Music by Simon Whetham we reviewed quite a bit. ‘Successive Actions’ is already his fifth release for Cronica and another apparition of his “kinetic sound performance project series ‘Channelling’ in which various motor devices, salvaged from obsolete and discarded consumer technology, are activated by playing sound recordings through them. This produces new sounds from the devices, amplified using various microphones and techniques.” For other works in this series see also Vital Weekly 1437 and 1405. I am unsure to which extent this particular set of recordings differs from the previous instalments. Judging by the sounds, there may not be that many differences. As it happens with this kind of release, documenting installations with sound, without the visual component, it is very hard to imagine what these look like and what the hell one hears. That said, as before, this sounds all quite fascinating. On the risk of copying too much of the previous review, the music has a solid electro-acoustic character, vibrant and energetic. Percussive music, if you will, but none of the standard percussion bits, more akin to a drummer playing household objects and debris. With the hushed and muffled tones, the music gets a layer of mystery about, with the listener being locked up in a dark dungeon, not a cave, but a plastic one, made out of waste, and we hear waste dumped on top, rolling off a hill and we don’t know if there’s an escape. Again, as before, lovely stuff, with the note about not being too sure what the differences are. (FdW)
Crónica bringen Mitte Februar eine neue CD von Philippe Petit heraus, auf der der Klangkünstler – inspiriert von Dante Alighieris La Divina Comedia und den Illustrationen von Gustave Doré – “eine symphonische Palette musikalischer Pigmente, bildnerischer Töne und Texturen, die das epische Narrativ mit einer expressionistischen musikalischen Form versöhnen”, wie es beim Label heißt. Petitis Absicht war nicht, den Klassiker neu und im Medium der Musik neu zu illustrieren, sondern eine neue Geschichte einer Parallelwelt zu erzählen, in der die farbenfrohen musikalischen Motive selbst einen Plot enfalten, den die Hörer wie einen Film oder Roman erleben können.
A Divine Comedy is a two-disc journey into jarring, shifting, moody, at points decidedly hellish electro-symphonic-come-electro-acoustic sound scaping from French musician, journalists and radio DJ Philippe Petit. The release is themed around/roughly based on the 18th-century poem of the same name by Dante Alighieri.
The release comes presented in a mini card gatefold- on its front cover it features a blood and fire red collage taking in overlaid images from what looks like old religious prints of hell, demons, and a headless gowned figure. Inside we find an eight-page booklet- this details the themes of the work, sonically what each track consists of, and a rundown of each track’s plot.
Disc number one takes in six tracks- these move from “Halas Jacta Est” with its raising ‘n’ falling baying elector tones, inside piano fumbling/ twang, and jarring cut-up male & female vocal samples with a decidedly theatrical leaning. Onto bubbling-to-beaded analogue synth tones, rushing ambience, and unease mumbles ‘n’ screams of “The Descent”. Though to the tolling keys, synth bay, electro billow/ stretch, subtle gong strike, and plodding horn trumpeting of “Lucifer, Fallen Angel”.
The second CD features five tracks. We go from textural fumble ‘n’ creak, slow-mo string bay, and sudden jarring percussive rattle of “Purgatorio, Canto I”. There’s plodding & pitch warping “Purgatorio, Canto III” which blends sombre string glide, electro stretches, and searing pitch climbs. The disc plays out with “Paradiso, Canto II” with its shrill & warbling tones, harmonic piano key strikes, bass-bound electro purrs, and turntable sound grain.
A Divine Comedy certainly takes you on a jarring & often seared sonic journey- I can see this appeal to those who enjoy their symphonic sounds unpredictable, noise-bound, and dangerous. Roger Batty
From Matilde Meireles I reviewed a cassette before, ‘The Life Of A Potato’ (see Vital Weekly 1316), for the same label, now releasing, ‘Loop. And Again’, which isn’t the same colourful title as before. Meireles uses field recordings to compose site-oriented projects., and “investigates the potential of listening across spectrums and scales as ways to attune to various ecosystems and articulate plural experiences of the world. Some examples include the inner architectures of reeds and complex water ecologies, resonances in everyday objects, local neighbourhoods and the architecture of radio signals”. On her new album, she works with “the dynamics of magnetic fields”. This project she did in Belfast and “In the project, sound suggests different ways to engage with Belfast, where walking routes could be improvised to incorporate the drones as part of how we experience the city.” I am sorry about these lengthy quotes. There is a lot more to quote from, but essentially, she made her recordings with two contact microphones and an electromagnetic sensor of the overall environment of the city and the river Lagan, and sometimes they are processed. The opening piece, ‘Introducing Variables’, is a beautiful piece of gorgeous drones that sound like sine waves and in and out of the mix we have the floating city and river sounds. It all sounds very tranquil, which may seem odd for a city of unrest. Something happens in the second piece, ‘Magnetic Fields’, relying even more on drone-like loops with robust ambient quality and the field recordings on a sparser level. The last piece is ‘Cross Parade’, which is a break with the other two. Here are some private home recordings, including trombone improvisations by Tullis Rennie, who worked on the same project a few years ago. Here too, we find some long-form tones, but now from the trombone, which makes for a distinctive, different sound, along with a discussion at the breakfast table. Not bad, just different and something one could consider putting on a different album, or maybe add one of these and have a different balance? It’s a minor thing on an otherwise fine album. (FdW)
In their collaboration as @c, Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais developed several installations, often site-specific and ephemeral works. This series of releases in Crónica is dedicated to revisiting these installation works, occasionally with situ recordings, but also further exploring the computational systems developed for the works, archival materials, and other assets, presenting new compositions that unfold from each installation. This series is accompanied by the book Installations / Instalações also published by Crónica.
The sixth release in this series is CX LUX, after an open-air installation created for the summer 2017 Alumia program, organised by the city of Porto. We chose to work at the Lada lift, in Porto’s Ribeira district, a towering structure inspired by the nearby 19th-century bridges, housing an elevator that connects the riverside with the higher city. One of the oldest parts of town, traditionally a business and residential area, Ribeira is now one of Porto’s tourist centres, which puts significant pressure on its inhabitants, forced to deal with noise and gentrification.
While working on this piece, we spent time in a neighbourhood that had long been familiar to us but in which neither of us had lived. We met people, explored the meandering streets and researched the radical transformations experienced during the lifetimes of its inhabitants. What we learned led us to create a piece that, much as Ribeira, was continuously transforming, with a daytime sound installation at the upper-level passageway of the lift and a nighttime light installation at the tower’s façade. Two halves that never intersected and were only related in viewers’ memories.
The sound installation evoked the lost soundscapes of Ribeira, bringing back keynote sounds that vanished due to the relocation of businesses and demographic changes. Some of the sounds evoked by residents included the bells of many churches that are no longer active or the sounds of livestock (and their bells) from a market that has long been relocated from what now is the foot of the lift. In their many forms, bells became the central conceptual starting point for a composition created to blend with Ribeira’s soundscape.
La musique créée par Bruno Duplant parle directement avec une part profonde de ma quête artistique personnelle, celle de chercher à nous éloigner de la réalité pour pénétrer dans quelque chose d’impermanent et de mystérieux.
Ecouter les fantômes déforme une part de notre dimension familière, pour en extraire un matériau se dissolvant dans un espace poli par des temps bousculés, où les les minutes, les heures et les secondes n’ont plus aucune importance.
A travers cette oeuvre l’artiste ouvre la porte à nos fantasmes et nos peurs, nos désirs enfouis et nos attentes suspendues, laissant les spectres surgir de derrière nos croyances, pour nous observer à leur tour dans toute notre matérialité éphémère, bref instant d’existence avant de retourner à la poussière. Hanté. Roland Torres
Bruno Duplant als Multimediakünstler zu bezeichnen, ist wohl die einzige Möglichkeit, seinem Werk in seiner Gesamtheit gerecht zu werden. Er komponiert, fotografiert, schreibt und so weiter. Vielleicht ist er einer der interessantesten Künstler der Gegenwart und Michael Pisaro-Liu beschreibt das sehr treffend (siehe sein Zitat). Mit seiner neuesten Veröffentlichung versucht er, das Unsichtbare, das Geisterhafte, das Verborgene hörbar zu machen. Es ist ein faszinierender akustischer Essay.
