Microchunk embarked upon a challenging technical and creative journey with Luciano and Cadenza Records this year in the form of Aether. Can you see sound? Can you hear colour? Can you taste the bass?

Aether is an adventure into colour and sound blurring the line between the senses examining the relationships between light and sound, consisting of 6 musicians on stage (Reboot, Lee Van Dowski, Mirko Loko, Gregorythme, Laps, and live percussionist Omri Hason) with Luciano acting as a conductor mixing both the audio and visual elements of the show using a bespoke touch screen interface developed by Microchunk in conjunction with Salvation

Each of the digital musicians are using Ableton live synchronised with each other to drive the audio and send midi triggers through to the Microchunk video team (Todd Graft and Loki) who assigned each audio clip to a video clip. The conductor, using the touchscreen interface, assigns a colour to a musician which denotes the audio element to be played (red = bass etc) creating a live digital ensemble all the while firing the original HD media created by the Microchunk team. The one hour show progresses through four “movements”, the science, the cycle, the humanity and the beauty of colour accented by the live the percussion overlay provided at key moments by Hason during the show.

Video delivery by Microchunk was a technical feat in itself utilising up to 7 layers of HD footage simultaneously, synchronised directly to the other artists Ableton Live laptops with each video layer corresponding to a musical element. The conductor user interface at the head of the show is linked directly to the audio and video mixers allowing one touch control of both via virtual faders on the touch screen also allowing the channels to be dynamically re-assigned on the fly.