MARCUS_HERNE_
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Digital
April 8 - 2025
“CAESIUM presents a carefully constructed balance between club-influenced energy and immersive sound design. It explores familiar sonic materials through a restructured lens—placing emphasis on build, repetition, and dynamic texture without relying on traditional song structures. The result is a track that feels rooted in the dancefloor while also functioning as a standalone audio-visual experience” - Frequency State
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eightyeight.five
Digital
March 29 - 2025
eightyeight.five is the fifth piece Herne has created for Piano Day, all of which have strayed from the more traditional sounds and styles associated with the instrument in order to explore its unbound harmonic breadth.
This year Herne has become interested in how sound works within different environments and wanted to explore how the body of the piano could be used as a resonating chamber for sounds played from an alternative source.
The source in this instance is a system of cycling tones, all generated via a synthesiser that could be controlled, manipulated and adapted and then played at a high volume into the open body of an upright piano, using various types of microphones to capture the sound in and around the piano.
“I wanted to explore using the body of the piano to resonate and amplify sounds from an alternate source and respond to ”
Herne purposefully used very basic wave forms in the synthesis of the sounds played at the piano, in order to allow the body of the instrument to provide the more complex characteristics. The piano acted as a sonic mirror that reflected the sound back to Herne, which he then responded by making further adjustments to the system that would be fed back into the piano. He spent time making subtle changes to this cycle and direction and structure took form, resulting in a performance lasting 7 minutes and 52 seconds.
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Digital
March 28 - 2024
“I wanted to explore introducing and kind of revealing an almost electrical current to the acoustic sound of the piano”
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Dialogues of Diaspora - Digital
March - 2024
The untold story of Indian independence is seen through the décor of the Dishoom restaurant in Kings Cross, formerly a railway transit shed built in 1850. Dishoom co-founder Shamil Thakrar and history teacher Shalina Patel wander through the space after hours, discussing key figures and events, while the film illustrates this narration with a mixture of live action and animation.
The film was scored by composer and sound artist Marcus Herne
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Digital
March - 2023
Over the past two years, composer, sound and visual artist Marcus Herne has made contributions to the day in the form of singles ’88’ and ’88.II’. It was a very spontaneous decision to write the original piece back in 2021, which resulted in Herne only having a day to compose, mix and master the track before its release, using only the piano as a sound source.
This year Herne makes a third addition to the collection - 88.III takes the listener in a very different direction to the past two instalments. Their ambient drones and crushing distorted harmonics have been replaced by a far more gentle and curious piece. A reason for this is partly to Herne’s decision to change his approach for piano day track, rather than focusing on pushing the pianos sound to its limit, he wanted to purely play with the instrument and see where it led. 88.III’s concept differs again with Marcus allowing himself the use of other instruments, such as strings, percussion and a Celeste. With this being said, the sounds at the heart of the piece is the piano.
‘I wanted to go back to basics in a way - rather than approach the piano with the mind of composer or sound designer, I wanted to use it purely as a form of play, and just work purely on instinct’.
The result is an uncomplicated piece of music, but full of feeling, and grounded in the underlying notion of an adult trying to claw back at their childlike nature. 88.III’s concept is echoed in the artwork which was also created by Marcus Herne.
Digital
March - 2023
“The title track, “Forms Redux”, blossoms from an ambient introduction to an orchestral free-for-all kept in place with militaristic percussive strikes” - No Transmission
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Digital
March - 2022
“A song created solely from the piano as the primary sound source but which does not sound like a “normal piano song”, whatever that might be. This is music that takes on multiple guises and results in a unique and distinct sound” - Lost In The Manor
“It’s is not just a pile of strangely articulated noises. Each layer, sequence, or segment has its purpose in this sonic equation” - Thoughts Words Action
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Digital/CD
August - 2021
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Digital
March - 2021
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Digital
March - 2021