Octonomy: Atavistic Echoes, Primal Fear Response

“The astral self is, without a doubt, an analog waveform and an electromagnetic pulse” Reforesters Laboratory Sound Clinic & the Performance and Interactive Media Arts program at Brooklyn College presents the MFA thesis work of Heidi Lorenz Wettach, aka Octonomy. Lorenz Wettach’s thesis, titled Atavistic Echoes has focused on the acoustics and psychoacoustics of ancient halls, chambers, caverns, cairns, and stone circles and the ethnology of the inhabitants of those spaces in an attempt to prove that people have been seeking altered states, experiences of fear and ecstasy, and a connection with the unknown – for a very long time. The sound composition "Primal Fear Response" is one manifestation of the performance work done in this thesis while at Brooklyn College. This piece is a fully analog experiential multichannel composition made for ¼” tape reels and live improvised synthesizer for 32.1 speakers, using Reforester Lab’s 24.1 spatial audio system and an added, custom-built 8 channel reel to reel analog multichannel system. This show will also be an unofficial record release for Saturnalian Rites, Octonomy's forthcoming LP. The work as a sound composition relies on the phantasmal idea that the linear, unbroken nature of an analog waveform symbolically acts as a distorted, warped physical record between the sonic landscape of the past; a transmission of cultural memory through pure frequency. Using spectral analysis of ancient instruments and geologic sounds generated from historical seismic records placed in situ via recorded impulse responses at neolithic sites across Europe, the work posits that one’s psychic reality can be altered via recreation of long forgotten decaying room tones, drowned out by the hum of modernity. --- Heidi Lorenz Wettach (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based electronic musician, sound artist, performer, composer and audio engineer. She is an MFA candidate in Performance and Interactive Media Arts at the Brooklyn College at the City University of New York. Lorenz Wettach’s works in her MFA mainly focus on the ethnology of archaeoacoustics, or the behaviors of ancient people in acoustically significant spaces across a multitude of cultures. As a musician/sound artist, she performs under the name Octonomy and operates outside of genre signifiers but is underpinned by her propensity towards the drone and distorted, corrosive sustained soundscapes. She primarily makes work with synthesizers, field recordings, found sounds and amplified non-musical appliances. She has performed her under her solo moniker Octonomy at a number of different festivals and venues including Unsound (PL), Ende Tymes (NYC), 24 Hour Drone (Hudson), Fourth World (NYC), Sanctum (Chicago), and has released her work on Hosianna Mantra, Faktor Records, Mutual Aid Records, and Chthonic Streams. She additionally co-curates a quadraphonic music series, Outersonics.