“Against Nature” reviewed by Sonic Seducer

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Der Soundkünstler Simon Whetham befasst sich auf seinem dritten Album für Crónica mit einer (In)Fragestellung seiner Arbeitsmethoden. Hierzu sucht er Orte mit interessanter Akustik auf und erzeugt dort mittels Elektronik oder auf herkömmlichem Weg Klänge. Soweit nicht ungewöhnlich; Whetams Fragestellung zielt jedoch dahin, inwieweit seine Intervention den Ort verändert oder gar zerstört und sich somit “gegen die Natur”. Zum Einsatz kommen vor allem fehlerbehaftete Klangerzeuger wie minderwertige Mikrophone oder unerwartet reagierende Software. Dem Thema angemessen zeigen die fünf Kapitel Whetham von seiner konzentrierten Seite, die den Widrigkeiten des Entstehungsprozesses trotzt und die akustischen Störungen zu einem eigensinnigen Hörerlebnis an der Grenze zur musique concrète werden lässt. Sascha Bertoncin

New release: Ran Slavin’s “Bittersweet Melodies”

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Crónica is very happy to present a new album by Ran Slavin, Bittersweet Melodies!

Ran Slavin’s 11th studio album, dives into crime time ambient poster sunsets, Middle East noire, slow zones of scratched utopic atmospheres, lazy scattered DSP lounge, fractured low-fi beats, vinyl postcard vignettes, deserted new buildings electronica. Unreleased material that was long scattered across disparate hard drives and closely associated to a release on Mille Plateaux 12 years ago, prior to its abrupt closure, have been put together, furbished, separated from digital dust, polished, remastered, and re-fired into the ether.

Ran Slavin is a multi faceted artist who works primarily with video installation, sound and film. His work explores fiction and prismatic forms and narratives through video and sound installation and can be interpreted as an expansion of cinematic forms, usually utilizing post production and compositing sensibilities as tools of subversion and reality enhancement. His work often embraces the tension between fact and fiction, supernatural and mythical, history and futurism and compels the viewer to wander beyond reality and the immediate, into a prism of digital superposition.

Slavin has released recordings on Cronica, Mille Plateaux, Sub Rosa, False Ind, to name a few and shared stage and concert lineups with Thomas Köner, Aphex Twin, Vladislav Delay, Alva Noto, Klimek, Random INC, AGF, Rechenzentrum & Lillevan, Maja Ratkje & HC Gilje, Stephan Mathieu, Janek Schaefer, @c, Nico (ex Velvet Underground), Crime and the City Solution, The Folk Devils, World Domination Enterprises and many more.

Bittersweet Melodies is now available from Crónica, from Crónica’s bandcamp and selected retailers.

Futurónica 164

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Episode 164 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, April 15th.

The playlist of Futurónica 164 is:

  1. Francisco López, Untitled (2014, Yanayacu)
  2. Francisco López, Untitled (2014, Obatalá – Ibofanga)
  3. Francisco López, Untitled (2014, Yanayacu)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.

New release: Ran Slavin’s “Thermo Swing & Quanta​+​Else / Studio Blanks 01​-​02”

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In anticipation of Ran Slavin’s Bittersweet Melodies, his fifth studio album in the label, Crónica is thrilled to present the re-release of his early albums Thermo Swing (1999) and Quanta+Else / Studio Blanks 01-02 (2002), published on his own Esoteric Recordings label and long out of distribution.

These two releases are representative of Slavin’s early production and were instrumental in the definition of his signature and approach to composition. Thermo Swing was recorded in Tel Aviv in early 99 and was one of the first releases to hit the local electronic scene. Tel Aviv was just waking up to the bug 2000 era from a underground Drum and Bass and Freestyle tsunami which can be sensed in these recordings, and indeed Slavin’s second studio album from 2000 SharkMoneySexFastEntertainment was defined by a critical and twistful approach within and about the genre.

Thermo Swing marked Slavin’s first solo release utilizing electronic studio equipment and audio editing, while Quanta+Else / Studio Blanks 01-02, his 3rd solo release marked the more abstract- splintered soundscape gardens that characterize his solo work today.

Thermo Swing was a release still in the buffer zone of physical instruments and the digital. It set off Slavin’s heavy utilization of audio editing, abound in beat structures, old vinyl samples (including Miles Davis in The Picket, and Chet Baker in Bum Carib), and live instrument playing (electric guitars, bass, drums, vocals, electric pianos, synths, harmonica).

The work on Thermo Swing was Slavin’s introduction to visual music editing, working on the album with Pro Tools. The year was 1999, a personal studio rig was possible to obtain and the option to see and edit sound waves on screen presented exciting new adverse possibilities. Until 1996 Slavin was playing in various live stage experimental Post Punk and Post Electronic outfits (3H (Shalosh Hait), Rir, Rare, Lip Stick $ync) as frontman/ writer-vocalist/guitarist. In that sense, Thermo Swing marks a more personal approach to music making, and a unique style that kept growing with the freedom to control a multitude of positions in the studio.

