“Praxis” reviewed by Bodyspace

Praxis
Não é criminoso passar ao lado das relações que Cem Güney estabelece entre conceitos diversos e as composições que acabaram por figurar em Praxis, depois de dois anos de gestação. A explanação das relações ocupa toda a porção do press-release, que acompanha o disco lançado há algum tempo pela Crónica (que aposta frequentemente em aventureiros como o turco Cem Güney).

Ficamos então a saber que os fonemas Africanos e o som da vibração respiratória traduzem-se numa salada turca de retalhos e num mantra tingindo de negro, não necessariamente por essa ordem. Mistério… Com tempo, lá chegaríamos (na manhã de um dia iluminado). É contudo inútil perseguir as pistas que possam decifrar Praxis, antes de resolvermos os enigmas propostos por anteriores discos da Crónica ou pelos Excepter, em Debt Dept. (livremente inspirado num esquema de pirâmide que comporta respostas para tudo excepto para si).

Em pouco tempo, torna-se óbvia a malvadez no pacto desigual que deixa Cem Güney de chave na mão e a outra parte à nora. Na prática, Praxis é uma masmorra dividida em vários cativeiros de ruído (ora rotativo, ora torrencial) com uma janela aberta para a entrada da luz gerada por alguns loops. É de luz que se faz o ponto de partida da romântica e progressiva “Undulations”, dedicada e conduzida à grande escala de Janek Schaefer, que, no campeonato dos estetas inquietos, deixa Cem Güney na obrigação de ainda comer muita papinha. Onde “Undulations” é intrigante, outras peças chegam a ser bem mais chatas: “Adaptations” virtualiza um cenário de uma cirurgia que chega ao seu ponto crítico, mas não oferece nada de novo no horizonte dos delírios laptop.

Quem já viu Hannibal, sabe como é patética a cena em que o canibal interpretado por Anthony Hopkins cozinha o cérebro de Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta) como se fosse carne para fondue. Também Praxis obriga quem escuta a confiar o seu cérebro a um arquivista ligeiramente psicótico, alguém que estimula a faceta mais obsessiva do som tantas vezes enciumado com o espaço ocupado pelo outro. Recomenda-se alguma moderação. Praxis não é prato para todos os dias. Miguel Arsénio

via Bodyspace

“Praxis” reviewed by Etherreal

Praxis
Cem Güney est d’origine turque, et c’est influencé par le jazz et en particulier par Miles Davis qu’il s’est mis à la trompette. Puis il est parti faire des études de musique en Californie, revient en temps que DJ tout en continuant la trompette, et connaît sa deuxième révélation musicale avec Janek Schaefer, s’orientant alors vers l’art sonore.

On est habitué chez Cronica à des ¦uvres pointues, exigeantes, et cet album de Cem Güney se situe dans cette lignée d’albums expérimentaux souvent à la limite du concept, mettant en phase des composantes ambient et concrètes qui semblent communier au grès de manipulations sonores et assemblages abstraits pour des rendus qui pourront surprendre par leur variété. C’est le cas en particulier de A Phonetics Theme qui ouvre l’album avec un travail très particulier, simple collage alternant presque de façon mathématique mots, sonorités concrètes et bruitages électroniques ou traitements sonores.
On est par ailleurs dans un registre ambient expérimentale, bien loin de la facilité des nappes synthétiques puisque les paysages désolés que dessine le Turc se composent de drones sourds et sifflements suraigus (Somewhere Between The Middle), flirtent avec le minimalisme radical et les extrêmes sonores d’un Ryoji Ikeda qui serait habillé d’amas granuleux sur Impulse, ou se rapprochent d’une musique improvisée qui deviendrait mécanique à force de boucler (Factitious Phobia).
Parfois très difficile d’accès avec ses notes stridentes sur Praxis, Cem Güney sait aussi capter l’attention de l’auditeur lorsque ses compositions semblent influencer par le Nada Yoga (une forme de méditation basée sur la musique et qui a servi de point de départ à Behold Now Bhikkus, The Sounds of Nada Yoga), jouant de superpositions, répétitions et ondulations sonore sur le magnifique Adaptations qui devrait ravir tout fan d’ambient. On citera enfin Undulations, une pièce de 10mn débutant par des vinyls de cordes craquelée, logiquement dédicacée à Janek Schaefer, et construite selon une lente progression électronique et synthétique.
Loin d’être le plus facile des albums Cronica, Praxis est le genre d’album qui mérite qu’on lui laisse le temps de s’installer pour dévoiler par endroits sa poésie mystérieuse. 6/8 Fabrice Allard

via Etherreal

“Berlin Backyards” reviewed by Le Son du Grisli

Berlin Backyards
Suisse aujourd’hui installé à Berlin, Gilles Aubry enregistra là, en 2006, le matériau de Berlin Backyards : field recordings modelés ensuite pour mieux révéler l’immatériel rencontré partout à la périphérie de la ville.
Changé en réalité de l’artiste, donc : grain traînant parmi la structure d’une mécanique à l’allure presque toujours égale, aigus perçants parmi la rumeur d’une cour d’école à son heure, souffles de bandes butant sur le flanc d’un oiseau, et puis quelques pas résonnant peu avant que se fasse entendre le bruit d’une source que l’on imagine opaque. Au gré des minutes, le souvenir infuse ; jusqu’à ce que la réalité, réinventée, compte autant de preuves que contient de charmes l’abstraction avec laquelle on l’avait d’abord confondue.

via Le Son du Grisli

@c + Lia’s “o/68” video at the Kunsthaus Graz

o/68
“A Secret Understanding” exhibition, produced by Forma. 8 to 24 May 2009 at the Kunsthaus Graz.

