCE
In 1979 he wrote his first (approved by himself) piece for 6 electric guitars named "Cauchemar Atomique" (Atomic Nightmare or Atomic Cucumber). This music was inspired by the scene in Stanley Kubrick "..." film where the gay was released sitting on the atomic bomb from the airplane, and the nightmare of the gay who realized what he did: easy killing millions of people. He recorded a solo version compiled in "6SSSSSSeX+2eX."
1980 was the year of discovering the Genoscopic Kalandar, and the beginning of making music with the common object: the architect-lamp by gaming music through the rules of Ludus Musicum Delirium's score. His other game-music is "the Parasitic Games" where 6 DJs and drummers have to gaming to generate music in aleatoric form. The Ephemerôdes piece is also based on a game.
In 1981-82 he wrote two extreme music pieces. One, "Tension" is a progressive muscular contraction going to paralysis with hard rhythmical breathing and heartbeat sounds. This music is written for double bass, violin, percussion players and stunt(wo)man plus a complex video, light and sound system. In the same feeling he wrote the extreme solo piece for voice: "Rion Riorim" (Black Mirror or Rewarmed Riot). This happened in an infernal scenographique architecture designed building and "scenophony"* (scenophony means lived spatialized sound design) where the audience has to go in to test the experience of the extreme perception. "Rion Riorim" is based on the "message journey going through different decoding and encoding to become understandable." Ivan Fónagy explains this process in his book "La vive voix. Essais de psycho-phonétique, 1983" The singer has to sing with too many barriers, a poetry of Charles d'Orléans from the XIIth century. In these years he wrote a piece for 7 Gods named the Ephemerôdes who play on bad state pianos with a continuous tune changing mechanism of strings tension. Theirs music is to tell their own stories through their own Chronos Time. They have to untangle it again and again. This theatrical ceremony has imposing characters playing inside a huge vertical tube of light putting inside a huge light building in shape of a drop. Its title is "The Ephemerôdes Guard of Chrônes, untangle them."
In 82-83 he created a series of pieces named "Erre." One for solo bowed string, one for string orchestra, one for solo female voice singing around a sphere of microphones. This "mic-tree" music was make to spatialize her voice inside the Drop-building quoted supra because this piece is linked with the Ephemerôdes the Guards of Chrônes. At this time he thought to give the role of the Prophet-preacher of Delphes to Diamanda Galas. An another Erre piece was written for laurel leaves branch, female voice, big drum, sine waves and 3D moving sound. "Les Lignes d'Erre" (wandering lines) was written on the same way but for a huge orchestra spatialized vertically and horizontally in the countryside. These works were dedicated to Fernand Deligny, a French psychologist who takes care and succeeds to communicate with autist children. He notes his researches in his book "Les Lignes d'Erre." "Miss Terra" for solo piano and its double, "Ourdission, the fluid light speed in an ephemeral misty drizzle" (a Hatching or an Irradiation by Erudition) for contrabass flute, alto flute and piccolo G flute used the same writing technique: the waves drawing, the wandering lines.
In 1983-84, he explored in solo live performance, the particular psychological reaction of the audience with his performing music on Arco-guitar-Couchée, a work on unnatural breath, a music score entitled "It's impossible to give a title to this phenomenon because the unknown beyond the extremes edges of space and time has no name." The same year he performed and experienced the parasitic-music "Avant Eve Et Adam Et Après" (Before Eve And Adam And After) which is the parasitic-score for different concert orchestras. One of these experimentations was recorded on tape.
In 1984-85 he "hit the road" and participated in several different free jazz bands as trombone and electric guitar player in different tours in Belgium, Germany, Holland, Poland and England. In Paris he met the underground new wave music and performed among several musicians as Pierre Bastien around the trumpet player, Jac Berrocal.
In Nice [France] during Manca 88 Michel Redolfi took the initiative to make Les Percussions de Strasbourg play his lamp-music: Ludus Musicum Delirium after Simon Desorgher who failed in London in 86.
Among his recent compositions, "La Farsa del Sonido" is a kind or quasi concerto for 7 keyboards: piano, harpsichord, electric piano, church organ, bandonion/accordion, electric organ one and two, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, choir, strings, and percussion.
