ÉTUDE AUX USINES À FER (1996) Homage to Pierre Schaeffer First performance: 18 Aug 1996, Schaffhausen steel foundry. First released on a STV (Association of Swiss Musicians) compilation CD. In this étude I set out to uncover latent rhythms in short recordings made at a steel foundry—patterns that lurk in the background yet remain elusive. I worked primarily with software designed to restore old vinyl records; its usually “undesired” side effects became the very qualities that interested me. CHEESE AND CHOCOLATE (1986) First performance: 26 Apr 1986, Cambridge, MA, USA. A soundscape drawn from the idyllic—and less idyllic—world of Swiss folk music. The samples come from the archive of sound engineer Walter Wettler, a key figure in the rediscovery of traditional Swiss music. HAUSMUSIK (1994) First released on the SZCM (Swiss Center for Computer Music) compilation Swiss Waves. Sommerau—a former farmstead with a large barn near Oetwil am See in the Zurich highlands—was then home and workplace to a group active in social and artistic fields: 18th-century architecture meeting late-20th-century computer engineering. I spent some of my best, and hardest, years there; it was where ideas took shape, including what became the Swiss Center for Computer Music. Hausmusik is a work of leave-taking—grieving familiar surroundings. Sounds produced by the house itself and its rural setting were processed in the barn’s studio using a Macintosh Quadra 650, Pro Tools hardware/software, and the programs SVP (IRCAM) and Hyperprism. VERKLUNGEN (2003) The sound of my mother’s violin has long faded; she died in 2000. Her career, marked by setbacks, gradually gave way to silence in her final years. In this piece I try to fix those memories—much like a jazz soloist telling a story—using material from recordings of her trio Lore Durant and other tapes found among her belongings. ZOLLIKON (2001) (bonus material / CD only) Two soundscapes created for an exhibition by visual artist Urs A. Furrer, using recordings from the Swiss community of Zollikon near Zurich. Introvertiert (“Introverted”) reveals the town’s quiet side; Extravertiert (“Extroverted”) emphasizes its modern, noisy face.