Shift [LP]

This record centres around Shift, a temporary public sound installation work by Sanaz Mazinani and Mani Mazinani in 2018. The installation was commissioned by The Bentway, a new outdoor space situated underneath an urban highway near Toronto’s lakeshore. During the run of the exhibition, Michael Snow and Mani Mazinani performed a duo synthesizer improvisation playing through the Shift sound installation live in-situ. The sound composition that was produced for the installation, Shift, occupies one side of the record. The synthesizer duo performance, Lives and Works, is on the other side. The LP is completed with album art by Sanaz Mazinani, including a full colour poster insert.

Shift broadcasts a sound composition that thinks about place and spatial scale. The audio is built from original recordings of lakeside waves, a rolling thunderstorm, with sound recordings from outside the Earth’s atmosphere such as radiation emissions of the planets and stars. Synthesizer music, Doppler recording techniques and stereo mixing complete the composition.

Shift (2018) was an outdoor sound installation, commissioned by the Bentway, that took the form of a large-scale stereo system, engaging with both seated audiences and passers-by. Built into two 20- foot shipping containers located at the Bentway, in Toronto, situated under the Gardiner Expressway and at a former shore of Lake Ontario.

Starting in 2010, Michael Snow and Mani Mazinani have performed as the only Octave Cat Synthesizer duo in the world. Lives and Works is the recording of their live improvised performance, playing through Shift, the sound installation at the Bentway in Toronto on October 28th, 2018.