ERIK CARLSON

Erik Carlson is a composer, media artist and architect based in Providence, RI. His work examines sound as an evocative presence, often acting as a marker, in the physical and mental spaces we inhabit. Since 2002 he has been recording and performing under the name AREA C, whose compositions work with timbre, texture and live loops, exploring cyclical relationships and the details of their decay over time. Improvisation plays an important part in both recordings and live performances, encompassing extended explorations of minimal rhythm and melody, drawing on remnants of other times and places, outdated and untested technologies, signals sent out but never received...

In 2009, Carlson received the MacColl-Johnson Fellowship in music composition and he is currently working on new commissions for the NASA RI Space Grant Consortium and the LEF Foundation. His permanent sound installation ("Low Rez/Hi Fi," a collaboration with architect Meejin Yoon) can be viewed at 1110 Vermont Avenue in Washington DC.

AREA C’s fourth full-length CD, titled “Charmed Birds vs. Sorcery,” was released in February 2009. Later this year, the Sedimental label will release AREA C’s series of live collaborative performances at the Cormack Planetarium in Providence, RI.