Nicolas Bernier’s Frequencies (Synthetic Variations) is his first piece made entirely of synthetic sounds. Having evolved within the musique concrète and field recording traditions, Bernier wanted to break with habit — the result being 15 short movements of warped and crackling textures, vividly articulated sine waves and rhythmic bursts of pattern. The piece is designed to be listened to at random (the sound sample above is such a sequence), offering a new duration and dynamics with every hearing.
It is also part of a sound and light performance series, where both elements have been precisely knit together in a kind of synaesthesia — enabling the listener to either hear the light or see the sound.