Ben Pawlowski
Ben Pawlowski
Custom Incantations
Custom Incantations is my take on a project/album conceived by the band Deerhoof.
In their words:
"Our idea was to create a reservoir of short phrases (both lyrics and music) that anyone could assemble into songs. Greg wanted these songs to be able to “do” something: for instance, achieve some sort of personal transformation, or merely change a mood or mindset."
Essentially, I took the clips of music they offered as an album and paired each one with a piece of animation and/or experimental video segment. I then put all of these clips into a program so that each could be queued up with the push of a button on a keyboard. This gave any willing collaborator the ability to piece together the bits of songs in the moment to make their own arrangement of the music.
This is a cousin project to Ramona Sounds.
The video here at the top of the page is a demonstration of the interactive approach, but you can also use all of the videos below to mash some sounds together as well. They are in the order of the tracks that Deerhoof provided.






















































