https://dsound.audio/#!/@definitionmusic/20180614t204958405z-ason-intrigue--ill-poetic-tetralume

What Is Tetralume?

Last month, my partner @asonintrigue & I posted about an event we were involved with here in San Diego, CA, “Tetralume”. The visionaries behind this installation, Luminul (run by Ben Guerrette & Kyle Smith) created what they explain (much better than me) as "a one of a kind performance that combines choreographed LED lighting animated to a theatrical soundscape accompanied by modern dance within a sacred geometric structure, the tetrahedron.” (You can learn more via their website)

Though the actual event hosted hours of thoughtful visuals and great music, the entire Tetralume experience lasted roughly 13 minutes, of which me and @asonintrigue scored the music for. You can watch a 4 minute recap of this audio/visual mindfuck below. If so inclined, you can listen to the entire 13 minute piece, with all it's twists and turns above.

Tetralume - San Diego, May 5 from Ben Guerrette on Vimeo.

If you visit that Luminul website I mentioned above, you can read up on each of our individual contributions to this really cool event and installation. Most notably though, I recommend reading Ason's Steem post here, which goes into a much richer depth on our entire process than mine does. However I added some perspective from my angle below, so feel free to read my own personal write-up of my experience in this project. Enjoy:

My Tetralume Experience

I was contacted by Ben in late March to provide music for an LED Installation project. After chatting on the phone and seeing prototypes I was excited to collaborate on this project. Ben gave a basic outline as to the structure of music and sent me a list of musical influences to pull from. I quickly recognized my partner Danny Rogers (Ason Intrigue) would be a stronger fit to build the core structure to this piece and looped him to the conversation. Danny quickly went to town producing. The chemistry between what Danny was producing with what Ben & Kyle were developing seemed to mesh perfectly. For weeks I worked tirelessly at skimming emails of Ben, Kyle & Danny creating and troubleshooting. The hours were long but I overcame effortlessly.

Two weeks before the big event, Danny passed me the near-completed session; a perfect time for me to get to work. Danny created a 13 minute long piece chronicling the history of Electronic Music via various movements that pulled from various sub-genres (which again, he goes into much greater depth right here. I added various textures, additional melodies and twisted up a couple Bjork and Massive Attack vocal samples as a finishing touch to the piece. Danny & I then spent 2-3 days failing to coordinate our session back and forth between different versions of Ableton. We deemed this process to be an anti-workflow and eventually worked a simpler method that allowed me to put a final mix and master on the project.

(Pictured above: myself, Ason Intrigue, my drummer Carlos of Ill Atmospherics)

Once complete, we celebrated before realizing we still had to get approval from Ben & Kyle. Thankfully they enjoyed the final product. One week later, Danny was flown out to San Diego to attend the Tetralume event at Ben & Kyle’s studio/office. In what would be the most relaxing and stress-free show I’ve ever contributed to, Danny and I smoked, drank, ate chocolate and stood up for people to clap at us. This project was a success. The event was jaw-dropping.

The Future

So what does this mean moving forward? If you weren’t there for the event, you probably aren’t getting the full effect of what we’re all looking to pull off. Personally, I see tons of possibilities for the Tetralume moving forward and am excited to play any role wherever this goes:

• Music festivals with our band - specifically allowing these lights and visuals to move in real-time with our drummer, creating a truly immersive in-the-moment experience.
• Art installation audio/visual opportunities
• Selfishly, I am working on an immersive and somewhat interactive film/score. I see the Tetralume fitting beautifully within the scope of this story and hope to provide an additional emotional center to this sensory-stimulating experience.

So yeah, looking forward to doing much more in this field. Stay tuned to both me and Ason's future posts as well as Luminul's website to keep updates on future projects. Lastly, don't forget to follow our parent label @definitionmusic of which much of this is made possible on our end.

Thanks
Ill Po