Between Systems - Track Narratives

BETWEEN SYSTEMS Thomas Kotcheff & Bryan Curt Kostors Track Narratives 1. Morton Feldman - Nature Piece 1: Nature Pieces 1 is entirely atonal, yet its continuous melodic line carries a playful, whimsical contour. To accentuate this, the piano is live-processed through the Meris Hedra, which transforms each note into shifting three-note chords. The intervals are adjusted in real time to mirror the line’s non-tonal fluidity, creating harmonizations that lend the piece an extra quirky, engaging edge. 2. Morton Feldman - Nature Piece 2: Nature Piece 2 is notated in strict 4/4, yet every note appears as a grace note before the beat—a feature of the score that is felt by the performer but invisible to the listener, who still hears regular 4/4. This performance emphasizes that hidden feature, giving the grace notes a sense of time. The Moog Drummer From Another Mother provides the rhythmic framework, its analog oscillators and filters driving the piece’s growing energy, while additional glitchy fills are performed live through a modular synth. To mirror this glitchiness, the piano is processed through a formant filter—normally used on pop vocals—which struggles with chords, producing artifacts and errors that become a defining part of the sound. 3. Morton Feldman - Nature Piece 3: Nature Piece 3 is a highly rhythmic work written in 5/8, though the meter is almost irrelevant as Feldman often avoids clear downbeats, bar lines, or continuous pulse. In this performance, the underlying 5/8 is brought to life with a synthesized percussion part on the Arturia Drumbrute Impact, whose intuitive design allows for playful fills and variations. Harmonic layers emerge at points in the piece and are expanded with the Moog Subharmonicon, a sequencer inspired by Leon Theremin’s 1930 Rhythmicon for Henry Cowell. Another central element is the piano’s studio processing at pivotal moments—for example, recording a melodic phrase backward and then reversing it again to create a ghostly, backward-sounding piano instrument. 4. Morton Feldman - Nature Piece 4: Nature Piece 4 is among Feldman’s most popular works, celebrated for its simplicity, pandiatonic harmony, and concise beauty. This performance adds ethereal pads created by running the Soma Lyra-8 through the Hologram Microcosm and the piano is processed with granular synthesis, adding shimmering high-frequency repetitions and reverb that enrich its texture. 5. Morton Feldman - Nature piece 5: Nature Piece 5 is written in 7/8, yet its virtuosic and continuous leaps hint towards the feel of a steady fouron-the-floor pulse. Leaning into this sensation, a Eurorack modular synth drives an evolving bass and kick drum which anchors this movement’s new overlaid pulse. Classic saw-wave pads with sidechain compression —borrowed from the EDM world—gradually build, pushing the piece toward its climax. 6. Morton Feldman - Intermission 3: Feldman’s Intermission 3 explores piano overtones activated by silently depressed keys. To amplify this effect, the Prophet Rev2 sustains resonant overtone chords, enriching their interaction with the piano’s pitch