New release: Hannes Strobl’s “Weben Song”

“The things around us speak like housings that make something sound, like musical instruments…” wrote Jacob Böhme in 1622 in his work De signatura rerum.

While working on a performance-installation (doublelucky productions) at the former Leipzig Cotton Mill (founded in 1884 and at the time the largest cotton mill in continental Europe), I began experimenting with the sound of the supporting cast-iron columns that ran through all floors of the building. Each of these iron columns has its own sound signature, which consists of a fundamental frequency (keynote) and the distribution of a series of overtones or partials (sound spectrum). These spectral properties and patterns determine the unmistakable timbre and unique sound quality and serve as the foundation for the composition Weben (Weave) Song — they are the elementary sonic building blocks from which the composition is derived.

Fine overlapping spectral fabrics and rhythmic beat patterns unfold over time, weaving ever-new structures.

Hannes Strobl works as a musician, composer and sound artist based in Berlin. The essential starting point of his music is the sonic potential of the electric bass guitar and the electric upright bass. Its characteristic expressive repertoire is expanded through the use of advanced playing techniques in combination with live electronics, dissolving the boundaries between instrumental and electro-acoustic music. One important focus of his compositional work lies on musical expression forms against the backdrop of urban sound spaces. On the other hand on installation works, where the starting point lies in the relationship between sound and architectural space. Since 2000 Hannes Strobl has been developing this concept together with Sam Auinger in the project TAMTAM. In collaboration with David Moss and Hanno Leichtmann the project DENSELAND was founded in 2008 and with Reinhold Friedl the project P.O.P. (Psychology of Perception) in 2012.

Weben Song is now available to stream or download from Crónica.

Bruno Duplant’s “Écouter les Fantômes” reviewed by Chain DLK

Bruno Duplant’s “Écouter les fantômes” is an immersive journey that sits at the intersection of sound art, memory, and the imagination. A prolific composer from Northern France, Duplant draws inspiration from literary figures such as Gaston Bachelard and Stéphane Mallarmé, blending their philosophical musings with musical influences from the likes of John Cage and Eliane Radigue. His work is often concerned with the intangible – what he refers to as “fictions” – allowing his compositions to transcend reality and delve into a dream-like, forgotten space.

The album, consisting of two expansive tracks, creates a haunting auditory experience. It’s not haunted in the traditional sense of eerie noises or ghostly apparitions; rather, it feels like an exploration of the shadows cast by forgotten memories and distant echoes of life. Duplant’s fascination with what’s invisible and unspoken is clear, reflecting the influence of theorists like R. Murray Schafer, who examined the relationship between sound and its environment. In “Écouter les fantômes”, these “ghosts” seem to represent the remnants of what we can’t consciously recall but continue to carry within us – both sonically and emotionally.

Duplant’s use of acoustic and electronic devices crafts a sonic narrative where boundaries between time, place, and memory are blurred. The pieces unfold slowly, with layers of delicate sound textures that reflect his keen attention to the small, often unnoticed elements of life. Echoes, distant murmurs, and drones overlap like half-remembered conversations or the faint traces of a dream. These auditory choices invite the listener to engage in a deep, almost meditative form of listening, akin to how one might approach the works of Luc Ferrari or Radigue – both of whom Duplant clearly reveres for their ability to manipulate sound into abstract landscapes.

There’s a strong narrative current running through the album as well, in the sense that each sound element feels like a chapter in a larger, surreal story. This is where his connection to writers such as Georges Perec comes into play, particularly in the way Duplant’s music evokes memory. Perec, known for his explorations of loss, memory, and absence, shares with Duplant a fascination for what’s unsaid or invisible. It’s as if “Écouter les fantômes” is a sound map of forgotten moments, allowing us to access places within ourselves we didn’t realize we had lost.

Ultimately, “Écouter les fantômes” is less an album to be listened to casually and more a space to be inhabited. Like many of Duplant’s works, it defies conventional musical structures in favor of a more immersive, philosophical approach. This release on Crónica captures his signature ability to bend sound, time, and memory, reminding us that often the most meaningful things are those we cannot see or touch but rather feel hovering just out of sight – like ghosts. Vito Camarretta

via Chain DLK

Matilde Meireles’s “Loop. And Again.” reviewed by Anxious Musick Magazine

Loop. And Again. zagłębia się w dynamikę pól magnetycznych, skomplikowane układy okablowania i ich wzajemne powiązania ze zmianami w otaczającym krajobrazie. Album jest częścią X Marks the Spot, większego projektu, który wykorzystywał dźwięk do mapowania określonych skrzynek telekomunikacyjnych – tylko tych emitujących słyszalny dron – w mieście Belfast w latach 2013-2019. W projekcie dźwięk sugeruje różne sposoby zaangażowania się w Belfast, gdzie trasy spacerowe mogą być improwizowane, aby włączyć drony jako część tego, jak doświadczamy miasta.

