Normally, we tend to perceive integral forms (melodies, words or images); subsegmental information is a qualitative characteristic of phonemes: it is important for the quality of the acoustic information but too small or short to be perceived as an individual segment; it is an unconscious, transient factor, quasi the ghost behind and within the acoustic material which constitute and shape the musical information.

subsegmental is a isomorphic approach to this topic, transposing digital recordings down to extremely low speed, concentrating on the micro area of a sample or segment. The original sound is dramatically transformed through pitch change, dithering limitations and appearing artefacts. That in itself is a common phenomenon, but the new material fascinated me: I started working on it with sound design tools to create a soundscape populated by surreal objects. The scenery of most of the pieces is somewhat barren; it is music close to emptiness and nothingness, with long intervals of silence between the sound events.

Mathias S. Oechslin, neuroscientist in the department of Neuropsychology at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, wrote the album notes, integrating concepts of subsegmental perception and gestalt psychology with the composed material and the basic ideas behind it. He described the gestalts appearing in his imagination while he listened to the individual pieces and expressed the associations that they conjured up in his mind; the release subsegmental has thus become a joint work on perception and imagination by a composer and a scientist. Marcus Maeder

music produced 2009 by marcus maeder
text by mathias s. oechslin
artwork by medusa cramer
translation tanya harvey ciampi, www.multilingual.ch
mastered at the institute for computer music and sound technology, zurich university of the arts
supported by Stadt Zürich/Kultur/Popkredit



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