LUX AETERNA MUSIC VIDEO
FACT MAG PREMIERE (2023)
“Inspired in part by the proliferation of online performance and digital avatars during and in the wake of the pandemic, multidisciplinary artist CORIN wants to blur the boundaries between the virtual and the physical within her audiovisual practice. With Lux Aeterna, a collaboration with Malaysian/Australian multimedia artist Tristan Jalleh, real-time footage of the artist is enhanced with visual effects, transfiguring an iteration of CORIN’s live AV show into a digital environment that draws from the sci-fi worlds of Dune and Raised by Wolves. “Usually, everything we do is about developing the environment, building something that is cohesive and detailed and would function on its own,” explains Jalleh. “But once we filmed the performance we realised that it had to be the main focus.” Combining CORIN’s exploratory approach to keys and a costume influenced by Filipino mythology, designed by Filipinx performance artist Justin Shoulder and Anthony Aitch, the artists expand the performance into its own instance of world-building.
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“The main thing that stuck was the idea of a desert landscape – a futuristic world where machines are powered by the sun,” adds CORIN. “I was reading about ancient cultures that worshiped the sun and was interested to merge these ancient ideas with something futuristic. I was also researching the hydraulis – an early type of organ powered by water. Thinking about ancient musical instruments as spirits, sacred objects, extensions of our bodily existence, vessels or portals into another. How could we create an instrument that’s ancient and future at the same time – that was the core idea.”
Lux Aeterna Video Credits:
Creative Direction – Corin Ileto & Tristan Jalleh
Video Director & Visual FX – Tristan Jalleh
Cinematography – Goldie Soetianto
Camera & Lighting Assistant – Michael Thompson
Costume Design – Justin Shoulder & Willow Darling
Headdress Design – Anthony Aitch
Make Up and Hair – Mat Hornby
Rigging – Finton Mahoney
Production & Props – Corin Ileto
Title Design – Wei Huang
Studio – Super Freak Media
Green screen footage filmed on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.
LUX AETERNA LP
UIQ | 2023
On her sophomore album ‘Lux Aeterna’, Ileto explores the idea of sound as a sentient being. Meaning ‘eternal light’ (latin), the title is named after a choral work by György Ligeti (20th century composer) which appears in the movie 2001:Space Odyssey during monolith’s discovery on the moon. Ileto is inspired by Ligeti’s use of micropolyphony – a tool whereby clusters of sound slowly merge creating amorphous cloud-like formations. Using granular synthesis, samples are warped beyond obscurity into alien-like textures that bend and mutate, clusters of string and vocal harmonies detuning and reemerging into swarms. Coming from a background in theatre and sound design, Ileto explores the illusion of sound as gravitational – levitating and disintegrating into a void, or perhaps floating into eternity.
Ileto’s deep appreciation of science fiction soundtracks is most felt on ‘Lux Aeterna’. Like a celestial opera, ecstatic trance is reimagined within the context of sacred liturgy – merging hyper-real soundscapes with gregorian chant and medieval instrumentation. Ileto moves in between moments of bold expansiveness and deep vulnerability and alienation. The warped percussion of ‘Sunta’ rumbles along like a pseudo-archaic codified ritual punctuated by the chanting of an alien language. At its peak, ‘Vīsiōnem’ and ‘Extasis’ bring us into club territory, ecstatic industrial trance. On the extreme – Miserēre sounds like a broken lullaby, a sighing choir of malfunctioning androids. Ileto draws on her classical background in Illumina, weaving together metallic textures with sorrowful delicate piano improvisations.
In the accompanying visuals created by Tristan Jalleh – apparitions of android machinations, swirling sentinels, debris suspended in space, momentarily forming then collapsing again into an abyss. For the artwork, Wei Huang uses neumes (early notation), reconfiguring the glyphs to create an archaic looking code.
credits
released July 14, 2023 on UIQWritten, recorded & produced by Corin Ileto
Mastered by Rashad Becker
Piano for ‘Illumina’ recorded at Phoenix Central Park
Artwork design and typography by Wei Huang
Front cover photo by Joshua Hourigan
Back cover photo by Tristan Jalleh
Supported by Creative Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts
QUOTES
“Is the future man or machine, amorphous or solid, binary or non? CORIN leaves the question open, intimating that whatever may pass, humans in their current form may have a much smaller say than they imagine. “ - A CLOSER LISTEN
“Moody and ominous, Corin Ileto’s sophomore album Lux Aeterna is concept electronica, exploring sound as sentient. Its 10 tracks resemble an alien making its first steps in an unpredictable rhythm. Bursts of energy – the industrial trance of Vīsiōnem, the hard walls of Extasis – break forth from a strange, engrossing sci-fi soundscape of distorted cyberpunk takes on Gregorian chants (Sunta) and unnerving, skittering beats (Trānsīre). A casual listen isn’t possible: Lux Aeterna is eclipsing, intense world-building from one of Australia’s most fascinating producers.
- THE GUARDIAN
“Moody and ominous, Corin Ileto’s sophomore album Lux Aeterna is concept electronica, exploring sound as sentient. Its 10 tracks resemble an alien making its first steps in an unpredictable rhythm. Bursts of energy – the industrial trance of Vīsiōnem, the hard walls of Extasis – break forth from a strange, engrossing sci-fi soundscape of distorted cyberpunk takes on Gregorian chants (Sunta) and unnerving, skittering beats (Trānsīre). A casual listen isn’t possible: Lux Aeterna is eclipsing, intense world-building from one of Australia’s most fascinating producers.
- THE GUARDIAN
“Lee Gamble’s UIQ label unveils a second album from Filipina-Australian artist Corin Ileto, deploying a brace of swarming alien chorales and rapturous digital rave noise to explore the idea of sound as a sentient being. Bold and operatic, cinematic and cybernetic“ - BOOMKAT
“The combined result is a shapely and savage exploration of the post-human voice in a set of songs where sensations of sacred and mysterious awe are pulverised by industrial violence. There's something enjoyably perverse in the way the voice of "miserēre" coils tight in agonised pitch while intoning liturgical Latin pleas for mercy. Extended choral textures on the title track are coldly carved up by slabs of rude synth. There's a run of more intense, beat-driven tracks towards the middle, with the glitchy exhalations of "extasis" and heavy IDM-inspired "arx" being real highlights.” - THE WIRE MAGAZINE
