The TBA Podcast features @c work in its most recent episode, looking at their sound installation VOC(x), which should have opened last April but was delayed by the pandemic. The mix created for this podcast looks at one among many possible articulations of the piece that will hopefully open one day.
Francisco López’s “DSB†reviewed by Freq
There’s a quality that some music has of being like an old friend. I’ve not listened to any new Francisco López in a decade or more but the ’00s CDs of his I have get a fairly frequent spin. Those CDs tended towards a kind of quietism — usually called Untitled [n] and largely a kind of textural building from exceptionally quiet to pretty blaring. All with exquisite attention to sonic detail — you could nominally call it “noiseâ€, but you’d be a fool to do so.
So what’s he up to in 2021? Well this apparently spans 2009-2019, so difficult to say precisely, but this seems to be collected and processed field recordings. And in proper sound-art fashion, there’s not quite enough material here to give a clear idea of the sorts of environments being recorded — is that a watery sound or just some squelchy noise?Train station or generated rhythm? Submerged mics or studio trickery?
It’s always difficult to know with López whether there’s a narrative or if he’d prefer that the listener make their own mind up about what’s being heard. Here he’s perhaps avoiding the intense building of the work I’m familiar with, preferring something more like a contraction and expansion of different elements — incidental office environment sounds maybe, digital burrs.
López is tricky to recommend in a specific way, I think. This is effectively some field recordings. Those are interesting or not, depending on the listener — I could imagine this being super compelling to someone unfamiliar with that world, and is doubtless compelling to someone already familiar with that world. He’s certainly one of the greats of this quite specific sound-art — plenty of forensic mic-detail but never too clean or asceptic with it, he’s capable of exquisite beauty but doesn’t have the sort of fidelity fetish that can render this sort of material dry and academic. Which is to say, he’s by a large margin one of the best at this kind of thing.
There’s a smidge of composerly drama — and it’s worth having a go in a darkened room with decent headphones — but not so much as to be romantic or, dare I say it, musical in too specific a fashion. The second piece is perhaps the quieter of the two (though neither is much louder than ambient for any length of time) and it keeps making me wonder if he’s doting on the tone of the ambient noise within a given environment — almost like he’s bringing forwards the ambient background hum.
It’s a lush album. It’ll have the problems that these things often do — it definitely demands a decent listening environment and half-decent gear. It’s definitely the sort of thing hi-fi bores should use to show off their stereo equipment. And he’s probably the best in the album-based sound-art game, for my money. Kev Nickells
via Freq
“Submerge-Emerge†reviewed by Ambient Blog
You can trust Dutch electroacoustic composer and sound artist (and mastering engineer) Jos Smolders to come up with amazing sounds. After all, he has the experience of experimenting for more than 35 years – learning to work with “a combination of instinct, talent, skill, and patienceâ€.
Submerge-Emerge, released on Crónica as a 2-CD set and digital download, presents a fascinating otherworldly soundtrack based on Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem “Un Coup De Des Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasardâ€Â from 1897 (which translates as ‘a roll of the dice will never abolish chance.’). When he read the poem in his teenage years he was fascinated – though it was more because of the way it was printed than by the words themselves (check the link above for a preview and translation). Forty years later, around 2016, he explored the poem again and this time it inspired him to create this project.
“Reading the poem, one gets easily lost. These are no firm and consistent sentences. It’s not a sequence of sentences telling a story, and there is no clearly definable plot.â€
Some of this also translates to the music. It is presented in sets of ‘plates’ (the poem’s printed pages), divided by an “interlude†after every two of them. Fragments of the poem are recited by Valerie Vivancos in a beautiful voice that is somewhat alienated by electronic processing.
Most of the sound is related to water – combining field recordings of “harbours, beaches, ships’ motors, storms, waves breaking on the rocks, the quiet lapping of waves on a small French beach†with the electronics of Smolders’ modular system. But this does not imply that the result sounds like anything out of this natural world.
