Orchid Mantis
with Stefan Maier, 2025
Composition; LP split with Olivia Block (Breach), Portraits GRM / Shelter Press, released May 16, 2025
Deep Blue, Vancouver, 2020
Centquatre, Paris, INA-GRM Live Electronics, January 6, 2023
From the record (Portraits GRM):
Orchid Mantis, by Michelle Helene Mackenzie and Stefan Maier, is a work that draws its inspiration from the history of the Sanzhi Pod City, in northern Taiwan. Sanzhi Pod City was built from 1978 onwards, made up of buildings constructed from assemblages of ‘pods’ inspired by the futuro houses of Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. The project was abandoned in 1980, following a number of accidents during construction and persistent rumours that the site was haunted. However, this wasteland of a city has allowed insects to proliferate, in particular five species of orchid mantis. It is this strange environment, made up of utopian buildings, proliferating insects and vegetation reclaiming the site, that serves as the imaginary space for Michelle Helene Mackenzie and Stefan Maier’s music, a music of carefully designed pace and progression, drawing, through resonance and stridulation, subtle sonic materials that guide and accompany us into multiple worlds with admirable ease and grace.
Record credits: Michelle Helene Mackenzie & Stefan Maier, Orchid Mantis (2020). Released May 16, 2025. Composed and produced by Michelle Helene Mackenzie and Stefan Maier. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle, Berlin, August 2024. Photo by Ryan Ermacora. Sleeve design by Stephen O’Malley. Thanks to Jean Brazeau and Robin Selk at Deep Blue Studios, and to Scott Gailey for additional recording assistance. ℗ 2020 INA grm, © 2025 Portraits GRM, released in association with Shelter Press.
Arranged collaboratively in the artists’ studios, January–March 2020. Mackenzie: modular synthesizer, digital instruments, field recording, amplified objects. Maier: modular synthesizer, digital instruments, field recording.
First version: Deep Blue Studios, Vancouver, March 12, 2020. Final work: Centquatre-Paris, January 6, 2023, INA-GRM Live Electronics series, curated by François Bonnet, diffused on François Bayle’s Acousmonium (1974).
The final work was performed on a programme with Diane Barbé (The Alien Kin), Audrey Chen (Hyper-extensions for voice and analog electronics) and Hanna Hartman (Solo for amplified and moving objects; Fog Factory). The first performance, at Deep Blue, was to be shared with Byron Westbrook, who had to cancel due to the COVID-19 shutdown.
Orchid Mantis on Bandcamp (Portraits GRM) ↗