Quanta+Else / Studio Blanks 01-02 appeared in 2002 on Slavin’s own label, Esoteric Recordings, founded when the scene was young and no other labels were around to release his material. Quanta+Else is defined by a minimal, clinical DSP synthesized aesthetics, with warm analogue acoustics and techno reminiscences lurking in the background.

Both these albums were widely played on local and international indie/ underground FM radio/ web stations and tracks were used in dance ensemble repertoires.

Thermo Swing & Quanta​+​Else / Studio Blanks 01​-​02 is now available from cronica.bandcamp.com.

“Roha” reviewed by Rif Raf

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Il manipule des sources. Souvent uniques, qu’elles aient pour nom contrebasse ou percussions. On le sent, son ‘Roha’ (Crónica), première sous son vrai nom d’ANDREAS TROBOLLOWITSCH, défie les lois du temps et de la musique. Nulle caresse auditive à l’avant-plan, où la recherche des locutions grinçantes occupe l’essentiel de l’espace. Les tripes en prennent pour leur grade, mieux vaut baisser le volume pour ne point inonder d’acidité les tympans (‘Ratt’). La colère n’est pas en reste, elle gronde en sourdine, un restant d’humanité industrielle s’invite dans le magma, on traverse la chaussée sous les auspices du diable, les coulées du haut-fourneau en lointain souvenir (‘Tapco’). Tel un hommage à la main de l’homme, et de la machine en adjuvant, l’odyssée prend un embranchement vers l’artisanat, on ne sait trop si on pousse la porte du cordonnier ou du serrurier. Seule certitude, aux yeux de Trobollowitsch, jamais humain et mécanique n’auront été autant interdépendants. Fabrice Vanoverberg

“Everything Emanating from the Sun” reviewed by Silence and Sound

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Sans vouloir trop entrer dans les détails explicatifs du nouvel opus du compositeur grec Yiorgis Sakellariou, sachez que c’est le premier album d’une série intitulée Corollaries et mise en place par le label portugais Crónica, qui regroupera des oeuvres issues des résidences Active Crossover: Mooste supervisées par l’artiste anglais Simon Whetham. Oeuvre d’ambient construite d’un seul tenant, autour de collages électro-acoustiques et de field recordings naturalistes, Everything Emanating From The Sun laisse passer la lumière à travers des zones nuageuses à la luminosité presque blanche, caressant des paysages aux douces collines survolé de temps en temps, par des chants d’oiseaux, des cris d’animaux et des bruits de ville lointaine. La nature est là, omniprésente dans chaque recoin de l’oeuvre, reconstruite et reconçue par les mains de l’homme, débarrassée d’un chaos organique qui l’habite intrinsèquement, survolée par le tumulte de machines et de cloches diverses, cherchant à construire un semblant de Création Divine aux allures d’Eden perdu, mutilée par les affres du désir, vaine tentative de vouloir toucher l’après Big Bang et ses premiers pas dans le cosmos. Un album habité de douces intempéries et d’ondes accidentées onctueuses. A savourer. Roland Torres

via Silence and Sound

“When the Days All Tip from Nests and Fly Down Roads” reviewed by Ambient Blog

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This is the second release in Crónica’s ongoing Corrolaries series, a collection of works resulting from a collaborative residency curated by Simon Whetham in Mooste, Estonia (the first was this one by Yiorgis Sakellariou).
Released as a Name-Your-Price download, they are a perfect way to discover the various ways that environmental recordings can be transformed into sound art soundscapes.

‘When the Days…‘ is constructed from Field recordings made in Mooste and its surroundings, “which was especially appealing for the contrasts between nature and derelict and abandoned structures from the soviet area. My aim was to convey the atmosphere I was absorbed in, wandering around in solitude in the landscape almost devoid of human presence.”
And that atmosphere is perfectly captured!

Environmental sound recordings can be used to re-create a certain atmosphere, if you record them well and leave them as close to the source as they can be.
But that is not the purpose of these projects, of this album. When listening to them, you hear music, not just sound.
That’s precisely what Edgar Varèse meant when he defined ‘music’ as ‘organized sound’.

via Ambient Blog

LIA + @c’s “Transcendence 115”

TRANSCENDENCE 115 from Lia on Vimeo.

In anticipation of the upcoming release of @c’s new album “Three-Body Problem”, LIA has created a video for track 5, 115 (Transcendence), that features Angelica V. Salvi in the harp.

“Three-Body Problem” is currently available for pre-order.