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About the album

Picture by Konrad Maquestieau

The central theme of Ilta is the transformative power of the night, its dichotomous nature and how it is perceived by various cultures and traditions. The album originates from a collaboration with Belgian filmmaker and visual artist Konrad Maquestieau.

The starting point is the idea of the night as a daily recurrent event that connects us all. The night confronts us with a natural dichotomy that has inspired human thought endlessly. Since the dawn of civilization astronomy has shown us that the night is a special time where we are confronted with the vastness, mystery and beauty of the universe. It has inspired numerous philosophical and psychological schools where the night is considered as the separation between the real and the dream world. In mysticism the idea of the night gave rise to uncountably many interpretations and concepts. Good versus evil, heaven versus hell, the known versus unknown or the Tuka Ania as the north American Yaqui tribe use to call it and chaos versus stability. These are just a few of many examples.

For Ilta a special place is held by the Buddhist approach. Siddhārtha Gautama, called the Buddha, experienced a radical change of perspective during a long night of deep meditation. He awoke and had a cosmic vision of the deeper meaning of existence that brings the cure for all suffering to everyone.

The different tracks on the album seek to express these numerous ideas and concepts.

On an artistic side the music in Ilta builds upon earlier and science-based work of Vermeulen. In his acclaimed and nominated album entitled Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001, the integration and transformation of data science, data sonification and black hole astrophysics as compositional tools plays a central role. With Ilta, Vermeulen expands this highly experimental, and science rooted sonic universe to a more intuitive and musical language. This results in a harmony and rhythm drive approach that is essential to the compositions in Ilta.

Press 

For a full overview of press coverage of the former album Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001 click here.

Press pics


Picture by Konrad Maquestieau

Picture by Konrad Maquestieau

Picture by Carolien Teunisse

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All rights reserved. The musical contents, pictures or videos on this webpage may not be published, broadcast, or redistributed in whole or part without express written permission.

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Extended bio

Valery Vermeulen cuts a unique presence in the world of music. Holding a Phd in pure mathematics from Ghent University (BE) and an MA in music production from the Royal Conservatory of Ghent (BE), he is passionate about the convergence of art and science. Driven by a raw curiosity, a fascination with the very nature of reality and a determination to test boundaries in sound synthesis, Vermeulen’s music evolves tirelessly in its exploration of innovative generative sound synthesis and sound design. His experiments range from using AI in his Emo-Synth project – exploring the connections between music and emotions at the Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (IPEM, Ghent University) to working with Prof. Dr. Thomas Hertog, former colleague and long time collaborator of Stephen Hawking to use gravitational wave data from black holes and translate it into an emotive journey to the stars. Vermeulen’s process is as mind-bending as the music he produces – like writing bespoke programs to translate the data into musical compositions.

This approach has led to the creation of beautiful, haunting sci-fi productions with an emotive intensity – the merging of intuition and logic. When not in the production studio, Valery can be found as a guest professor at the Royal Conservatory – School of Arts – University College Ghent (BE), researcher at the Department of Mathematics – Computer Science at University of Antwerp (BE), guest lecturer at the Master ArtScience in Den Hague (NL), and as a statistical expert, data scientist and consultant.

Projects in Vermeulen’s work include besides Mikromedas, Krystal Ball and EMO-Synth.
Krystal Ball is an artistic, politically and economically inspired multimedia project focusing on the recent financial credit crisis, interactive systems and stochastic as well as algorithmic music composition as initiated by I. Xenakis in the early sixties. Under various formats the project confronts the audience with the often misleading systems and mechanisms that caused the global financial crisis (more info at: https://www.valeryvermeulen.net/works/krystalball/).
With the EMO-Synth project, Vermeulen has been designing and implementing interactive multimedia systems where the impact of automatically generated sound and music is directed by the emotional responses of the user through means of artificial intelligence (more info at: https://www.valeryvermeulen.net/works/emo-synth/).

