S-2010
Immersion
Sound & Vision:
"Not only a fascinating array of musical innovation but a persuasive
exploration of the possibilities of surround sound... The care that went
into this disc is carried through to the stylish onscreen graphics [and]
the excellent printed program notes."
Music 
Recording 
Read
Sound & Vision review.
Billboard:
"A number of 'firsts' in an exceptionally enjoyable program."
Read Billboard review.
Fanfare:
"A highly enjoyable group of pieces in a new medium with loads of
potential."
Pro Sound News:
"Starkland's Immersion was the first DVD-A project released featuring
works composed specifically for the new surround medium. The disc features
13 new music pieces from some of the world's most ambitious electroacoustic
composers."
Kyle Gann:
"Thirteen of the hippest composers around... It's an exciting body
of work...In this disc, a new genre of music is born."
Read review
from Stereophile.
Read
review from Hi-Fi News.
Read
review from AudioRevolution.com.
Immersion is now recognized as a groundbreaking recording that let listeners experience new music in high-resolution surround sound for the first time in history. All the music was commissioned by Starkland exclusively for this surround sound release.
Immersion plays on regular DVD players, as well as audiophile DVD-Audio units.
"I think surround sound offers a wonderful medium for new music. Commissioning a wide variety of today's composers to create music specifically for high-resolution surround sound seemed a terrific way to help launch the surround sound era," says Thomas Steenland, Starkland's President.
All the composers were excited about high-resolution surround sound. Meredith
Monk comments that "in many of my pieces, I have worked with making
a space ring or resound by placing singers in a 'surround sound' spatial
relationship to the audience. Now I really appreciate that there is a playback
medium which allows that visceral, rich perceptual experience to happen
at home."
Tomlinson Holman, one of the world's leading surround sound authorities, states that "this fascinating disc" is among the first "to show composers stretching the boundaries of recorded sound by exploring the new possibilities inherent in DVD-Audio."
All the music on the Immersion DVD
involves you in ways never before possible. In the opening piece Live/Work,
Pamela Z gives you a virtual surround tour of her studio with a precision
that you have never previously heard. Z is an audio artist who works primarily
with voice, live electronic processing, and sampling technology. In performance,
she creates layered works that combine operatic bel canto and experimental
vocal techniques with a battery of digital delays, found percussion objects,
spoken word, and sampled concrete sounds.
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comments.
Bruce Odland's Tank places
you in a huge underground water tank, where you hear Ron Miles' trumpet
reverberating for 7 seconds, with an authentic reality simply not possible
in conventional stereo. Odland is known for his psychoacoustic sound designs
for theatre and for his cutting-edge, large-scale multimedia installations
in public spaces, and has collaborated with many of America's leading theatre
directors, including Peter Sellars, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Andre Gregory.
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comments.
Maggi Payne's White Turbulence 2000 begins
by putting you in the center of a dramatic circling pan of a convolved
thunderous airplane, and then adds highly processed water-based sounds.
Having created quadraphonic pieces during 1973-1985, she now comments about
returning to surround sound: "To be able to once again have more spatial
control of the sound environment is exciting. To enter this more complete
world allows one to more fully sculpt the space/experience dynamically
over time."
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comments.
"One of the best composers working in the country today" (Village
Voice), Carl Stone shifts hyper-speed hallucinatory
barrages from speaker to speaker in Luong Hai Ky Mi Gia. "The
opportunity to make a piece using the medium of surround sound for Starkland's
DVD has allowed me to expand on some of the quadraphonic techniques that
I often use in live performance," says Stone.
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comments.
Phil Kline's haunting piece, The Housatonic
at Henry Street, is a "vision of enfolded time flowing
through a place on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where successive waves
of migrant humanity have overlapped for centuries. Background and foreground
are blurred as street sounds are recorded, then mixed with 'musical' material
from computer and tape." The result situates you in "an imaginary
surrounding landscape in which past and present hang out together in asynchronous
multitonal harmony." Early in his music career, Kline, with former
classmates Jim Jarmusch and Luc Sante, founded the rock band the Del-Byzanteens,
and in 1988 he joined the Glenn Branca Ensemble. In 1990 he began producing
a body of work using large numbers of boombox cassette machines to create
complex phase patterns and sound masses. "A real original" (New
York Times), Kline notes that "By nature all of my works are
surround sound pieces."
Read further composer
comments.
Pamela Z
Live/Work
Bruce Odland
Tank
Maggi Payne
White Turbulence 2000
Carl Stone
Luong Hai Ky Mi Gia
Phil Kline
The Housatonic at
Henry Street
Ellen Fullman
Margaret Tuned the Radio
In Between Two Stations
Lukas Ligeti
Propeller Island
Paul Dresher
Steel
Pauline Oliveros
Sayonara Sirenade 20/21
Paul Dolden
Twilight's Dance
Merzbow
2000
Ingram Marshall
Sighs and Murmurs:
A SeaSong
Meredith Monk
Eclipse Variations
All pieces were commissioned by Starkland for surround
sound and for premiere on this
DVD release.
Introductions: Kyle Gann, Tomlinson Holman,
and Thomas Steenland
Total Time 65:46
This DVD has been authored for playback on all DVD-Video
and DVD-Audio players.
DVD-Video playback is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.
DVD-Audio playback is high resolution 5.1 surround
sound.
Composer-supervised
stereo mixes are also included.
All versions play with over 90 images.
There are no Region restrictions.
NTSC.