Minimalist accordion tones from Isabel Latorre and Edu Comelles on their cassette tape For Pauline (CRÓNICA 144-2018). As readers may have guessed, it’s inspired directly by the music of Pauline Oliveros, herself now regarded as one of the “greats” of American minimalism and feted for her innovative empowering ideas and sensitive performing skills. The work was intended as a realisation of Oliveros’ deep listening philosophy, but the project gained extra poignancy when Pauline Oliveros died and the musicians decided to turn it into a tribute recording. On Side A, Isabel Latorre plays live at a music festival in 2017, while on the B side we have a composition by Edu Comelles called ‘La Isla Plana’ based on Latorre’s recordings. Latorre’s side feels sketchy and wispy to me, but at least it has a certain spontaneity, as she strives to match the gift for intuition that was one of Oliveros’ hallmarks. Comelles’s piece is more structured, but mostly flat and uneventful nonetheless. Still, you can discern the breathing lungs of the accordion layered into this piece of processed minimalism. Ed Pinsent
Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais have been working as @c since 2000, publishing several albums (some of which in Crónica), composing music for audiovisuals and theatre, performing extensively, and creating site-specific sound installations.
Having been invited to develop a new work for the Exhibitions Pavilion of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, to be shown from March to June 2018, around the time of the 15th anniversary of Crónica, they decided to develop a piece that would involve and reflect the label and the artists with whom it works.
Anotações Sonoras: Espaço, Pausa, Repetição (Sonic Annotations: Space, Pause, Repetition) was developed from sound objects provided by more than fifty artists and projects. The installation established an area for a multisensory immersive experience that incited a dialogue with the sound objects, the architectural space and its visitors. An infrastructure built from speakers, flooring, light, fragrance, and a hovering frame, set a stage for the creation of a nonlinear, generative and open algorithmic composition for computer and speakers. This area was a pivotal point for listening, but it also steered visitors to move, leaving the ideal listening point and exploring the exhibition space to discover how different perspectives over the sonic matter could be attained through its traversal.
The installation was built from the exhibition space and from the idiosyncrasies and autonomy of the more than 300 sound objects that were collected, ranging in duration from under a second to more than an hour. From these, Tudela and Carvalhais developed in excess of one thousand individual sound objects and developed a physical and computational system that fuelled their anarchic autonomy, and stimulated several relationships: between different sound objects; between sound objects and space; between sound objects, space, and listeners.
In this site-specific installation Tudela and Carvalhais developed music that was not projected into an environment, that was not about an environment but that rather was the environment. A music that created its own space, to which it then directed the attention of visitors, so that they were led to develop a holistic reading and interpretation of the work. They developed a music of metaphors, by using sound objects and their qualities to create new objects that serendipitously emerged during the running of the installation. Fleeting objects that could be heard by visitors or could be forever lost.
The two pieces in this release were composed using the sound objects and the generative system from the installation. They are not intended as documentation of the installation, but rather aim at being listened to as new compositions created from, and after, the installation. The first piece, Espaço, Pausa (Space, Pause), is perhaps closer to the dynamics of the opening configuration of the installation, with clearly recognisable sound objects and a focus on their articulation and relationships. The second piece, Repetição (Repetition), is infused with texts in English and Portuguese that were inspired by two other spaces: Pierre Schaeffer’s monumental Le solfège de l’objet sonore (Music Theory of the Sound Object), and Pierre Henry’s House of Sounds, as documented in the photo-book by Geir Egil Bergjord (published by gilka.no). Poetically indexing sound objects, Repetição proposes their semantic reinterpretation, further extending the metaphorical constructs.
