“Thermo Swing & Quanta​+​Else / Studio Blanks 01​-​02” reviewed by Data.Wave

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In this double record, Crónica has reissued the first and the third albums of Ran Slavin specifically for all those fans who wanted to get an insight into Ran’s early works. This is a very interesting release, since I always wanted to know where Ran has started, to trace his journey to the later works. Thermo Swing – is a set of frank and direct experiments with jazz.

I am very sympathetic to the easy flowing and dynamic structures of futuristic jazz created by Slavin in this record. Ran uses a number of music instruments, producing unique sound solutions. Just listen to such tracks as Intro, Piano Loop Alien and Straight Cycle – which will get your interest immediately and the next thing you will want to know is how these tracks fit in the body of the album Thermo Swing. I really want to point out a dub track, called Dus Dub, which is built using echo, delay and reverberation effects. You can listen to this nightlife soundtrack forever.

Quanta​+​Else/Studio Blanks 01​-​02 is much closer to the line, started by Slavin in his later records. It is filled with a large number of glitch, experimental sounds, clicks’n’cuts, dynamic noise textures. All 19 tracks are complex and require several listening finishes. These are disassembled structures, sound design approaches and improvisations, that can be joined in a specific and unique music ensemble. Some of the music examples on this album indicate us the direction for the future works of Ran Slavin, where Quanta​+​Else/Studio Blanks 01​-​02 is only the starting point. Krib

via Data.Wave

“The Waste Land” reviewed by Data.Wave


One more cassette release that came out on the label Crónica. This record serves best to start exploring the world of the noise music. This is truly a textbook example of experimental electronic music! I had a feeling that I opened the window and a real thunderstorm with heavy rain and wind rushed into the room. Apparently the thunderstorm came from the wastelands, inspired by the opening title track The Waste Land. All three tracks of this release, The Waste Land, Voices from the Coal Mine, My Extra Personal Space, display the author’s most serious attitude towards processing sound. It gives us the impression of listening to a news report from an inexistent city.

I haven’t encountered this kind of records ever since a series of CD releases Mort Aux Vaches; the album The Waste Land surpasses the conventional notion of music by a long shot. The Italian school of noise ever since the days of Luigi Russolo has been a special interest for an in-depth inspection and stays this way even today. This very release, The Waste Land is no exception. Hypnotic time-stretched landscapes, ever-changing noise constructions, an incredible and anxious architecture of sound, strange voices, troubled territories… I have no idea what miraculous method Luca Forcucci uses to create his noisy masterpieces, but you can clearly detect the hand of a true master. Album cover photo by Luca Forcucci, mastered by Taylor Deupree. Crónica, limited edition 100 copies. Krib

via Data.Wave

“Intuited Architectures” reviewed by Silence and Sound


Une fois encore, le superbe label experimental Crónica, livre à nos tympans une nourriture céleste conçue par l’écossais Graeme Truslove, avec la sortie de son album Intuited Architectures, plongée abyssale dans les souterrains de l’électro-acoustique, gorgée de dérives soniques hantées.

Artiste multi-primé, Graeme Truslove joue sur les paradigmes, composant un monde proche du chaos, où silences et montées abrasives forment un tout cohérent multipliant les pistes et les interprétations. Les dissonances jonchent le sol alors que les grattements étoffent les silences de l’absence.

Pris entre sonorités organiques et électroniques, Intuited Arhitectures n’est pas sans évoquer les recherches d’artistes majeurs du GRM, comme Bernard Parmegiani, Guy Reibel ou Beatriz Ferreyra, entre autres. Subtil de par l’utilisation des sources sonores qu’il transpose et transforme en minuscules organismes vivants, Graeme Truslove crée un monde que l’on semble découvrir au microscope, fait d’amoncellements d’entités aux capacités de mutation impressionnantes. Très fortement recommandé. Roland Torres

via Silence and Sound

Futurónica 194


Episode 194 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, June 9th.

The playlist of Futurónica 194 is:

  1. Yiorgis Sakellariou, Stikhiya, part 1 (2017, Stikhiya, Crónica)
  2. Mecha / Orga, 30:13 (2014, 30:13, Impulsive Habitat)
  3. Yiorgis Sakellariou, Stikhiya, part 2 (2017, Stikhiya, Crónica)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.

New release: Mise_en_scene’s “Constellation / Deformation”


Crónica is proud to present a new release from Shay Nassi’s project Mise_en_scene, after the previous 443, Leftovers (Reworked), and 2016’s Primary Fields. Constellation / Deformation is a direct continuation of Primary Fields, putting a stronger emphasis on digital processing. As in Primary Fields, these works are based on a single field recording, in different variations and contexts that lead to an assortment of sonic results and varied interpretations.

Shay Nassi is based in Tel Aviv, where he studied sound engineering. He subsequently put those skills to good use producing music where he delicately integrates elements of minimalism and noise.

Tracklist:

  1. Constellation / Deformation 1 (06:44)
  2. Constellation (03:50)
  3. Constellation / Deformation 2 (05:50)
  4. Deformation (04:28)
  5. New Deformation (08:46)

Composed by Shay Nassi.
Mastered by Harel Schreiber.
Photo by Tami Wiesel.

Constellation / Deformation is available as a download through Crónica’s bandcamp page or stream in Apple Music and Spotify.

“Urban Dialog” reviewed by Musique Machine

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Crónica Recordings presents Urban Dialog by Tamtam. Tamtam is the Berlin based duo of Sam Auinger and Hannes Strobl who, in their own words, refer to their music as a “practice where the environment becomes the instrument and instrument becomes the sound environment.” While artist blurbs can often mislead, in the case of Tamtam, it’s a description that’s fittingly accurate.
Available in CD and digital formats, Urban Dialog explores a variety of….well….urban situations. Bustling traffic, night creatures chirping away, a dying car engine, billowing exhaust fumes, footsteps on concrete, inaudible voices, powerlines, raindrops, heavy machinery and many other familiar sounds present themselves throughout 51+ minute full-length.. A variety of acoustic and electro-acoustic sounds, crispy electronics, and other sonic detritus coalesce into a wonderfully hypnotic collage of sights and sounds. You can tell a lot of painstaking care and attention was given to every single detail of Urban Dialog, producing just the perfect balancing act between the field recordings and the instrumentation.

I have a deep love for field recordings. They allow my mind to run wild and peer into windows of far off distant places. From the exotic landscapes to urban decay, field recording based albums kind of make me feel like I’m taking a vacation without having to leave my home. Urban Dialog, is another fantastic entry into the ever-widening catalogue of experimental field recordings. Hal Harmon

via Musique Machine