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.

In Lightscape, Aitken draws on the mythology of the future-loaded American West. His musical sensibility is indebted to minimalism, which in Lightscape acquires 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.

Lightscape arose through improvisatory recording workshops between Aitken and the Chorale. Further developed with the choir’s artistic director, Grant Gershon, the material was then given final form with producers Austin Meredith and Rodaidh McDonald. The recordings catalyzed a multimedia project spanning a feature-length film, multi-screen installations, live performances with the Philharmonic and sculptures from the same imaginal universe. This listening experience at Reethaus, the first time the aural component of Lightscape is presented as a standalone work, celebrates the release of the pressing with The Vinyl Factory.

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