blog.Crónica

German born sound & concrete electronic artist Marc Behrens offers up here a collection of surreal, strange & at times jarring & noisy tracks built around manipulated field recordings, computer composition & subtle electronic elements that at times brings to mind Nurse With Wounds more field recording based & unhinged work.

All the basic field recordings that make up ‘Sleppet’ where recorded in various locations across Norway & mostly in isolated & people-less places which gives the whole album quite a remote, isolated & at times ‘panicked I’m lost in the middle of nowhere feel’. Only the last track ‘Sheep & Industry’ really brings in more man-made sounds & textures to the mix.
First up we have ‘Seagulls & cattle’ which finds Behrens at his most unhinged, jarring & strange. The track starts out with just layers of mournful seagull calls, but with-in half a minute theses smashed into by this jarring, noisy & shrieking tone that sounds like a pterodactyl swooping down to get you; but I presume this is the seagull cries feed through electronics & computers. On top of this shirking mayhem, which seems to be coming in from all angles, is the normal seagull tones carry on along with a very strong & ripping wind tone which I guess could suggest your in the claws of the pterodactyl & are been flown off to it’s nest. There’s also this creaking & bowing electro tone which at times gets quite jarring. Mid-way through the track turns it’s intent more towards a nightmarish slaughter house type vibe as Behrens adds in what could be pig grunts, then brooding junk metal movement over sour & unwell electro tone swoops & falls. All told a very effective & nightmarish slice of sound scaping.

Later on with ‘Glaceier’ Behrens takes field recordings from Brenndalsbreen Glacier on the island of Utvær and makes them into a very nervous, jumpy & at times soothing track. He mixes: creaking & breaking ice, water drips & sudden avalanches of broken off ice weight falling into water. And lastly we have ‘Sheep and industry’ which is certainly the noisiest & most jarring of the four tracks here & it finds Behrens building a shifting & jarring soundscape from: grinding metal to metal groans, sears & bellows, ominous wind creaking tones, stretched barring tones which might once have been sheep noises and a healthy dose of stretching & twisting electro buzzing, bending & sicklily droning electronics.

‘Sleppet’ certainly isn’t a laid back or subtle field recording based album you could put on as moody background setting- it shouts & bash you around the head for your full attention & concentration. It shows Behrens as a master of edgy, jarring & unhinged sonic juxtaposition, but also as a very effective alien mood setter & at times a creative noise maker too. 4/5 Roger Batty

via Musique Machine

Déjà 20 ans d’activité pour l’artiste allemand dont nous parlons ici pour la première fois alors qu’il apparaît assez régulièrement sur le label portugais Crónica. Behrens est un musicien touche à tout, notamment auteur d’installations sonores. Sleppet a été composé dans le cadre d’un projet d’art sonore qui s’est déroulé en Norvège courant 2007 avec notamment des artistes tels que Natasha Barrett, Chris Watson ou Jana Winderen. Durant un voyage de 10 jours les artistes devaient enregistrer des sons locaux qui seraient présentés sous forme de pièces musicales ou d’installations.

Sleppet est composé de quatre pistes d’environ 10mn chacune, dont les titres sont purement descriptifs. L’album s’ouvre donc sur les cris de mouettes de Seagulls and Cattle qui surprend assez rapidement alors que des crissements de laptop semble s’immiscer au sein des field recordings. Ce sont ensuite des cris puissants et stridents qui prennent le dessus, laissant à penser que les enregistrements ont ensuite largement été traités, transformés. A mi-parcours ce sont des grognements et coups sourds qui apparaissent pour un univers tout aussi angoissant, stressant, l’artiste révélant une part de monstruosité chez ces bovins.

Le procédé semble être assez différent sur Avalanches, Water And Stones puisque l’on a l’impression d’écouter un field recording brut, quoique assez dense, mêlant des crépitements qui sont le fruit d’éboulis lointains, froissements végétaux, chants d’oiseaux, et coups sourds de roches qui roulent et tombent sur un tapis de verdure avant de finir leur course dans une rivière. Même chose pour Glacier, bien qu’ici on parvienne plus difficilement à faire le lien entre le son et sa source, avec l’impression d’entendre régulièrement un bruit de moteur au milieu de craquements de glace et écoulements d’eau.

Dernière partie avec Sheep and Industry qui semble avoir été enregistré dans une usine, une scierie peut-être, avec des sons venant de l’extérieur quand les machines se taisent. Alternance de bruit et de silence ambiant, puis de fins traitements au laptop, mais des moutons apparemment bien cachés !

À l’image de la pochette, Sleppet se situe entre document et subtiles transformations de la réalité, rendant l’¦uvre assez difficile à cerner. 4/8 Fabrice Allard

via Etherreal

A new release in the catalog of Portuguese label Crónica. This time music based solely on field-recordings. Marc Behrens used a mixture of recordings to create an interesting listening.

