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pareidolia: a feedback study for modular synthesiser

by Aragorn Eloff

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Pareidolia is a form of apophenia, which is the perception of patterns or meaningfulness where there are none. Audio pareidolia is a common phenomenon, from parapsychology's electronic voice phenomena to the well-studied perception of acousmatic complexity in white noise.

I find that feedback patching (connecting outputs back to inputs, usually via complex signal chains) often results in audio apophenia, for me anyway, especially in the context of long-form unstructured drone pieces. Using chaos (actual mathematical chaos as implemented in analogue electronic circuitry), with its unfolding interplay of patterning and change, difference and repetition, as a modulation source seems to add to this effect, contributing to a sonic ecology poised at the threshold of criticality - the fine balance between order and randomness in which complex behaviour tends to emerge in dynamic systems.

Here's one such example of a feedback drone patch containing a fair bit of chaotic modulation. The actual sonic substrate is surprisingly simple, essentially just a few notes played by a single voice (Mutable Instruments Rings), but a tangled forest of patch cables feeds this voice back onto itself via various forms of granulation, filtering and effects, resulting in an emergent aural ecosystem full of pareidolic moments.

Recommended setting: medium to high volume (preferably on decent headphones) while lying down, eyes closed in a dark, relaxed environment.

Recorded live in a single take from my modular system. No editing or post-production.

Cover image: a photograph taken during a forest wandering in Mäntyharju, Finland, mid-2014.

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released April 2, 2024

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Asqus South Africa

Aragorn23 / Asqus is an experimental musician based in South Africa. His current work focuses on algorithmic and gestural composition as well as modular synthesis.

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