Lee-Oscar Kirchberger

About

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Hi my name is Lee-Oscar Kirchberger (Music Name Lee Davis).

I am a 26 year old Austrian who is fascinated with sound, noise, music, improv and composition. I have composed , played live and have worked session gigs. Music is a never-ending story.

My Background in further education is a Bachelor's degree (BA Hons) in Digital Music and Sound Art at the University of Brighton from 2019-2022. I achieved an Upper Second Class Honours (2:1).

Throughout the course we were encouraged to experiment a lot within composition looking at composers like John Cage, Philip Glass and Sound Artist´s alike.

During my degree I also played in various groups as a Keys Player mainly in the Jazz domain furthering my fascination with Improvisation as a compositional tool. I also play guitar and bass and use them as a compositional tool.

Improvisation within composition is what excites me the most. It’s about being in the moment, letting ideas flow freely, and seeing where they take me. It’s a chance to experiment and discover new things while still making something that fits into a bigger picture. Creative techniques are where the real magic happens. Trying out different ideas—like unique harmonies, rhythms, or sounds—makes music feel fresh and personal and this is what led me to apply to this MA.

Keep Howling

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The Compositional Work I have chosen to showcase is my BA final project. It is a concept-EP that is instrumental in nature that follows an imaginary story arc as I try to imagine a movie in my head as I composed this project.

I recorded and produced all in my Home Studio. It features a mix of live-recorded instruments and live-played midi instruments. It is a concept album (instrumental) that was composed with a story that had inspired me. Each Song is a chapter within a pretend novel. The compositional process was based on a lot of improvisation similar seen in Jazz music and developing these improvisational sketches. The EP is called “Keep Howling”. I wanted to fuse experimental sound making (re-recording techniques, wall of sound etc. with Jazz-inspired improvisational music. All of it was recorded and mixed on Logic X as DAW.

Compositions

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Zero flutters the heart- This was inspired by Noir- Classical Strings. Conveying elegance but remaining mysterious. Again the lead violin line was improvised and then composed around the strings using Logic X.

Collectively Unconscious- This one is a trip. Trying to create a composition where genre-defined boundaries are broken in order to enhance musical story-telling. From Sound Scape, Dark electronica to Downtempo I tried to frankenstein it together.

Peaches n Hash - This is an Acid-Jazz composition , trying to recreate the soul of some heroes of mine like Herbie Hancock, Yussef Kamaal and Idris Muhammad. Tried to capture the sunshine in the beginning with this one but gets a bit spicier and darker at the end. Percussion programming by Joshua Job.

Keep Dancing my Friend - This was more inspired by William Basinki technique of slowly disintegrating loops. Basically layering different elements of loops and time stretching them with the aim to create a dreary, intentional effect. Also inspired by Russian composers like Prokofiev but with a Over-driven almost distorted feel like through a distorted guitar amp.

Session Work

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While in Brighton during my Studies I joined a Jazz Trio (LDN2BTN) as a Keys Player. We stayed in touch as I moved back home to Austria and rehearsed remotely via Bandlab.com. Then I flew over to Brighton for a few days and we recorded our album this year at Small Pond Studio. The recordings were all done via simultaneous live-tracking and again delving into the world of improvised Composition. It actually resembles a live recording of a concert more than a polished studio session.

Videos

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An audio-visual sound installation that we filmed and recorded in a park in Vienna in Winter 2019. We made a simple sound-installation and recorded it with an omni-mic. The composition played through the Blue-Tooth speaker was recorded and composed in Logic X with a mix of Live Instrument (Keys) and Midi-instruments.

Camera: Gabriel Krajanek

Sound: me

An audio-visual project where we filmed a hydro-electric power plant in Lower Austria.

We did this project for Brighton CCA, a Brighton-based contemporary art gallery. It was exhibited in Summer of 2022. We recorded the visual-footage with a drone and then the soundtrack was composed in post onto the footage.

Camera: Sebastian Kirchberger

Sound: me