Xavier Bonfill + Sistro Duo "(vessels)2" VIII. subscrub

"subscrub" is the 8th and final movement of (vessels)2 Performed live in Basement, Copenhagen, december 2025 vssl, performance: Sistro Duo (Katerina Anagnostidou, Marta Soggetti) Composition, instrument design, lights: Xavier Bonfill video recording: Spektrals (vessels)2 is a 35-minute work exploring the sampler as both container and vessel.The piece is performed by Sistro Duo on vssl, a perceptual sampler and granular synthesizer I designed, programmed, and built over three years. vssl uses machine learning and auditive descriptors to analyze and organize sounds by their sonic characteristics (brightness, hardness, harmonicity) rather than filenames, enabling intuitive real-time navigation through sample libraries. The piece questions ideas about authenticity and constraint: Can an instrument limited by its input be performed organically? Can something new emerge from a finite dataset? (vessels)2 was commissioned by Sistro Duo with kind support from Statens Kunstfond & KODA Kult