La sound artist Matilda Meireles, raccoglie i suoni provenienti da un orto nel sud-ovest dell’Inghilterra (Pewsey), focalizzando la propria attenzione sulla patata. Eccoci dunque a seguire le fasi dello sviluppo/raccolta e utilizzo (dal taglio allo sfriggimento) del tubero portato in Europa dagli spagnoli nel 1600, e poi, divenuto ingrediente base nella dieta di molti paesi del vecchio continente. Nella prima parte di questo nastro, si ascolta e osserva senza mettersi nel mezzo, nel secondo lato, ci si astrae leggermente con un soffio di elettronica e uno sbuffo percussivo ad intromettersi poco prima della conclusione. Sul limite di un nulla.
De Portugese geluidskunstenaars Pedro Tudelaen Miguel Carvalhais werken samen onder de naam @c. Onlangs verscheen via hun eigen label Crónica, onder de titel ‘Installations’ een interessant boek over de installaties die zij tussen 2005 en 2021 hebben gemaakt. Tevens vormt dit de start van het beschikbaar stellen van de opnames van deze installaties via hun Bandcamp pagina. Te downloaden voor een zelf te kiezen bedrag. Twee installaties uit 2016, ‘LMY-7-10’ en ‘Seis Elementos’, zijn daar inmiddels terug te vinden.
Een installatie is vanzelfsprekend tijd en vooral plaats afhankelijk. De twee doen er dan ook alles aan, zo blijkt mooi uit dit boek, rijk aan foto’s, om te werken vanuit die locatie, binnen of buiten. Zoals ze het zelf uitdrukken is “an installation a holistic work in the complexity of the relationships it develops with the space, the visitors and the aestetic gaze. It’s location is a starting point, it is a given, but it is not only canvas of framing because it becomes a part of the work.” Dat kan er dus toe leiden dat een installatie die op herhaling gaat, het boek bevat er één, ‘Respiro’, de tweede keer net weer iets anders uitpakt dan de eerste keer. De ruimte is immers anders en dus ook de akoestiek. Maar Tudelo en Carvalhais gaan nog een stap verder, niet alleen de akoestiek bepaalt de installatie ook de functie en de geschiedenis van het gebouw, of de fysieke plek bepaalt de relatie. Mooie voorbeelden daarvan zijn ‘CX LUX’ uit 2017 en ‘S(o)al’ uit 2021. Het eerste stuk maakten ze voor een lift in een wijk van Porto die twee stadsdelen die in hoogte verschillen met elkaar verbindt. Porto is weliswaar hun eigen stad, maar dit deel kenden ze onvoldoende. Na veel gesprekken met bewoners “the sound installtion evoked the lost soundscapes of Ribeira, bringing back keynote sounds that vanished due to the relocation of businesses and demographic changes.” In ‘S(o)al’ doen de twee iets soortgelijks. De installatie in de Ermida de São Roque van Tavira bevat geluiden van de oceaan en het zout dat daaruit gewonnen wordt en al eeuwenlang een belangrijke economische motor is voor dit stadje.
Naast de nodige installaties in gebouwen werkt het duo ook in de vrije natuur. Een hoogtepunt daarin is ‘Vento’, een installatie voor de oevers van de rivier Minho, die Portugal scheidt van Spanje, bij Vila Nova de Cerveira. Bij de resten van een oude kapel, een locatie die bekend staat als Portas do Ceo richtten ze een wondermooie installatie in, volledig opgaand in het landschap: “As reflected in its title, the piece used wind to create sound and visual effects – as it projected reflected light – while the pre-recorded sounds replayed winds captured in other spaces, bringing to this hill winds from the ocean, from deserts, and many other places”.
Zoals gezegd bracht @c tot nu toe de muziek van twee installaties uit als download. Natuurlijk moeten we het nu doen met louter de klanken en speelt de akoestiek alleen in de opnames een rol, Zoals die van de kapel van Serralves Villa, waar de opnames voor LMY-7-10 werden gemaakt. Dat wil overigens geenszins zeggen dat er niet heel veel te genieten valt.
The work of Gintas Kraptavicius who works usually under moniker Gintas K since 1994 opens up a entirely different universe tingling with variety of references and influences. Since he has been working in a diverse fields of modern composition, sound art and sound installation, film music, granular synthesis, electronic music that is positively problematic to be defined and classified under one file, quite naturally you might experience a richness of all this.16 years after his first album with Crónica based in Oporto, Portugal he is coming back with an electronic array of tracks. A synthedelic tableau – a script of gentle melodies and subtle granular squelches and minimalistic but not necessarily involving repetition and all the aspects of minimal music characteristics, he slowly navigates towards a narrative that is both pleasant and in some form keeps the dramatism of every day discoveries as an open form to the listener. That is probably a note to a listener to participate in the whole listening process more openly. A set of 11 tracks that are both a pleasure to listen as well as something to ponder on when it comes to the work of a composer that blends so many fantastic elements into an opaque calleidoscope.
a polished and reflective surface gives us the stable and sincere image of a subject the subject here is the world today both planet, nature, humanity, civilizations, individuals and possibly, probably the one of tomorrow, dark in my eyes & embittered in my heart
a kind of orchestral mise en abyme of these mirrors with its moments of tension, implosions, explosions, choruses of mystical lamentations hope & despair in ever-recurring successions
the art of combining sounds and silences during a time previously defined here as an echo to these dark mirrors dark ages
Sombres miroirs is the continuation of the work Élégie du temps présent published by Granny records in 2021. A third part of this triptych will appear soon, Insondables humeurs.
