THINKING IN SOUND (2020) | HAPPENSTANCE by SHANE COOPER

HAPPENSTANCE is a multi-layered series of soundbooks created by award-winning bassist, composer and music producer Shane Cooper. It features a myriad of guest musicians and artists from diverse genres, including Zoe Modiga, Bokani Dyer, Gontse Makhene , Ann Masina, Zayaan Khan and more. It is an explorative, original and newly created series in which much of the recording process is achieved by using a vintage reel-to-reel tape machine from the 1970s.

Alongside the making of the 4 episodes that make up HAPPENSTANCE, The Centre for the Less Good Idea’s SO Academy engaged Cooper in the creation of a Sonic Composition Academy with 3 selected mentees, Khanyisile Peterson, Likhona Camane and Monthati Zenzile Masebe.

HAPPENSTANCE was also able to come out on vinyl in 2021 with UK-based record label Kit Records.

Since its digital release HAPPENSTANCE has gone on to receive some great press, from New Frame to The Wire, both locally and abroad as well as significant radio play with radio stations NTS Radio and BBC Radio 3.

As part of the SO Academy SO Mentorship Mentorship Shane Cooper worked with mentees:

Khanyisile Peterson: a composer, musician and musicologist from Johannesburg.
Likhona Camane: a musician and composer based in Johannesburg.
Monthati Zenzile Masebe: a pianist, vocalist and composer with an honours degree in music from the University of Witwatersrand.

The work made by the mentees during the mentorship can be listened to here.

Composition, Arrangement, Conception, Production, Recording & Mixing | Shane Cooper
Cinematographer | Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khoza & Julia Ramsay
Editor | Julia Ramsay
Assistant record engineer | Zain Vally
Assistants | Monthati Masebe, Khanyisile Peterson, Likhona Camane

Episode 01 - STATIC

In this episode the musicians explore musical ideas responding to the concept of ‘static', in which the word was re-imagined from different sonic perspectives.

Created by Shane Cooper
Bokani Dyer (piano, composition)
Cara Stacey (traditional Southern African instruments, piano, composition)
Daliwonga Tshangela (cello, composition)
Shane Cooper (various instruments, composition, production, recording, mixing)
Cinematographer | Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khoza
Editor | Julia Ramsay
Music composition by Shane Cooper, Bokani Dyer,
Assistant record engineer | by Zain Vally
Assistants | Monthati Masebe, Khanyisile Peterson, Likhona Camane
Cover Photographer | Zivanai Matangi

Episode 02 - SKINS

This episode uses instruments that use skin (either real or synthetic) to vibrate, such as drums. We also explore instruments that are played using the skin of the hands directly – such as double bass, or body percussion.

Created by Shane Cooper
Gontse Makhene (percussion)
Micca Manganye (percussion)
Jonno Sweetman (percussion)
Shane Cooper (basses, body percussion)
Cinematographer | Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khoza
Editor | Julia Ramsay
Music composition by Shane Cooper, Bokani Dyer,
Assistant record engineer | Zain Vally
Assistants | Monthati Masebe, Khanyisile Peterson, Likhona Camane

Episode 03 - TONGUES

Featuring some of South Africa's most inspired voices, this episode explores alternative sounds and unique ideas with the human voice as an instrument. Their performances during the recordings are also interacting with the various acoustic spaces at the Centre For The Less Good Idea as a kind of “5th musician”.

Created by Shane Cooper
Zoë Modiga (vocals)
Sakhile Moleshe (vocals)
Ann Masina (vocals)
Shane Cooper (tape machine)
Cinematographer | Bukhosibakhe Kelvin Khoza
Editor | Julia Ramsay
Music composition by Shane Cooper, Gontse Makhene, Micca Manganye and Jonno Sweetman
Production, recording and mixing by Shane Cooper
Assistant record engineer | Zain Vally
Assistants | Monthati Masebe, Khanyisile Peterson, Likhona Camane

Episode 04 - ECOTONES

The 4th episode stands alone, and is created by ecological artist Zayaan Khan with Shane Cooper. It explores time in its multiple dimensions through a sound investigation of fermentation. Traversing our relationship with land, sea, death, and ultimately learning survivorship with joy for uncertain times. This episode is like a vivid audiobook - part sound walk, part radio drama, and with original compositions and sound design by Cooper.

Created by Zayaan Khan & Shane Cooper
Writer & Voice | Zayaan Khan
Sound Design, Music, Recording & Mixing by Shane Cooper
Video Editor | Julia Ramsay

IN CONVERSATION | KENTRIDGE & COOPER | SONIC PRESENCES & COMPOSITION

In late November of 2020, as part of SO Academy’s Sonic Composition and Design mentorship programme, The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted an In Conversation event between founder of The Centre, William Kentridge, and bassist, composer, and music producer Shane Cooper.

Opening the evening is a brief introduction by Kentridge which takes the shape of an impromptu tape recording, with Cooper improvising on upright bass. The resultant conversation takes place while Cooper manually cuts and splices fragments of sound and performance before running a completed length of manipulated tape through a Nagra tape machine – one of the key devices Cooper employed while leading the mentorship programme with the SO Academy.

Through this brief bit of experimentation with live performance and analogue technology, Cooper and Kentridge extract sound from the immediate environment, rearrange it on tape, and re-introduce it to the stage. Audiences witness the materiality and the performativity of sound, as the doctored tape moves across the stage and through the tape machine, playing its incidental composition.

Over the course of the conversation, the two artists reflect on the journey of collaborative, episodic sonic composition and design that led to the multi-layered series of soundbooks that came out of the SO Academy, Happenstance. Kentridge and Cooper also discuss their respective modes of engagement with the fringes and margins of the sonic world in their works – evoking sensory atmosphere through rhythm, intensity, vibrations, pulsations, resonance, and discordance.

Subsequent musings on the physicality of sound as material for thought and imagination, the process of embracing aleatoric sound in order to break out of certain habits and routines in the creative process, and the incidental and generative method of composition that arises from the playful engagement with analogue technologies are other points of discussion throughout the evening.

Closing off the In Conversation is a brief Q&A session which leads to discussions around the notion of fragmented sound, music as collage, and the essence and origins of sonic performance.

— David Mann