Tracklist:
Espaço, Pausa (26:18)
Repetição (26:37)
Composed by Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela with sound objects created for the installation Anotações Sonoras: Espaço, Pausa, Repetição by Alex FX, Alexander Rishaug, André Gonçalves, Andreas Trobollowitsch, Artificial Memory Trace, Arturas Bumšteinas, Attilio Novellino, Carlos Santos, Carlos Zíngaro, Cem Güney, Dan Powell, David Lee Myers, Diana Combo, Durán Vázquez, Emídio Buchinho, Emmanuel Mieville, Enrico Ascoli, Enrico Coniglio, Astrid & Ephraim Wegner, Haarvöl, Freiband, Gintas K, Graeme Truslove, Hugo Paquete, Ifs, James Eck Rippie, Janek Schaefer, Jazznoize, Jim Haynes, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, Jörg Piringer, Jos Smolders, Lawrence English, Luca Forcucci, Maile Colbert, Marc Behrens, Martijn Tellinga, Mikel R. Nieto, Mise_en_Scene, Monty Adkins, Morten Riis, paL, Ran Slavin, Richard Eigner, Saverio Rosi, Simon Whetham, Sound Meccano, Stephen Vitiello, Sturqen,Tamtam, Tuulikki Bartosik, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Vitor Joaquim, Yiorgis Sakellariou.
Anotações Sonoras: Espaço, Pausa, Repetição (Sonic Annotations: Space, Pause, Repetition), an installation by Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais was commissioned by oMuseu and the Exhibitions Office of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto for its Exhibitions Pavilion. March 24th to June 30th, 2018.
Welcome to the 17th review in the Fluid Label Focus series on the Crónica label. Today I have for you another recent release on the label that I finally got to this month. This is the new collaborative album by Portuguese experimental group Haarvöl and field recordist and sound artist Xóan-Xil López, titled Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey. This album features three long pieces for dance that were created for the play Revoluções (Revolutions) by choreographer Né Barros. As always, Miguel Carvalhais from Crónica kindly sent me an advance review copy, in this case of the digital version of the album. The Bandcamp download I got here features the 3 album tracks in high resolution 24-bit/48kHz audio, as well as a high resolution version of the album cover (in a wider 3259x2965p resolution as also used on the packaging of the physical CD version) and a PDF file. The PDF file (in my review copy it’s the promo version) features the album cover as well as additional artwork by Rui Manuel Vieira of Haarvöl, design of this release is by José Carneiro. Besides the artwork, as with many Crónica release you will find a lot of details on the release including the tracklist, credits and a description of the album and the various pieces. I read the full PDF file before listening and the texts per track are admittedly quite complex and oftentimes abstract, so they do require some background knowledge and reading to fully comprehend but even if (like me) your strength isn’t in the academic part of arts and music and concepts within them there’s quite a few recognisable reference points in the texts and names and literature mentioned to reference. As is also mentioned in the description of the album, the three pieces all depict three layers of time, past, present and future which also an interesting aspect of the concept behind the music, though for me personally these time layers were clearer as a difference in textural build up and sonic patterns between the three pieces and the “human sounds” within the music gave hints to passing time. It is definitely interesting to re-listen the pieces and reference details within them to the text in the PDF file but a great quality of the music is also that on its own the inherent effect it has on the imagination and subconcious are very strong, so let’s have a look at the music itself in the next section.
As mentioned before, Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey consists of three long pieces, each of which is around 15 minutes long and while each of the three pieces can work as an independent work if listened on their own, there’s also a great consistency in the music even though the three pieces definitely differ from each other in quite major ways (referencing the various phases of time). In terms of overall sonic signature, I’d say that Something’s Missing (Utopian) is a shifting at times quite noisy haze of textures, glitches and often metallic manipulated field recordings, The Pulsating Waves (Reality) goes for a more Industrial Drone sound, though it’s not as noisy as the first piece and Don’t Look Back, Run (Trauma) is the most minimalist in terms of composition, being mostly centred around a repeating Drone motif and filtered resonances. The album begins with Something’s Missing (Utopian). This piece moves through various phases, mixing field recordings, drones and glitches together to create a deep immersive and ever evolving soundscape that freely moves from fluctuating resonances to more tonal focussed moments in time. High frequency shimmering pulsations throughout the piece add a great metallic shine to the music and the glitches add some vibrant rhythmic elements to the mixture which are also very well blended into the sonic image. The piece has a very dense kind of layering within it in which field recordings, the drones and glitches are blended in such a way that there’s these audible edges between the sounds and the sonic layers seem to both intertwine and all be clearly audible as separate parts of the mix of the piece. The evolution of the music in the piece throughout is also very focussed on both textural contrasts and balance and the sounds used are also often not easily discernible in which sources they come from with the metallics in the field recordings and some of the resonances in the drones adding a layer of “artificial” sonic energy in the piece but this also makes it feel quite magical and wholly original and new. I love how the music’s combination of concrete sounds and textures also at times creates new wonderful organic sounds from material that is often coming from very human sources and the combination of both tonal pulsations and scattering glitch elements is quite unique and offers a great new take on Drone music that I haven’t heard before. The buzzing climax near the middle of the piece and the distorted organ like drones in the second half are highlights in the piece too. Indeed there’s a lot of things going on in these pieces but even with this many layers and changes throughout the music always stays consistent and not hard to grasp and most importantly never gets to a point of staying idle and “looping it out” which is a risk of Drone music if an artist would get too minimal with his / her approach. The very good mix and master on the piece also makes me feel this music could work great in multi-channel surround installation form as there’s a great depth and spatiality to this pieces, very good. In the next piece The Pulsating Waves (Reality), the music moves into a more “Industrial” like direction, so to speak, with quite a lot more focus on field recordings of machinery and metal clangs, as well as buzzing electricity like whirring sounds though the drones remain too, albeit in more subdued filtered form. With fuzzy human sounds of distant voices and crowds as well as some great vocal samples pitched in various hissy resonant tones the music moves into a contemplative introspective ambience. The buzzing electrical sound reminds me of the Mosaique album Shattering Silence (also on Crónica) that I reviewed last year but in this case there are mysterious resonances and distant sounds from the field recordings which again lead to a bit of a climax near the middle of the piece but also get quite intense in the finale of the piece in which an array of machinery sounds and heavily resonant flanged metallic sounds are combined with even more noisy mechanical sounds to create an ending that’s both intense but also quite hypnotic with its ever shifting overtones and resonances. The Pulsating Waves (Reality) definitely has more of a general Industrial ambience to it than the first piece but the gradual but also very varied composition of sonic elements also does give it a bit of a minimal Glitch kind of feeling in the middle of the piece with the droning tones accompanying the whirring sounds in subtly stuttering way. Again, definitely an awesome piece of music this one and while it’s quite Industrial, the piece has a very intriguing sense of introspection and tranquil peace to it too though the calm drones and fluctuating resonances throughout, feels quite like an atmospheric aural version of a panoramic time-lapse of a factory, intense mechanical sounds but also a sense of rest in your mind. Final track Don’t Look Back, Run (Trauma) is the most minimalist composition on the album, with a strings like droning tone forming a repeating pattern throughout almost the entire piece. The field recordings are much less recognisable as well, with many of the elements in the piece being very resonant, metallic or high frequency. Glimmering delayed elements, additional filtered drones as well as filtered distant noise change and evolve within the piece overtime, always moving in a new direction while the main droning tone keeps moving in an irregular rhythm. Indeed it’s an especially great quality of all three pieces on this album and of course of Haarvöl and Xoán-Xil Lopéz themselves that even in the most minimalist piece on the album, there’s such a rich variety of both organic, metallic and other sculpted sonic elements as well as constant evolution of the composition that the music always stays intriguing throughout and never stops moving forward in the extended length of the pieces. A great closer to an awesome album of music.
Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey by Haarvöl and Xoán-Xil López is definitely an awesome strongly recommended album, that is one of the best releases on Crónica and also of experimental music in general so far this year. The richness of textures and completely original sound that these artists create together on this album breaks the borders of soundscape and Drone music in a great new way that makes the music so well suited to many re-listens as well as these pieces will always sound new and different, even with every new repeated listen. There’s just so many layers and details of evolution in sound in the pieces to be discovered that it’s amazing how well balanced the pieces are all are considering how densely packed with layers most of the pieces are. I would especially recommend this album to fans of soundscapes, field recordings and Drone (Ambient) music but also if you’re into Industrial and even Glitch you’ll find plenty to enjoy in this music, it’s very rich music. So go check out this album for sure, you won’t regret it. Orlando Laman
Welcome back to the the Fluid Label Focus on CRÓNICA, the label with which I originally started this review series. CRÓNICA’s been very active this year with new music and audiovisual works coming out every month and sometimes even every few weeks, so it’s time to catch up and look at the two recently released releases on the label, today starting with this new album by EPHRAIM WEGNER and DANIEL BISIG titled JETZT. It’s a mixed media release consisting of the main audio album, available for download from Bandcamp as well as the audiovisual version of the piece Jetzt available to watch on Vimeo. The album features two long pieces, the first, Jetzt is a collaboration between the two artists while [269.17, 278.81, 300,77 | 260.33, 312.68, 377.24, 518.55] is a solo work by EPHRAIM WEGNER. In the download of the release you will find these in 16-bit/44.1kHz CD quality audio, together with the album cover in rather high resolution 2906x2906p as well as a PDF. In my case this is review copy press PDF containing the details of the music as well as audiovisual part of the release, the tracklist and credits as well as two frames from the audiovisual version of Jetzt, used as artwork in the PDF.
Now, onto the works on this release themselves. Both EPHRAIM WEGNER and DANIEL BISIG have studied Science until a very high level, hold a master’s degree and are active in programming based arts in various programming languages as both academic researchers and in the creation of art based on scientific research and systems both artists have created. In the case of DANIEL BISIG, he also has a special focus on visual art in various forms like algorithmic films and audiovisual installations. Indeed, also on this release both artists have created two works that use programmed and design processes and manipulations that use a mathematical model, the Markov Chain (Jetzt) and a designed scale of frequencies ([269.17, 278.81, 300,77 | 260.33, 312.68, 377.24, 518.55]). While these works are also obviously related to the artists’ published studies of research and system development, the experience of listening and watching these works themselves on its own and the textures and compositional development in both pieces is quite easy to get into. This works especially well on the strongest piece, title track number 1, Jetzt (stereo). The piece was created by processing the poem “Jetzt” by Max Bense through a Markov Chain which creates randomised strings of words out of the poem’s original composition which are then “performed” by a female voice through speech synthesis. While the process itself in description might make it seem like a dadaist like AI text collage, the actual resulting sounds in the composition are much more like drone. Albeit, glitched up drone, as it’s clear from the textures created from the heavily stretched artificial voice pronouncing the words that the drones are created from the fast repetition of sonic particles that make up those sounds. However the speech manipulations themselves are also often accompanied by additional electronic sounds. For example the wind like noise that builds up at the end of the first half of the piece, the electronic drums in the second half and Noise added to the vocal drone. The piece has a very gradual stretched progression, moving from drone, to the wind noise, to a percussive part and finally ending in a pretty intense kind of Noise drone finale. The music has got quite a hypnotic, if somewhat ear-piercing ambience to it with the high amount of buzzing high end giving the drones a phased buzzing texture that is very rich in overtones and resonance. It definitely feels like clouds of sharp resonant sound engulf the sonic space, while the wind in the middle adds some contrast and a thunder like tension to the piece out of which the vocal drone emerges like a mysterious alien voice. The percussive part featuring a bouncy glitch like kick and noisy snare like percussion is quite jumpy with a lot of irregular rhythms, heavy distortion manipulations of the voice as well as noise modulations which quite naturally move into the noise Drone ending. All in all, it’s a nicely evolving piece of music in which the separate sections do give the music a little twist of adventure , but the drones still remain a good focus in the piece. The audiovisual version of Jetzt matches