New release: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay’s “Withering Field Live“

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay’s Withering Field is an essay on manmade violence over earth’s ecologies and natural environments, on the threatening of the Global South created by Western modernism, and the impending catastrophes looming. Withering Field is a sonic narrative developed around these events of displacement and dispossession, developed through fieldwork and field recordings made in what are currently denominated of Special Economic Zones of South Asia. It delineates transitions of indigenous habitats dislocated from their natural settings, forced to gearing fast towards a contemporary urbanisation, a process rendered within a mode of criticality and questioning, incorporating sonic elements collected from the sites to facilitate a context-aware listening, which creates the space for in-depth reflections on the intricate processes that affect indigenous communities, endanger their memories and erode cultural practices.

Withering Field was published as a CD in 2022. This recording documents the live performance of the work in progress at Sonorities Festival, Belfast, in 2015.

Withering Field Live is now available for download or stream.

Luca Forcucci’s “Terra” reviewed by Field Notes

For »Terra,« Luca Forcucci collected field recordings in Los Angeles, the Brazilian city of Recife and Beirut. The Berlin-based composer and sound artist presented them, together with a graphic score, to the cellist Noémy Braun and the percussionist Lucas Gonseth, who, together with Forcucci on live electronics, fleshed out the music over three days for a subsequent performance, which is documented on this album in five pieces. The transformational work process obviously feeds off the conceptual superstructure and shapes it aesthetically: All the different elements on »Terra« seem to be constantly in motion, rubbing up against each other and finding a strange harmony in the supposed sonic chaos. This is the sound of an earth whose modus operandi sometimes elude comprehension.

via Field Notes

Roel Meelkop’s “Viva in Pace” reviewed by Vital Weekly

Roel Meelkop I know very well, and I am not surprised that his new release deals with war and peace. In 2022 he contributed to a compilation, ‘Stop All Wars’. He was thinking of Ad Reinhardt, the American painter, and his postcard to the “war Chief”, with negations “such as “no napalm”, “no bombing”, “no injustice”, and “no art in war”, “no art as war”, “no art about war” and, of course, the card is now a piece of art. Should you stop creating art because there is a war? On the cover, Meelkop writes his considerations, but there is a CD, so it’s safe to say Meelkop doesn’t give up. Meelkop’s piece to the compilation is quite a furious one for his doing (check out https://emerge.bandcamp.com/album/–3), and I believe he reworked it into the first piece on ‘Viva In Pace’, but the extension of the piece is the opposite of noise. Meelkop belonged to the first wave of laptop musicians but recently “went modular”, like many of those musicians. I am unsure if that is also the case with his current releases, but judging by the music, I’d say this is the case here. There is also room for ‘other sounds, such as the cymbal at the end of ‘II’. Some of the music is still quite furious at times, and throughout, much of this is very dark, but given the war-thematic approach, that is hardly a surprise. But it wouldn’t be a Meelkop release if there is also some room for quiet sounds. You can read all sorts of war-related metaphors in this music, just as much if you don’t know the background story here, you can think of this all pretty abstract music. In that sense, this new Meelkop release, just like his previous, ‘Rest In Space’ (see Vital Weekly 1374), is a departure from much of his older work, as both of these come with lengthy liner notes and background information, which I am sure many people find more insightful than a full-on abstract album. (FdW)

via Vital Weekly

New release: Luca Forcucci’s “Terra”

Crónica is proud to present its fourth release in 2023, Luca Forcucci’s “Terra”, a composition for cello, percussions, live electronics, fragments, drifts, and territories.

Music composition, live electronics, field recordings, drifts, and production by Luca Forcucci. Cello by Noémy Braun. Percussions by Lucas Gonseth.

Recorded at Théâtre ABC, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland by Luca Forcucci and Lionel Jodry. (De)composed & mixed at Atomic Lady (Earth) by Luca Forcucci. Mastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering. Painting by Anne Pantillon. With the generous support of Fondation Nicati–de Luze & Théâtre ABC.

“Terra” is now available as a limited edition compact disc, download or stream from the usual sources.

Luca Forcucci’s “Terra” reviewed by Loop

Swiss/Italian artist Luca Forcucci is a composer and musician who on this record is in charge of live electronics, field recordings, drifts, and production.
Forcucci works in the fields of installations, performances, electroacoustic music, video, photography, and text. His compositions include solo works and collaborations with contemporary musicians, indigenous musicians, record players, electronic music pioneers, dancers, and poets.
On “Terra” field recordings were made in Los Angeles, Recife, Beirut, which were later recombined and reterritorialized which were proposed to Braun and Gonseth, along with a graphic score.
Over three days, in a theater in the Swiss Jura mountains, the composition was developed and then given its concert premiere. The musicians Noémy Braun on Cello and Lucas Gonseth on percussion collaborated.
The opener “Obscura” unfolds metal noises rubbing against each other, as if it were the normal process in a steel mill, producing screeching, angular sounds that are also electronically processed. On “Incognita” processed strings, off-kilter percussion and mechanized noises are combined in an electroacoustic work. “Terra” that gives the album its title is immersed in a drone, while the layers of metallic objects collide with each other to create a dark environment, while out-of-tune notes from the cello peek out. “Cantus” displays beautiful cello chords that begin to travel through the skies creating a calm and beautiful atmosphere. On “Firmus” that closes this album, Forcucci plays with metal producing a sharp vibrato, alongwith softly percussive, playing with friction and resonances. Luca Forcucci plunges us into a world of reverberations, rumbles, and echoes with which he recreates industrial soundscapes. Guillermo Escudero

via Loop

Sun Dog’s “Col des Tempètes” reviewed by Kathodik

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

via Kathodik

New release: TAMTAM’s “Stromschauen Live”

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.

Composed and mixed by TAMTAM. 

Stromschauen is now available for stream or download.