Spectral Chaos

Composed in two stages. The original stereo version was commissioned by Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (MESS) for Recovery, a twenty-artist compilation of new work made during two-week studio residencies through 2021–22, co-presented with Liquid Architecture and Multicultural Arts Victoria and released 6 May 2022. Hartono then expanded it into a multichannel version during a residency at the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI), Denton, Texas, awarded through Prix CEMI 2021.

In the composer's own programme note, the challenge was to "take a step back" and hear the sound of MESS's analogue synthesizers — principally a Buchla 200e — "no longer (only) as the sound of an electronic instrument but purely as a sound that is rich in harmonic spectra." The Buchla 259 complex wave generator was driven by chaotic control voltage from other modules, including Hartono's own Benjolin, then reshaped using GRM spectral processing plugins.

Performed at Ars Electronica 2022's Sonic Saturday: Medium Sonorum Concert, Anton Bruckner Private University, Linz, 10 September 2022, alongside works by Amias Hanley, Asahi Yamanoshita, Jakob Gille, Panayiotis Kokoras, Tuğçe Albayrak and Hugo Paquete.