Showcase of student work

See examples of our students work in Music.



Audio Visual

Gradual Destruction - James Burns

In many ways, the compact cassette tape is not an ideal music storage format: It has a number of drawbacks including: its fragility, a lack of bass and treble, and its gradual self-destruction each time it’s played. However, the creative misuse of tape’s drawbacks opens up a world of possibilities for those willing to push the cassette tape to its limit.

For my studio project, I explored using the physical imperfections of cassette tape for filter processing and adding artefacts to sounds. I carried out a series of experiments on tape, including: the application of bleach and acrylic paint, burying tape outdoors, freezing tape, and finally destroying the tape with a candle. Within my clip, we hear a tapethat has been frozen, and soaked in bleach in order to change the tape’s tonal qualities, following this, I interacted with the tape by using a candle to warp and damage the tape over a 6 minute period before the tape eventually snaps.

James Burns is a BA student on the Music Technology course. He releases music under the name Robinson’s Village, where he creates dense soundscapes, blending elements of shoegaze, sampling, and ambient music, created using the Roland SP404 and my Eurorack setup . Follow him on instagram  for experiments with tape, eurorack, synths, samplers etc.

Peregrino - Subsis (Kira Ramchaitar-Husbands)

This project ‘Peregrino’ (Spanish for Pilgrim), is a meditative, immersive environment that links Ambient aesthetics and adaptive music to game-play.

The concept was inspired by traditional antecedents in 20th-century musical Modernism including the works of the Aleatoric and Generative artists such as Pierre Boulez and Karl Stockhausen, coupled with the audio-visual synaesthesia experiments of Oskar Fischinger’s ‘An Optical Poem’.

Subsis is a 23-year-old Producer/Creative Programmer hailing from London whose work fuses experimental processing techniques, found sounds and generative compositional methods.

Triangulations - Alberto Rizzo

More than one year has passed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is not a surprise thinking about how catastrophic have been the consequences, not only in terms of human lives but also on mental well-being. The isolation in all its form has been a private sphere that everyone had tried to mitigate or not consider like it was something normal. The research for this piece headed to create a performance representing that intimate sensation.Triangulations is an intimate multi-media performance that turns around ties that have dissolved over the past year and the struggle to restore some equilibrium. It aims to reveal and balance the audi-ence’s level of immersion in the media content and finally balancing the dynamics between performer, the outside soundscapes, and the inaudible made audible.

Alberto Rizzo is a master’s student on the Music and Sonic Media course. As an aspiring music researcher, he got in touch with an alternative practice over the last two years that lead to finding a tight bond between body, motion, and sound into the ether. As opposed to several digital instruments based on motion capture systems, his system uses ultrasounds to create thecomposition matter and physically feel the interaction with the body and the environment taking advantage of some physical properties of sound into the air. He’s currently researching a suitable compositional aesthetic for his system in the field of feedback musicianship.

6:07 - Sunny Shehab

6:07 is an eternal moment. One that took seconds to impact, but months to escape. On August 4, 2020, at 6:07 pm, the citizens of Beirut lost everything. If not their lives, their peace of mind.  

This soundscape takes you through my journey with PTSD.  

Instructions:  
Section 1: IMPACT STAGE  Artwork: “The Deserter” by Tomasz Alen Kopera 
Section 2: RESCUE STAGE  Artwork: “Losing Face” by Pepijn Simon 
Section 3: SHORT-TERM RECOVERY  Artwork: “dumtrimiestonmo blurosperiod” by Ivan Seal 
Section 4: LONG-TERM RECOVERY  Artwork: “Untitled” by Marwan Kassab Bachi 

Suheil Shehab (Sunny) was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2000. Raised by Lebanese parents who encouraged musical education, Sunny started learning the piano aged 7 and flute aged 11. In school, he was involved with numerous choirs, orchestras, and jazz bands, whilst also exhibiting his classical background in solo recitals. Sunny has won several awards crediting his musical contributions to the community in Beirut. Art was never just a distraction from the politics of a failing Lebanese state, but also an expressive tool, where Sunny’s passion for composition with political undertones drove him to publish his debut album “Infinitely Endless” in 2019. Living through Syrian occupation, the 2006 war, and militia terrorism, the Beirut blast of August 4, 2020 was his most traumatic experience. “6:07” considers the four stages of PTSD recovery and brings light to the centrality of sound in trauma. 


