“Berlin Backyards” and “Ification” reviewed by Vital Weekly

Ification
One of the things I like Berlin (and some other German cities), is the backyards which houses. A small entrance and then you are surrounded by four sides of houses and apartments, and which are excellent for parties, concerts and such like. A form of social control also, that might be the downside, but I don’t know: I never lived in Berlin. The backyard is also the place were all the technic stuff from buildings come together, like ventilation, trash, recycling containers and electrical wiring. A noisy place by itself, and sometimes allowing street noise to come in. I never made any recording in there, but Gilles Aubry, who lives in Berlin since 2002, did, perhaps with the same fascination for these places. Its not easy to say what, if anything at all, Aubrey did to the sounds he recorded. In these eight pieces there are moments when I think these are pretty straight forward field recordings, and in other cases I seem to think that uses loops of the material. My best guess is however that’s a combination of both. There is however very little other ‘processing’ going here, save for a bit of panning and equalization. I thought that was a pity, since eight of these pieces is pretty much. The street sounds, electric power station, the rolling of containers: after about six pieces you know the drill of it.

Something entirely different is the latest album by Pure, from Vienna. He works under various guises, and this is fourth Pure CD, following ‘Noonbugs’ on Mego for four years ago. Seven pieces of electronic music, six of them recorded with the help of others, like Christoph de Babalon on guitar samples, Martin Brandlmayr on drums, the screams of Alexandra von Bolzn and Anke Eckardt on bass guitar. What Aubrey lacks in variation is made up here by Pure. The heavy start of ‘Fire’, into to post nuclear war zone with no survivors of ‘After The Bomb’ (an appropriate title), Pure takes the listener on a ride that ranges from subtleness to the utter crude, which ends with the nightmares of ‘Iron Sky’. Excellent music for b-movies that deserve a-music. Certainly not always ‘pleasant’ in terms of nice background music for your living room, but unpleasant music to make your life a bit easier and less painful. (FdW)

via Vital Weekly

“Filare” reviewed by 5 against 4

Filare
This is another free download album from Crónica (available here), intended to “produce sustained music which at the same time would contain movement and harmonic richness”. Filare is, indeed, rich, & its ambient textures are ever in flux, ever at the boundary between commanding interest & being (to use Eno’s term) “ignorable”. It is highly organic throughout, giving the impression of a composer who has set (carefully ordered) things in motion that then run their course, rather than controlling the sound at each passing moment.

via 5 against 4

New series of releases available from Zero Inch

Musicamorosa
The Beautiful Schizophonic’s “Musicamorosa”, Davor Mikan’s “Täuschung”, Cem Güney’s “Praxis”, Gilles Aubry’s “Berlin Backyards” and the forthcoming Gintas K’s “Lovely Banalities” are now available through Zero Inch. More to come soon.

“Berlin Backyards” reviewed by Rockerilla

Berlin Backyards
Quando si tratta di complicare l’ascolto la portoghese Crónica non è seconda a nessuno. Gilles Aubry è un ingegnere del suono svizzero con il pallino per i field recordings. Nel 2006 he ha registrati un bel po’ in giro per Berlino. Dopo averli rimaneggiati con i suoi calcolatori elettronici li ha assemblati in un blob di cinquanta minuti che la Crónica dopo tre anni ha deciso pubblicare. “Berlin Backyards” ca ascoltato con la fantasia e con le orecchie molto aperte — come nel caso di tutti i dischi di field recordings. Su gran parte del disco, in sottofondo, non smette di brulicare un rumore che sembra venire da un’acciaieria più che del traffico cittadino. Reperti di aria industriale, quindi. Ma poi anche fringuelli e pappagalli. Il suono viaggia da un canale all’altro, addensandosi e dilatandosi durante tutti gli otto movimenti senza titolo del disco. Roberto Mandolini

“Nocturnal Rainbow Rising” reviewed by 5 against 4

Nocturnal Rainbow Rising
Ran Slavin’s latest release is another free download, from the excellent Crónica netlabel. It’s a disc that demonstrates real skill at shaping sound, as well as formidable restraint, the tracks given space to develop at their own pace, never seeming forced along. Its use of bass frequencies to punctuate the material is very striking; “Pure Honey in Lack One” is perhaps the best example.

via 5 against 4

“Is That You?” reviewed by 5 against 4

Is That You?
Netlabels – a curious phenomenon, n’est pas? • On the one hand, they’re rather like havens for creatives to inhabit, artistic agglomerations producing wildly (un)predictable output; on the other, their surprising dedication to giving music away free of charge seems to have abandoned any hope of remuneration for creative endeavour • It’s hard to see them as the future; for now, at least, they’re fascinating & very useful; a gift horse into the mouth of which i have no intention of looking • Some netlabels have made the mistake of becoming stylistically typecast (e.g. one – & a feeble style at that), while others seemingly vanish overnight (the most recent being Nikita Golyshev’s excellent Musica Excentrica, that one can only hope returns soon) • The best, however, chart an altogether less predictable path through territory that is often radical & challenging • Crónica is one of my favourites, a netlabel combining physical & digital releases, some of which are free, alongside some curious accompanying paraphernalia (or, if you prefer, art) & interesting podcasts •