Vermeulen’s installations and performances have been widely shown in Belgium as well as abroad. His work has been featured in several international news outlets and magazines such as Music Radar, Tech Radar, The Wire (UK), BBC6, Electronic Sound Magazine, New Scientist, Neural Magazine, DJ Mag (US), MixMag (UK, Asia and Korea), Trax Magazine (FR), Future Music (Es), FazeMag (DE), on national radio stations Deutschland Funk (DE), Deutschland Funk Kultur (DE), Radio Eins (DE), Radio Canada (CA), Yle Radio1 (FI), The Wire UK on Air (UK), VRT Radio1 (BE) and VRT Radio2 (BE).

In 2022 Vermeulen received an Honorary Mention for the STARTS Prize-Ars Electronica issued on behalf of the European Commission for the black hole album Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001 (https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/mikromedas/).

Press bio approved for immediate release

Valery Vermeulen cuts a unique presence in the world of music. Holding a Phd in pure mathematics and an MA in music production, he is passionate about the convergence of art and science. Driven by a raw curiosity, a fascination with the very nature of reality and a determination to test boundaries within music, Vermeulen’s work evolves tirelessly in its exploration of innovative generative sound synthesis and sound design. His experiments range from using AI in his Emo-Synth project – exploring the connections between music and emotions, to journeying into space using gravitational wave data from black holes. Vermeulen’s process is as mind-bending as the music he produces – like writing bespoke programs to translate data into musical compositions. This approach has led to the creation of beautiful, haunting story telling productions with an emotive intensity – the merging of intuition and logic.

Vermeulen’s installations and performances have been widely shown at various festivals and venues including Hause der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin, DE), CTM Festival (Berlin, DE), Slingshot Festival (Atlanta, US), KIKK Festival (Namur, BE), Bozar (Brussels, BE), Concertgebouw Brugge (BE) and Muziekgebouw aan ‘t Ij as support act for Alva Noto (Amsterdam, NL) to name but a few.

His work has been featured in several international news outlets and magazines such as Music Radar, Tech Radar, The Wire (UK), BBC6, Electronic Sound Magazine, New Scientist, Neural Magazine, DJ Mag (US), MixMag (UK, Asia and Korea), Trax Magazine (FR), Future Music (Es), FazeMag (DE), on national radio stations Deutschland Funk (DE), Deutschland Funk Kultur (DE), Radio Eins (DE), Radio Canada (CA), Yle Radio1 (FI), The Wire UK on Air (UK), VRT Radio1 (BE) and VRT Radio2 (BE).

In 2022 Vermeulen received an Honorary Mention for the STARTS Prize-Ars Electronica issued on behalf of the European Commission for the black hole album Mikromedas AdS/CFT 001 (https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/mikromedas/).

Past performances (selection)

  • Hause der Kulturen der Welt (HKW, Berlin)
  • CTM (Club TransMediale) Festival Berlin
  • KIKK Festival (Namur, BE)
  • Bozar (Brussels, BE)
  • Ancienne Belgique (Brussels, BE)
  • Concertgebouw Brugge (Brugge, BE),
  • Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ (Amsterdam, NL)
  • Rockhal (Luxembourg, LU)
  • Slingshot Festival (Atlanta, US)
  • IMT (Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca, IT)
  • Technical Museum Zagreb (Zagreb, HR)
  • Atomium (Brussels, BE)
  • GOGBOT Festival (Enschede, Nl)
  • State Festival (Berlin, DE)
  • SPEKTRUM Art|Science Community (Berlin, DE)
  • TEDxFlanders (Antwerp, BE)
  • MHKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, BE)
  • Musical Instruments Museum (MIM, Brussels, BE)
  • Economia Festival (Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven, NL)
  • Oortreders Festival (Musica, Neerpelt, BE)
  • TECART Festival (Rotterdam, NL)
  • Sound Scapes & Sound Identities (Beseno, IT)
  • Liebig 12 Gallery (Berlin, DE)
  • GRETA Gallery (Zagreb, HR)
  • Beursschouwburg (Brussels, BE)
  • Z33 (Hasselt, BE), STUK (Leuven, BE)
  • Tour & Taxis (Brussel, BE)

Contact

email: valery@valeryvermeulen.net
instagram: @valeryvermeulen.studio
web: https://www.valeryvermeulen.net/