X Marks the Spot rozwinął się jako projekt partycypacyjny przypominający grę slow-mapping, zainicjowany przez Matilde w ramach jej badań doktoranckich. Projekt skłonił ją do zaangażowania się w części miasta, których prawdopodobnie inaczej by nie poznała. Projekt pozwolił jej również rozpocząć rozmowy na temat wędrówek w mieście po konflikcie oraz znaczenia zwracania uwagi na to, co nas otacza, poprzez metodologie krytycznego słuchania.

Loop. And Again. powraca i odkrywa na nowo nagrania terenowe skrzynek zmapowanych dla X Marks the Spot. Album oddaje cześć tym zwykłym przedmiotom, które są częścią niewidzialnej tkanki miasta, zapraszając nas do szczegółowego wsłuchania się w ich materialność. Poprzez tę uważną zmianę perspektywy i skali, Matilde zaprasza nas do rozszerzenia tego, co postrzegamy jako wibracje dźwiękowe w środowisku miejskim.

Album zawiera nagrania wykonane za pomocą dwóch mikrofonów kontaktowych i czujnika elektromagnetycznego, nagrania całego środowiska, w którym znajdują się pudełka, wykonane za pomocą mikrofonu ambisonicznego 360˚ oraz nagrania rzeki Lagan wykonane za pomocą dwóch hydrofonów. Nagrania terenowe przepływają przez trzy utwory; pojawiają się również w różnych przetworzonych formach i działają jako podstawa pętli generatywnych.

via Anxious

New release: Matilde Meireles’s “Loop. And Again.”

Loop. And Again. delves into the dynamics of magnetic fields, intricate wiring arrangements, and their interconnectedness with the shifts in the surrounding landscape. The album is part of X Marks the Spot, a larger project which used sound to map specific telecommunication boxes—only those emitting an audible drone—in the city of Belfast between 2013-2019. In the project, sound suggests different ways to engage with Belfast, where walking routes could be improvised to incorporate the drones as part of how we experience the city.

X Marks the Spot developed as a slow-mapping game-like participatory project initiated by Matilde as part of her PhD research. The project prompted her to engage with parts of the city she probably would not otherwise get to know. The project also allowed her to start conversations about wandering in a post-conflict city, and the importance of attending to what is around us through critical listening methodologies.

Loop. And Again. revisits and reinvents field recordings of the boxes mapped for X Marks the Spot. The album honours these ordinary objects that are part of the invisible fabric of the city by inviting us to listen to their materiality in great detail. Through this attentive shift in perspective and scale, Matilde invites us to extend what we perceive as sonic vibrations in the urban environment.

The album includes recordings made with two contact microphones and an electromagnetic sensor, recordings of the overall environment where the boxes are located made with a 360˚ ambisonic microphone, and recordings of the river Lagan made with two hydrophones. The field recordings flow throughout the three tracks; they also appear in various processed forms and act as the foundation for generative loops.

The track Cross Parade wraps the album and hints at the social aspects of X Marks the Spot. It includes additional recent recordings of Matilde’s time at Fingal, Bronagh and Paul’s house close to Cross Parade in Belfast, and several trombone improvisations by Tullis Rennie—who mapped the Cross Parade box for X Marks the Spot a decade ago.

Now available as a limited-release CD, stream or download.

Marla Hlady & Christof Migone’s “Swan Song” reviewed by The Sound Projector

Spirits Drifting

Here’s two discs of very enjoyable drone music produced by various processes…Swan Song (CRÓNICA196-2023) was realised by Marla Hlady and Christof Migone, and they did it during a three-month residency in Glenfiddich.

