A residency in 2017 at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, in Braga, Portugal, was an opportunity for Pedro Rebelo to discover the world of nanotechnology research, in particular through following researchers working on a project in the area of food safety.
Rebelo’s primary interest in sound led him to explore the sonorities of the research processes, the labs, the machinery and the entire sonic environment within which researchers operate at INL. The richness of this environment is remarkable, as researchers gradually “tune in†to specific sounds and patterns that ultimately embed their sense of time and space. From the blips of a certain piece of equipment, the huge air handling fans, the hiss of pouring liquid nitrogen, to the piercing sharpness of ultrasound “baths†used to mix specific compounds, this sound world is full of signs, full of aural cues saying “listen to me!â€
The residency resulted in a sound installation at GNRation and then it developed into a further exploration of the sound materials collected in the two pieces presented in this release.
Pedro Rebelo is a composer, sound artist and performer. In 2002, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Edinburgh where he conducted research in both music and architecture.
In 2012 he was appointed Professor of Sonic Arts at Queen’s University Belfast and awarded the Northern Bank’s “Building Tomorrow’s Belfast†prize. He has recently been awarded two major grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council including the interdisciplinary project “Sounding Conflictâ€, investigating relationships between sound, music and conflict situations.
“Listen to meâ€Â is now available as a limited-release cassette and for download or stream.
L’incertitude ist die erste Zusammenarbeit der beiden Experimentalmusiker Rutger Zuydervelt aus den Niederlanden und Bruno Duplant aus Frankreich. Beide haben sich mit Soloarbeiten und Zusammenarbeiten mit anderen Größen des Genres über Jahre einen Namen gemacht und legen nun zwei lang angelegte Stücke mit jeweils um die 23 Minuten Lauflänge vor.
Hauptbestandteil der Tracks sind zu einer Collage zusammengefasste Fieldrecordings, die geschickt über sphärische elektronische Loops und Atmosphären gelegt wurden. Das dritte Element sind Gesprächsfetzen, die dem Ganzen mitunter einen Hörspielcharakter verleihen.
Die elektronischen Spielerein sind zwar experimentell, aber das Duo legt viel Wert darauf, das alles atmosphärisch daher kommt und auch Melodien und Rhythmen Ihren Platz bekommen. So spielen sie mit diesem Album oftmals ähnliche Klänge wie ein Edward Ka-Spel oder dessen Legendary Pink Dots auf den für diese wiederum eher experimentelleren Werken. Aber nicht selten erinnern mich Ideen, Atmosphären oder gar Melodien an eben diese Alben.
Beide Stücke bauen sich wunderbar auf, entwickeln eine packende Atmosphäre und einen wunderbaren Sog, der den Hörer in die ambienten und versponnenen Klänge hineinzieht.
Das Album erscheint nur als Download und in einer Kleinstauflage, die vermutlich bereits vergriffen ist, auf der guten alten Musikkassette. Wolfgang Kabsch
This is the first work I hear by Pedro Rebelo, who studied in Edinburgh music and architecture. He did “participatory projects involving communities in Belfast, Mare, Rio de Janeiro, Portugal and Mozambique”, sound installations and concerts. For this work, he uses recordings he made at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Braga, Portugal. A place for research, where he followed those involved “working on a project in the area of food safety”. He recorded the sonic environment, which later resulted in a sound installation piece and a further exploration that is this cassette. I can’t say to what extent Rebelo uses sound processing or if all of this is perhaps just a collage of sounds tape on-site. Also, I have no idea how much of this uses repetition in the form of samples or loops. In both cases, I would think there are some processing and some use of loops. I might be wrong of course. To say this is a collage of sound is not far from the truth. And a great collage this surely is. There are lots of machines sounds here, whirring, buzzing, sawing off electrical charges all around; from a giant hall of machines into a small freezer. Rebelo takes both macro and micro shoots of the place (maybe even nano shoots), which in their combined state deliver a beautiful piece of electro-acoustic music. Some sounds are shifted around and return in other places, some only have a brief existence. This is industrial music without being very industrial I guess. The two pieces, together about thirty minutes, are well-made, changing throughout, never resting or overstaying their welcome; two fine slabs of concrete music. (FdW)
In a time where human contact is restricted for safety reasons, contact in this work takes place by — literally — listening closely to the sounds of objects which are very much part of my domestic daily life. During April 2020, I collected a series of sounds around my house on Sunnyside Street (Belfast, NI) including a wide variety of textures captured with different types of contact microphones, and multiple layers of electromagnetic interference caused by the growing use of electronic devices and the internet. These recordings form the basis of an exploration of the micro and extra-human sounds produced by the physical and virtual objects such as the radiator, the kettle, the shower, or the internet. Sunnyside intertwines these elements to reinforce repetition, discovery, detail and loss of perception of time that characterises the experience of many during our current life in confinement.
Matilde Meireles is a recordist, sound artist, and researcher who makes use of field recordings to compose site-oriented projects focused on sound. Her projects often have a multi-sensorial approach to ‘site’ which draws from her studies and experience in areas such as field-recording, site-specific visual arts and design.
She completed a PhD in Sonic Arts at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. She was also appointed as a Research Fellow on several projects at Queen’s examining the role that immersive technologies can play in the development of new digital narratives.
Her work often highlights collaboration and participation as catalysts for a shared understanding of place, developing project-based or long-term collaborations. Matilde is also part of OSSO Colectivo, an interdisciplinary collective based in Portugal.
Even in Kruger National Park (South Africa), a huge subtropical area, crossed by many rivers and by the Tropic of Capricorn, hosting the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga, it is possible to identify a sharp division between natural and constructed landscapes. The latter are definitely smaller and made almost exclusively to allow the tourists to visit these locations and enjoy a unique landscape. In contrast to the European landscape, where this difference is softer and the countryside is largely the result of an anthropic adaptation, here indigenous nature, inhospitable for human beings, is preserved as it actually is. Tourists are confined within some highly delimited areas, often with high fences and high-tension electric enclosures. As it also usual in any park, there are souvenir shops, restaurants and shelters for the tourists, and several rest areas. Philip Samartzis and Eric La Casa recorded the sounds of Captured Space over ten days. Because of the strict regulations of the park, which the two artists initially ignored, every audio recording concerning the open spaces was made on a vehicle, or inside the environments they lodged in during the night. Most of the time the sound was “far†from the field recorders, but eventually for the project this turned out to be a great creative possibility, rather than a limitation. The duo could physically report the reality of an uncontaminated yet claustrophobic space, where human beings are just passing by, while animals paradoxically are more free than the exotic mix of people who are constrained by their environment. The work by Sarartzis and La Casa might look controversial, due to the way it was made, but it depicts a “non-ordinary realityâ€, by showing a quite regulated context. The final result is some brilliant and rich recordings, cleverly spatialized and full of unconventional sounds. Aurelio Cianciotta