Alchemia is a sample library for Kontakt Player, exploring the tension between form and disintegration through layered, unstable textures that evolve across electroacoustic realms. Extended techniques for cello, saxophone, voice, guitars, and synthesizers dissolve and transform through experimental processing techniques, creating a constantly shifting soundscape.
Recorded to tape at Tiohtià:ke / Montréal’s renowned Hotel2Tango—home to landmark works by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Arcade Fire, Colin Stetson, Fly Pan Am, SUUNS, and Big Brave—the sessions were captured using a curated selection of characterful microphones. Synths and guitar textures were then re-amped into the space, flowing through a wall of vintage amplifiers, a grand piano soundboard, and resonant percussion, grounding them in the same tactile sonic environment as the acoustic performances.
Each raw material was then transfigured through its own bespoke processing chain—eroded by degraded tape loops and analog circuits, filtered, fractured, and fed through tangled pedal arrays, reactive modular systems, and layers of esoteric DSP. The goal was not merely transformation, but transmutation: to dissolve the familiar, extract essence, and coax each sound toward a new, liminal state. These processes act as crucibles—disassembling and reconstituting the material until it reveals something elemental, volatile, and alive: textures that flicker at the threshold of stability, rich with motion, memory, and unresolved resonance.
Built for Kontakt Player, the instrument invites immediate interaction. A central animated macro moves fluidly between the raw and transmuted states, weaving a seamless continuum where sound unfolds and transforms. The single-page interface offers intuitive control, designed to enhance performability, dynamism, and expressive fluidity.
Alchemia emerged from Liquid Stone, an ongoing concert series devoted to intimate, improvised, and boundary-pushing music. The project brings together artists rooted in experimentation and embodied performance, united by a shared language of transformation and spontaneity.
Ruiqi Wang
Ruiqi Wang (王睿琪) is a vocalist, composer, and improviser working across jazz, experimental, and contemporary classical forms. Moving fluidly between traditions, her work blends extended vocal techniques, Chinese musical aesthetics, and intuitive composition. Based between Bern and Montreal, she is known for creating expansive sound worlds that explore silence, breath, and multiplicity.
Fili 周 Gibbons
Fili 周 Gibbons (we/you/they) are an interdisciplinary sound artist and recording engineer whose work integrates post-classical performance, electronic production, improvisation, and embodiment. Their practice weaves ancestral memory with speculative sound worlds, unfolding through immersive audiovisual experiences and collaborative live performance.
Habib Bardi
Habib El Bardi is a writer and musician whose work spans alto saxophone improvisation and electroacoustic composition. Through limited techniques and diverse mediums, he explores the fallibility and vulnerability inherent in musical performance and composition.
Noah Sherrin
Noah Sherrin is a composer, sound artist, and digital instrument designer based in Montreal. His work spans installation, audiovisual performance, and sample library creation, often centering themes of myth, ecology, and transformation. As founder of BORO, he creates tools that invite exploration, instability, and deep listening.