“The central theme of the poem, at least what I got out of it, is that of a creator/artist (the captain) sailing the endless ocean on his ship. The ocean represents the creative state of mind. Sometimes there are prevailing winds. On other occasions, huge gales toss the ship around with towering waves moving everyone off course, if not sinking the lot. And then there are the doldrums, the parts where, yes, the sea is calm, but there is no wind, and you’re not getting anywhere. Looking back at my own experience as an artist, I have seen all these weather conditions as well.â€
It took a long time before Smolders understood the poem’s intention, and he still doubts if he fully understands it. Likewise, it took him five years to complete the poem’s translation into music. “Five years to record, compile, rethink, leave it alone, get back, reform, cut, add, alter, and finish this beast that at times itself became an ocean of sound and form. It is time to cut the ropes to this vessel and sail on. I hope it inspires, because “toute pensée émet un coup de dés†!â€Â (every thought rolls the dice).
And now it’s the listener’s turn to dive in deep, to submerge himself in this impressive set of soundscapes, and to emerge refreshed – and perhaps also puzzled.
via Ambientblog
New release: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay’s “Exile and Other Syndromesâ€
Crónica is proud to present the new release from Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Exile and Other Syndromes, now available to stream or download.
Exile and Other Syndromes is the stereo mix-down of an interactive and generative audiovisual installation that responds to the current indisposition of migration, mobility, placeless-ness and nomadism, which are considered as the impulses of a contemporary condition that eventually blurs the boundaries between the local and the global, the digital and the corporeal, the private and the public, or the intimate and the dehumanizing spaces, instilling a sense of semantic fatigue. The composition aims to transmute the contemporary city’s volatile, oppressing and tensed environments to encourage the contemplation and poetic musings of the listening subject navigating the intercepting urban spaces. This specific method of artistic intervention examines the way memory, imagination and subjectivity of an itinerant listener elaborates the character of sound in the context of intensified urban interaction, mobility and nomadism. The work relies on intuitive capacities of listening rather than the ontological and epistemological reasoning involved in deciphering the immediate meaning of sound, helping to relate to these dehumanizing urban sites through a poetic presence. This belief in inward contemplation and subjective formation available to the urban listeners enables the work exploring the poetic-contemplative rupture to counter the neurosis of contemporary urban living. The particular emphasis on the poetic attributes of an expanded mode of listening provides with a context for exploring the unexpected splendor of everyday sounds and their transcendental potential. Emergence of contingent moments in the urban listening experience expands the Cagean idea of chance composition towards a fluid and nomadic interaction with these everyday urban sounds.
This project was conceived in an artist residency (2015–6) at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics – IEM, supported by the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. The premiere of the prototype took place at CUBE, IEM, on 19 January 2016. The full version of the work was installed publicly during the festival Nacht van Kunst & Kennis, Leiden in September 2017, exhibited (along with 3-channel live visuals) at the Rogaland Kunstsenter as part of the Screen City Biennial, Stavanger, Norway, 12–31 October 2017; and as The Unspoken, The Ineffable at Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, December 2018. The Ambisonics composition was performed live at Irtijal, International Festival for Experimental Music in Beirut, and Convergence festival 2019, De Montfort University.
Exile and Other Syndromes is now available for stream or download!
Francisco López’s “DSB†reviewed by Felthat
Francisco Lopez is a man institution. Creatively active in the field recording and musique concrete, he elevated the art of both to something completely different. His newest album is no different but definitely somewhat of a surprise.
The processing of the field recordings is his trademark – you might be surprised how nuanced and elaborate it can be – here we have lots of difficult to distinguish soundscapes, sometimes quite raw and noisy. There is a lot of realism to his narrative, and especially in terms of watery sounds and sounds related to anything that has to do with water. It’s a persistent exploration, a sure hand of choice to the sound and compiling them together is both resonating and dramatic.
New release: Francisco López’s “DSBâ€
This is not music? Says who? Try to imagine an astonishing reversal of the traditional widespread subservience of sound to storytelling: instead of sound effects providing realism to a narrative, the open shell of an apparent narrative becoming sound work… or perhaps even a new form of weird experimental music that only requires a willingness to listen to the actual sonic matter itself, precisely when it appears to be something else.
Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the main figures of the audio art and experimental music scenes. For forty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion. He has realized hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound installations in over seventy countries of the six continents. His extensive catalog of sound pieces -with live and studio collaborations with hundreds of international artists- has been released by over 400 record labels and publishers worldwide. Among other prizes, López has been awarded five times with honorary mentions at the competition of Ars Electronica Festival and is the recipient of a Qwartz Award for best sound anthology.
Tracklist:
- DSB-A (23:53)
- DSB-B (18:46)
“DSB†is now available as a limited-release cassette and for download or stream.
