New release: André Gonçalves + Angélica Salvi’s “As Things Flow (for Waters’ Witness)”

Artist and electro-acoustic composer Tarek Atoui (Beirut, Lebanon, 1980) works on large-scale compositions that stem from anthropological, ethnological, musicological, and technical research. His exhibitions weave installations, performances, and education, in processes that move away from the conventional notion of performance, both for the performer and the audience, and that suggest forms of visual, aural, tactile, and somatic experience of sound. Atoui’s first exhibition in Portugal, Waters’ Witness, at the Serralves Museum, is part of the project I/E, ongoing since 2015, in which he captures the sounds of port cities — Athens, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Beirut or Porto — by recording their harbours’ industrial, human, and ecological activities. Together with artist/recordist Eric La Casa, they listen to sound below the surface of the sea or within materials such as metal, stone, and wood. On Waters’ Witness, the audio recordings of the seaports of Athens, Abu Dhabi and Porto are played through materials chosen in each location — marble stones from Athens, steal beams from Abu Dhabi, and wooden structures housing compost, worms and organic material, specifically produced for the Serralves presentation. The work with organic decomposing matter takes Waters’ Witness in a new direction: an acoustic ecology that receives and perpetuates residual sounds through the audible frontiers of a world in flux. This unique soundscape extends from the Museum’s central room to the Park in the shape of sound constellations, platforms and systems activated throughout the entire period of the exhibition in scheduled performances, collaborative and educational workshops.

As Things Flow (for Waters’ Witness) is the recording of a performance held on July 3, 2022, as an activation of the exhibition Waters’ Witness by Tarek Atoui at Fundação de Serralves — Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto. The exhibition was curated by Filipa Loureiro and on view between February 24 and August 28, 2022, and included a series of activation performances curated by Pedro Rocha. Image: Tarek Atoui, “Waters’ Witness”, installation view, Fundação de Serralves, 2022; photo by Filipe Braga.

As Things Flow (for Waters’ Witness) is now available for download or stream via the usual channels.

Sun Dog’s “Col des Tempètes” reviewed by Salt Peanuts

eRikm (aka Erik Matt) is a French sound artist, electronics player, composer, improviser and visual artist, who has made a life-long habit of crossing all territories and «world-systems» deemed «independent», «institutional», and is known for his collaborations with Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore, Otomo Yoshihide and vocal artists Phil Minton, Catherine Jauniaux, Natacha Muslera and Dalila Khatir. Isabelle Duthoit is a French vocal artist, classically-trained musician and clarinetist, who has collaborated with Franz Hautzinger, Georg Gräwe and Carl Ludwig Hübsch. Together, eRikm and Duthoit are the Sun Dog duo and Col des Tempètes is their debut album, recorded in stereo at M!lieu in January 2022.

eRikm tells that duo was initiated when he and Duthoit were climbing «the Kilimanjaro of Provence». Then, «Beyond the Dome of the Storms, we reach the pass. After climbing this modest 1909 meters, we descend on the partially-icy asphalt. The setting sun casts on the summit rare silhouettes of pine trees shaped by the wind. The sea of clouds at our feet reminds me of the past experience of the SunDog» (Sundogs are colored spots of light that develop due to the refraction of light through ice crystals), which he experienced in Iceland.

Col des Tempètes (Strom pass) offers 14 distinct wanderings in sounds and vocal utterances. eRikm creates suggestive and abstract, otherworldly sounds while Duthoit assumes the role of a modern-day shaman and casts her seductive yet vulnerable spells and chants. eRikm extends gently the vocal range of Duthoit with his sonic wizardry and Duthoit colors his inventive electronics palette with enigmatic, wordless dramas. But often you can not know who produces the electronics, processed and mutated sounds, and who is producing the acoustic, human voices. Sun Dog becomes one, inseparable entity, mirroring its multiplying refractions with expressive, inspiring imagination. Eyal Hareuveni

via Salt Peanuts

Sun Dog’s “Col des Temp​è​tes” reviewed by African Paper

Der Musiker und Künstler ErikM und die renommierte Vokalistin Isabelle Duthoit bringen unter dem Namen Sun Dog ein gemeinsames, auf experimenteller Stimmperformance und einer vielfältige, nicht minder experimentierfreudigen Elektronik basierendes Album heraus. “Col des Tempètes” entstand nach ausgedehnten Wanderungen der beiden in eher unwegsamen Gegenden in Island und Frankreich und unter dem Eindruck lokaler Naturphänonene (der Gletscher Vatnajökull, der Mistral). Das Album erscheint als CD und zum Download bei Crónica.

via African Paper

New release: Haarvöl + Xoán-Xil López’s “The Uncanny Organization of Timeless Time”

We’re proud to release the new album by Haarvöl and Xoán-Xil López, created from organ improvisations in an 1801 Iberian pipe organ and further reworked with electronics and field recordings. “The Uncanny Organization of Timeless Time” includes four tracks that are involved by a counter-narrative of a strange familiarity that surrounds them and is embodied in an absolute temporal timelessness.

“The Uncanny Organization of Timeless Time” is now available as a limited-release CD, download or stream from Crónica.

Bruno Duplant’s “Sombres Miroirs” reviewed by Audion

Although the promo blurb tells me “Bruno Duplant is a prolific composer and a musician living in the north of France. He has collaborated with many musicians around the globe and has also made solo works” he’s one of many younger musician/composers in the contemporary field that I’d never heard of before (at least to my knowledge) with a vast repertoire of releases. Currently this is number 100 out of 104 releases on Discogs where he’s a main artist.

SOMBRES MIROIRS is two big slices of sonic construction that evoke a somewhat Karlheinz Stockhausen TRANS like feel, or that of some Paul Dolden, making use of instrumental sounds subjected to intense processing, filtering and layering. As such, it amounts to thick slabs of ever changing sound, with tonalities shifting over and within the music, on which certain sounds break the surface: wind instruments, chimes, and all sorts of percussion, sometimes becoming the focus where the droning textures move to the background. This careful use of composition, moving from thick bombast to more fragile elements, is the key to the work’s success, achieving a sense of composition. There are thus many surprises within the sonic adventure, not least some lovely bowed bass work at the opening of the second part, recalling Fernando Grillo’s work with the great Iancu Dumitrescu.

In all, SOMBRES MIROIRS is much more than the “very nice avant classical” I noted on my first listen, it is a groundbreaking new development on an all too rarely visited genre in new music. Alan Freeman