Watch Paint Dry

The Max/MSP system of 256 gliding sine waves was created in collaboration with Dimitri Aatos. The work was recorded in 2021 during the second wave of the pandemic.

Watch Paint Dry is a six-part work for 256 gliding pure tones. The piece is an exercise in attentive listening to the constellations formed and broken by the gradual movement of the tones. Through deep listening to the complex interactions between the tones, one becomes more present. Pushing through the initial tedium of watching paint dry, with enough time one's experience becomes evocative. Through stillness, one becomes more alert, more aware of the imperceptible changes of the paint, of how it hardens and transitions through different states. Different textures, layers and levels of complexity both on the micro and the macroscopic scale are revealed the longer we stay submerged in the sound. The sine wave, much like paint, is an ambiguous building block, both a medium and a self-contained object. The listening experience becomes a vehicle for the unobserved, inviting us to slow down and appreciate a different temporal and sensory domain. To allow ourselves to Watch Paint Dry.

The physical medium is an edition of 36 players in a silicon casing. Connect them to your sound system or headphones, plug in the power and listen to the whole album, there is no skip or rewind, no stop or play. The lack of control invites you to dive into the music, trust its pace, and discover the symmetrically limited nature of the album's sound.

The object, tightly connected to the core idea of the album, shapes an uncompromising yet rewarding listening experience of 'Watch the Pain Dry'

The artwork is an array of all 36 players covered under layers of translucent matter, presenting itself as being caught in-between a solid and liquid state.