False Self

False Self works are experimental musical compositions that deploy generative systems to explore ideas of authorship and a composers musical identity.

False Self (2016)

My False Self series began in 2016. The first iteration of False Self was created in the SuperColider programming language, as an algorithmic musician designed to compose and play alongside my true self.

A false memory of a sports party (2018)

The second album in the False Self series was inspired by Elizabeth Loftus's pioneering research into memory distortion and specifically the generation of false memories. The album finds me once again working with my False Self Supercollider system. This time however, I extensively reworked, or to use Loftus's term — distorted, our joint efforts alone, in a final compositional phase. 

These compositions are sounded by synthetic instruments, notably late 1980s and early 1990s attempts to synthesize and sample acoustic instruments; such as the EMU Emulator II, Roland D50, Korg M1, Yamaha DX7iiFD and FAIRLIGHT CMI. These instruments have a clunky, strange, counterfeit tone that I find fascinating. The voices that haunt the album are sampled from a session between R.D. Laing and his patient Rory. This session was filmed as part of the 1987 documentary Did You Used to be RD Laing? The voices speak of past traumas, yet even Rory and Dr Laing are unsure whether they are lucid recollections or fantastic confabulations.

Rudi Arapahoe 2018

False Self plays music for six pianos (2021)

The third album in the series, False Self plays music for six pianos comprises of four long-form compositions for six pianos. The compositions use integer tables to arrange found cells of slow, jazzy piano music. Each piano has eight cells of music and one silent cell. The cells mobilize as hypnotic cyclones of repetition, that move in and out of sync, to create complexity from simplicity. As the compositions progress, the cells extinguish themselves in a languid, stuttering fashion — before the process begins anew.

Rudi Arapahoe 2021