Tristan Perich, whose new album, Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics, was released on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records last November, is featured on the latest episode of WNYC's New Sounds. "It is an album-length excursion, goes into lots of different territories," says host John Schaefer. "Some moments sound to me like Terry RIley's early keyboard improvisations. Other parts have the rhythmic patterning of Steve Reich's music. There are other moments where the notes seem to give way more to noise. And even one part where those noises kind of sound a little like the famous rhythmic kecak, or monkey chant, from the island of Bali." You can hear the episode, including the first and second sections of Drift Multiply, below, and hear the whole piece here.

The composer's largest work to date, Drift Multiply is conducted by Douglas Perkins. Scored as one hundred individual lines of music, the piece blends violins and speakers into a cascading tapestry of tone, harmony, and noise. The violins perform from sheet music, while the speakers are each connected to custom-built circuit boards programmed to output 1-bit audio, the most basic digital waveforms made of just ones and zeroes.