CIME Poland - PSeME

Composer: Rafał Zapała (Poland)

Sound Diffusion: Edward Sielicki (Poland)

Rafał Zapała’s composition Gonsay is a very special example with artificial voices, recorded instrumental sounds mixed into acousmatic metasemantic aesthetics. The author used those artifacts and references with many composition and installations later, performed on many festivals and concerts wordwide. His early death is a strong and significant loss for the Polish and internatioanal culture.

Composer/Sound Diffusion: Edward Sielicki (Poland)

An electroacoustic piece whose aesthetics refer to the early period of concrete music, using various noises from which a slightly rough beauty is extracted. Voice simulation using samples was also used, but the human voice was not specifically recorded here. The piece was composed in 2023.

CIME MEMLab

Composer: Chow Jun Yan (Malaysia)

Sound Diffusion: Ainolnaim Azizol (Malaysia)

“Awakening” warmly invites you to reflect on global warming in a way that feels both approachable and engaging. This piece serves as a gentle musical reminder to care for and protect our environment, while also offering a spark of hope for a brighter, more sustainable future. Through the soft whispers of the wind, the crackling of a campfire, the resonant echoes of metal, the electric sparks, and the harmonious voices of nature, the music touches on the challenges of climate change with a sense of empathy and optimism. These sounds come together to create a vivid soundscape that is both thought-provoking and uplifting, encouraging us to imagine a world where harmony with nature is not only possible, but within reach.

Composer/Sound Diffusion: Ainolnaim Azizol (Malaysia)

Seed of Life (SoL) 6: The Source is an electroacoustic soundscape composition premiered at the Bristol New Music Fringe Concert 2022. Inspired by the rivers and rainforest of FRIM Kepong, Malaysia, this work draws from the belief that water is the key source of life, both sustaining nature and shaping cultural memory. The composition integrates environmental recordings of river streams and forest ambience with the evocative tones of the Malay rebab and throat singing. It traces a sonic journey of a river, from its natural origin to an abstract, mystical presence, through textural layering and spatial movement in an 8.1.1 periphonic speaker setup. Granular synthesis and spatial diffusion techniques transform familiar natural sounds into shimmering auditory landscapes. The rebab acts as a living thread, connecting past and present, nature and spirit, echoing through flowing drones, microtonal dissonance, and ritualistic gestures. Inspired by Barry Truax’s Riverrun, SoL 6: The Source closes with a spatial fade, where sound recedes like a vanishing stream. The final bowed resonance and beatings of the rebab drones becomes a symbolic heartbeat, reminding us that water, like sound, moves, heals, and connects all living things.

Composer/Sound Diffusion: Hasnizam Abdul Wahid (Malaysia)

This work is based on several series of recordings that were conducted in Bako National Park, while carrying out research related to the bioacoustic sound mapping project. It consists of several sounds that were recorded and then underwent editing and sound processing process in the studio. This work is a statement related of the richness of biodiversity found in Malaysia, particularly in Bako National Park. This work was composed for presentation using eight output channels and with real-time diffusion.

Composer: Fendi Mazalan (Malaysia)

Sound Diffusion: Ainolnaim Azizol (Malaysia)

Litar Rohani is a five-minute acousmatic composition exploring the intersection of spirituality and synthetic sound. The work imagines a spirit world not of forests or ancestors, but of machines, circuits, and feedback loops — an afterlife encoded in electricity. Composed using hardware synths, the piece draws from the tactile, physical behavior of modular synth fragments and lo-fi generative systems. Every sound, from servo clicks to filtered drones, is shaped to evoke spiritual presence — not through melody or harmony, but through texture, breath, space, and spectral energy. Rather than a linear narrative, the composition unfolds as a series of apparitions: breath-like pulses, ghostly harmonic clouds, and whispered fragments drift through the multichannel field. Field recordings of wind and whispered voices are layered with synthetic timbres, processed through granular and spatial techniques to blur their origin and materiality. The listener is invited to experience sound without sight— to let the spirit of the composition reveal itself through immersion. This piece is not meant to be understood, but felt, as if tuning into the radio static of the soul.Litar Rohani is best experienced in darkness, on multiple speakers, with open ears.

CIME Ukraine

Composer: Tetiana Khoroshun (Ukraine)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

I made these three videos in 2023-24 when I was looking for answers to the questions of identity in my refugee Odyssey. These are attempts to convey the sensations/emotions of the phonemes/words of language, to translate them into images/sounds that are beyond the screen of words.Two of these texts are Ukrainian poetry, and one is Chinese. The first video is based on the poetry of Pavlo Tychyna, a Ukrainian poet who had an extraordinary sense of sound. The second video is a poem about my hometown, Yalta, Crimea. Ukrainian poetess Alla Tyutyunnyk wrote it in Ukrainian, which is very special for me, because most of the poetry about Crimea was in Russian. The third video is something more like a game between all the senses, the edge of absurdity and buffoonery, based on an ancient Shi-shi song, which is a sound game on the theme of the 9-tone system of the Chinese language.

Composer: Boris Loginov (Ukraine)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

This work began in the first month of the full-scale war, amidst shelling, displacement, and fear. It was written during internal displacement within Ukraine, as it was too dangerous to remain at home in the Kyiv region. It was not conceived as a composition, but as a moment of emotional survival—a raw attempt to hold myself together. The only available tools were old recordings, fragments of my past works, and a limited sound library on a failing computer. Among them was a recording from Taneev's Ioann Damaskin. There was discomfort in using Russian music, especially so directly. But perhaps that discomfort was part of the point. This material wasn't chosen for effect—it was found almost by accident and later became central. It felt like a dark mirror: a highly spiritual message dissolved into the noise of war. And one thought hasn’t left me since—while we sincerely admired their “great culture,” bombs were quietly being prepared for us behind it. When the piece was finished, I wasn’t sure if it was truly complete. I didn’t know if it should be performed at all. But I thought—perhaps this is the time for unfinished things, because war interrupts everything.

Composer: Mariia Arestovych (Ukraine)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

Echo of Time is an electroacoustic composition in the genre of "concrete music", dedicated to my brother Ivan — a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as to his comrades. The basis of the composition is the poem «Naked Voice» by Yurii Izdryk. It forms the conceptual core of the piece, determining its emotional and dramaturgical direction. The thematic material of the work revolves around the idea of contrasting the living human voice with sound elements of various natures. The composition blends acoustic and electronically processed sounds: violin effects, such as pizzicato and col legno, object noises (hits on wood, glass, metal, plastic), natural sounds (wind, water), synthesized textures, as well as vocal fragments — the recitation and singing of Yurii Izdryk's poem «Naked Voice» performed by a serviceman (a recording from the front) and the composer. Some of the material underwent electroacoustic processing — including granular modulation, reverberation, and filtering. The piece explores the passing of time, the blows of fate, memories, presence — those who are no longer physically with us but are always in our thoughts. The sound palette evokes the effect of echo, embodying the state of "not being alone". The conclusion of the composition is connected with the gradual fading of sound layers, the final lines of the poem, and the final strike, which symbolically marks the end of the countdown of time.

CIME Greece - HELMCA

Composer: Epameinondas Fassianos (Greece)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

Embedded within the tapestry of Shinto tradition are sacred shrines housing distinctive round bells tethered to lengthy ropes. A ritual of resonance is woven when the rope's sway summons forth the bell's vibrant peal, an act symbolizing the approach to the divine kami. Tokyo embarks on an auditory journey, encapsulating cultural intricacies, environmental echoes, and personal reflections. Here, the past and present converge, memories intertwine with imagination, all within a sonic narrative that transcends the limitations of time and space.

Composer: Andreas Mniertris (Greece)

Video Artist: Simona Sarchi (Italy)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

Naturae / Continua is the working title of a tripartite audiovisual work in progress.S.Sarchi composed the video and A.Mniestris the soundtrack. Here we present the 2nd part of it. (It is loοsely related to a text translated by T. H. Huxley and published as "Nature: Aphorisms by Goethe” in the first edition of Nature magazine (Volume 1 Issue 1, 4/11/1869): “Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her. [...] She is ever shaping new forms: what is, has never yet been; what has been, comes not again. Everything is new, and yet nought but the old. [...] We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her [...]”.

Composer: Vasiliki Legaki (Greece)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

The acousmatic work Leaning Together is an audio narrative based on the first stanza of the poem The Hollow Men (1925) by T.S. Eliot. The poem reflects the spirit of doubt and existential emptiness that characterised the period after World War I. It explores themes such as the loss of human communication, spiritual and emotional sterility, the absence of meaning and purpose in life. It focuses on the emptiness, futility and misery of then-modern life, wishing to express feelings of guilt, regret and anguish. The intense images and strong symbolism that Eliot presents in the text, inspire the sound scenes of this work, which are captured either with an imitative character, or with a more abstract mood.

CIME Portugal - Miso Music Portugal

Composer: Antonio Ferreira (Portugal)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

This is an acousmatic composition with all the expected aesthetic trappings: abstract sounds contrasted/mingled with treated recorded sounds, in a continuous swirl of movement pointing to a possible escape from a troubled world… The continuous movement is realised by using small sounds, particles, which are sometimes source recognizable and whose movement is achieved by a combination of energy (level) and frequency content (timbre) panning (with a sprinkle of doppler shift). That means that the intrinsic sonic characteristics of the material guide the movement. Material with variable energy and frequency content was added or subtracted as desired to control degree of spatial activity. Direct control of panning, eg. via envelopes was avoided. The work was conceived and mixed in Ambisonics 3o. Audio feeds to loudspeakers are decoded according to the diffusion layout, as needed.

Composer: João Castro Pinto (Portugal)

Sound Diffusion: WANG Haixu (China)

This piece that delves into the sonic richness of spherical objects, ranging from rubber and ping pong balls, to wooden / styrofoam spheres and marbles. Additionally, the piece incorporates sonic resonating elements, such as a Tibetan singing bowl and a wire fruit basket, where the sound objects were intentionally moved and recorded, with different speeds and dynamic densities. The spherical objects were also recorded on other surfaces such as glass tables, wood and tiled floors. The composition’s main aim was to articulate organic plots of kinetic energy, by designing variegated musical gestures and crafting experimental timbres and tones. At stake is the musical exploration of the idea of circularity, i.e., of intrinsic movement, of flow / vortex macro-shapes. The goal was to simultaneously explore the physical and phenomenological quality of “roundness”, a sort of circumnavigation of an acousmatic cartography of movement. Each object was carefully selected for its unique sonic characteristics and guided by the axial idea of proposing oscillating / overlapping musical planes, conveying, within the several sections of the piece, a sense of transparency and opacity. Hence, along the composition, the spherical objects are disposed either raw or partially / totally processed (by micro-montage, including a variety of d.s.p. operations as: granulation, spectral filtering, pitch shifting, varispeed, etc.). Beyond the classical percussive sounding behaviour of rebounding spheres (e.g.: falling into surfaces) one can listen, as the piece evolves, to the sound objects being experimentally transformed and evoking contrasting mental images of movement and staticity.