Composer Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, known for her concert outings, shifts to a lushly organic electronic album in flowing, humming, fragmented electronics for her debut album as a producer. And it comes with an interactive music video powered by Max and RNBO, so if you’re in the mood to VJ yourself, flying around some Gaussian splats, here’s your chance.
The Pittsburgh-based Taiwanese-Australian composer has a diverse range of techniques for ensembles — see a couple of nice examples below. That’s included works with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, JACK Quartet, and ELISION Ensemble. Those often incorporated electronic and electroacoustic elements, or were built around process and sculpture. You can hear that openness in the new album, Animus. It feels a bit like floating along a pond at some microscopic level, electronic and metallic textures growing around you. Rhythm and pattern are almost always submerged, but without ever ceasing to move and fragment.
Have a listen:
Via media artist Jesse Stiles, there’s also an interactive video. It’s partly JavaScript (Three.js), partly RNBO. The interface is essentially transparent, but run it a couple of times and go and click and drag liberally — that’s a lot more than just rotation; you’ll discover both sonic and visual variations unfolding once you get going. Here it is in a brief excerpt in motion:
Blade is out on Every Possible Recordings. Jesse writes with more details:
The album’s opening track, “Blades,” extends beyond sound into an interactive browser-based experience created with Jesse Stiles, powered by Cycling ’74’s RNBO and Three.js.
In this work, the listener becomes a participant: Hsieh’s music drives a constantly shifting digital environment constructed through Gaussian Splatting, a neural rendering technique that turns photographic data into a fluid 3D space. As the user touches or drags on the screen, their gestures reshape both the sonic and visual worlds in real time.
The piece runs entirely in a web browser, with audio processed through RNBO’s portable DSP engine and rendered live — no plugins, no installs. It’s a work that blurs the boundaries between listening, playing, and perceiving, situating composition within an evolving, tactile encounter.
Here’s a sense of her concert music:
I’m especially taken by watching this sculptural piece and the accompanying score: