In ‘Out here in the fields: Audiotourisme, gevonden geluid en veldopnames’ reizen we samen met Coen Oscar Polack (Living Ornaments, Psychon, Narrominded) door stad en land. Opvallend is de gedetailleerdheid van de opnames. Wat deze werken bindt, is een liefde voor geluid: het ruisen van de wind, de hartkloppingen van wolkenkrabbers en de krakende hersens van studerende monniken. Terwijl veldopnames soms wat moeilijk te verteren zijn, heeft Polack hier een fijne mix in elkaar gedraaid die nooit te zwaar aanvoelt. Variërend tussen intense, gelaagde geluiden en luchtige stukken, blijft deze mix boeien.

In ‘Out here in the fields: audiotourisme, gevonden geluid en veldopnames’ Coen Oscar Polack (Living Ornaments, Psychon, Narrominded) leads us through cities and fields. The recordings are remarkably detailed. Wat holds them together is a love for sound: the whistling of the wind, the beating hearts of skyscrapers and the grinding brains of studying monks. Field recordings are often a bit hard to digest, but Polack has put together a mix that never feels like it’s weighing you down. Alternating between intense, layered sounds and more lighthearted pieces, the mix continuously keeps you on the edge of your chair.

Playlist:
1. Coen Oscar Polack – Geluiden uit De Blauwe Kamer
2. Francisco López – Buildings [New York]
3. Unknown – Todaiji Temple (1239) Daibutsu
4. Jakob Kirkegaard – Nerthus
5. Tucker Martine – Particle Swarm Intelligence
6. Akira Rabelais – Glower Conf. II. 20
7. Geir Jenssen – Camp 3: Neighbors on Oxygen
8. Douglas Quin – Weddell Seals (Underwater)
9. William Bolcom – Hippopotamus
10. Coen Oscar Polack – Himalaya FM
11. Stephen Vitiello – San Salvador
12. Annea Lockwood – Fridingen to Ulm
13. David Lewiston – Christmas in Oaxaca
14. Rubber Television
15. Mira Calix – Nunu
16. Chris Watson – No Man’s Land
17. Oorjak Hunashtaar-Ool – Brat Moy, Spoyu Borban
18. Coen Oscar Polack – Ghorkaland Manifestation / Generator
19. Tod Dockstader – Wire
20. Nurse With Wound – Gulls Just Wanna Have Fun
21. Douglas Quin – White-backed Vulture
22. Chris Watson – Bucaneve
23. Peter Bruyn – Waarom een regenwoud nooit Idols wint (audiocolumn)
24. Douglas Quin – White-bearded Manakin
25. Douglas Quin – Ranomafana: Mountain Rainforest
26. Jana Winderen – Live in Japan
27. The Monastety of Gyütö – Mahakala
28. Zhang Jian – Streets of Lhasa #1
29. Tucker Martine – Dogon Country at Night
30. Coen Oscar Polack – Monks Chanting
31. Five Unknown Women – Cuando la Niña es Casada
32. The Caretaker – Persistent Repetition of Phrases

Link & complete playlist info:

http://cut-up.com/2009/08/nmf-1-out-here-in-the-fields/

photo: www.cathnor.com

Just realized that’s a lot of commas in the title. Oh well.

This is the second installment of my review of the Cathnor vignettes series, and also, my second real review for this site (cue boos and general dismay). For those not worried about this prospect, my plan for reviews in general is to review whatever I feel like talking about whether new or old. I don’t have a huge philosophy behind that or anything, I am just occasionally struck by a record or label, and when I am, I hope to write about it here. In the case of this series, I just really like what Richard is doing with the label. It’s pretty cool to see someone step it up and take their passion for this music to the next level, and it’s great to be able to hear the recorded results.

Now to the review… Egg Fry #2, is a real treat, but for a few reasons, somewhat difficult to write about. Firstly, the sounds produced by the egg frying in the pan, sound almost like they are being made by an ensemble. There are many different sonic approaches, and different locations in the stereo field from which the sounds emerge. But there is no ensemble, and no instruments to pinpoint, thus it’s difficult to say, “i like when the _____ goes _____.” Not that that is the soul of a review, but you know…

The recording in general is really well done. Background noise never becomes intrusive, and the sounds by and large sound defined and transparent. (the nerd in me would love to know what setup Patterson used for this recording) Compositionally, this piece reminds me in certain ways of Jason Kahn’s recent (and wonderful) “Vanishing Point”, in that the overall shape of the piece is an accent from silence to fullness, and then a descent back to silence that is equally as carefully paced and just as long if not longer. I really like the psychological effect this produces, as it helps to focus my attention to detail throughout the end of the piece, until i am peeking through the silence at the end for the last few pops and sputters, like scraping a plate after a good meal.

The sounds presented here are a mix of (a very nice version of) what you’d expect, with a handful of surprises. There are a lot of images of musicians evoked for me here, and sometimes I can’t help my mind from imagining Axel Döerner somewhere in the mix. Or, Robin Hayward, or to a lesser extent Otomo Yoshihide and Martin Tetrault on turntables. The overall effect reminds me of older more laminal improv where players would find a space and remain in it for a while almost as if the were staking their claim to a space within an instantly emerging composition. Certain sounds are nearly ever present, which is quite alright by me, as in general due to (I imagine) the physics of what is taking place they are always changing slightly in what can almost sound like an investigatory manner. The pops, shuffles, splutters and whirs, dance around one in such a way however, as to never become too staid or boring. And occasionally we are treated to a blast or plonk that seems to come out of nowhere and upset the works at just the right moment.

An added bonus bonus to this disc is that it can benefit from being listened to both quite soft, and quite loud. Soft, it can blend so nicely with background sounds as to sort of enliven the ambience of your surroundings, yet still manages to draw you in. Loud, it can be an exciting noise-fest, and an engrossing and intense experience.

While always being open to hearing sound recordings of all kinds, I expected to find this disc interesting on the surface. After listening several times now though I am quite impressed by the level of complexity to explore below.

Great packaging too!

静默的散文

我什么时候开始。。。 什么时候结束？

我的答案潜伏在音乐和声音里, 记录着我生命的每一刻。。。

这些在时间里静默的散文。

When do I begin… when do I end?

I penned down my answers in music and sounds, recording moments of my life… these silent audiographies in time.

silent audiographies <<静默的散文>> is a series of 12 minimalist sound and music expositions recorded over a period of one and a half years from 2008 to 2009; accompanied by 12 proses and passages written by sonicbrat, included in the download zip as PDF booklet…

click here to download album for free

Ventures and Adventures in Topography

I recently had a look what was going on at Resonance FM which I haven’t done for a while. I found a series of programs by John Rogers and Nick Papadimitriou, Ventures and Adventures in Topography. Nick is better known as one of Will Self’s friends from his psychogeographic meanderings. Here they follow the walking guides from the early 20th century based around London and the South East.

In the most recent program they follow Pathfinder’s ‘Afoot Round London’ (published in 1911), and a days walk from Grange Hill Station to Loughton. They’re basically there to see what has changed from the days of the mysterious Pathfinder to today, the results are not wholly unexpected, the tracks are now roads and busier with cars. However, it’s a nice idea and attempting to follow an old walking guide seems a more useful and objective mission than some of the more usual psychogeographic accounts. It also makes me wonder about the similarity to these methodologies and their relationship to phenomenological accounts in mainstream archaeological literature.

The radio program is quite light and enjoyable, there are some readings from the original Pathfinder text, which is almost poetry and the music behind by Fabrizio Paterlini is very nice.

http://venturesintopography.wordpress.com/

Voice On Record

Also on Resonance FM is episode 9: Dialects: From The Dawn of The English Language of Voice on Record. A series taking old vinyl recordings of the human voice and the environment, they’re just rather quaint to listen to. In this episode there’s a modern and original recitation of some Chaucer, and a nice old man recalling his days as a wheelwright and another chap’s earlier days as a lad drinking cider on the farm and hiding the smell from his mother by chewing parsley on the way home!

http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/2787

Harvest (2009) for terrafon, traditional music ensemble and cropland

Finally I found this recording and video by Swedish composer Olle Cornéer. He has built a large gramophone horn attached to an old plough, the ‘terrafon’ which is then pulled along through a field by the members of a  ‘traditional music ensemble’. The sound of the plough is thus amplified as the plough cuts the land, giving an auditory aspect to the texture of the field, it seems quite bonkers but it would perhaps have pleased John Evans (2003).

http://www.ollecorneer.com/art/harvest/

Evans, J.G. 2003. Environmental Archaeology and the Social Order. London: Routledge.

As this blog goes on, I’m going to be delving deeper into my technical notes and experiments. Meaning, it’s going to get even boring-er than what it is now.

So in the first of what should hopefully be a long series, here’s a 60 second field recording made on my iphone with the Griffin iTalk application. I aim to slowly build a library of sounds, freeing me from reliance on other people’s recordings / Logic’s built-in sounds.

This was recorded on the dry dock where a ship, the Duke Of Lancaster, is moored. It’s got a long and interesting history though it’s in a rather sad state now. Attentive listeners may notice what suspiciously sounds like a Polaroid SX-70 camera taking a picture.

For prosperity

Sid Hemphill, Senatobia, September 1959.

Sid Hemphill was a multi-instrumentalist, band-leader, and patriarch of a prodigiously musical family in the Mississippi Hill Country. Blind Sid played fiddle, mandolin, guitar, banjo, fife, quills, organ, and every type of drum that the region’s picnics and dances required, and he sang – perhaps shouted is a better word for what he did with his voice – with a ragged, joyful intensity that will shoot the hair on the back of your neck skyward. He was 65 years old when Alan Lomax met him in 1942. Lomax, fifty years later, described Sid thusly:

No one told me that Sid Hemphill was blind, but it was the last thing you’d recall about him. His face blazed with inner light. He ran rather than walked everywhere. He could never wait for his wife to bring something, but always darted up to find it himself. His speech, which could not keep pace with his thoughts and designs, had become telegraphic and brusque.

All of this can be recognized instantly in his music, much of it – at least that which Lomax recorded of him (and only Lomax’s recordings are extant*) – strung up to such a fever pitch, near to bursting with giddiness, passion, and energy. Even when the two met up again in 1959, though Sid was in his early 80s and had mellowed considerably, he retained more than a little of his earlier fury.

Hemphill passed on no small amount of his talent and repertoire to his gifted daughters, Sidney Hemphill Carter and Rosalie (or Rosa Lee) Hill, as well as to his granddaughter, Jessie Mae Hemphill. All of these heirs have now passed on themselves, although they did, to varying degree, make their own representative recordings, Jessie Mae to the widest acclaim.

Rosalie Hill (seated) and Sidney Hemphill Carter at the home of Fred McDowell, Como, Mississippi, September 1959

These Hemphill women, along with their more famous male landsmen – Fred McDowell, Otha Turner, R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough – have rightfully put the music of the Mississippi Hill Country on the map, and it’s now a musical tourist destination for its fife-and-drum picnics and, at least till it burned down, Kimbrough’s juke joint, Junior’s Place. What hasn’t received much recognition is Sid Hemphill’s remarkable ability as a song-writer. His compositions didn’t find a place in the oral tradition of the Hill Country; perhaps the sheer size of his ballads – the longest was 26 stanzas – were too daunting for anyone to attempt to remember. (Other explanations are offered below). The most remarkable of these, to this listener, was a 21-verse ballad called “The Carrier Line,” “The Carrier Railroad,” or just, as Rosalie Hill recalled to George Mitchell in 1967, the “Carrie Song.” It was recorded by Sid and his band – Lucius Smith, Alec Askew, and Will Head – for Alan Lomax in 1942, and that performance is simply one of the most powerful, affecting, and exciting recordings you’re ever likely to hear, from any place, any time, even reaching us, as it does, from an acetate disc made over 65 years ago, and dealing with obscure local events that took place over a hundred years ago.

There are only a couple of places, not counting the Reading Room at the American Folklife Center, where “The Carrier Railroad” (as Lomax notated it in his field log and as it’s filed at the Center) can be heard. One is on Document’s “Field Recordings, Vol. 3: Mississippi” CD, currently available at inflated prices on Amazon, or through Document itself at a more reasonable rate.  This release, to these ears – and if you’re at all familiar with the Document catalog, this will sound counter-intuitive – actually features the available “Carrier Line” of the best fidelity. Another is in “Afro-American Folk Music from Tate and Panola Counties, Mississippi,” a CD released by Rounder in 2000, part of their reissue series of material from the Folklife Center’s archives. Originally released as a Library of Congress Recording Lab LP in 1978, with a highly enlightening and engaging introduction by one of the world’s foremost experts on black vernacular music, Dr. David Evans of the University of Memphis, this album features recordings made by Evans during field-work in the Hill Country from 1969 to 1971, alongside several of Lomax’s acetate sides of Sid Hemphill from ‘42.

You can also hear “The Carrier Line” below. I treasure this recording more deeply than just about any Lomax ever made. I also wanted to share it, its fascinating subjects (John Carrier and his wily engineer, Dave Cowart), and Sid Hemphill’s extraordinary compositional ability with whoever might care to enjoy them, so I asked Dr. Evans for his permission to reprint a portion of his notes regarding the song and its story, as well as his transcription of Sid’s lyrics. This transfer of the tune comes to me from a source separate from the Document and Rounder releases, duly noted so as not to run afoul with any master-use clauses or what-have-you that might apply, even though the only real rights herein belong to the Hemphill family.

I hope you’ll enjoy it, and please do note that the Rounder release that includes Dr. Evans’ notes is luckily still in print – unlike many other essential albums of vernacular music recordings that once made Rounder a label worthy of great acclaim and appreciation (before “Tangle-Eye” and Plant & Krauss, et al., remade their business model) – so consider yourself strongly urged to pick it up before it too is put out to pasture. Act fast – Amazon thinks it already has been.

*                    *                    *

The Carrier Line (click to download)
Performed by Sid Hemphill, vocal and fiddle; Lucius Smith, banjo; Alec Askew, guitar; and Will Head, bass drum.
Recorded by Alan Lomax in Dundee, Mississippi, August 15, 1942.

Notes by David Evans, 1978:

This song is an example of a “blues ballad,” combining the narrative quality of balladry with the loose, shifting, and subjective approach of blues singing. A blues ballad often assumes a prior knowledge of the underlying events of the story on the part of the audience. Most ballads in black folk song are blues ballads, as are quite a few in southern white folk song. Often the same piece is known in both black and white traditions (e.g., “John Henry,” “Frankie and Albert”), so that it may be difficult to determine its origin. This particular blues ballad was composed by Sid Hemphill, a black man, but all the main characters in the story were white.

Robert Carrier owned a logging company and in 1901 built the Sardis and Delta Railroad, called simply Mr. Carrier’s line in the song, to haul logs to Sardis in Panola County from Bobo Lake (later renamed Lake Carrier), twenty-two miles to the west in the Delta. Hemphill told Alan Lomax that he composed the song in 1903, but he may have been a few years off. Lucius Smith, Hemphill’s banjo player, said that the wreck occurred in 1905 or 1906, but possibly it occurred at the same time as the other event referred to in the song – the financial panic of 1907. Local newspapers for this period are unenlightening about these events.

View Larger Map

“Now you can get the map out and trace his whole damn route,” said Hamper McBee about “Billy Richardson’s Last Ride” in West Virginia. Same for Dave Cowart’s in Mississippi. The “A” marks Lake Carrier, according to Google maps, although that doesn’t look like much of a lake to me. That spot does rest on Bobo Road, however. Sardis is to the northeast, and about a dozen miles north of it along Highway 51 (and now Interstate 55) is Senatobia. Eighteen miles west of Sledge is Dundee, where Lomax made his recordings of Hemphill’s band.

In any case, the song has two themes, which are not clearly connected to each other in the text. Stanzas 1, 14 though 17, and 23 refer to the panic. Carrier paid his workers with brass scrip while the banks were closed [see comments below for a differing opinion on this], but many of them became discouraged and took up farming near Malone’s Trestle, where the wreck was to occur. The remaining stanzas refer to the wreck. Carrier had two engineers, “Pop” Bailey and Dave Cowart. Hemphill described Cowart to Lomax as a “rough engineer.” Carrier had warned Cowart on several occasions not to run his train so fast. He transferred Cowart to another engine and threatened to fire him. Stanza 13 indicates that he actually did fire Cowart, but in stanza 18 he is back his running his original engine, the “Seven Spot.” Cowart wrecked the train at Malone’s Trestle. Nobody was killed, but several were scalded badly by the steam, including a preacher named Lovey Lemons who worked on the railroad.

The refrain after every stanza is unrelated to the text of the song. In its full form it should be “Oh, my honey babe, why don’t you come home?” Hemphill, however, plays the last half of the line on his fiddle. The first half actually sounds like “Oh, my heart beat,” but Hemphill insisted to Alan Lomax, who heard it similarly, that he had sung “Oh, my honey babe.” A similar refrain has been reported elsewhere in black folk music for blues ballads and blues. Howard Odum noted it in adjacent Lafayette County, Mississippi, and Dorothy Scarborough in Texas.

Hemphill was fond of singing blues ballads and, in addition to this piece, he also composed ballads about a local bad man [Jack Castle, "The Roguish Man"], a mob at the Senatobia jail ["The Strayhorn Mob"], and one of the world wars ["So Soon I'll Be At Home"]. Among traditional ballads he sang versions of “Joe Turner,” “The Boll Weevil,” “John Henry,” “Old Blue,” and “Casey Jones.” Except for a nine-stanza version of “The Carrier Line” collected by George Mitchell from Hemphill’s daughter [Rosalie], none of Hemphill’s composed ballads has survived in the folk tradition of the area. Lucius Smith can only remember the banjo parts to a few ballads and one stanza of “The Carrier Line.” He says that he never paid much attention to the words.

There seem to be several reasons why these ballads are not well known in the area despite the fact that Hemphill was generally acknowledged as one of the best local musicians and has been dead for only about 15 years. [Hemphill died in 1963.] Blues ballad singing has declined in general among blacks in recent years. New ones are not being composed, and only a few old ones are kept alive in tradition, mainly through the influence of such records as Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee” and Buster Brown’s “John Henry.”

Hemphill’s own ballads were performed with a string band. This type of ensemble no longer exists in the area, a fact that has undoubtedly conctributed to the disappearance of the repertoire of songs associated with such bands. Furthermore, there exists a strong feeling in this area that songs like “The Carrier Line” belonged to Hemphill only. Several people have said that Hemphill performed mostly “his own” songs, so that other performers avoided them. Hemphill himself made it well known that he had composed “The Carrier Line” and some other songs. Although the tune, stanza structure, and refrain are traditional, most of the words of “The Carrier Line” are very much Hemphill’s own creation; it contains very few of the lyric phrases that seem to “float” freely from one blues ballad to another.

Sid Hemphill and Lucius Smith, Senatobia, September 1959

A final reason may be that Hemphill performed some of his songs mainly for white people. He was asked to write “The Carrier Line” by a Mr. Willard, a white section foreman on the line. Hemphill said he sang it for all the participants in the events except Mr. Carrier himself, although Lucius Smith said that the band often performed at Mr. Carrier’s house in the country as well as for picnics held by “all them big rich folks in Senatobia.” Another musician has stated that Hemphill would sing this song for Mr. Carrier every Saturday morning and collect ten dollars for his efforts. No doubt this is an exaggeration, although Hemphill may have done this once or twice and bragged about it to others, so that a legend arose locally.

[Evans continues, describing the structural influence blues ballads like "The Carrier Line" had on the  development of the blues, and briefly discusses the transition away from the black country string band, and those bands' instrumentation.]

Enjoy.

*                    *                    *

Nobody had a nickle, you couldn’t get a dime.
If you want to make your money, boys, work on Mr. Carrier’s time.
Oh, my honey babe… (Refrain repeated after each stanza.)

Mr. Dave Cowart went on Mr. Carrier’s engine; Mr. Carrier he looked and laughed.
“Tell you, Dave Cowart, don’t run my train too fast.”

Mr. Dave told Mr. Carrier, “Man, don’t you know I know your rule.
Tell you, Mr. Carrier, a train ain’t no mule.”

Mr. Dave Cowart went down to Baptist; Mr. Carrier stood on the railroad track.
“Send back Dave Cowart, get Mr. Bailey back.”

