DAN SAMSA CURATES NONCLASSICAL
“I approached the two sound systems as separate instruments, one shaping space and detail, the other delivering bass as a physical experience, allowing the music to exist between listening and sensation.”
As nonclassical Associate Composer, Dan Samsa curated an evening exploring spatial sound, electronic composition, and UK sound system culture, transforming The Albany’s main space into an immersive sonic environment. Combining a state-of-the-art 3D surround system with the sub-bass scoops of the hand-built Unit 137 dub sound system, the programme reimagined the sound system as both compositional tool and physical instrument, capable of reshaping how music was felt as much as heard. The night brought together artists working across experimental electronic music and spatial practice, including Kamikaze Space Programme, whose set moved between industrial sound design, musique concrète, and club energy, alongside an ambisonic work by Luke David Harris exploring movement through sound and space. Completing the programme, Samsa presented his own 360-degree recording experiments with live improvised synths, including a work built from forty-two recordings of countertenor Jonathan Darbourne singing the word “Metamorphosis” across different locations within Southwark Cathedral. Each cycle revealed shifting acoustic perspectives before gradually exposing the presence of the surrounding city sound scape itself.
“Spatial recording allowed composition to extend beyond notes into movement, distance, and perspective.”
SAMSA'S 360º PRACTISE
IN PERFORMANCE
For the performance, Dan treated spatial audio not simply as playback but as a compositional system in itself. Using a 360-degree microphone placed at the centre of acoustic spaces, he recorded musicians and singers moving around the environment, allowing position and movement to become musical parameters. These recordings were then carefully edited and restructured into evolving three-dimensional spatial textures, transforming live performances into immersive sonic architecture. The material was combined with live improvisations using analogue drum machines and bass synthesis, resulting in a set where composition, space, and physical movement became inseparable, music shaped as much by environment and motion as by melody or rhythm.
LISTEN TO THE FULL LIVE
PERFORMANCE
GENELEC CLARITY
The event attracted international attention from Genelec, who later featured the project as a case study in advanced multichannel performance. An eight-speaker array of Genelec 8050 monitors formed a precise circular surround environment, chosen for their clarity, imaging accuracy, and ability to articulate fine spatial detail. The system allowed sounds to be positioned, widened, or rotated within the room with exceptional definition, fundamentally influencing compositional decisions. Rather than functioning as reinforcement, the Genelec array became an active creative tool, enabling audiences to experience electronic music as a fully three-dimensional sonic architecture.
Click image below for full feature
UNIT137 POWER
“Bringing together dub sound system culture and modern spatial audio created something entirely new, a hybrid instrument built from space, bass, and movement.”
Complementing the spatial array was South East London’s Unit 137 dub sound system, a hand-built rig deeply rooted in UK sound system culture and engineered specifically for powerful low-frequency reproduction. Eight 18-inch super scoop subwoofers were used exclusively for bass material, separating physical low-end energy from the spatial detail handled by the surround system. This approach allowed each system to operate at its optimum range while transforming bass into a tactile, bodily experience felt throughout the theatre. Drawing on traditions from dub, jungle, and UK bass music, Unit 137 introduced a communal physical intensity that contrasted and interacted with the precision of the ambisonic sound field.
NONCLASSICAL RELEASE
SATURN
“By rotating the microphone inside the piano, tiny shifts in perspective became the foundation of an expanding musical structure.
Alongside the live work, Dan released Saturn with nonclassical, a label known for connecting contemporary composition with experimental electronic music. The piece was built from an unusual recording process in which a 360-degree microphone was placed inside the body of a piano, capturing individual notes from within the instrument itself. With each recording, the microphone was rotated slightly, creating subtle shifts in perspective and resonance that transformed spatial position into compositional material. These recordings were then used to construct the work’s pulsating structure, each pulse mathematically extended beyond the last until the final burst expands longer than all preceding pulses combined. The result is a slowly unfolding sonic architecture, a work where time, space, and acoustics merge, turning microscopic changes in perspective into a vast, immersive musical experience.