Composer and improviser Bryan Noll explores the subtleties of emotion, memory, and time with his musical project, Lightbath. Taking inspiration from Brian Eno’s view of composers as gardeners, Noll plants musical seeds with his synthesizers and, through improvisation, guides their development and growth into pieces that unfold in the present moment.
“Working with generative processes on the modular synthesizer feels like a collaboration,” he says, “as if the synthesizer is alive and interacting with me. It’s an active meditation where I set the initial framework and just listen while remaining agile enough to guide the musical conversation.”
Noll’s background as a music educator and yoga, meditation, dance, and theater collaborator speaks to the themes of growth, healing, and transformation now present in his work as Lightbath. “My aim is to make music that connects listeners to a state of presence that facilitates healing and transformation.”