Peter Maximowitsch released his Heartz LP via Tsuku Boshi this past April and it’s an intriguing psychoacoustic exploration of sound’s “structural” aspects. Maximowitsch was born in Lithuania but he currently resides in Heidelberg, Germany where he is working on his PhD in Philosophy. Heartz follows up on the artist’s 2018 EP release for Drvg Cvltvre‘s experimental techno label New York Haunted.
Interested in the ways in which sound waves move thru space/time and the psychoacoustic effects of this auditory experience, the experimental composer utilizes stochastic methods and spectral synthesis in his exploration of far-out aural realms. Often combining randomized sound elements, as well as a process of synthesis that separates an audio source’s harmonic content from its noise content, the remaining residue of sound can then be modulated by something like a time-varying filter.
The results of this methodology can really be heard on tracks like “Fly 99,” “BNZ,” and “Onstr Super,” where that residue is a granular, percussive sound stuttering thru space/time. Similarly, cuts like “Grgnt,” “Never,” and “Mi Sui,” are focused around a randomized element of sound, but with more emphasis on their tonal aspects. Additionally, if a track like “Fly 99” presented an audio source reduced to its syllabic content, “Never,” with its tonal and percussive elements, begins to form almost randomized phrases.
While much of Heartz explores these more abstracted areas of our auditory experience, seeking to separate the emotional content of composition from the “brutal truth” of sound itself, “Braga Cut“‘s combination of tonal and percussive elements, though heavily filtered, begin to take on a more amorphous shape akin to techno. Hints of arpeggiating and droning tone play off blips and bleeps, and other rhythmic stutters, to create a more immersive and less abstracted experience.
Likewise, on the closing track “Simple Waves,” the “brutal truth” of sound, in this case piercing timbers that tend to bob and weave thru space, gives way to an experience something like ambient listening. With the granular or syllabic elements replaced by fully formed tonal thoughts, a slightly angst-filled experience emerges. Ultimately, though, whether exploring sound as a physical experience of time/space, or whether allowing it to crystalize into proto-elements of emotional expression, on Heartz, Peter Maximowitsch continues to probe sonic realms in search of their most intriguing psychoacoustic effects.
