Robert van Heumen Composer Improvisor Laptop-Instrumentalist Sound-Designer
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Curves (2016)


is a continuation of previous collaborations between Shackle (Anne La Berge: flute and electronics, Robert van Heumen: laptop-instrument) and Männer mit Motoren (Sven Hahne: computer and video, Matthias Muche: computer and trombone). For the past three years they have come together for short intensive working periods to develop their own collaborative methods for interactive image and sound improvisations.

Curves is an audio-visual concert by four seasoned performers merging composition and improvisation. Digital and analog interaction in image and sound in an immersive experience with a clear yet challenging connection between the media.




[ more ]


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Shackle

is Anne LaBerge on flute and electronics and Robert van Heumen on laptop-instrument. Their aim is to explicity and subtly exploit shackling in both concept and material.


[ website ] [ media ]



Video's: Chuck | Shackle Session STEIM | Shackle at CCSP Brazil | Shackle at OIDARADIO Brazil

See where Shackle played and will appear next.

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Money For Your Whale + Buhrs + Rood

Money For Your Whale is Albert van Veenendaal and Robert van Heumen. They perform improvised music with prepared piano and laptop-instrument. In 2015 MFYW is expanded with Han Buhrs on voice and Sjaak Rood on live drawing.


[ website ] [ video ] [ soundcloud ]


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SpoonDuo

is Jodi Gilbert on voice and little instruments and Robert van Heumen on laptop-instrument. When disconnected from Spoon3 collegues Van Veenendaal and Kneer they perform dreamy textures and punchy weirdness. The excerpts are from a concert in the Brötz club in Göteborg Sweden in March 2015.


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Sweet Summer Holidays in France

Semay Wu (cello) & Robert van Heumen (laptop-instrument) / performed at STEIM on March 26 2015
"7, 19, 22, 37, 68, 79, 310"


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Money For Your Whale

is Albert van Veenendaal and Robert van Heumen. They perform improvised music with prepared piano and laptop-instrument. They have a NEW album out NOW.


[ website ] [ video ] [ soundcloud ]


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ABATTOIR: Audrey Chen (cello/voice) and Robert van Heumen (laptop-instrument)

"Digital brutalism in free form, vehement expressions, heightened efforts, wailings and atonal lamentations are all performed with uninterrupted breathing techniques - the electronic manipulation is relentless, full of powerful distortions, melancholic melodies and experimental combinations. Authentic, intricate compositions [...]."
Aurelio Cianciotta for Neural.it


[ website ] [ video ]


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Delicatessen

Solo improvisation guided by the Shackle Cueing System. Performed at Delicatessen in Amsterdam, on October 26 2012.

Click on the titles to play

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Davis/VanHeumen

is drones with bassclarinet and electronics. Expect big reverbs, long gestures, slow moving soundworlds, subtle details. Gareth Davis (clarinet and bass clarinet) and Robert van Heumen (laptop & controllers) have recentely recorded material at STEIM for an upcoming release. This is just the beginning.


Live electronica 54



Spoon3

is Jodi Gilbert (voice), Albert van Veenendaal (piano), Meinrad Kneer (bass) & Robert van Heumen (laptop-instrument)
In many aspects a band that crosses over many styles. The classic trio combination of piano, bass and voice forms a basis for transparency and beauty. The laptop-instrument adds a mix of confrontation and adventure to subvert this well-known trio constellation. Spoon3 has created songs using texts, absurd and comic with a careful dose of pathos, the clichéd anguish of emotions, juxtaposed with a sharp edge and a tongue-in-cheek. All of this mixed with the sensibilities of free improvisation.

Spoon3 is sometimes performing as a duo consisting of Gilbert & Van Heumen and as a trio with Van Veenendaal.


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SKIF++

is back with a vengeance. After a break of more than 2,5 years their music is even better than before. The difference? No predefined structures, all free improv. But still making sense.

There is the new cd .next and they're touring the US and Europe.

The electronic audio-visual trio SKIF++ is a collaboration of Jeff Carey (laptop SuperCollider), Robert van Heumen (laptop LiSa) and Bas van Koolwijk (laptop Max/MSP/Jitter). Sound gets processed into video and back, ranging from sonic bursts to melodic melancholy, using joysticks and selfmade controllers to keep it all in line (most of the time). Every SKIF++ performance is improvised, but based on structures that give each set its distinct character.


[ website ] [ SK03 Video (2007) ]


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Whistle Pig Saloon is the live audio collaboration of Robert van Heumen (Computer/controllers) and John Ferguson (Guitar/effects).


"Wide and disjointed, blending a fractured pulse with dynamic texture, this is an immersive and disorientating music, sometimes subtle, often invasive, always close. In capturing a moment and inscribing agency, the motionblur of the cover art offers a suitable metaphor for this duo’s musical interactions. Live sampled source sounds are gesturally manipulated and reworked within open ended narratives, sounding like an air whistle blasting out from an old steam locomotive as it emerges at speed from a tunnel. Whilst the whistle pig/groundhog (day) reference explores cycles of repetition beyond episodic improvisation, emphasising the value of revisiting and re-appropriating a previous moment. John configures the electric guitar as a site for multiple simultaneous points of interaction and queries the iconic cultural status of his instrument via feet, fingers and feedback. Robert crunches, growls and smashes both John`s live sampled sound as well as his private stack of industrial bits and organic beats."


Download PDF info sheet | see also http://fergalstrandy.co.uk/.

[ website ] [ video ]


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The ambiguity of the rule made it impossible to follow..
A project by Nate Wooley, Audrey Chen, Seamus Cater and Robert van Heumen.


3 acoustic instrumentalists with an eye toward extreme extended techniques and ambiguity of sound and 1 electronicist who, instead of creating a composition from the composite parts, has the technique and creativity to become a real time fourth member. Much more than a trio with electronics, this is a true and democratic quartet in process and result. Audrey Chen plays three roles on this recording, those of the voice, the cello, and homemade analog electronics. Seamus Cater performs on the unlikeliest of experimental instruments, the chromatic and bass harmonicas. Nate Wooley simply or not, plays the trumpet. Robert Van Heumen processes all of these sounds, alternately creating insidious shadows of the acoustic musicians, or adding his own material, always independent.


Download info sheet

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They Would Get Angry Sometimes.


Two live versions of the Fury composition. Some of this is released on the Fury CD.


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OfficeR


Koen Nutters, Robert van Heumen, Jeff Carey, Morten Olsen, Oguz Buyukberber, Dirk Bruinsma.
OfficeR plays structured improvisation, using an expanding catalogue of structures that define the relative shape of the piece and the type of material that needs to be generated without losing the "split-second decision making that creates a very dynamic and exciting interaction between all players at all times".


[ website ]


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