Test-tone records.. they always interest me, but musically speaking you don’t get much out of it. Sandra Boss found an antique machine for hearing tests and made compositions with its sounds, and it works: the seven pieces are very diverse, but fascinating: as a listener you get to listen to your own hearing.

The Acoustic Appraiser is a German, portable audiometer. They are normally used to detect our way of hearing according to a set of carefully selected tones and noises. In this work, the machine’s sine tones, masking tones and its German speech test tape are used to explore the borders between scientific and musical sounds.

Sandra Boss is a Danish composer working with a transdisciplinary approach to musical performance, resulting in works situated between music, performance and installation. Her compositional voice is distinctly explorative with a strong interest in the hidden sonic potentials of instruments and technologies. An important element within her work is a physical dialogue with sound sources where instruments are treated as performative co-performers.

Tracks

1. Testing Pure Order 05:31
2. Surface Stimulation 04:44
3. Calibrating to Occluded Ear 03:22
4. Masking Disorder 06:50
5. Hypothetical Threshold 04:44
6. Cochlear Stimulation 04:04
7. Word Recognition 01:36