Elettronica (ErikM) e voce (Isabelle Duthoit), a cercarsi fra movimenti materici e fissità sibilanti. Tra microinceppi e ricordi di azioni fisiche (Glacière), cupi crepacci in cui scivolare (Radome), echi, di quel che pare un flebile canto in lontananza, come ululato trasfigurato dal vento (Rocher de cire), ascolto di una pausa interiore (Trois faux), attesa e osservazione degli eventi in arrivo (Fonfiole), primitiva fatica (Curent), vento che tutto spazza (Electro-ventoux), in costante, contorto avanzamento (Font de Margot). Pietre, ghiaccio, rumore di passi (ne legna ne fuoco, sfiniti a caccia di un riparo). Voto: 8/10. Marco Carcasi
The inspiration and the recordings for the piece Stromschauen (view/look current/power) were formed during walks in Berlin/Pankow in the last days of December 2020. In a situation of urban sound environment slowed down by the Covid rules and the holidays in general, various power boxes and their whirring and humming became more noticeable. The AC frequency is 50 HZ in the European electricity system, which is between a musical low G and a G sharp. This tone determines the resonant frequency when operating electrical devices like e.g. the lighting in streets or our refrigerators, that resonate in this frequency.
The starting point of Stromschauen is the manifold quotidian and mostly overheard resonances of our electricity infrastructure in interaction with their environment. Its compositional material is the sound textures found in these processes. Microtonal moods, sound aggregates at the interface of timbre to harmonics, overtone patterns, spectral layering, and rhythmic beat patterns become the musical material. The piece also acknowledges the influence of essential genres such as industrial and noise music on TAMTAM’s compositional work.
The studio version of Stromschauen was released by Crónica in 2022, coinciding with this performance.
Sam Auinger: sampler, field recordings; Hannes Strobl: electric bass, live fx; Robyn Schulkowsky: percussion. Recorded live at Cashmere Radio Berlin 11/03/2022. Recording engineer: Lukas Grundmann. Mastered at Crónica.
The Portuguese duo of Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela have already been working together for over twenty years. They can be seen as both pioneers and prophets of all things laptops. Much of their music finds its roots in interacting together, with software, hardware and sounds. Here, they do something unusual for them: working with Drumming GP, a percussion ensemble by Miguel Bernat. Improvisation goes out of the door, and composition is welcomed. of course, things are never that black and white, as the composition can also be seen as a set of instructions. Over the years, @C played with the ensemble, or parts thereof, and excerpts (I think) can be found on this CD. The idea is, again, interaction, but now on a more significant level, with computers to the left and drummers to the right. @C uses various techniques to capture and process sounds. One fascinating example is ’88, For Stones, Objects, Microphones, Electronics’, which is captured in space, with microphones, and many resonances are going on. You can almost feel the venue, and the sound is crystal clear. There is also a more traditional approach of working with synthetic percussion and samples (’88R’ and ’66, For Sampled Standing Bells, Computer’) which is more akin to a remix. Sometimes the percussion players have the upper hand, such as in ’63, For Percussion, Synthetic Percussion, Electronics’, and @C’s role is modestly colouring drones as a hotbed. It makes for a powerful opening piece, as it’s not yet as abstract as some of the other pieces. The following piece, ’58, For Two Marimbas & Two Computers’, is one of those abstract approaches meeting the ‘real’ marimbas. There is an equilibrium here, but everybody has to be careful not to be the dominant player. There is quite some variation here, which makes this an excellent showcase for both @C and Drumming GP. The latter also worked with others, but this is my first encounter, and it’s a great one. (fdW)
Continuing the celebration of Crónica’s twentieth year during 2023, we are proud to present the second release of the year, Marla Hlady & Christof Migone’s monumental “Swan Song”.
Two stills from a whisky distillery were retired on June 28, 2019 after serving for 12 years. They were removed through the roof by a crane and replaced by new ones. The swan neck portions of the old stills were then cut by master coppersmith Dennis McBain.
The swan necks were used as part of a kinetic sound sculpture. Through each swan neck recordings made throughout the distillery were played: the Robbie Dhu Spring cairn where the source of water for the distillery flows, the cooperage floor where casks are being repaired, vats where barley goes through the various stages of germination, the bottling floor, the River Fiddich where the used water ends up, and a choir made up of staff working at William Grant & Sons (which houses Balvenie and Glenfiddich distilleries) in Dufftown, Scotland.
Each member of the makeshift choir contributed two short voice recordings, one of the highest pitched sound they could produce, and the other the lowest. They were asked to hold the sound for as long as possible. The resulting recordings were arranged according to how long they’ve each been at their job and in relation to the age of the distillery (founded in 1886).
In the sculpture, swirling around the swan necks are skeletal crane-like devices that trigger the playback of the recordings.
In the publication, the same recordings were used as a starting point.
The sounds are mashed together. They are treated kinetically. They are distilled acoustically. They are mangled mechanically.
Marla Hlady & Christof Migone have long-standing individual artistic practices and started collaborating in 2015. Their joint projects combine pre-existing solo concerns and recurring strategies into works that accent site and sound space. They performed at Ftarri (Tokyo, Experimental Intermedia (NYC), Arraymusic and Electric Perfume (both in Toronto), and installed their joint work at ArKO Museum (Seoul), Errant Bodies (Berlin), Glenfiddich Gallery (Scotland), Produit Rien (Montreal), and Christie Contemporary (Toronto).
“Swan Song” is now available as a deluxe edition of a double CD with a 16-page booklet, and also available to stream and download from the usual channels.
Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais (known as @c) are a prolific duo of musicians and sound artists. As founders of the groundbreaking Crónica label, they have performed captivating audiovisual sets on countless occasions since the early 2000s and have continuously produced a series of short-lived installations. Nineteen of these installations are documented and discussed here. They show the evolution of these situated experiences, considered by the duo as ‘media’ in themselves, with the freedom to experiment with non-standard techniques. Raquel Castro, curator of sound art and artistic director of Lisboa Soa, critically analyses all the works, one by one. She notes that they ‘begin with an accurate research on the context, history and landscape architecture of the place.’ These installations convey not only situations and encounters, but above all ‘convey information.’. Their acoustic and perceptual transformation of space has an exploratory attitude that immediately engages the audience. There is a construction of participation and a (re)interpretation of spatial relations that builds compatible and enhanced systems, or, in the duo’s definition, an ‘abstract system’ that communicates relational and aural information. This book does justice to twenty years of systemic and meticulously refined sound art practice.
@C are also the people who run Cronica Electronica, and they just released a new album by Luca Forcucci. Many of the releases on Cronica may have their roots in computer technology, but it is not exclusively devoting its time to that. From Forcucci, we reviewed various releases before (Vital Weekly 1353, 1216, 1071 and 883). ‘Terra’ is a five-part work in which he uses cello, percussion, live electronics, fragments, drifts and territories. The latter is to be understood as parts being recorded in Los Angeles, Recife, and Beirut, field recordings, and his playing of instruments. Music from different places, various times and which he cuts and pastes together. A new context for all of them culminated in the five parts/pieces. The music is flown in from around the world but is joined together in the Swiss Jura mountains, where Forcucci had a three-day residency and a concert. I am unsure if the CD represents the live recording or if this is another reshaping or remodelling of the music. The cover mentions ‘(de)composed & mixed’, which suggests the latter. Whatever, the music is pretty exciting, like @C working with percussive sounds. The combination of cello and percussion with Forcucci works pretty well. The electronics fly high above, or way below this, cut-up, fragmentized, rendered beyond recognition. Somewhere on the cross-road of electro-acoustic music, improvisation and computer music, ‘Terra’ walks a path in the terra incognita, but in a hybrid way; sometimes, the path is very recognizable. A short release, at thirty-five minutes, but packed with vibrant music, so it’s full of energy but without too many moments of rest. Also not the most accessible release. I imagine that this must have been an overwhelming experience in concert. (FdW)
Fruit d’expérimentations entre sonorités électroniques et un set-up de percussions diverses, Scattered Underfoot est une oeuvre aux frontières fragiles, amas de conjugaisons sonores et de possibilités soniques.
Ilia Belorukov aime jouer avec les turbulences et les moments d’évanouissements temporels, pratiquant l’art de la surprise avec subtilité, inscrivant dans la matière des halos de lumière cicatrisée.
Les ambiances de Scattered Underfoot sont chargées de bribes poussiéreuses et de futur explosé, combinaison de matières radio-active et de grésillements glissants.
Des fantômes égarés, cherchant à fuir le monde des limbes, se jettent dans cet amoncellement de vie éclatée, abri accueillant pour âmes désorientées, derniers sursauts de villes englouties sous des fournaises de chair métalliques, traversées de rayons cosmiques au passé effacé. Très fortement recommandé. Roland Torres
Quite nice field recording cassette by Matilde Meireles…on Life of a Potato (CRONICA 180-2022), she proposes that we have taken the humble potato for granted for far too long and resolves to show us more of its life, as rendered in sound.
Her recordings depict the potato growing the ground, and also being roasted and eaten; she managed to capture the former sound by picking up vibrations in the soil itself, by means of a rake. The B-side of the tape focusses more on the cooking stage, and ruminates on the topic of energy itself (that being used to fire the oven for roasting), I suppose as a counterpoint to the idea of the sun helping the tubers to grow. I like the holistic approach of Matilde Meireles here, and one might almost say she’s understood the life-cycle of a vegetable in the story she tells here, to say nothing of a smattering of its place in history and culture (there is a reference to how the potato travelled to the UK from Spain in the 17th century). I wish the recordings themselves were a bit more interesting; one hopes for something conveying the vitality of growth and the excitement of cookery, yet nothing so very vivid has landed on the tapes, which are mostly flat and murky.
For an inspiring read in this area, I personally recommend the works of John Stewart Collis, a postwar ecologist who later became something of a mystic; he devoted one chapter of his book to a description of the life of the potato, and it positively sings as he expresses in prose the small miracle of nature that has taken place with soil, rain, and sunshine. “When we eat a potato,” he wrote, “we eat the earth and we eat the sky.” No such revelation on this tape, sadly, but it’s a strong effort nonetheless. Ed Pinsent
Máquina Magnética nació del encuentro de cuatro artistas experimentales con prácticas consolidadas tanto en el trabajo individual como colectivo: Gustavo Costa, baterista, percusionista y uno de los líderes del colectivo Sonoscopia, en percusión acústica y electromecánica; Pedro Tudela y Miguel Carvalhais, del proyecto @c y el sello Crónica (conocidos de sobra por nuestros Atmósferos), sobre ordenadores; y Rodrigo Carvalho, de los colectivos Openfield y Boris Chimp 504, sobre visuales generativos y luces interactivas. Máquina Magnética explora las sinergias y los límites del territorio de cada artista, cruzando lo orgánico, lo mecánico y lo sintético; grabaciones en estudio y en vivo; libre improvisación y composición; gestos musicales y sonidos acusmáticos; performance audiovisual y música visual. Estas tensiones construyen un espacio catártico para la interpretación desarrollado a través de seis piezas en un álbum grabado y mezclado entre dos escenarios en vivo, O’culto da Ajuda en Lisboa y gnration en Braga, y dos estudios, Sonoscopia y Crónica, ambos en Oporto, en un continuo proceso creativo.