From what I can make out, it’s a clever bit of “repurposing” of old equipment from the Glenfidich still, specifically the copper “swan necks” which are essential to the character of each still, and the taste of the whiskey. According to one online source, “the shape of the swan neck can give the vapours a smooth ride or act as a baffle, leading heavier elements to condense against the copper surface and drop back down into the pot, leaving the lighter elements in the vapour to carry over the top.” When our two European friends arrived in 2019, it so happened that two old stills were being replaced by new ones, and they seized their chance as the crane lowered the copper tubes to the ground. The swan necks became part of a “kinetic sound sculpture”. The musicians used them to amplify sound recordings they made – field recordings captured around the distillery, all methodically listed here, all of them important stages in the production of whiskey (even including the spring water from Robbie Dhu), thus telling the whole story from start to finish, in sound. This results in the quite sublime soaring drones – three very long ones – on the first disc, while the second disc presents eight shorter pieces referring obliquely to pumps, processes, and mash…this second disc, although heavily abstracted, is perhaps the more process-heavy of the two, and not as successful as achieving the sublimation of the three long pieces. Part of that success is down to the choir – not a choir of professional musicians, but workers and staff at the distillery in Dufftown, who were required not to sing in a mass but simply produce two short voice recordings, high and low. Hlady and Migone then arranged the recordings according to a system – some sort of mathematical calculation based on how long the staff had been in the job in relation to the age of the plant.

The project, and the record, align with a certain trend I’ve been detecting in experimental music for a few years now – it’s to do with the decline of built infrastructure, the collapse of certain industries that can’t compete in the modern world, or just general observations on 21st-century decay and entropy. The last time I mused on this trend was here. There was also Iain Chambers and The Eccentric Press record. Many of these projects find ways to capture, or generate, sound from buildings or machinery, and reprocess it into something new. In the case of Swan Song, this time it’s not a pessimistic take, since the distillery in question continues to thrive and do business; the “Swan” part is of course a reference to the copper swan necks, not to the dying gasps of a neglected industry. And as already noted, I like the comprehensive way that their holistic understanding of the process, and their research, has been used to structure this particular piece. From 2nd March 2023. Ed Pinsent

via The Sound Projector

Simon Whetham’s “Successive Actions” reviewed by Vital Weekly

Music by Simon Whetham we reviewed quite a bit. ‘Successive Actions’ is already his fifth release for Cronica and another apparition of his “kinetic sound performance project series ‘Channelling’ in which various motor devices, salvaged from obsolete and discarded consumer technology, are activated by playing sound recordings through them. This produces new sounds from the devices, amplified using various microphones and techniques.” For other works in this series see also Vital Weekly 1437 and 1405. I am unsure to which extent this particular set of recordings differs from the previous instalments. Judging by the sounds, there may not be that many differences. As it happens with this kind of release, documenting installations with sound, without the visual component, it is very hard to imagine what these look like and what the hell one hears. That said, as before, this sounds all quite fascinating. On the risk of copying too much of the previous review, the music has a solid electro-acoustic character, vibrant and energetic. Percussive music, if you will, but none of the standard percussion bits, more akin to a drummer playing household objects and debris. With the hushed and muffled tones, the music gets a layer of mystery about, with the listener being locked up in a dark dungeon, not a cave, but a plastic one, made out of waste, and we hear waste dumped on top, rolling off a hill and we don’t know if there’s an escape. Again, as before, lovely stuff, with the note about not being too sure what the differences are. (FdW)

via Vital Weekly

Philippe Petit’s “A Divine Comedy” reviewed by African Paper

Cover of the album "A Divine Comedy"

Crónica bringen Mitte Februar eine neue CD von Philippe Petit heraus, auf der der Klangkünstler – inspiriert von Dante Alighieris La Divina Comedia und den Illustrationen von Gustave Doré – “eine symphonische Palette musikalischer Pigmente, bildnerischer Töne und Texturen, die das epische Narrativ mit einer expressionistischen musikalischen Form versöhnen”, wie es beim Label heißt. Petitis Absicht war nicht, den Klassiker neu und im Medium der Musik neu zu illustrieren, sondern eine neue Geschichte einer Parallelwelt zu erzählen, in der die farbenfrohen musikalischen Motive selbst einen Plot enfalten, den die Hörer wie einen Film oder Roman erleben können.

via African Paper

Philippe Petit’s “A Divine Comedy” reviewed by Musique Machine

Cover of the album "A Divine Comedy"

A Divine Comedy is a two-disc journey into jarring, shifting, moody, at points decidedly hellish electro-symphonic-come-electro-acoustic sound scaping from French musician, journalists and radio DJ Philippe Petit. The release is themed around/roughly based on the 18th-century poem of the same name by Dante Alighieri.

The release comes presented in a mini card gatefold- on its front cover it features a blood and fire red collage taking in overlaid images from what looks like old religious prints of hell, demons, and a headless gowned figure. Inside we find an eight-page booklet- this details the themes of the work, sonically what each track consists of, and a rundown of each track’s plot.