Francisco López’s “DSB†reviewed by Aural Aggravation
From the very opening seconds, Francisco López’s latest offering assails the ears and scorches the brain: the first track – which hits the magical running time of twenty-three minutes – is nothing short of explosive – literally. Opening with a roaring blast of brutal harsh noise, it soon separates into a series of samples and sounds, whereby propeller engines swoop low, spitting machine-gun fire and dropping detonations all around and bomb blasts tear the air. I’ve previously described certain noise works as sonic blitzkriegs, but this is actually nothing short of total war – captured in audio.
DSB is the accumulation of a decade’s work, which was, apparently, created at ‘mobile messor’ (worldwide), 2009-2019. Mixed and mastered at ‘Dune Studio’ (Loosduinen), 2020.According to the press release, López’s objective over the forty years of his career to date is to ‘Destroy boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion’.
But with DSB, López doesn’t just destroy boundaries. It destroys everything in an obliterative sonic attack that’s sustained for some forty-five agonising minutes.
When it does pull back from the eye-popping extremes, it presents a dank, ominous atmosphere, and one minute you’re underwater, as if being drowned, the next, your head’s above water and you’re surrounded by a roaring sonic assault that lands blows from all sides. The quieter moments are tense and oppressive, and with unexpected jolts and speaker-shredding blasts.
A low rumble and clodding thuds and thunks, like slamming doors and hobnail boots create a darkly percussive aspect that dominates the start of DSB-B… but then you’re under water again and everything is muffled… you can’t hear or breathe, but all around there are bombs and you’re feeling the vibrations in your chest. It’s all too close and you’re terrified. It’s eighteen and three-quarter minutes of ominous atmospherics and tempestuous crescendos of noise, raging storms with protracted periods of unsettled turbulence in between as strong winds buffet away. The dynamics are extreme, as is the experience.
Something has clearly shifted here: López’s work a decade ago was predominantly experimental, wibbly, electronic ambient in its leanings, predominantly layerings of drones, hums, and scrapes. Interesting enough, exploratory, but not harsh. Yet DSB is so, so harsh, it’s positively brutal. But these are harsh times, and when everything is a grey monotony, same news on a roll on every outlet, the instinct is to slump into an empty rut.
DSB will kick you out of that and kick you around unapologetically, landing boots in the ribs, and then more. It will leave you dizzy and drained. But it will make you feel. And that’s essential. Christopher Nosnibor
Jos Smolders’s “Submerge-Emerge†reviewed by The Wire
Pedro Rebelo’s “Listen to me†reviewed by Neural
What do nanotechnologies, innovative industrial food safety processes and experimental music have in common? Is the ‘charm’ of certain sound environments alone enough to inspire an entire album of contemporary experimentation? Yes, if the formal result is so rich that it almost conceals the fact that its essence is simple field recordings. A residency in 2017 at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, in Braga (Portugal), was the starting point for this project by Pedro Rebelo. Rebelo recorded sounds that came from the laboratories, machinery and broader environment of the centre. The quantity and quality of the sounds emanating from these workplaces was surprising: from the acoustic signals of the equipment, to the enormous air treatment fans, to the whistle of the liquid nitrogen used, to the millimetric precision of the ultrasounds one use for the treatment of specific substances. Rebelo’s residency resulted in a sound installation at GNRation, developing a further investigation and amalgamation of the collected sound materials. There are two pieces – respectively of about sixteen minutes each – presented in this cassette-release. Rebelo’s background as a pianist and improviser is evident in a complex musicality, rich in variations and refined juxtapositions. Pedro Rebelo has been Professor of Sonic Arts at Queen’s University Belfast since 2012 and the recipient of two major scholarships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. One of these includes his interdisciplinary project “Sounding Conflictâ€, which investigates the relationships between sound, music and conflict situations. Rebelo is a specialist in the topic, boasting participatory projects involving communities in Belfast, the favelas of Maré, Rio de Janeiro, itinerant communities in Portugal and a slum city in Mozambique. Listen to me is a compelling work, and both suites feature some very evocative passages, slightly mysterious but always controlled, impeccably managed, with field recordings that almost replace individual real instruments or electronic effects. Aurelio Cianciotta
via Neural
Francisco López’s “DSB†reviewed by The Wire