Sombres miroirs is now available as a limited-release CD, download or stream.
At the beginning of 2019, Cartsten Seiffarth at the Singuhr Projekte invited TAMTAM to develop a sound installation for the great hall at Berghain. This resulted in the work Eleven Songs – Halle am Berghain, which understood the installation space as an instrument. One consequence of this is that the individual pieces are not transferable to another medium. Nevertheless, TAMTAM prepared two of these eleven songs for a digital release in a two-channel format.
For Morton is a spectral drone made of precisely composed electric contrabass legato strokes. The piece sits like a static color in space, a pure atmosphere, while Tempelhofworks with the material that led to the version set in the installation space. For this release, TAMTAM mixed a new version of Tempelhof that preserves the installation’s tone but is compatible with a two-channel mix while creating links to TAMTAM’s previous release in Crónica, A100 (156~2020).
Der französische Komponist und Mehrfachinstrumentalist Bruno Duplant bringt mit “Sombre Miroirs” Ende des Monats ein neues Album und somit den zweiten Teil der im vorigen Jahr mit “Élégie du temps présen” (Granny Records) begonnen Trilogie heraus. In zwei auslandenden Soundscapes kreist Dupont wie beim Vorgänger um den Zustand der Welt – “planet, nature, humanity, civilizations, individuals” – und bringt in einem von soghaften Spannungsbögen, plötzlichen Eruptionen nicht selten harscher Art und evokativen Klangen geprägten “orchestral mise en abyme” eine pessimistische Sicht zum Ausdruck. Das Album erscheint auf CD und als Download bei Crónica, die bereits seine gemeinsame Arbeit mit Rutger Zuydervelt herausbrachten. Der abschließende Teil der Trilogie, “Insondables humeurs” soll ebenfalls dieses Jahr erscheinen.
Somehow this sounded like a familiar name, but I couldn’t find anything about him that I had written earlier. Morten Riis is from Denmark, where he works as a composer, sound artist and researcher. Amongst the things he does are large scale sound installations. He recorded the music on the cassette using homemade synthesizers and modified four-track cassette recorders. It is not said how the cassette recorders are modified, but perhaps it is a bit of nerd thought here. There is nothing significant scale about the music on this cassette. The sixteen pieces are pretty brief, ranging from one minute and thirty seconds to three minutes. That gives the cassette the idea of a sketchbook. None of these pieces sounds as if they are worked out, but rather a quick pencil drawing that happens to be quite detailed if you look/listen closer. Riis has that fine quality of a lo-fi musician in his music, with grainy textures, rough ambient, and mild noise. I guess the difference is that where many of his peers indulge in longer pieces, Riis keeps his music short. Another difference might be his use of synthesizers rather than field recordings or heavily treated sound sources. As such, he offers quite some variation in his music. Loop-like, drone-like, a bit louder, or a bit quieter. This tape, these sixteen pieces in about forty minutes, is a great sketchbook. (FdW)
The man has many releases to his name, and it is tough to put his music into one particular genre. There are times when I would have said that his music fits the world of ambient music, with a penchant for the lo-fo approach, but this work is something different altogether. There is no evidence of it, not on the cover of the information, but it sounds as if Duplant conducts a small ensemble. There seem to be wind and string instruments. There might also be some electronics. They are all used to playing some heavily controlled music, which has a very modern classical feel. Maybe Duplant played all of these instruments himself? Maybe this is all from an orchestral sample pack? I really have no idea. The title translates as ‘dark mirrors’, and Duplant says about the album, “a polished and reflective surface gives us the stable and sincere image of a subject. The subject here is the world today, both planet, nature, humanity, civilizations, individuals and possibly, probably the one of tomorrow, dark in my eyes & embittered in my heart”. That may explain some of the grim characters of the music. With everything under control, there is also a lot of tension buried in the music. Perhaps that is how Duplant sees the world? Dark and on the surface civilized, but beneath the pavement, there is unrest. I have no idea if that is the idea behind this orchestral suite that comes in two parts of exactly twenty-one minutes. While I may not be the biggest fan of contemporary classical music, I found this a pretty exciting release. Maybe because it raised many questions while sounding beautifully dark and ominous. (FdW)
Le nouvel album de Morten Riis s’apparente à une oeuvre fantôme, objet sonore construit autour de sensations auditives et de variations émotionnelles échappées d’un au-delà déconstruit, traversé de granit éclaté et de poussière concentrée.
Lad enhver lyd minde os om flotte au dessus de surfaces disloquées prêtes à s’évaporer, formes chancelantes à l’abstraction corrosive.
Morten Riis travaille la matière avec minutie, plongeant l’auditeur dans un oeil du cyclone aux courants regroupés sur eux-mêmes, vestiges de narrations passées et de lambeaux d’humanité dérivant dans un trou noir à la puissance ambient extatique. Absorbant. Roland Torres