Mr. Dave told Mr. Carrier, “Man, fire me if you will.
Every time it come a shower of rain, he can’t run it up Johnson Hill.”

Mr. Carrier said, “Dave Cowart, see what you have done.
You left Sardis at twelve o’clock, done made it back at one.”

Mr. Dave said, “Well, Mr. Carrier, let me have my way.
Let me run this Seven Spot, I’ll make three trips today.”

Mr. Carrier said, “No, Dave Cowart, tell you in time.
Can’t let you run the Seven no more.” “Well, I’ll have to run the Nine.”

Everybody around Sardis said “Mr. Carrier, I know you got your way.
Mr. Bailey’s much too old a man to run your train like Dave.”

Last one Monday morning, it come a shower of rain.
Nine come to Ballentine blowing like a fast train.

When the Nine got over to Sardis with a large load of logs,
Mr. Carrier told the people at the plant, “Yonder train off the Yellow Dog.”

They said to Mr. Carrier, “Man, ain’t you ’shamed?
Looking out the window, don’t know your own train?”

Mr. Carrier went to Dave Cowart, “Dave, I done told you so.
Train costs too much, you can’t run my train no more.”

Mr. Carrier’s timbermens quit too. Thought they all was mad.
They didn’t like his paydays cuz he’s paying ‘em off in brass.

Mr. Carrier’s timbermen left, thought they was going home.
Stopped down the railroad, farming at Malone’s.

Mr. Carrier went down to Malone’s, he didn’t mean no harm.
He didn’t know his timbermen knowed how to farm.

Oh he couldn’t pay ‘em no greenbacks, couldn’t pay ‘em no gold,
Couldn’t pay ‘em no silver. All his banks done closed.

Mr. Carrier’s engine left Sardis then; she left there mighty hot.
Got down to Malone’s Trestle where he could wreck that Seven Spot.

Well, they telephoned to Mr. Carrier. Don’t you think it’d be nice?
“Telephone to Sardis and get Dr. Rice.”

Mr. Carrier said to Dave Cowart, “Man, ain’t you ’shamed?
You done wrecked my Seven Spot, done scald the preacher’s hand.”

Mr. Carrier said to the conductor, ‘ductor / doctor [?], thank you for saving his life.
Conductor says he’s a lazy man, he won’t hardly die.

He wore a mighty fine coat, boys. Mighty fine shirt.
Rid that train every day. He didn’t never work.

I played on Mr. Carrier’s railroad, Sardis on Main and Beale.
I made dollars down there without working in the field.

Well they carried him down to Emma’s. Aunt Emma hollered and screamed.
“Needn’t cry, Miss Emma, but he got scalded by the steam.”

*                    *                    *

*Dr. Evans has corrected my earlier assertion that Lomax was the only one to make recordings of Sid Hemphill, noting that James W. Silver – Ole Miss history professor, friend of Faulkner, and outspoken civil rights advocate – also recorded Sid, but the tape has not survived. For more on Sid Hemphill and his “Carrier Line,” see James W. Silver, “Paul Bunyan Comes to Mississippi,” Journal of Mississippi History 19 (1957): 96-101.

Inverz is Thessaloniki-born Savvas Metaxas, who runs the excellent Granny Records stable. Influenced by the likes of Fennesz, Pan American, Alva Noto and My Bloody Valentine, Metaxas utilizes acoustic & electric guitars and an arsenal of pedal effects and field recordings, to create a sound rich in texture and panoramic in depth.

http://www.archive.org/details/Inverz-Slowphch013/

http://www.phantomchannel.co.uk/webreleases.html

Like my love it is unrelentingly thorough, tedious.

Click here to download Episode 1.mp3

Click here to download Episode 2.mp3

Click here to download Episode 4.mp3

Click here to download Episode 5.mp3

Click here to download Episode 6.mp3

Click here to download Episode 7.mp3

Click here to download Episode 8.mp3

Click here to listen to Episode 9.mp3

Through the use of a back yard studio and an array of analogue instruments Sifantos produces his fourth official album; DIY aesthetics, noise tactics and pagan field recordings make up for Absurd Fiction.

www.archive.org/details/orl03

All sounds made by, on, or through solo electric guitar, with the
exceptions of tracks 1 & 11 which are field recordings.
All tracks improvised and recorded live.
Copyright 2009 / Morgan Craft

www.archive.org/details/ca324_mc

www.clinicalarchives.spyw.com

beginnend mit 08.11. wird jeden sonntag auf oe1 im rahmen von kunstradio – radiokunst eine akustische stadtvermessung präsentiert. kuratiert wird das ganze vom deutschen label gruenrekorder, am 15.11. ist wien dran und damit mein beitrag zu diesem projekt.

