Hysteresis by Tim O'Dwyer -- Meta Saxophone

Recorded in Cologne, Germany, while in residence at the Academy of the Arts of the World, the album features the 'meta-sax', a self-constructed hybrid instrument. By mounting controllers on the body of a playable alto saxophone, O'Dwyer processes his playing in real time to "extend the extended techniques of the saxophone". These are all one take recordings. There are no overdubs.

Hysteresis is the memory of movement found within an object after the shifting forces have left. As French philosopher Gilles Deleuze describes how painter Francis Bacon prepared his work without sketches:

"This preparatory work is invisible and silent, yet extremely intense, and the act of painting itself appears as an afterward, an après-coup ('hysteresis') in relation to this work."

O'Dwyer uses hysteresis as a metaphor for the relationship between the acoustic and electronically processed sound of the saxophone.

Tim O’Dwyer has been playing the saxophone, composing music, soundpainting and instigating music and interdisciplinary collaborations for more than 30 years in Australia, Europe and Singapore. His music is evocative, often complex, intense, and visceral. "The playing is phenomenal, but it's totally hermetic"
--Greg Hooper RealTime Magazine.

timodwyer.com