Mondoj / Poland / 2020 / CS
'Scribble' is truly a befitting name for this collection of miniatures created by composer and sound designer Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie. Recorded at his home this past Summer, the short, sweet pieces really are like aural scribbles in a notebook. Slightly chaotic and seemingly unintentional, the 7 tracks exhibit a childlike wonder, a fascination with how various sounds or rhythms work (or don’t work) in tandem.
At the time of writing, Sachs-Mishalanie was particularly interested in exploring loose evolving patterns, utilizing sounds that feel both natural and synthetic - for instance atmospheric field recordings, uncanny MIDI xylophones, and clumsy samples of his own voice. The resulting pieces each explore a singular environment, in which various elements (often quite literally) bounce off each other. There is no obvious logic to how these pieces evolve and behave, but there is something uniquely captivating about these recordings - they are surreal, yet eerily familiar.
Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie is currently a PhD candidate in music composition at the CUNY Graduate Center, where his research focuses on the music of Pierre Schaeffer. He also teaches Music Technology courses at Hunter College and Brooklyn College, creates Max for Live devices, scores and sound designs for theatre, and records and mixes chamber music.