A Secret Understanding is about the elective affinity between art and music. The exhibition brings together a group of rather personal and yet very differently presented films by various international media artists tackling familiar music titles in unfamiliar interpretations. The films that come out of the process are to some extent disconcertingly detached and yet at the same time extremely intimate takes on the musical originals, covering the whole gamut of visual approaches from animation through video sampling to media art. The exhibition thus provides insight into a range of musical styles behind a public veneer of both sentimentality and a touch of irony.

The programme was originally curated and produced by Forma in 2007 for an event in Trafalgar Square in London in league with the ICA.

Gintas K live at the Ground Zero festival in Vilnius

Gintas K
Ground Zero is a centre of explosion, and explosion is an effective evening of a well-forgotten day, an unthought idea, an unfulfilled (war) promise, a sound wave that surpassed its own frequency. The 13th block of the former factory on Ševčenkos street, the covert birthplace of some of the most advanced radio devices of the radio era, will now become a venue for the first international art and electronic music festival Ground Zero. It is a tribute to electronic music – one of the most democratic medias of our time, that, eluding single countries, styles, industries, owners and interpretations, can gather influences from a variety of arts and sciences and conduct the fragmented everyday. Electricity of the former factory will be shared by the participating sound producers as well as video beamers, theatre lights, art installation chambers and bar chairs. The event is presented by the organisers of Elektrodienos and Vasaros terasa.

“Berlin Backyards” reviewed by Terz

Berlin Backyards
Darauf muss man erstmal kommen: Aubry, der seit 2002 in Berlin lebt, nahm während des Winters 2006 tatsächlich die Innenhöfe der Stadt auf und zeigt hier in 8 Beispielen bester konkreter Musik, dass diese überaus lebendige Klang- und Resonanzräume bilden. Dieser ’Gesang der Gebäude’ als Raum zwischen öffentlich und privat ist ein faszinierendes Audiodokument, dem man wirklich einmal konzentriert zuhören sollte. Honker

New unlimited release: UBERMORGEN.COM && Nussbaumer’s “1001 Songs of eBay”

1001 Songs of eBay
Crónica is delighted to present the “1001 Songs of eBay”, its longest ever Unlimited Release, running to a total of 2 days, 3 hours, 41 minutes and 26 seconds, or over 4 GB of free to download generative funkiness.

“Forget the technology,
it’s lustful entertainment, baby!”

“The Sound of eBay” is an UBERMORGEN.COM project with Stefan Nussbaumer, online at www.sound-of-ebay.com since July 2008. Using eBay user data, The Sound of eBay generates unique songs. By simply entering any eBay username and clicking “generate”, the robots sprawl out into the net to collect data, bringing it back to the SC3 Supercollider sound-generation engine. The complex software-machine starts generating a score-file which is then transformed into a unique song.

1001 Songs of eBay
“The Sound of eBay” transforms a role-model of individual commodities market in an “ARTitude” of robotic configurations and strings, swapping personalized and compositional business dreams with sound designs from secure client accounting. Using the concept of creative destruction, this entertainment-aggregation is tuning in a mind-blowing cutup, pushing the contemporary lifestyles over the edge and combines it with transformable delays of post-realistic business-analysis.

The Artwork

The Limited counterparts to “1001 Songs of eBay” are “The Sound of eBay — Do you know who the father is?” and “The Sound of eBay – It’s getting big?”, two woodcuts on paper issued by Black Box Gallery Copenhagen and also offered directly by Crónica. For ordering, please see this page.

Donations

A lot of hard work is invested in these releases and in Crónica’s operations. We do not believe in DRM and we certainly don’t want to create any barriers between you and our releases, so, all of the Unlimited Releases will be free to download, but if you can, please consider to leave us a small donation for the benefit of both artists and label. Don’t forget to leave us your address, so that we can send you a thank you postcard in return.

New limited release: UBERMORGEN.COM’s woodcuts on paper

The Sound of eBay
“The Sound of eBay — Do you know who the father is?” and “The Sound of eBay – It’s getting big?” are two woodcuts on paper issued by the Black Box Gallery Copenhagen and also offered directly by Crónica as the limited counterpart to UBERMORGEN.COM && Nussbaumer’s unlimited release “1001 Songs of eBay”.

The Sound of eBay
Each of the prints is signed and certified by UBERMORGEN.COM and available directly from Crónica for 500€.

New CD release: Piotr Kurek’s “Lectures”

Lectures
“Lectures” was initially composed in 2007 for a live performance in Warsaw, during a Cornelius Cardew music festival that was part of the series of events “Zakrzywienia Igły”, organized by Michał Libera. The original idea was to perform Cardew’s pieces but this later evolved towards an improvisation based on sounds appropriated from various Cardew recordings, complemented by additional instruments. With the help from Walter Cardew, the composer’s son, Kurek was also able to use unreleased recordings from lectures, performances and rehearsals conducted by Cardew, and recorded for private use. This release presents a further development of the pieces composed for the live performance, inspired by Cornelius Cardew and his lectures.

Lectures
All tracks written and produced by Piotr Kurek. Recorded in October 2007 and January 2009 in Warsaw.

Lectures
You can listen to No Mistake, read the Press-release, buy the CD directly from Crónica, or download through Boomkat or Zero Inch.