THE SURPASSING
Composer, performer, sound engineer, professor, cultural manager, and musicologist Mathius Shadow-Sky has worked on a treaty named: "Formalization and expansion of scales systems field (music materials mystery)." The project is to extend the possibilities of making music, in several inter-cultural states of mind and points of view.
As a composer who wants to explore the world of music he became multi-instrumentalist, and created original playing techniques: for bowed strings, for electric guitar in "Les Explorations Saint Ethique" (synthetic holy ethic explorations), for trumpet's mouthpiece, trombone without mouthpiece, sponge, tourist percussion instrument, etc., in the extreme solo studies called "6SSSSSSeX+2eX," or for voice in "Opera [tion] Della Bocca d'Amore," in memoriam Dimitrio Stratos.
His passion for the sound exploration and sound formalization pushed him to invent his own musical instrument as the PVC (slide) Sax, the Arco-Guitar-Couchée, the Tubalus where he hits and plucks inharmonic sounds on unusual tune scales, the Contrabass Rubber, with contact microphone, the 9-tone electric guitar, among others. He insisted in practices of "anti-bruitiste musicalisation of common objects" and composed for chairs: "Concert Bouffe" (food concert), bird cage "Cage's music, in memoriam John." and performs on architect lamps (angle poise lamp) to play the music from the "Genoscopic Kalandar," the clay tablet engraved with music ideograms discovered in Indus Valley (actual Pakistan) and dated back 3rd millennium B.C..
In 1983 he creates in London his inflatable giant flute, the music building for his piece "Ourdission, the fluid light speed in an ephemeral misty drizzle" with piccolo, C and bass flutes (interpreted by Simon Desorgher). The result of his wind current sounds research using inflatable architectures where the audience can feel the physical sensations of the moving sounds which provoke virtual mind pictures.
He performed concerts throughout Europe with the Arco-guitar-Couchée to play: "It's impossible to give a title to this phenomenon because the inexpressible beyond the extreme edges of space and time has no name." These performances generated an inexplicable intense emotional reaction by the audiences. The music was recorded in 1983. Ten years after he realized a "remix" of this piece with computer tools named "Boring Space."
In 1985, he founded in Poland the ONO LULU Filharmonia orchestra where he was exploring the raw expressionism of Slavic music and gave to us on stage and recorded two works: "Je suis d'Ailleurs" (I am from no[w]here or elsewhere) and "La Commedia del Suono," (the comedy deals sunny) with Michal Zduniak (drum) and Tadeusz Sudnik (synthesizer) plus guests opera singers as Justina Jarzabeck and the famous soprano coloratur Olga Swajgier. In 1990 he wrote and performed the SpectàCul with the Ono Lulu Filharmonia the quasi-opera: "Spect à Cul erre, hein!" (spectacular, eh! or the ass wanders among species) at Bourges experimental music festival.
He met Jean Weinfeld from the Bauhaus in 1985 who asked him to create music for his FONICS (New FOrms for String Instruments) built by himself. In this way he created his solo "concerpt: Dïngx" (7 incredible conceptual and concertual stories ) for these particular instruments such as "Cello-cubic, Harp-cello-guitar, Tri-guitar." Paul Panhuysen invited him among the exhibition of the Fonics to perform the concerpt-Dïngx at his Appolonius Haus in Holland and the music was recorded the same year.
To expand the project he founded in 1989 the Trio Fonic, a chamber orchestra but now with twelve cubic original FONICS. The original project was to create a twelve musicians' orchestra. He asked Pierre Bastien and Jean François Ott to join him to perform several concerts in Europe such as: "little and simple experimentation on Fonics," "Ten triadic pieces and sound furies," "Instrumentals' vibration and vocal string," "Supersonic exhibition by the Incomparables' Club." In 1990 he recorded "Bauhaus Neofonics" (new sound's boys). He was the only composer who accepted to make music with these amazing sound sculptures. Jean Weinfeld died in 1991.
His vocal works take a large place in his music: he explores his own voice in "Opera [tion] della Bocca d'Amore," he explores sampled voices' music from Russian traditional female choir, Palestrina choir, Stockhausen choir, etc., to create "6 000 000 000 de voix sans air" (6 billions of voices with no air [air means also a tune in French].) He worked with the opera divas and singers with the Ono Lulu Filharmonia orchestra. He created for the Polish pop singer Karioka "4 Taboo songs 4 Karioka the Divine" and recorded it between 90 and 92 at Le Centre de la Bombe in Paris. In 1994 he transformed his own voice with computer to create "Mangé" (Eaten).