Stig Inge Oy from Poland incorporates acoustic instruments field recordings and post processed audio signals not commonly associated with music as primary sources for his close-in-the-box electroacoustic music, as he would call it. In the case of 39 68 99 09, the first release for the Petcord netlabel, this equates to tension ridden cinematic soundscapes that confront listeners with gloomy feelings of despair. The title refers to years that Maciej Miskiewicz, the man behind Stig Inge Oy, consider corner stones of the Western civilisation, though it remains unclear which events the composer had in mind. The work is characterised by a chilly feeling of hopelessness that does not entirely go away even at the lighter and more accessible parts. Sombre piano lines are contrasted with glassy drones, ecclectic string parts, guitars drowning in reverberation and processing artifacts like distortion, skipping sources or plain white noise. Caught in between tension and desperation, the listener is confronted with intense feelings that seem to be at odds with today’s tendency of drowning dissent in a sea of political correctness.

Olliver Wichmann

www.archive.org/details/pc0909-01/

www.petcord.com/releases/pc0909-01-stig-inge-oy-39-68-99-09/

A little collage of field recordings made by myself down in cornwall. A bit of sidestep from the usual mixes here but thought I’d put it as a bit of fresh air before Cherrystones and myself prepare ourselves for the next show. Coming soon…

Scoop it up

Archive.org page

Canciones del Descontentes” (“Songs of the Discontented”) is dedicated to all who struggle to do what is right and human in the face of often-impossible odds. Their stories are as ancient and lasting as the stones that are often turned against them…

Mirror:

Canciones del Descontento (47.24)
Cover art

Mastered by Mark ‘mystahr’ Stolk

review this release

HIROKI SASAJIMA – MONOGENIC (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive)
ENTIA NON – DISINTER (CDR by Sentient Recognition Archive)
Two new names for me, on the excellent …Sentient Recognition Archive label. While Entia Non has a little bit of information, there is no such thing on ‘Monogenic’ by Hiroki Sasajima. That’s a pity, since we have to guess a bit. My best shot is that Sasajima uses field recordings, which are heavily processed into monolithic blocks of sound. His results, three in total, a deeply, what: bass shaking, rumbles of sound. Like the Holloway disc reviewed elsewhere, there is a strong influence of the work of Paul Bradley or Jonathan Coleclough. Deep, dark and mysterious and somehow all generated in the world of digital processing. Rain seems to be the main player in the second piece and motorized sounds in the third, whereas in the first I am completely in the dark. Very fine release for the music, not so much in terms of new things happening.
To spoil the end of the review: it can also be said about Entia Non, also known as James McDougall. Not much information here either, but it says that the field recordings were made at the East Coast of Australia. Here too the field recordings are heavily processed to filter out the deepest, lowest sound, and emphasize those through heavy filtering. The difference with Sasajima however is that its possible to recognize the or;.iginal sounds somewhat. Lots of sea sounds, walking along the beach, the sand in hand approach, motors and boats. Maybe a track too long this one. The best pieces, with the most variety in them – the raw sound versus the treatments – are at the beginning of the disc. ‘Nearly Home’, the fifth piece, seems a mere repetition of moves that were already made. Again leaning heavily on the UK drone scene – Mirror, Monos, Ora, Coleclough – but executed with the same great care, so perhaps that’s fine enough. Two fine discs. (FdW)

www.srasounds.com/landing/Store.html

This is one of the productions I’ve been working sleeplessly on. I am grateful for the experience working with Boi Sakti and T.H.E. Dance Company dancers. Always a joy… tonnes of field recordings, musique conrete, acousmatics, noise and acoustic instrumentations…

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da:ns Festival Residency & Commission

