[Image: Edwin van der Heide’s Speed of Sound in the granary] “… Later that evening Seattle-based instrument inventor, Trimpin, performed his mechanized one-man band. He controlled two record players, a keyboard, and his wheelbarrow rhythm machine from sensors on a cello, and took us on a humorous music-making journey. As he “played” his cello, sensors tracked the movement of the bow and cued the turning of the records, sequences on the keyboard (a series of intricate automated “fingers”), and mechanized mallets made rhythms on found objects and drums that were mounted in a rusty wheelbarrow. The records’ self-reflective spoken word content (an instructional on the making of music and sound) punctuated the enigmatic story being told…

For the duration of the festival weekend, Dutch artist Edwin van der Heide installed a piece called The Speed of Sound in two very different acoustic locations—a granary structure with a highly reverberant metallic interior, and an open-air clearing among some trees. Both environments were wired with microphones and speakers. Ambient sounds, as well as sounds from participants, were picked up by microphones and looped via cables and processors back to both spaces. The effect was akin to a long electronic tape loop between the clearing and granary slowly building on itself. This made for a sweeping harmonic listen, inside and out…” From Tim Sweet on Electric Eclectics, NYFA Current.