the music with abstract computer generated visuals that depict organisms and abstract imagery that matches the music quite well, not being too one on one, the visuals do flow in sync with the music but also don’t literally try to show you how you should see the music, leaving room for your own interpretation of the music visuals combination. The abstract imagery has a very painted look to it that looks very realistic, making some parts look like animated paintings depicting round, curly, rectangular or spiralling shapes that keep changing, evolving and moving. All imagery is focused around the centre of the frame, which has a white background on which all imagery appears. Highlights in the video are definitely the dark unstable circle that appears sometime before the second half, when the hollow wind noise enters in the music as well as the rougher sharper, noisier and more square imagery that appears during the intense finale of the music. A great audiovisual work and the imagery has a lot of variation and dynamics to it that make for a captivating and enjoyable experience. The second piece on the audio version of JETZT is [269.17, 278.81, 300,77 | 260.33, 312.68, 377.24, 518.55] which is based around an alternate tuning system devised by EPHRAIM WEGNER. As mentioned before this is a solo piece in which the sounds are created using sine waves and noise and the aim of the piece is to let listeners focus on the richness and density that combinations of the frequencies listed as the title of the piece offer in the piece. The music is quite a bit more subdued than Jetzt, feeling more like an atmospheric Drone Ambient piece in which the noise is similar to a spring breeze, building from varying combinations of tones to the main drone of the piece. It’s not as varied as Jetzt in its composition, being more continuous and mostly focused on the droning tone combinations. It does make for a great meditative deep listening experience however as the subtle shifts in harmonics, resonances and slow progression offer some vibrant sonic textures to dive into. The composition, moving from tone combinations to drone ambience to glassy resonance is rather good too, though admittedly the beginning of the second half of the piece features some odd sounding noise glitches that don’t work that well in my opinion. While not distracting, that element felt as a bit of an awkward combination with the tones and wind noise. Combined as a whole however the piece definitely is a good listening experience especially in the rich textures within and is a fine accompanying piece to title track Jetzt on the album.
All in all, JETZT is a good mixed media release by DANIEL BISIG / EPHRAIM WEGNER with title piece Jetzt being the strongest piece on the album, featuring the most balanced composition and sonic shaping. The audiovisual version of Jetzt is a great experience too with inventive and gorgeous looking animation combined with a great synergy between visuals and music that makes it an adventurous and dynamic audiovisual journey. [269.17, 278.81, 300,77 | 260.33, 312.68, 377.24, 518.55] also features some great hypnotic textural work and while the composition is not as balanced as Jetzt, it’s still a great deep listening experience that forms a good subdued 15 minutes of introspection after Jetzt’s fiery finale. A good intriguing release of quality work by both artists and another great release on the CRÓNICA label. Recommended for fans of microtonal music, Drone Ambient that also leans towards Noise, listeners interested in creative (science based) musical programming and algorithmic compositions and anyone looking for a compact but varied and dynamic release of art crossing both visual and musical art forms. Go check JETZT out. Orlando Laman
Buenos Aires’s native Guido Flichman has been involved in experimental music for a decade and a half, collaborating in the duo Termotank and the electronic pop band Programa besides working solo under his own name or as Depuratumba. Since 2006 he has also been running the website Latinoise a platform for information and promotion of noise and experimental musicians in Latin America.
Clorofila Voyeur is composed by three tracks composed in 2017 and 2018 from manipulated loops, field recordings, analog and digital synthesis, elements developed over a span of several years and now collated in this work. Flichman’s work incorporates chance and serendipity. His music is created from happy accidents, from the sculpting of individual sounds to the track titles, which in this case were discovered by scanning old science magazines.
Sam Auinger scored quite a hit with this writer in 2001, when he made Box 30/70 with Bruce Odland (appearing as O+A). I seem to recall they created a fascinating twist on the field recording genre with their innovative “box”, which sits by a roadside and does unusual things to the sound of cars rushing past. This may not have any bearing on Rheingold (CRÓNICA 143-2018), a cassette release credited to TamTam and created by Sam Auinger with Hannes Strobl, playing the upright string bass while Auinger plays his samples and field recordings. Yet I do seem to hear the sound of that roadside traffic as one component in this layered, drifty and air-like drone piece. I must be imagining things though, because Rheingold was mostly made using a hydrophone (a microphone that works underwater), sited on the banks of the Rhine.
