UK motion designer Simon Russell, whose eclectic music-driven experiments we track here, just dropped us his latest – a fascinating multiplex visualization of the track “Modul 45” by Swiss pianist/composer Nik Bärtsch.

Simon Russell: “I was commissioned to create this animation by director Julian Phillips for his documentary Ingredients For Disaster about Nik Bärtsch and his band Ronin. The brief was to create visualizations which would illustrate the complex structures underlying the music.

“I worked closely with musician Alex Rigopulos who helped me understand the intricate structures of the music and ensure every visual detail was relevant. For example each wheel within the piece reflects the time signature of that element and the stems’ height represent the note’s value.

“The animation was created in Houdini and composited in After Effects with the audio transcribed into MIDI and used to drive the animation via Houdini’s CHOP network.”

Watch the process reel:
 

 

 
Client: MicroDropDigital Productions
Director: Julian Phillips

CD: Alex Rigopulos
Animation director: Simon Russell
Audiovisual Systems Engineer: Mike Mandel
Music Analysis/Transcription: Rick Cody, Simon Rigopulos

Composer: Nik Bartsch
Drums: Kaspar Rast
Reeds: Sha (aka Stefan Haslebacher)
Bass: Jeremias Keller, Thomy Jordi, Bjorn Meyer
Drums/Percussion: Nicolas Stocker, Andi Pupato

Publishing for all Moduls by Ronin Rhythm Productions and Neonstars Publishing
Publishing by ECM