MARYANNE AMACHER

Text by Johnny Misheff

Maryanne Amacher’s ‘aural architecture’ isn’t for listening as much as it is for experiencing. The challenge with her work is that it brings the listener to such extreme sensations that at first it feels like you’ve been dragged violently to the brink. It’s not uncommon for the better part of an audience to run away from a performance, music blasting at levels rarely endured. If you stuck it out though, you were rewarded with a life changing experience where your eardrums literally dance along to the frequencies. A complete experience that after some adjusting is oddly reassuring and almost comforting.

Amacher had this to say of her work:

“When played at the right sound level, which is quite high and exciting, the tones in this music will cause your ears to act as neurophonic instruments that emit sounds that will seem to be issuing directly from your head ... (my audiences) discover they are producing a tone dimension of the music which interacts melodically, rhythmically, and spatially with the tones in the room. Tones ‘dance’ in the immediate space of their body, around them like a sonic wrap, cascade inside ears, and out to space in front of their eyes ... Do not be alarmed! Your ears are not behaving strange or being damaged! ... these virtual tones are a natural and very real physical aspect of auditory perception, similar to the fusing of two images resulting in a third three dimensional image in binocular perception ... I want to release this music which is produced by the listener ...”

She released only one album in her career spanning forty-plus years, called ‘TEO! A sonic sculpture.’ That album went on to win the prestigious Prix Ars Elctronica award for Digital Musics.

Maryanne Amacher passed away earlier today and her legacy is strong and will live on for a very long time to come.

Below is a wall of sound piece, featuring the peaceful, meditational work she was known and loved for in addition to the beautiful mayhem of her more aggressive works.

Click Play Full Song to hear the whole thing in it's entirety.


		Text by Johnny Misheff Maryanne Amacher’s ‘aural architecture’ isn’t for listening as much as it is for experiencing. The challenge with her work is that it brings the listener to such extreme sensations that at first it feels like you’ve been dragged violently to the brink. It’s not uncommon for the better part of an audience to run away from a performance, music blasting at levels rarely endured. If you stuck it out though, you were rewarded with a life changing experience where your eardrums literally dance along to the frequencies. A complete experience that after some adjusting is oddly reassuring and almost comforting. Amacher had this to say of her work: “When played at the right sound level, which is quite high and exciting, the tones in this music will cause your ears to act as neurophonic instruments that emit sounds that will seem to be issuing directly from your head ... (my audiences) discover they are producing a tone dimension of the music which interacts melodically, rhythmically, and spatially with the tones in the room. Tones ‘dance’ in the immediate space of their body, around them like a sonic wrap, cascade inside ears, and out to space in front of their eyes ... Do not be alarmed! Your ears are not behaving strange or being damaged! ... these virtual tones are a natural and very real physical aspect of auditory perception, similar to the fusing of two images resulting in a third three dimensional image in binocular perception ... I want to release this music which is produced by the listener ...” She released only one album in her career spanning forty-plus years, called ‘TEO! A sonic sculpture.’ That album went on to win the prestigious Prix Ars Elctronica award for Digital Musics. Maryanne Amacher passed away earlier today and her legacy is strong and will live on for a very long time to come. Below is a wall of sound piece, featuring the peaceful, meditational work she was known and loved for in addition to the beautiful mayhem of her more aggressive works. Click Play Full Song to hear the whole thing in it's entirety. Synaptic Island - Maryanne Amacher







		Johnny Misheff