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iICEsCcRrEeAaMm

Fernando Lopez-Lezcano

for 8 channel playback

iICEsCcRrEeAaMm was a beta version of a multichannel tape piece I was working on in 1999. As in the software world, Marketing informed me that in future versions bugs would be squashed and new features would be added for the benefit of all listeners. And that really happened! This is a new rendition of the original piece, done in 2004, in 8 channels and with better resolution, higher sampling rate and a better reverberation environment. "iscream" refers to the origin of most of the concrete sound materials used in the piece. Screams and various other utterances from all of Chris Chafe's kids were digitally recorded in 1993 in all their chilling and quite upsetting beauty. They were latter digitally fed into the "grani" sample grinder, a granular synthesis instrument developed by the composer. "ICECREAM" refers to the reward the kids (and myself) got after the screaming studio session. The piece was composed in the digital domain using Bill Schottstaedt's Common Lisp Music (CLM) synthesis language. Many software instruments and quite a few other samples of real world sounds made their way into the bitstream.