BEN SHIRKEN

H.D. Reliquary is the first eponymous release from Ben Shirken [a.k.a. Ex Wiish], and finds him returning home to 29 Speedway. The songs sparked during sessions with close collaborators - across 11 pieces, artists such as Pavel Milyakov, MIZU, Dorothy Carlos, Kevin Eichenberger and Muein breathe personality into the record. H.D.R. coaxes beauty from a serrated, raw, yet subdued palette drawn from improvised recordings of trumpet, violin, upright bass, cello, Max MSP and modular synthesis. The title references the hard drive as a sacred container for relics, contemplating how digitally archived fragments of one’s existence can burn eternally after death. Archives, and in this case recordings, splinter and warp. Some distort what they contain. Some vanish, and others are eternally preserved, immune to deletion. Your information on these digital drives becomes archival shrapnel, the music that survives the remnants of collaboration.

H.D. Reliquary was released alongside a sound installation at Intercomm, Ridgewood from 4.10.25 - 4.20.25

The soundtrack to our present day consists of an intertwined, grinding pulse. An inhabited ‘natural’; telephone lines running through the Amazon, fiber optic cables hundreds of feet below sea level, a ‘connected’ yet alienated world. “Shards of Axel'' acts as a sonic inquiry into conflicts resulting from the prioritization and thus development of digital communication networks & automated systems. The record is its own progress trap, disoriented within a collective virtual consciousness , continually respawning into harrowing, metallic landscapes. We wander through cable-ridden labyrinths, caught in a subtle sisyphean resistance to techno-utopian optimism. In the midst of this submerged metropolis, we force ourselves into moments of respite, space to breathe; a voluntary peace as we find ourselves together again. “Shards of Axel” reflects this back to us.

Modular synths feedback through custom Max MSP patches, obfuscating the human voice. A necessary sampling and resampling of the self elicits a question of authenticity. This record was intentionally mixed with specialty immersive panning software, allowing for the intensity and frequency of sound to control its spatiality. Performed live in collaboration with Will Freudenheim and Jack Wedge, founders of 3D animation studio Laser Days, the performance explored improvisation between Unreal Engine, lasers, Ableton Live and eurorack. Shards of Axel was performed live at Dripping Music & Arts Festival, Pioneer Works, Public Records, Ormside Projects (London), and 90mil (Berlin).