Yann Novak — Continuity

“As an artist, I am informed by my unique perspective as partially colour-blind and dyslexic. In my work, I explore notions of perception, context, and diversity through the construction of immersive spaces that seek to heighten the audience’s awareness of their own direct experience.” Based in LA, multidisciplinary artist and composer Yann Novak has created a unique platform from which he explores both sound and light directing awareness to our own world of individual experiences. With a diverse body of work that ranges from installations and sound diffusions to ‘architectural interventions’ and the written word, Novak has seemingly performed almost everywhere including the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, the sadly-no-more Iklectik in London and his home state of California where he was recently awarded the honour of Cultural Trailblazer for 2021-22 by LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs. In amongst all this, Novak has been equally prolific with his musical output - in fact it’s something that has been a central part of his work for the last twenty years.  And his new deep-listening album Continuity is the latest in a series of recordings that sees the American artist use sound to probe the nature of reality. 

It was on Dragon’s Eye Recordings (set up by his father Paul Novak) that the junior Novak first made his musical mark almost two decades ago. And it is Dragon’s Eye where he now sits as creative director with one very clear mission: to promote marginalised voices within the field of experimental music; his being one. He established his objective on 2005 debuts Up Close and Fade Dis/Appearances with an extraordinary and highly personal sonic account of living with inhibited vision: finding the way between light and dark. And it is this theme that has continued to inhabit Novak’s work, right up to his last two releases 2023’s The Voice of Theseus and 2024’s The Voices of Theseus where he explores sameness, shared reality and perception.

Unsurprising then that ‘reality’ sits at the heart of Novak’s latest work, Continuity. With a title inspired by dystopian futurist writer William Gibson’s AI system that evolves beyond its prescribed informatic boundaries (a modern-day HAL), this is an album that explores the way in which the mechanisms used to establish truth are often at odds with their supposed purpose. Take, for instance, the way in which social media is routinely transformed from a place of free expression to one of surveillance; how government transparency initiatives are abused to create specific narratives; and how privacy itself has been transformed into a commodity.

Mastered by Australian ambient veteran, Lawrence English, Continuity comprises three pieces of composition that neatly creep into one another. Ambient to its core, this is a deep listening experience built from 28 loops of field recordings and synthesisers designed to reflect the way information can fall victim to its apparent malleability; more specifically, the way in which sound can be recontextualised to manipulate perception.  A profound work that is probably best served by focus and attention, but in the spirit of versatility can also sit neatly in the background as ambient music was born to do. Testament, perhaps, to Novak’s point. Information – in the shape of sound – is a shapeshifter, its emotional impact determined by its possessor. Wonderful.