Excerpt from Remote Viewing

Laurent: Organ / Diamant: Soprano Sax / Thompson: Alto Sax / Rodgers: Cello

composed and engineered by Phillip Laurent at Audium SF and First Presbyterian Church Of Oakland

2024-2025

mixed for stereo from the original 24 channel audio

This piece was inspired by two observations. One is that music reflects the location where it is created. The other is that the view of a location’s sum contours (such as a city skyline) and immersion into that location (a city sidewalk) are mutually exclusive experiences. This mutual exclusivity creates a tension of desires, where I find myself longing for perspective and immersion simultaneously, resulting in a type of spatial nostalgia I call Bizsuam. Harnessing the Audium’s 170 speaker 24 channel listening environment, Remote Viewing explores ways to express Bizsuam by modulating the physical distances over which harmonic and rhythmic tensions are held. I felt it was only right to work with multiple musicians to get at the heart of the concept, which is as relational as it is spatial. To this end, I wrote Remote Viewing for an ensemble including Zekarias Thompson (Alto Sax), Benjamin Rodgers (Cello), Herb Diamant (Flute, Soprano Sax, Bassoon) and myself (organ, synthesizer). I am forever grateful to have been allowed to record Organ parts for this work on the Pipe Organ at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland.