https://empres.music.ox.ac.uk/art-noi...

fission (2020—ongoing) is an online collaboration between DPhil composer SALINGER (Jonathan Packham) and Xactus (Alex Saad). It is an iterative composition consisting of a repeating processual loop. The process was initiated with a 100 second audio file (fission 1.1.wav), which was produced by Saad and sent via file-sharing platform WeTransfer to Packham. He cut, altered, and added elements to create a new iteration of the composition (fission 1.2.wav), which was then sent back to Saad. This new version was subject to the same process again, with new elements, alterations, and additions radically reconstituting the track with each successive iteration. Crucially, with each new version editing individual layers of the previous iteration becomes impossible. In many ways, fission details our working relationship through palimpsest.

fission [sketchbook]—presented here—is a mix that comprises different iterations of the track alongside original compositions and field recordings by Packham and Saad across their resident cities of Oxford and Berlin. It also features spoken word sections which seek to explicate some of the compositional, conceptual, and philosophical thinking behind fission.


SALINGER (Jonathan Packham) is a composer, researcher and performer of contemporary music.

Xactus (Alex Saad) is a composer, producer and performer of electronic music based in Berlin. His debut EP Xero was released by EXPO in February 2020.