“… mesmerising… with movements that were both strong and fluid at the same time” – The Jakarta Post, on Boi Sakti

“T.H.E’s work invigorated our senses; not least because they have the courage of convictions” – Dance Europe

If our souls were the windows of civilisation, what would they reveal? In VOID, choreographer Boi Sakti confronts the moral decay and hypocrisy engulfing society and calls into question the very meaning of ‘civilisation’. The soul is wounded. Conscience has fallen into a black hole. Principle and reason have given way to greed and falsities. There is a tragic loss of humanity despite claims of greater openness in a civilised world. This affecting and insightful work examines these distortions and seeks to contextualise them. The world premiere is performed by T.H.E Dance Company led by artistic director Kuik Swee Boon, and features award-winning sound designer Darren Ng. At once powerful and poetic, VOID throws the windows wide open and compels you to face what is really there.

Regarded as “one of Asia’s most interesting and important choreographers”, Sakti’s artistry draws from the traditions of Minangkabau dance and martial art forms, and the aesthetics of contemporary movement. His earthy yet fluid choreographic style has been described as one that combines “sensitivity and precise, gentle power”. He created Jendela Peradaban as a festival commission, with a two-month artist residency at da:ns 09 that took place at Esplanade and in Indonesia. T.H.E. Dance Company has come to be regarded as one of Singapore’s fastest-rising and most dynamic contemporary dance groups.

Schools may use the Tote Board Arts Grant to subsidise 60% (excluding GST) of the ticket price of this programme. For more details please contact us at 6828 8389 or email boxoffice@esplanade.com.

Read more details at these sites:

Official da:ns Festival Site

Esplanade Website

SISTIC

Sadly I don’t own a Zoom-H4 or any of the other portable recorders but I do own an iPhone and so I downloaded the griffin iTalk application for it. Annoying tendency to add ‘i’ before everything notwithstanding, it’s a decent enough piece of software.

It can’t compare with the better quality recorders available but I’ve found you can get usable quality recordings out of it and it’s almost always in my pocket so it only takes a few seconds for me to start recording.

I made a quick recording in a cafe / kids area in a shopping centre in Murcia, Spain to listen to. As you can hear in the audio track, the natural acoustics of the place added to a bunch of loud screaming brats does not a good sample make (that file has not been edited or EQ’d btw).

After a complete wipe out of my Hackintosh’s harddrive and subsequent loss of a grand idea for three themed mini-song submission, I managed to use the sample on a song I’m not happy with for the PRF Songwriting Challenge that I participate in. I’ve been slacking lately on the songwriting challenge and it’s been a great source of inspiration for me so I figured I owed it to the challenge to get something in.

Every week we write a song about something and at the end of the week we listen to the songs. A vote is taken and the favourite chooses the theme of the next week’s challenge. This has gone on for a year and although I’ve only managed to participate in about twenty six or so weeks, it’s probably the only reason why I started making music again on a regular basis.

There’s some great songs on there and it’s been a lot of fun to take part for the last year.

Argali Records is proud to present “The Piano Concerto”, a long-form avant-garde piano composition augmented with industrial atmospherics. In the words of the composers:

“Imagine a thunderstorm over the mountains near the sea, a stream of piano sounds flowing into the wilderness of nature from a house on the mountain slope, a lonely soul expressing the amazement caused by the mighty forces of Nature.

The Piano Concerto, by Buben and Nasta Labada, is a combination of the old piano improvisation along with industrial sounds, noises, and elements of field recordings. Altogether, they create a volumetric picture surrounding you and taking you away to a different world where your mind opens and senses sharpen.

Vladislav Buben: www.myspace.com/48704278
Nasta Labada: www.myspace.com/nasta.labada

Discover the beauty and float away for a while!”

This is ARGREC06.

www.archive.org/details/ARGREC06

http://argalirecordsnetlabel.wordpress.com

Net control is the latest concept album by artist Monopole (a.k.a. Richard Sudney). The whole idea of this album was taken from the natural occurrence of electromagnetic wave propagating through the ether. Like the waves being generated on the waters surface from a stone being thrown into it; this album takes these wave disturbances and mimics it over 6 tracks.

http://rec72.net/?p=545