»Is This The Land I Wish Death To Find Me« was recorded on June 26, 2024 at the Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado. The recording is based on a slowly shifting set of ascending just minor thirds: 6:5, 7:6, and 13:11. Magnetic geophones were attached directly to the Tank’s steel exterior, allowing the performance to be captured through the physical resonance of the structure itself. Only a minimal amount of the microphones inside the building were mixed in for clarity. The work draws inspiration from exploratory archaeoacoustics research into how spaces hold residual sound of past action and how resonance interacts with material over time. In practice, the trombone activates the Tan and allows the resonant response to become the primary sonic material. The track explores that interaction.
»Teeth Of The Second Range« was recorded at home in Culver City, California in December 2024 and January 2025. It extends Barbier’s long-term interest in sonifying spaces, referencing iterative room-resonance processes such as »I Am Sitting In A Room«. Alto, tenor, and bass trombones were recorded and re-recorded to build a choir of unplayed or ›phantom‹ brass instruments. The resulting piece is constructed from the acoustic reality of the instruments when allowed to resonate without human input. »Teeth Of The Second Range« traces a simple I–IV–V–I progression in Bb major, a tonal center associated with the trombone, but the spectral content produced by spatial playback diverges significantly from familiar brass harmony. The effect highlights a tension between functional, performance-based acoustics and the inherent sonic profile of the instruments themselves. The title refers to an early poetic name for the Organ of Corti, taken from Veit Erlmann’s »Reason and Resonance«.
Across both recordings, Barbier examines the relationship between instruments and the environments they inhabit. Space becomes transducer, collaborator, and archive. By foregrounding physical resonance rather than traditional breath articulation, Barbier’s work asks how instruments sound when freed from performance convention. The recordings emphasize vibration as a fundamental condition of matter and hearing. They propose listening as a method for revealing latent acoustics and structural memory. What emerges is not a portrait of the trombone alone but a study in how sound shapes and is shaped by the places where it occurs.
Mattie Barbier is an LA based musician and sonic researcher working with experimental intonation, latent acoustic worlds, and the physical processes of low brass instruments. Their work has been praised as inventive and virtuosic by the LA Times, The Wire, and The New Yorker. Barbier collaborates closely with composers and sound artists including Weston Olencki, Ellen Arkbro, Clara Iannotta, Sarah Davachi, Michelle Lou, and Jacob Kirkegaard. They are a member of Rage Thormbones, wildUp, echoi, and Diapason, and teach at CalArts. Their performances and commissions span international institutions and festivals, with recordings on Sofa Music, Dinzu Artifacts, Carrier, Ideologic Organ, and Discreet Archive.