This is all Tamtam’s way of paying tribute to the Nibelung saga, and the Ring Cycle composed by Richard Wagner; I never made much of a study of this landmark piece of classical music, but apparently part of the story involves a treasure buried in the river. To tie us back into that classical music aspect, we have a gong player (quite fitting for a group called TamTam), Robyn Schulkowsky, who is credited here with playing his “self-made gong”. The project represents an effort made by these German musicians to come to grips with one of the “big myths” of their homeland, and presumably to try and encompass something of the musical history too (you can’t get much of a bigger landmark than Wagner, I suppose). The resulting 27+ minutes of ‘Rheingold’ are an utterly compelling abstract drone, one of great natural beauty, and with only a small ratio of conventional “musical” elements to sweeten the deal. Grand it be.
On the flip we have guest spots from Eosin, Malle Colbert, and @c, all bringing their contributions to the riverside picnic. Eosin: cloudy tones (generated by a gong?) with a foreboding drumbeat; Colbert: tuning the gong to create queasy unsettling atmospheres; @c turning in routine electronica minimalist moves. These are all OK cuts, but for me it’s the A side that’s found the buried treasure. Ed Pinsent
Trondheim Electroacoustic Music Performance (EMP) is an ensemble performing improvised electroacoustic music. The project started in 2011 with the involvement of many different musicians over the years. It originated from “the performance explorations around music technology at Department of Music, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), investigating how technology makes us play differently, how it enables new modes of communication within the ensemble, and new creative improvisation methods inspired by the sonic sculpting enabled by custom made audio processing software and instruments.“ To introduce their latest work I take another quote from the liner notes: “This project explores cross-adaptive processing as a radical intervention in the communication between performing musicians. Digital audio analysis and processing techniques are used to enable features of one sound to inform the processing of another. This allows the actions of one performer to directly influence another performer’s sound and doing so by means of the acoustic signal produced on the instrument. This may be reciprocated, too: the sound of the second performer may in turn influence the sound processing of the first.” Øyvind Brandtsegg is the mastermind beyond all this. He started as a rock musician, educated in vibraphone as well as in creating software. He is very much interested in research into the role of technology in the process of creating music. Listening to this work I asked myself what motivates him most of all. Did it start from a technical interest in creating new procedures and techniques? Or from a musical idea that led to new procedures in order to realize it? I guess we are dealing here with the first option as the dominant one. I can’t make any judgment how inventive and promising this cross adaptive processing may be. But if results count, I didn’t found this one musically very satisfying or surprising. The release is made up of two CDs, both carrying their own name, representing different phases of their research. The first cd (‘Poke It With a Stick’) reflects the exploration phase, the second one (‘Joining the Bots’) the phase of knitting together, etc. Most tracks on the first cd have one or two musicians or vocalists improvising, with Øyvind Brandtsegg doing cross-adaptive processing. For sure interesting parts passed by, but overall I missed clear focus and urgency. One can easily identify the instruments and follow the dynamic of the acoustic improvisation. This is also the case for the second cd that has the impressive vocals By Ratkje and Tone Ase in a prominent role. But it is difficult to put a finger on how the acoustic improvising and the academic electronics interact. No doubt interesting technology is introduced here by the inventive Brandtsegg, but musically it didn’t convince me. An ambitious and daring release by Cronica, a media label in Porto, Portugal. (DM)
Understated voice and drone thing from Síria on her Cuspo (CRÓNICA 142-2018) cassette, which has been executed quite simply by recycling field recordings and old LP records, creating sounds on which Síria intones and chants her vocal additions. Despite the slow pace, near-whispered method, and unvarying tone, there’s still power to it; she manages to instil every moment with a certain amount of menace, as if she’s some implacable supernatural force, a revenant come to exact justice against the world. Diana Combo is the real name of this murmuring agency; she also performs as Eosin, and has appeared with the David Maranha Ensemble, a troupe of Portuguese superstars. The work may have its origins in an attempt at playwriting, or at least to create incidental songs to be used on stage; but it took a different turn, and much spontaneity was used in the creation of these barely-existing songs. The droning effects were added in the studio at the last stage of production; John Grzinich recorded some of this, and avant-garde heavyweights Joe Colley and Antoine Chessex are among those credited with the musical dimensions. A shady spookster for modern times. Ed Pinsent
