Creating with Constraints: Recomposed

2013 :: Recomposed is the work of Gilles Helsen, a musicologist and sound artist from Geel, Belgium. With a lo-fi voice recorder, Gilles records the sounds of his daily surroundings. “Every single sound is taken from real life and recorded the very same day as I recompose them. In a way, I rewrite a part of my life in music,” he says.

Similar to writing thoughts in a diary every day, Gilles attempts to compose in a quick, spontaneous way. “My collages are the result of a daily, unpretentious and superficial creativity without having the ambition of constructing autonomous and well-organized compositions.”

Gilles finds organizing the recordings into sets on SoundCloud an easy way to revisit previous recordings. “Sets are a good feature to sort my collages by month. The automatic waveform of the SoundCloud player is a simple but welcome graphical representation of my music (which often plays with dynamic contrasts).”

Hear June’s compositions reorganized into new meanings without the use of additional equipment, software or sound clips. Listening with headphones are recommended.

We’re continuing to profile more creators involved in creating sounds with constraints. Stay tuned on the blog, Tumblr and Twitter this week.