Music and Sound work

Cloudspotting / Dirty Deeds / Reignstorm - Oskar Augustsson

These three intertwined tracks as part of a larger concept album which revolves around tales of the internet, artificial intelligence, copyright law and Disney (to name a few). Sounds on this project jump between atmospheric field recordings, voice clips sent in from my social media followers and samples from 70s children’s records that I found in the trash. In an effort to merge a lifelong admiration for the cinematic with a newfound passion for crate digging and sampling, my album will tell a story as sonically eccentric as the range of influences it borrows from.

Oskar Augustsson is an aspiring producer, sound designer and film composer from Sweden. Through utilizing production software as his main instrument, he’s become obsessed with the intricacies within sound that paint alarger picture. Ideas and techniques explored within the Music Tech course have been catalysts for many of my current musical endeavors. Current musical influences range from the likes of underground Hip Hop legends Ultramagnetic MCs, to atmospheric video game composer Disasterpeace, to noisy spiritual rock band Guerilla Toss.

 · 

Walking Piece - Tom Hobson

In this project I’ve been looking to explore the boundaries that separate music and sound, along with understanding how field recordings can be utilized as a compositional tool. My practice has lead me to develop this 10 minute ‘Walking Piece’, in which I’ve been using traditional musical instruments to replicate and develop sounds captured in field recordings.  

Aesthetically this piece attempts to be as naturalistic as possible, involving very minimal sound recording equipment and little use of sound processing. Developed in attempt to match organic acoustic sounds we hear around us, and subtly reveal their musicality and complexity. I believe that the musical features held field recordings shouldn’t be isolated, but exposed in an example to show why we shouldn’t limit our compositions to traditional melodies, structures, arrangements and rhythms. 

Tom Hobson is a final year graduate BA Music student, whose practise involves composition and sound design. Throughout his degree he’s explored diegesis in film sound, by composing score and experimental sound design for short films and small professional productions. He’s spent the latter half of his undergraduate course exploring the sonic relationship that ‘traditional’ music instruments have with more generalise sound. While building a portfolio around the notion that these two sound areas are not so different. 

 · 

Umbrella (Rihanna arr. Stracey) - Kieran Stracey

After starting University with minimal knowledge of jazz music, the influence of Kieran’s fellow course mates inspired him to explore the world of jazz intently. He became increasingly fascinated by jazz arrangements, particularly of music that you would not expect to become ‘jazzified’, including Mozart Symphony No.40 and Beethoven Symphony No.3. This piece is a final year project of Kieran’s for which he arranged the popular R&B track ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna for jazz band. The piece also features the incredible Harvey Wainapelon tenor and alto saxophone whom he directed over zoom from California. Since Kieran does not have a visual representation of the track, enjoy a lovely Brighton sunset instead. 

 Kieran Stracey is a multi-instrumentalist from Dorset, United Kingdom. He has had a very musical upbringing from learning the piano at the age of seven and becoming greatly interested in music production and composing throughout his adolescence. Kieran began playing the drums when he was fourteen years old and passed Grade 8 within three and a half years of playing. Whilst completing his BA Music degree, he has used his passion for drumming to amass a following of over 700,000 people from posting covers online. He is now pursuing a career as a professional touring drummer after graduating from Sussex. 

You can also listen to extracts from some undergraduate and postgraduate student works on .



Accessibility

If you would like to request a transcript of one of the videos, or a text alternative to any other content shown on these pages, please email web-accessibility@sussex.ac.uk.


You might also be interested in: