MECHANIQUE(S)

Dafna Naphtali – live sound processing & voice
Hans Tammen – endangered guitar

Mechanique(s) is the New York-based duo of Dafna Naphtali and Hans Tammen — live computer-based electronics and audio processing, endangered guitar and voice. In their active collaboration since 1998, the duo probes and playfully undermines the overlap of various elements of their technical and aesthetic practices. With Naphtali’s interactive processed sound/noise system and 4-octave vocal range, and Tammen’s mechanical and energetic laptop manipulations of modified guitars, the duo sets out on a crazed collision course of the acoustic and the electronic – all along the route paying homage (in a twirl of the radio dial) to music concrete, free jazz and European improvised music, as well as the contemporary classical and all manner of non-Western musics.

This album is a live recording of a performance in Schenectady, NY in 2009. Zachary Seldess provided the live visuals processing, an image of which is used for the album design.