SonicAnta
About The Anta Project:
The Anta Project is a series of recordings blended in a multi-track laptop environment to create a single sonic collage of the U.S./Mexico border near Nogales, Arizona.
The instruments chosen for this project were objects with political and metaphorical symbolism found during my desert journey.
By turning the three-mile long steel wall that separates the U.S. from Mexico into a sprawling electro-acoustic instrument, my goal was to deconstruct its purpose and sonically prod the listener into a line of inquiry:
What is it I am hearing?
Why do these things exist?
Who is kept in and who is kept out?
Instead of being an implement of division, the wall becomes an instrument of creation with the power to unite.
Similar desert performances were carried out upon a leaking water jug (played with found mesquite sticks), a barbed wire fence (played with a cello bow), and a roadside shrine dedicated to travelers and police alike.
The sound of wind vibrating fence wires in the open spaces and the thumps of helicopter blades were also manipulated and recorded.
The recordings were obtained by attaching a Schaller Oyster contact mic with roughly five feet of chord to the object of choice with a swatch of black electrical tape. The signal from the microphone was then fed into a battery powered DOD sustain/ volume/ compression pedal.
Unlike an ordinary audio recording where a microphone is used to capture signals as they enter the air, these contact mic recordings focused upon how the objects themselves internally interpreted the sonic world around them as well as my percussive applications.
For each performance I used an assortment of sticks and mallets I’d customized or discovered.
These included chopsticks (plain, taped and with rubber balls glued to the ends), a metal whisk with bent tines, an amazingly sturdy cardboard tube which once held fax paper, thin rods of aluminum removed from a science experiment and palm cut frond cores.
All performances were closely monitored (and occasionally inspected) by armed agents of The U.S. Border Patrol, The Department of Homeland Security and The City of Nogales Police Department.
A semi-regularly updated Power Point (PDF) detailing Anta Project background is available HERE.
About Glenn Weyant:
In addition to being a sound-sculptor, I am also a journalist- educator- baker- instrument inventor- welder based in Tucson, Arizona.
Over the past few years I have had the pleasure of workng with: The Running Dogmas Collective, Prepping Finger Salad, The High On Out Duo, George Haslam, Phil Hargreaves, Bill Marconi, Barry Chabala, Mike Yarrish, Jane Crowe and many others.
As far back as I can remember, I have found myself consistently drawn to projects which blend the borders of the sometimes fiercely distinct worlds of freejazz, experimental music, electro-acoustic instrumentation and electronic processing.
Instrumentation I routinely use includes, but is not limited to: tenor/alto sax, clarinet, flutes, upright piano, found object percussion and instruments of original design such as the Kestrel 920.
About the Kestrel 920:
The Kestrel 920, is a sound transmogrifer I designed and calibrated to amplify and exploit the nano and overt vibrations created through percussive blows, bowing, electromagnetic fields and assorted manipulation.
At the heart of Kestrel 920 is a segment of found lumber that has been hollowed to create a resonation chamber for the mounting of a contact mic.
The lumber has been strategically mounted with found objects mostly including: a tuned dust pan, a deconstructed satellite dish mount, assorted screws, nails, bungee cords, wires and springs.
The vibrations and subsequent tones created by the manipulation of these objects passes into/and is translated by the grain of the lumber where it is captured by the contact mic, boosted, processed and eventually broadcast.
Recent Discography:
1. Red Eye: 1991 (Cassette • out of print)
2. The Nantucket Sessions: 1994 (Cassette • out of print)
3. Squid: 1996 (Cassette • out of print)
4. Tucson Mountain Chaos: 1998 (Cassette • out of print)
5. Best of The Running Dogma Collective: 2000 (CD • limited pressing)
6. Prepping Finger Salad Live @ MBI: 2001 (CD • Limited pressing)
7. Sound Collage #18 For Trains and Rails: 2004 (CD • Limited pressing)
8. Red Coffee/Black Wine: 2005 (CD • Available/ CDBABY)
9. Seven Transharmonic Explorations: 2006 (CD • Available/ CDBABY)
10. An Experiment In Blind Chaos Group Theory Free DADA Coincidence Volume One: (2006 Download • WHI)
11. The Anta Project: 2006 (CD • Available/Email Glenn Weyant for details. See CONTACT for email info)
12. newZona: Chabala/Weyant 2006 (CD • Available/squidco.com)
13. Mittimus/Weyant: Sekel/Yarrish/Weyant 2006
(Download • Available/Mittimus/Weyant)
14. Friday Morning Everywhere: Hargreaves/Weyant 2007
(Download • Available/Fri.A.M)
15. EXTRACTED EARTH Limited edition, four disc ambient installation. Weyant 2007