Meine Musik soll erzählerisch und fiktional sein. Das Gleiche gilt für meine fotografischen und schriftstellerischen Arbeiten. Ich versuche nie, die Realität zu transkribieren. Das interessiert mich in keiner Weise. Was mich hingegen interessiert, fasziniert mich, ist, wie in Écouter les fantômes, eine Klangfiktion zu schaffen, mit dem Ziel, ein phantasmagorisches, uraltes und geheimes Universum zu transkribieren, das uns schon immer fasziniert und/oder erschreckt hat. Außerdem hoffe ich, dass die Fiktion auf diese Weise über die Realität hinausgeht und uns dazu bringt, uns für das zu öffnen und zu interessieren, was wir nicht sehen, was wir vergessen haben, was wir nicht durch Wissenschaft, Technologie und Vernunft erklären können. – Bruno Duplant
Bruno Duplant ist ein produktiver Komponist und Musiker (Orgel, Kontrabass, Schlagzeug, Elektronik, Feldaufnahmen), der im Norden Frankreichs lebt. Er hat mit vielen Musikern auf der ganzen Welt zusammengearbeitet und auch Solowerke geschaffen. Für Duplant ist das Komponieren und Musizieren vergleichbar mit dem Vorstellen, Erschaffen und manchmal auch dem Zerlegen neuer Räume/Realitäten und neuer Entitäten, die er Fiktionen nennt. Es ist aber auch eine Reflexion über die Erinnerung (Erinnerung an Dinge, Räume und Momente) und auch über alles, was unsichtbar und nicht greifbar ist.
„Ich sage lieber, dass ich kein professioneller Künstler bin; ich mache nur Musik, um ich selbst zu sein. Es sind die anderen, die dich zu einem Künstler machen.“ – Bruno Duplant
Für Duplant ist das Komponieren und Spielen von Musik gleichbedeutend mit dem Vorstellen, Erschaffen und manchmal auch Zerlegen neuer Räume/Realitäten und neuer Entitäten, Fiktionen. Aber es ist auch eine Reflexion über das Gedächtnis, über Erinnerungen an Dinge, Räume und Momente. Seine Musik, die stark von Schriftstellern (Mallarmé, Francis Ponge, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Perec u.a.) und Klangkünstlern/Musikern/Theoretikern (John Cage, Luc Ferrari, Rolf Julius, Raymond Murray Schafer) inspiriert ist, ist durchdrungen von einem Hauch süßer Melancholie und vielfältigen fruchtbaren Versuchen, den Zufall, l’infini des possibles. — Michael Pisaro-Liu (2021)
Działająca już od 2003 roku portugalska wytwórnia Crónica może pochwalić się wieloma wspaniałymi wydawnictwami. W jej katalogu znajdujemy płyty takich artystów, jak: Philippe Petit, Gintas K, Matilde Meireles, Francisco López czy Piotr Kurek.
Wrzesień przynosi kolejną premierę, tym razem chodzi o album Bruno Duplanta, który w tej wytwórni już wcześniej wydawał. Sam twórca może pochwalić się bardzo dużą dyskografią. Publikował solo, ale też współpracował z innymi artystami. Jego albumy możemy znaleźć w różnych labelach, między innymi we wrocławskim Sublime Retreat. O swojej twórczości mówi: „Moja muzyka ma być narracyjna i fikcyjna. Działam tak samo podczas fotografowania czy pisania. Nigdy nie próbuję przepisywać rzeczywistości. To mnie w żaden sposób nie interesuje. Z drugiej strony, to co mnie fascynuje, to, tak jak w Écouter les fantômes, tworzenie dźwiękowej fikcji w celu próby przepisania fantazmatycznego, ancestralnego i tajemnego wszechświata, który zawsze nas zachwycał i/lub przerażał. Mam również nadzieję, że w ten sposób fikcja wyjdzie poza rzeczywistość i doprowadzi nas do otwarcia się i zainteresowania tym, czego nie widzimy, o czym zapomnieliśmy, czego nie możemy wyjaśnić za pomocą nauki, technologii i rozumu”.
Znając wcześniejszy dorobek artysty, mam wrażenie, że sednem jego twórczości jest pewna tajemnica ukrytych dźwięków złapanych gdzieś z innego świata i przekazanie nam tego w swojej, dźwiękowej formie. Ich hauntologiczny obraz, jak zawsze poraża niezgłębioną przestrzenią. Tak samo jest z jego ostatnią płytą Ècouter les fantômes. Duplant używając minimalnych strzępków dźwięków roztacza wspaniały i sekretny pejzaż odrealnionego odbicia światów. To wszystko powoli odżywa i zaprasza nas do nich. Genialne użyte spreparowane głosy jeszcze bardziej potęgują tajemnicę brzmień. W tych dwóch kompozycjach wszystko ma wymiar nierzeczywisty i ukryty. Szmery, zmodyfikowane odgłosy, rezonujące szelesty wydobyte gdzieś spod kurzu nakręcają tę jakby maszynę do przekazania snu.
Ècouter les fantômes jawi się jako intrygująca wizja dźwiękowa, która może i przerażać, ale też odkrywa przed nami wiele wyobrażeń. Jej imaginacje zaplątane w fantasmagoriach brzmią niczym dotykanie niezbadanych głębin innych światów. Mnie totalnie zauroczyły. Michał Majcher
My music is intended to be narrative and fictional. I do the same in my practice of photography and writing. I never try to transcribe reality. This doesn’t interest me in any way. What, on the other hand, interests me, fascinates me, is, as in Écouter les fantômes, to create a sound fiction with the aim of trying to transcribe a phantasmagorical, ancestral and secret universe which has always fascinated and/or frightened us.
Also, in this way, I hope, fiction will go beyond reality and lead us to be opened and interested in what we do not see, what we have forgotten, what we cannot explain through science, technology and reason.
Écouter les Fantômes is now available as a limited-release CD, download or stream.
Marc Behrens’ “Clould” is an album that seems to hover somewhere between the clouds and the imagination — a liminal space where the ancient myths of the sky meet the cold reality of modern air travel. The title itself is a clever fusion of “cloud” and “could”, hinting at both the ethereal and the potential, a collision of the mystical past and the mechanized present. The album is an electroacoustic exploration that draws from the mundane yet bizarre experience of air travel, transforming the sounds of airports and airplanes into something akin to a sonic hallucination.
Behrens’ “Clould” is a meticulously crafted cycle of five movements, complemented by a prelude, “Aiear”, released earlier this year. Together, these works form a sprawling 95-minute sonic journey, one that is as much a meditation on the disembodied experience of air travel as it is a reflection on the myths that once populated the skies. The album is composed from a vast array of recordings — sounds captured from within airplanes and airports using everything from standard microphones to electromagnetic sensors, even sounds sourced from check-in luggage and in-flight entertainment systems. Behrens’ sound palette is as varied as it is innovative, capturing the eerie, liminal atmosphere of air travel in a way that feels both alien and familiar.
The process behind “Clould” is as fascinating as the end result. Behrens manipulates these recordings to the point of abstraction, particularly the voices—those ever-present, yet strangely impersonal in-flight announcements. Through a method he calls “pilgrim’s stride mode”, these voices are repeatedly stretched, compressed, and reassembled until they become something altogether different: machinic chimeras, disembodied and haunting. The ultimate goal seems to be the creation of a new language, one built from the fragmented syllables of airline safety demonstrations and announcements, and recombined into unintelligible but eerily resonant phrases. It’s as if the album is speaking in tongues — an enigmatic, non-human language that might be deciphered, but only if you listen closely enough.
The five movements of “Clould” each bring a unique perspective to this thematic exploration. The first movement, with its choir recorded back in 1990, juxtaposes the sacred with the mechanical, setting the tone for the entire album. This track, along with the third and fourth movements, premiered in Lisbon back in 2011, where it must have left listeners both intrigued and unsettled. The second movement, which made its debut in 2013, is a more concise, but no less impactful, piece that serves as a sonic bridge between the album’s more expansive sections.
But it’s the final movement that truly cements “Clould” as a monumental work. Clocking in at nearly 37 minutes, this movement is a sprawling, immersive experience that feels like the culmination of everything that came before. Here, Behrens goes all-in on his concept, crafting a soundscape that’s dense with meaning, yet elusive in its interpretation. The voices, now fully transformed into something otherworldly, echo through the piece like the remnants of a forgotten language, a bjamantra for the modern world. The track premiered at an outdoor collective listening event in Germany in 2023, a fitting venue for a work that is as much about space — both physical and metaphorical — as it is about sound.
The album’s use of language, both real and imagined, invites listeners to extract their own meanings from its sonic fragments, much like one might from an oracle. There’s a mystical quality to “Clould”, one that’s rooted in the ancient while being unmistakably modern. It’s an album that exists in the space between, where the mundane becomes magical, and the familiar turns strange. In “Clould”, Marc Behrens has created a work that is both deeply intellectual and profoundly emotional. It’s an album that challenges the listener to reconsider the very nature of sound, language, and meaning. Like the mythological beings that once populated the clouds, “Clould” is elusive, mysterious, and ultimately unforgettable. Vito Camarretta
