Pondering how best to use the organ of St. Paul’s Hall, Arturas Bumšteinas admits that he changes his mind a lot – especially when there are many options on the table. An abundance of artistic freedom can, in some sense, become something of a constraint or a challenge. It makes sense then, that the Lithuanian composer’s practice is spread across so many different projects. His sonic journey began at 16, cutting, pasting, editing and transforming radio samples, with internet access in the late ‘90s allowing him to manipulate sound from online. Tinkering and sculpting have proven much more attractive approaches for him compared to the more traditional composition favoured during his years in music education. With almost three decades of work across experimental music, acoustic sound, installations, theatrical pieces, radio art and curation, he performed at hcmf// in 2022 with his improvisational outfit Sneeze Etiquette – an explosive four-piece who use turntables and drums to combine sound-art record collections, cut dubplates, extended techniques and percussive textures.
He is back in Huddersfield to develop a new composition, Stand-by for Minna, commissioned by hcmf// for presentation at the 2023 festival’s opening night. It’s directly inspired by his previous visit: after spending days delving into the British Music Archive at the University of Huddersfield, he encountered a VHS tape documentary on 20th century British composer Minna Keal, whose creative calling arrived in her 80s. He was enthralled by Keal and her friends, a network of octogenarians discovering their artistic passions so late in life. Their experiences speak to his own search for artistic identity: “Minna Keal’s life story is an inspiration for me and my composition. I think it’s beautiful that one can arrive at a productive situation at any point in their lives. The composition is like a slowly thawing block of ice, within which there is a living seed, and when the ice melts it also waters the ground. This new piece is a metaphor for my own creative life, my own never-ending search for identity. I have a hope that someday something will grow out of this cryo-seed.”
Arturas Bumšteinas (L) and organist Benas Jonušas (R) discuss the St. Paul’s Hall pipe organ. (Tayyab Amin)
Beyond her conceptual influence, Keal’s sound also finds its way into the new commission; Stand-by for Minna will feature cut-outs from Wind Quintet op.2, looped and transformed to create a harmonic background for two organists. “I made several versions of the tape part that could be used in this composition,” Bumšteinas explains. “The last version is a slow build-up of 20 layers of short, looped phrases, gradually changing and very dense, forming a kind of sound sculpture. I liked the idea that this piece is an object, maybe a sonic colour field painting. The two organists are like paintbrushes, manipulating monoliths of sound with their limbs.”
The notion that this is a sound sculpture stems from a reductive, rather than additive, approach: “It’s also important to note that this composition features the idea of anti-melody – when you have all the sounds at once, and a sound is removed to form a melodic event.” This radically diverges from his previous treatments of organ, though archival and storytelling aspects form a common thread: “My ongoing project Organ Safari consists of field recordings of organ sounds from around Europe and I let myself play around with sounds from the archive as freely and possible. Everything is possible, sometimes I throw sounds on top of each other randomly, generating results that would be difficult to produce without chance operations and random superimpositions. In my works involving Jewish cantors’ voice recordings, I like to use paradoxical sound montage as well – engineering situations where things meet that otherwise never would. I like the idea of collage a lot; to me, it’s an appealing method of storytelling.”
Another piece Bumšteinas is bringing to hcmf// 2023 is Navigations, which features Baroque era-inspired theatre noise machines. Old as the stage itself, machines such as these were used to imitate thunder and other phenomena even in Ancient Greek theatre. It’s a continuing fascination for Bumšteinas, who still dreams of ways to expand upon their use having first encountered them over a decade ago. Initially created for his Bad Weather project for a black box space, the project has undergone several iterations, with the Navigations version featuring wheels which are attached to the machines for movement while playing. “It doesn’t use any amplification anymore,” he reveals. “That’s why this version is also superior – it engages the resonant acoustics of the space. Navigations has the shape of a cloud; it always consists of the same elements, but its form is always changing.” Crucially, these changes mean the work is tailored to its environment: “Huddersfield Town Hall has a fragile floor, so many archaic sound sources such as rolling stones and dragged sticks are going to be omitted, instead concentrating on pure sounds of wind, rain and thunder noise machines, and extended ways of playing them.”
While Bumšteinas is sure there must be thematic and stylistic parallels across his various projects, he is too close to recognise what they may be. It’s his hope that the distance between his different interests allows him to better realise what shapes his artistic identity. He mentions the influence he’s had from metal and hardcore gigs, and considers how the strictly formal concert hall is perhaps just as constraining as the etiquette of exclusive techno superclub Berghain. The cross-pollination different scenes and subcultures is important to him – the kind that accommodates his formalised compositions alongside his experimental, improvisational projects, for example. He’s already thinking about what change to make next, and how he should spend the next five years. It’s the search, the prospect of the unexpected that motivates him the most. Stories like Minna Keal’s give him hope; he might find his calling in so many places, so why stick to what he already knows?
Arturas Bumšteinas (Arunas Baltenas).
Profile by Tayyab Amin
The 46th edition of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, hcmf// 2023, takes place Friday 17 – Sunday 26 November 2023. Tickets for all concerts including Arturas Bumšteinas: Stand-by for Minna are on sale now.