Scott Gibbons


Scott Gibbons is an American-born composer and performer of electroacoustic music. His work is notable for its rigorous use of single and unexpected objects as sole instrumentation. Gibbons has also created many works for large-scale spectacle with Groupe F to accompany fireworks, which embraces the sound of pyrotechnics as a part of the musical arrangement.
WWW scottgibbons.org

Critical response

"Gibbons' tendency to understatement is extraordinary. What he shows us seems to be... not the event itself, but the trail." - The Wire
"It's not really possible to say how it sounds, only that it does. Knowing what it sounds like is a particular kind of knowledge that only seems to be useful, or even exist, at the time of hearing itself." - Nicholas Ridout, Performance Research
"Scott Gibbons' music... feels as if it is happening inside your own head." - The Guardian

Lilith

Lilith is an American dark ambient music group formed by Scott Gibbons in 1986. Early self-released albums contained little or no text to suggest authorship or titles, and were rooted in homemade audio devices and modified consumer electronics. By the early 1990s, Lilith's music had developed in a sombre minimalist direction, with growing research into extended compositions focused around very low frequencies. On signing with the Sub Rosa label, the name Lilith was taken after Earth's fictitious invisible moon to reflect that the music often suggested more than it revealed.
Most of their works use single sound sources for instrumentation; for example rocks on "Stone". Unlike other artists working in similar directions, Lilith would perform in concert, and released two albums which were recorded live.
Members were:
  • Scott Gibbons
  • Rachel Wilson
  • Brien Rullman

Selected works

Genesi: from the museum of sleep by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio - music and sound for director Romeo Castellucci's landmark piece for theatre.Il Combattimento by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio - with the Roberto Gini Ensemble.Scribble by Golan Levin, Scott Gibbons and Gregory Shakar - a performance on Levin's AVES gestural audio-video synthesis software.Subterranean Sky with sculptor George DeMerle.Dialtones by Golan Levin, Scott Gibbons and Gregory Shakar - a performance for more than 200 cell phones.Tragedia Endogonidia by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio - music and sound for a series of eleven episodes, eleven video documents, an atlas room and numerous outgrowths.Feu d'Artifice by Scott Gibbons and Groupe F - music arranged and performed using only captured sound and samples of pyrotechnics.The Cryonic Chants by Scott Gibbons and Chiara Guidi - a vocal concert on a text which was formulaically created by a goat.Flame Tornado with Kevin Binkert - music arranged and performed using only captured sound and samples of Binkert's flame vortex device.Hey Girl directed by Romeo Castellucci.

Discography

  • 1987: Nipple runs.
  • 1988: Ripped nuns.
  • 1990: The Taboos of the Lashing Creeper by Lilith
  • 1991: Some Modes of Probability by Lilith
  • 1991: Mantle by Lilith
  • 1992: Stone by Lilith
  • 1994: Orgazio by Lilith
  • 1995: Redwing by Lilith
  • 1998: Orbitronik by Orbitronik
  • 1999: My Computer My Stereo by Orbitronik
  • 1999: Unplugged by Orbitronik
  • 1999: Field Notes by Lilith
  • 2002: Dialtones by Levin/Gibbons/Shakar
  • 2002: Imagined Compositions for Water by Lilith
  • 2002: Strawberry by Strawberry
  • 2007: Tragedia Summa by Scott Gibbons
  • 2008: The Cryonic Chants by Scott Gibbons & Chiara Guidi
  • 2022: Il Terzo Reich by Romeo Castellucci & '''Scott Gibbons'''