A Point of Entry
By Liquid Music blog contributor Amy Chatelaine
We are at the doorway of our 2024 Fall Season of Liquid Music, about to step out onto a vast plain of fresh performances — discovering new entry points along the way in the space between movement and sound, time and place, audience and performing artist. We begin with Trever Hagen (composer, performer, writer) and Josh Berg (producer, engineer), in their presentation of Terminal Habitat Collapse.
In these first days of September, Hagen and Berg are together in Minneapolis for a Northrop artist residency to endeavor this new collaborative project, an idea that took root in early 2024. Terminal Habitat Collapse presents a sonic narration of the Anthropocene, creating an “immersive soundscape of ecological change” through engagement with quadraphonic sound.
You can experience this work-in-development as a special feature of the Northrop Open House on September 12, copresented by Liquid Music. Come take this first step with us into the new season, and roam the halls of Northrop for a rare look behind-the-scenes of a local gem in the Minneapolis arts community (full schedule here).
Left: Trever Hagen (Photo by Graham Tolbert). Right: Josh Berg (Photo courtesy of the artist).
Hagen and Berg offered a short introduction to Terminal Habitat Collapse, sharing these words ahead of their departure to Minneapolis:
pre-residency Q&A with Trever Hagen + Josh Berg
How did the two of you come to work together on this project?
Trever Hagen: We first met in Berlin in 2016 as part of the first PEOPLE festival and have been collaborating on various collective projects since then. In Spring 2024, I attended a quadraphonic ensemble in LA that Josh had recommended me check out and, after discussing, we decided to put our heads and hearts together to create a new piece. We combined my interest in “new pastoralism” with Josh’s experiments in quad under the idea of Terminal Habitat Collapse.
Josh, you’ve worked with a range of performing artists, from Ye to Bon Iver to the late Mac Miller. How would you describe your role in creative production?
Josh Berg: My role is: CREATE SPACE TO CREATE. In order to facilitate the work, I discover what the artists need and implement the process. This always involves technical work but it also engages a sympathetic understanding where I can see the artists’ vision and make sure that they have a clear path to get there.
What exactly is quadraphonic sound?
Berg: Sound coming from four discrete sources. Think of four perfectly spaced dots along a circle. Solstice and equinox. This overlays perfectly with our natural experience of the four corners of a room making quad the simplest representation of how we actually experience the world sonically.
What was the draw to pastoralism as an aesthetic framework — one you’re renovating in Terminal Habitat Collapse?
Hagen: Pastoralism represents a nexus of aesthetics and ecology formed by the human gaze. It’s seemingly what human culture wants nature to be at some level: bucolic, placid but submissive, dominated. A couple summers ago I was canoeing in the Boundary Waters thinking about pastoral landscapes as I looked at the sunrise on a lake. Along with that sunrise there was also a haze from the Canadian wildfires. In that moment pastoralism felt ridiculous in the hubris of human activity and in the face of what is arguably a new sense of the pastoral: whole towns burning (e.g. Lahaina, HI), rising sea levels displacing people (e.g. Tuvalu), waterways that poison those who drink it (e.g. Flint, MI). This is the pastoral now. This is what nature is becoming for humans in the short term, with the long term conclusion being terminal habitat collapse for our species. So “new pastoralism” is simply an aesthetic perspective or set of sensory materials that aims to shine the light on the relationship between nature and humans as we know it at the beginning of the 21st century.
What will be unique about the audience experience of this performance?
Berg: For most it will be to actually experience a piece written in and for quadraphonic sound. We defy the idea that you “look at” a performance and rather invite the audience into the circle, literally. We also reframe the understanding of where we are going as a species by offering a less ambiguous term to describe our destination and sonically narrating the journey.
Hagen: As Josh noted, I think listeners have a lot of agency in quadraphonic performances in that you are invited into the performance. The outcome or the performance may be less determined, this way — almost like a happening.
Experience the performance at the 2024 Northrop Open House
Copresented by Liquid Music
Thursday, September 12 | 4:30–5:00 pm
Northrop Rehearsal Studio (Ground Level, East)
Free and open to the public
Follow Trever Hagen:
Website: treverhagen.com
Instagram: @t.r.e.v.r (instagram.com/t.r.e.v.r)
Follow Josh Berg:
Website: infinitevibrationtechnology.com
Instagram: @love_burg (instagram.com/love_burg)
Follow Liquid Music for updates and announcements:
Instagram: @LiquidMusicSeries (instagram.com/liquidmusicseries)
Facebook: facebook.com/LiquidMusicSeries
Newsletter: liquidmusic.org/newsletter