Crónica is known for its diverse catalog with electro-acoustic music, ambient, minimal music, improvised jazz and field-recordings. In their catalog you can find back a clear connection to sound-art and music for installations. With Sleppet, the new release by German composer/sound-artist Marc Behrens it is no different. In 2007 Marc Behrens went on a trip with fellow artists Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Steve Roden, Natasha Barrett and Bjarne Kvinnsland to the Westlandet region in Norway. With field-recordings made there he created the 4 pieces we hear on his latest release Sleppet.

The four pieces on the release are named after the sources used in the music.
Sleppet (1): Seagulls and Cattle is a the opening track which starts out with seagulls screaming, just a plain recording with nothing added, until the stretching begins. Like sirens the sounds spins around in your head. A background hum from the nearby breaking waves is always there. What the cattle is doing is not clear but at points to make rumblings noises. Due to the sounds from the seagulls this piece is quite haunting. Just as if they could attack you any time. While the clean recordings continue all the time the stretched sounds seem to become longer and longer building up to a climax. Until a point where they are mixed to the back. Here the cattle finally comes out. Sounds from huge farm sheds full of animals walking around so it seems. An intense experience.
Sleppet (2-3): Avalanches, Water and Stones starts out softly with the dripping of water. Slowly the sound gets manipulated into small grains. It pops and plops. Stones begin to roll down hill. This piece stays rather calm compared with the first one. Throughout recording this piece an avalanche of rocks took place. This coincidence is mixed in well with the rest of the sounds, same as the bird twittering in the background. Due to the use of these small details the pieces are very exciting to listen to. There is always something new to discover.
Sleppet (4): Glacier is with recordings from a glacier. It starts out like the creeping and breaking of ice. With dynamic changes the piece streams on with loads of the same sounds. But when you listen carefully a lot of different recordings are added. Softly a stream of water appears increasing in volume. And where we had a rock avalanche in the previous piece, here we are treated with the sound of a collapsing glacier. From the liner-notes we learn this was happening at just a small distance from Behrens. The loud sound sets in for a new part in the piece were we move in the an ice cave where water is dripping from all the places. A very soothing sound to say the least.
Sleppet (5): Sheep and Industry is the closing piece on the album. Here we hear a continuous hum from a hydroelectric power plant. Not only the hum is used, but several other sounds from the working industry is used to create a dynamic piece. The machinery is constantly screeching, peeping and pumping. It is as if you are in the middle of the plant. Behrens plays a lot with dynamics here making it a lively piece of music. The amazing part about this piece is that if you crank up the volume in the quiet parts you can constantly hear the sounds that surround the power plant. Birds twitter, some sheep howl. In the background they are always there, but specially in these quiet moments you get aware of them. Again the details make this such a exciting listen.

Every time when you have heard a field-recordings album you think this is it, this is the end. But now, again, with Sleppet it is a pleasant surprise to hear there how diverse this soundworld can be. Marc Behrens brought a good diverse album with some expected, but mainly unexpected field-recordings. Yet another album from Crónica that shouldn’t go unnoticed. (8,5/10) Sietse van Erve

via Earlabs

Sleppet consta de dos fases. Por um lado, un ejercicio de composición realizado con sonidos concretos, y una segunda lectura que consiste en la intensidad sónica de los zumbidos, en los que el abstraccionismo nos hace discernir la realidad de los objectos sonoros.

Al analizar el proceso de escucha de Sleppet, quizás habría que discrepar sobre los tratados de los objectos musicales de Pierre Schaefer, con relacción a los postulados de la afinación o sintonización del mundo, que promulgó en su día Murray Schaefer, alegando a favor del texto escrito por Francisco López en torno a la esquizofonía y objecto sonoro como concepciones antagónicas de un mismo hecho.

“El denominado abstraccionismo del arte de los sonidos fijados es precisamente uns musicalización y, en cierto modo paradójicamente en esta comparación justo lo contrario de la abstracción tradicional em música. Es decir, uns concretización”. “Una composición musical (sin importar si está basada en paisajes sonoros o no) debe ser una acción libre en el sentido de no tener que rechazar ninguna abstracción de los elementos de la realidad, y también en el sentido de tener el completo derecho de ser auto-referencial, no teniendo que estar sujeta a un propósito pragmático tal como una respuesta — e injustificada — reintegración del oyente con el ambiente”.

Un trabajo, Sleppet, encuadrable dentro del paisaje sonoro de escucha profunda, idóneo para ser emitido en la radio, como punto de encuentro através de las ondas con la otra realidad, la que fluye de la imaginación de los oyentes. Rogelio Pereira