Listening Experience: Lightscape by Doug Aitken

Reethaus is pleased to present*Lightscape*, a fever-dream song cycle by Doug Aitken, recorded with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and curated by Soundwalk Collective.

InLightscape, Aitken draws on the mythology of the future-oriented American West. His musical sensibility is rooted in minimalism, which inLightscapetakes on the saturated colors of a sunset. Built on orchestral arrangements, propulsive synths, and the human voice, the soundscape makes use of simple tonal and vocal phrases that repeat, overlap, and morph into abstraction. Aitken combines futurism with a touching Hollywood optimism to evoke a chorus of angels in silicon and silver.

Lightscapeemerged from improvisational recording workshops between Aitken and the Chorale. Further developed with the choir’s artistic director, Grant Gershon, the material was then brought to its final form with producers Austin Meredith and Rodaidh McDonald. The recordings sparked a multimedia project encompassing a feature-length film, multi-screen installations, live performances with the Philharmonic, and sculptures drawn from the same imaginative universe. This listening experience at Reethaus—the first time the aural component ofLightscape ispresented as a standalone work—celebrates the release of the vinyl pressing with The Vinyl Factory.

The recording has been custom-spatialized for the omnidirectional sound space of Reethaus.