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 piece Terra, from the album with the same name, has been included in the 160th edition of the Mind the Gap compilation published by Gonzo (Circus).
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
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.
