Curvo Totalitas

Catherine Lamb

Catherine Lamb studied (experimental) composition at the California Institute of the Arts under James Tenney and Michael Pisaro, who were both integral influences. It was there also that she began her work into the area of Just Intonation. As a composer, Lab is dedicating herself to the elemental interaction of tone—by the investigation into partial theory (extended Just Intonation) and variations in presence of materiality/field within unfolding forms/structures.

She has written for numerous musicians/ensembles, interprets/researches the music of Viola Torros with Johnny Chang, and collaborates regularly with Bryan Eubanks in Berlin, including the co-running of a collective Sacred Realism.

Her composition CURVO TOTALITAS (2016) is a subtracted synthesis of one large metal square and one circle, branching into shifting harmonic arrays. The instruments and synthesizers are overlaid and made transparent, so that what is constantly emerging from the elemental interactions are new shapes and new portions of the parallaxis. Curvo totalitas has been released on the latest album of New York based initiative Yarn/Wire. The extended version will premiere on March 6th, 2018 at the Miller Theater in New York.