Disc number one takes in six tracks- these move from “Halas Jacta Est” with its raising ‘n’ falling baying elector tones, inside piano fumbling/ twang, and jarring cut-up male & female vocal samples with a decidedly theatrical leaning. Onto bubbling-to-beaded analogue synth tones, rushing ambience, and unease mumbles ‘n’ screams of “The Descent”. Though to the tolling keys, synth bay, electro billow/ stretch, subtle gong strike, and plodding horn trumpeting of “Lucifer, Fallen Angel”.

The second CD features five tracks. We go from textural fumble ‘n’ creak, slow-mo string bay, and sudden jarring percussive rattle of “Purgatorio, Canto I”. There’s plodding & pitch warping “Purgatorio, Canto III” which blends sombre string glide, electro stretches, and searing pitch climbs. The disc plays out with “Paradiso, Canto II” with its shrill & warbling tones, harmonic piano key strikes, bass-bound electro purrs, and turntable sound grain.

A Divine Comedy certainly takes you on a jarring & often seared sonic journey- I can see this appeal to those who enjoy their symphonic sounds unpredictable, noise-bound, and dangerous. Roger Batty

via Musique Machine

Matilde Meireles’s “Loop. And Again.” reviewed by Vital Weekly

From Matilde Meireles I reviewed a cassette before, ‘The Life Of A Potato’ (see Vital Weekly 1316), for the same label, now releasing, ‘Loop. And Again’, which isn’t the same colourful title as before. Meireles uses field recordings to compose site-oriented projects., and “investigates the potential of listening across spectrums and scales as ways to attune to various ecosystems and articulate plural experiences of the world. Some examples include the inner architectures of reeds and complex water ecologies, resonances in everyday objects, local neighbourhoods and the architecture of radio signals”. On her new album, she works with “the dynamics of magnetic fields”. This project she did in Belfast and “In the project, sound suggests different ways to engage with Belfast, where walking routes could be improvised to incorporate the drones as part of how we experience the city.” I am sorry about these lengthy quotes. There is a lot more to quote from, but essentially, she made her recordings with two contact microphones and an electromagnetic sensor of the overall environment of the city and the river Lagan, and sometimes they are processed. The opening piece, ‘Introducing Variables’, is a beautiful piece of gorgeous drones that sound like sine waves and in and out of the mix we have the floating city and river sounds. It all sounds very tranquil, which may seem odd for a city of unrest. Something happens in the second piece, ‘Magnetic Fields’, relying even more on drone-like loops with robust ambient quality and the field recordings on a sparser level. The last piece is ‘Cross Parade’, which is a break with the other two. Here are some private home recordings, including trombone improvisations by Tullis Rennie, who worked on the same project a few years ago. Here too, we find some long-form tones, but now from the trombone, which makes for a distinctive, different sound, along with a discussion at the breakfast table. Not bad, just different and something one could consider putting on a different album, or maybe add one of these and have a different balance? It’s a minor thing on an otherwise fine album. (FdW)

via Vital Weekly

New release: @c’s “Installations: CX LUX (2017)”

In their collaboration as @c, Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais developed several installations, often site-specific and ephemeral works. This series of releases in Crónica is dedicated to revisiting these installation works, occasionally with situ recordings, but also further exploring the computational systems developed for the works, archival materials, and other assets, presenting new compositions that unfold from each installation. This series is accompanied by the book Installations / Instalações also published by Crónica.

The sixth release in this series is CX LUX, after an open-air installation created for the summer 2017 Alumia program, organised by the city of Porto. We chose to work at the Lada lift, in Porto’s Ribeira district, a towering structure inspired by the nearby 19th-century bridges, housing an elevator that connects the riverside with the higher city. One of the oldest parts of town, traditionally a business and residential area, Ribeira is now one of Porto’s tourist centres, which puts significant pressure on its inhabitants, forced to deal with noise and gentrification.

While working on this piece, we spent time in a neighbourhood that had long been familiar to us but in which neither of us had lived. We met people, explored the meandering streets and researched the radical transformations experienced during the lifetimes of its inhabitants. What we learned led us to create a piece that, much as Ribeira, was continuously transforming, with a daytime sound installation at the upper-level passageway of the lift and a nighttime light installation at the tower’s façade. Two halves that never intersected and were only related in viewers’ memories.

The sound installation evoked the lost soundscapes of Ribeira, bringing back keynote sounds that vanished due to the relocation of businesses and demographic changes. Some of the sounds evoked by residents included the bells of many churches that are no longer active or the sounds of livestock (and their bells) from a market that has long been relocated from what now is the foot of the lift. In their many forms, bells became the central conceptual starting point for a composition created to blend with Ribeira’s soundscape.

Installations: CX LUX (2017) is now available to stream or download.