REVIEW / RESEÑA
Oceans between Sound is a selection of live improvisations by the internet based music ensemble, Ethernet Orchestra. The album was recorded during located venue performances and online sessions between 2014-2019, featuring musicians from a diverse range of cultures, performing across international time-zones and physical locations in Brazil, the USA, Canada, UK, Germany and Australia. The music was inspired by the ebb and flow of network data as a metaphor for the world’s oceans and waterways separating the members of the ensemble, and their geographically dispersed lives.

Oceans between Sound includes performances by internationally acclaimed improvisers such as guitarist Chris Vine, best known for his work with the British post punk band Blurt (Factory Records), and Elliott Sharp and Bob Boilen in the downtown music scenes of New York and Washington D.C. The ensemble founder, trumpeter Roger Mills, came to prominence during the 1990s with his work with the Bristol-based free jazz ensemble Space Ways and the trip-hop collective Statik Sound System (Cup of Tea Records). Performing on many of the tracks is the UK based free improviser Hervé Perez, acclaimed German pianist Holger Deuter, as well as world-renowned Moorin Khuur player and throat singer, Bukhchuluun Ganburged. The album also features a performance by the late Richard Lainhart, who worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Rhys Chatham. His musical contributions to Seymareh ensure his presence continues to live on in our music.

A salient characteristic of the recordings on Oceans between Sound is how they reflect the materiality of the telematic performance medium. Musical sound travels through multiple networks, and is subject to a variety of operational conditions, latency, speeds, compression, and jitter. These phenomena imprint themselves on the sound as an aesthetic parameter within the music, rather like the crackle of an old vinyl album. These sonic qualities are also a testament to the incredible feat of musicians performing in real-time across distances of thousands of kilometres.

Roger Mills
(Sydney, Australia, marzo / March 2020)