It was Crónica that introduced me to the Italian multimedia duo Tu M’ who, early this year, released a free EP entitled Is That You?, which quickly became—& remains—one of my favourite releases of 2008 • It comprises three tracks, one for each word of that title, exploring markedly different sonic environments • The laptop—rapidly becoming (at least, ostensibly) a sine qua non for the budding composer—is the instrument of choice for Tu M’, but this is very far from obvious in the opening track, “Is” • It’s an organic, woody composition, with clarinets & marimba pervading most clearly through the warm fog that drifts stodgily for its 5-minute duration • Tu M’ have struck a critical balance here; the sounds are obviously treated & manipulated, but at no point lose that essential quality that betrays a raw acoustic origin • It’s beautiful & tragic, a dirge-like procession that is as moving as it is striking • The longest track, “That”, occupies a more luminous landscape, spinning & pulsating with heavy radiance • Pulses, yes, but not a pulse, as such; the object at the aural centre floats tantalisingly free from any trace of rhythm, couched in the kind of soft ambient washes that, in lesser hands, become mere mush • It’s an exquisite ambient creation, static & yet always shifting & evolving, hovering around the listener, by turns sitting quietly & looming large • “You?” is something of a counterpart to the opening track, although here dirge has turned to majesty, tears have yielded to a smile, its slow chord progressions sounding like a chorale intoned on deep brass • Although voluminous, the 7 minutes of velvet richness have a lightness that’s difficult to pinpoint, but is clearly evident; maybe it’s the brightness of the cadence that begins each repetition, perhaps the impossibly slow crescendo—whatever, it is a ravishingly, emotionally laden valediction to a really excellent little EP • i cannot recommend this release highly enough • My average rating: 5/5

via 5 against 4

New unlimited release: Morten Riis’s “Digital Sound Drawings”

Digital Sound Drawings
Crónica is delighted to present the fifth release in the Unlimited Series, “Digital Sound Drawings” by danish composer Morten Riis.

“Digital Sound Drawings” is a collection of 6 pieces composed through the drawing of images and their direct conversion into sound. By literally drawing sounds, Morten Riis presents us carefully hand-crafted pieces that are in reality audiovisual creations, due to the great care that was put on composing not only the sound but also the visual appearance of their waveforms.

This release is distributed as 24 bit 44.1 KHz AIFF files, and the listener is encouraged to use a wave editor when listening to the tracks, watching the waveforms as they play.

The compositions

In the recent years the tendency in music software has been to facilitate usage, including more and more pre-made presets and sound banks to work from. Consequently, more and more of the actual sound creation has shifted from the composers’ hand to the music software programmers’. For me it has been become more and more uninteresting to use music software to create music because you have to go a long way to push the software to its limits before you get satisfying results. That’s why I started to use other not-music-specific software to create my music. When you work with this type of “data bending” you achieve a closer relation to how the computer actually handles data, you work more “under the hood” of the computer, and you must be able to understand how the different bits and bytes work in the computer, in order to get what you want.

That’s why I chose to draw my sound material in an image editor. Working in that way you have control over each sample, you work in an environment where the standard music terms do not exist, and thereby force your mind to think outside the box of musical conventions.

Tracklist

  1. [d.raw]
  2. [new.s]
  3. [wav.form]
  4. [nor.m]
  5. [raw.d]
  6. [pic.ture]

The artwork

Conical
With “Digital Sound Drawings”, Crónica presents the fourth release in the Limited Series of original artworks. The Limited counterpart to “Digital Sound Drawings” is ”Conical”, a certified signed and numbered limited edition of ten 40 x 40 cm archival inkjet prints by Marius Watz. 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.

Free download!

Follow the link to this release’s page in Crónica or get it directly from here (236MB).

New limited release: Marius Watz’s “Conical” prints

Conical
We’re very proud to announce the fourth release in the Limited Release series of Crónica, Marius Watz’s “Conical”.

Conical is an investigation of a 3D form composed of lines that trace out segments of multiple cones. Seen at a distance, the form becomes a spatial volume. Zooming in, the sense of volume disappears and the form becomes a 2D surface. The image resolves into a complex pattern of optical interference, without any depth cues to indicate its 3D nature.

Conical
Conical is also the cover art for Morten Riis’s “Digital Sound Drawings”. Each of the 10 signed and numbered copies is signed and certified by Marius Watz and available directly from Crónica for just 125€.