Lowercase
Ambient · 1993 · also known as Lowercase Sound, Microsound
Lowercase turns extreme discretion into an aesthetic, an approach that took shape around the year 2000: tiny sounds, mostly silence, and listening pushed right to its threshold. Steve Roden formulated its manifesto with Forms of Paper, a piece commissioned by a library. A cousin of reductionism and Japanese onkyo, lowercase is the quietest room on this whole card, a music that asks for near total silence around it.
9 reference tracks
- Bernhard Günter: Untitled I/92 (1993)
- Richard Chartier: Series (2000)
- Steve Roden: Forms of Paper (2001)
- Richard Chartier: Of Surfaces (2002)
- Taylor Deupree: Northern (2006)
- datewithdeath: Whist (2023)
- Biosphere: Manicure
- Biosphere: City Wakes Up
- Steve Roden: Bell Is The Truth (Berlin)
At a glance
- First appeared: around 1993
- Machines: Microphone contact, Ordinateur, Max/MSP
- The sound: Objets amplifiés infimes, Microphones contact, Silences composés, DSP à peine audible
- Labels: Line, 12k, Trente Oiseaux, Touch
- Key artists: Steve Roden, Richard Chartier, Taylor Deupree, Bernhard Günter
Producing Lowercase
There is no tempo, the silences themselves are composed, ten seconds, forty seconds, a minute of almost nothing, so disable the grid and work the way you would edit a film. Build rhythm from tiny strikes rather than percussion, the friction of a page, a finger on a contact mic, a relay click, amplified and placed rarely, one or two events every thirty seconds, leaving the rest to background noise. A cheap piezo taped to paper, wood or glass into a clean preamp is enough to start, alongside a field recorder capturing empty rooms and fans. The low end is almost absent, and when it appears it is a pure sine around 25 to 40Hz, felt rather than heard. Generate plain sines, isolate resonances with a narrow bandpass filter, and use a long, low-feedback delay to space out repeats.
The full production course, in French: tempo, drums, bass, sounds, arrangement, mix, plugins and machines, and a step by step start.
Frequently asked
What is Lowercase?
Lowercase turns extreme discretion into an aesthetic, an approach that took shape around the year 2000: tiny sounds, mostly silence, and listening pushed right to its threshold. Steve Roden formulated its manifesto with Forms of Paper, a piece commissioned by a library. A cousin of reductionism…
Who are the key Lowercase artists?
Steve Roden, Richard Chartier, Taylor Deupree, Bernhard Günter.