In 1987 he created in Paris Le Centre De La Bombe, an independent organization to produce and perform creations of all free music and art. In 92 he moved his Unexpected Waves Laboratory Exploiting the Elementary Rhythm of Matter to Southwest of France in the Pyrenees countryside. He founded an appropriate place to work his compositions and develop the activities of Le Centre De La Bombe for others' artists with for example: the program Artists-World-Exchange.
2 Lamplayers 5000 Years After is the result of his long research on proto-historic music from the earlier civilizations, started in 1980. The musicians, the lamplayers play music on common objects as the 2 architect-lamps. The result is an incredible sophisticate music. This is the best lamp's music who was created since 1980, when in 1994 he realized the music of the Genoscopic Kalandar, with Vincent Favre the second lamplayer and produced the 5000 years old music: "5000 years After music from Genoscopic Kalandar" recorded in 1995. Fabrice Gares joined them to be the Soundplayer and uses surround sound devices in "Live in New-Europe AD" in 1997. Shadow-Sky organizes for 2 Lamplayers SpectàCularts performances with surround-scenography, painted costumes and masks with video-actors in 3D moving sound.
In 1991 he was introduced by Jo Flash to the electronic-techno-dance-music and he created several pieces compiled in his CD "Strange night with Mister Shadow Sky" done in 1994. Following this project he created a live-act named Shadow-Sky-Teub-System, an AnAtomic of Shocking Waves where he mixed his experiences in techno music and 3D fast moving sound (research started in 1980) to create a new kind of performance: a high speed quadraphonic system for body and brain pressure sensations where the sound becomes your body and your body becomes the sound.
He has been working on the SpecàCul & SpectàCulte of "To be definitively done with Religion" for S.P.O.R.T. = the Specialists of Problems Obscene Racist and Taboo. A drum' n bass' n guitar music. He founded this concept in 1990 for the Polish artist painter Agata Siecienska by titling her collection of 12 paintings on taboo subject based on Mary Douglas book "Purity and Danger." He created for her outdoor big events with 12 meters' sculptures in concrete to put in it her taboo paintings. Then, he realized songs on the same subject: "4 Taboo songs 4 Karioka the Divine" composed by him particularly for the divine Polish drag queen Karioka.
In 1996 for Le Disque du Centre de la Bombe he created a CD collection with the rule to make a remix of a major composer from the XX century contemporary music by actual composers. The first CD was "Karlheinz Stockhausen Remixed" and will be followed by "Pierre Henry Remixed" and "Edgar Varèse Remixed."
In 5 years' existence in Southwest of France, Le Centre De La Bombe attracted approximately 70 international artists to work music, film and performance projects. This particular environment made possible to create an eclectic big symphony orchestra named the Trans Cultural Sym Phony Orchestra. In November 1996 he conducted the Trans-Cultural Syn-phone Orchestra with 25 musicians from different culture and music styles. They were performing his "Syn-phone NO1: Le boxon ensemble" his instantaneous conducted-composition. In September 1997 during LezArts de l'Etrange festival organized by himself, he conducted-composed with 80 musicians his "Syn-phone NO 2: Le beau Chaos." The 2 Symphonies are released on CD. The near future will be to create the TCSO from Brazil to play the SYMPHONY NO 4 in Amazonia and to create the TCSO of Montreal to play the SYMPHONY NO 5 in North of Quebec.
THE TRAVELER
In 97 Mathius Shadow-Sky left France and Europe for America. There, he opened Le Centre De La Bombe America as a US company and released this web site to get together all his creation from 20 years of career. He rebuild the laboratory of le centre de la bombe to release his next composition: “Knots System in Miami” for 2 speakers playing badminton and himself playing music, "Infected or Imperfect Life," live act computer music, "Oh, a Shadow in the Sky," with "Technoïd Tendencies;" and mastered all his CD produced in Europe (the job is not done yet!)
