"Reise der Schatten" tells the abstracted story of a genderless being coming to terms with its identity and place in a world full of conflicts and systems of control. "The film was made with old animation software that only works on Mac OS 9. So already, we are in a very hermetic, unique space," says Pateras. Having tried (and failed) to compose something "typically experimental," he went for long walks in the Australian bushlands and came home with something else: the idea to create a soundtrack that would create "a kind of distance, or perceptual shift, but also a narrative drive and emotional context which is not always clear."
While recording the album, the tētēma co-founder did not use digitally generated sound, instead workingwith live instrumentation whose sound palette was enriched by the use of feedback, tape delay, analogue synthesizers, and samples from vinyl records. Wanting to work primarily with acoustic instruments suchas the clarinet made Pateras embark on a complicated journey of his own. The initial recording sessions took place in Basel on metallophones that were designed by Domenico Melchiorre's Lunason company and laid the foundation for everything that came after.
Pateras recorded with musicians such as guitarist Alexander Garsden, viola player Erkki Veltheim, clarinetist
Aviva Endean, multi-instrumentalist Justin Marshall and Lizzy Welsh on the viola d'amore among other instruments. He recorded percussion and recorders with Rohan Rebeiro and Natasha Anderson in his hometown of Castlemaine, double bass with Benjamin Ward in Sydney, bass and flutes with Jon Heilbron and Rebecca Lane in Berlin, and electronics in Zürich with Netzhammer. "Reise der Schatten" was thus a literal journey, made with a "big, international electro-acoustic ensemble."
As a stand-alone album, "Reise der Schatten" opens up a space of its own. Its stylistic diversity makes it atmospherically and emotionally multi-faceted. As its composer notes, "music for screen can be very virtuosic, sophisticated, and variegated!" His own work is a testament to that claim.
Anthony Pateras (born 1979) is an Australian-born composer, pianist and electro-acoustic musician active since the late 90s. His music explores electro-acoustic orchestration, auditory hallucination and polytemporality.
His work has been recognised through the 2020 Michael Kieran Harvey Scholarship, residencies at Akademie Schloss Solitude, La Becque and ZKM, fellowships from Creative Victoria, Ian Potter & Sydney Myer Foundations, and representing Australia twice at the
UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers.
Pateras has been commissioned internationally by INA-GRM, Südwestrundfunk, ensemble]h[iatus, Eklekto, Kitchen Orchestra, the City of Modena, Musica Sanae Festival, Festival Archipel and Synergy Percussion. His pieces have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC & Toronto Symphony Orchestras, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Golden Fur and ICE, among many others.
Anthony Patera also works with text and film, recently completing an adaptation of Jump Cuts by Sasha Soldatow & Christos Tsiolkas with James Rushford, music for The Man Who Disappeared by semiotext(e) founder
Sylvère Lotringer, and Another Other, an audio-visual re-imagining of Ingmar Bergman's Persona with Natasha Anderson, Sabina Maselli and
Erkki Veltheim for Chamber Made.
Pateras' longest running collaborations are with the composer/violinist Erkki Veltheim (in duo, in tētēma & in North of North with Scott Tinkler), and with the electronic musician
Jérôme Noetinger, specialising in musique concrète environments using piano, electronics and tape machines.
He has also worked extensively with the programmer & mathematician Rohan Drape on multiple keyboard and ensemble works.
Pateras has also collaborated with Sunn O))), Anthony Burr,
eRikm,
Oren Ambarchi, Mike Patton or
James Rushford on various recording projects, and notable bands include
Thymolphthalein, PIVIXKI and
Pateras/Baxter/Brown.
Anthony has published over 40 albums of his music on labels Tzadik,
Editions Mego, Ipecac, All That Dust, Cave12 and Penultimate Press, and from 2012-2019 edited and produced the 15 volume Immediata text/music project.
From 2001-2008 he completed a Masters and PhD at Monash University which both focused on the intersection of composition, improvisation and electronic music, in relation to timbre and form.
See also
Thymolphthalein (Natasha Anderson, Will Guthrie, Jérôme Noetinger, Anthony Pateras & Clayton Thomas);
Extended Pianos (Erik Griswold, Anthony Pateras & Robin Fox);
Astral Colonels (Anthony Pateras &
Valerio Tricoli);
North of North (Anthony Pateras, Scott Tinkler & Erkki Veltheim);
176 (Chris Abrahams & Anthony Pateras);
Pateras/Baxter/Brown.