In 1998 he moved Appalachian Mountains and created the CCMM Artchestrâ concept, the Collective Composition Music Makers with composers and musicians from University of Houston who realized a multimedia collective composition performed in May. In March he was invited by Gustavo Matamoros to perform for the Subtropics New Music Festival in Miami, "Knots System in Miami" where he released in music the text "Knots" from the famous psychologist Ronald D. Laing. The University of Miami invited him for several lecture regarding his work.
In 99 Myster Shadow Sky was invited by the department of multimedia and communication of Université du Quebec à Montréal to give a lecture untitled "Multimedia or Multi mania? The role of Collective Imaginary." Then he met Monique Savoie, director of the SAT (Technological Art Society) who proposed him to co produce the "Sym Phony NO 3 : Office music avec sale air" in Montréal. Shadow Sky proposed her to create an orchestra of 100 computer artists placed for the concert in a 10 meters hight iron structure with 5 floor, surrounding sound and picture projection on inflatable geometric structures. The project was too big for 2000 and will be released in 2002. In between he met René Jacques the director of SPAG (Society to Promote Gigantic Art) which build inflatable giant sculpture. In 2000 Mathius Shadow Sky and René Jacques decide to joint Le Centre De La Bombe and SPAG to release "Ourdission generation II," the most giant musical instrument ever created.
In winter 1999, Mathius moved to Brazil because he was invited by the Music Conservatory of Rio to teach master student. There he released the CD "The Raw Voice of Cooked Exile" a strange compilation of his raw voice singing and Brazilian rhythm electronified! With Bertrand Hugo Muller together they start to organize the Trans Cultural Sym Phony Orchestra of Brazil to release the Syn-phone NO4 Vents de Peaux" in Rio de Janeiro. He wrote also different pieces: for the Rio de Janeiro Strings Orchestra untitled "Situations Innommables, Situation innommable dans la langue où le goût étrange-r à la parole incomprehensible" where he develops spaced acoustic moving sound in his unknown pitch scales. He wrote also a score for the Rio de Janeiro Symphony Orchestra untitled "La Bourgeoisie Coloniale de Rio Apprécie la Musique Romantique de ses Compositeurs Contemporains, Occidental Music to play at Theatro Municipal de Rio de Janeiro" in 4 movements: "1: entrez dans la transe", "2: la bourgeoisie coloniale, la musique romantique et les compositeurs contemporains de Rio...", "3: des salons bourgeois au parfum de la nostalgie, des clubs coloniaux à la mode américaine", "4: pour les enfants". This music is a 35 mn "algoritmo-romantico-japaneso" music: a joke! He wrote also for the first time in his career, music for piano. One of the biggest piece was requested by the great musician Waldemar Reis. Shadow Sky wrote "3 Ephémérôdes Cardent Quelques Chrônes Partis du Milieu de la Bombe" for 3 piano spaced in triangle where the audience is placed in the center (of the bomb). The 30 mn of music was written "to share our individualism in 3" like Shadow Sky said. An another piano piece, a solo for Fernanda Canaud "Le Piano est-ce un Instrument qui peut Sonner sans les Noirs?." In Rio he met the double bass player Jorge Ribeiro, together with Shadow Sky they record a silent music for bowed double bass and trumpet in C. Shadow Sky was replaying trumpet after 8 years break! It will be a CD in le centre de la bombe collection untitled "Winds of Skins." Jorge plays traditional Choro music with his Brazilian band: Esquina Carioca, recorded by Shadow Sky too (the CD will be available at le centre de la bombe.) In Rio Shadow Sky released also some web pages with interactive music to play. These pages will be in the next web site of Le Centre De La Bombe: www.centrebombe.qc.ca in Canada. 2000 was the year of Le Centre De La Bombe registration as a non profit organization in Montreal. The Sym Phony NO 5 will be released next year 2001 by the Trans Cultural Syn-phone Orchestra of Montreal and conduct by Myster Shadow-Sky.
Fabienne Issartel, Marina Leiba, Dorothée Sadowski, Maritza Mascarenhas.
myster shadow-sky biophonic historical reference points
curriculum
la musique de pomoc do groba
list of works
discography
impressions about myster shadow-sky' music
instrumentarium in 1998
le
disque du centre de la bombe
le
centre de la bombe mapping page
the free netlabel of the center of the bomb
