Chris Watson journeys to the South Pole for the forthcoming David Attenborough series “The Frozen Planet” (BBC, 2011). Here he reports back with his experiences…
Photos by Chris Watson & Jason Roberts.
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play "A Journey South"
www.chriswatson.net
Track listing:
1: Outside By The Fjord - 25:09
From a field recording trip in Sørfjorden, near Tromsø, Norway.
Commissioned by Fondazione Musica per Roma, 2008.
Track listing:
1: Outside By The Fjord - 25m09s
From a field recording trip in Sørfjorden, near Tromsø, Norway.
Commissioned by Fondazione Musica per Roma, 2008.
Born in Tromso (Norway), Geir Jenssen is better known as Biosphere, a key figure in contemporary Norwegian music. In 1992, Jenssen shot to fame with his Biosphere-debut album "Microgravity", becoming one of the pioneering ambient artists from the 90's. He was one of the first to come up with the mix of soundscapes, voice samples and atmospheric noise with trancey melodies and solid beats.
Touch Live on September 26th 2009 at Todaysart 09, Den Haag featured Biosphere, Philip Jeck, Hildur Gudnadottir, Jana Winderen & The Eternal Chord. Biosphere gave an intimate performance in the Lutherse Kerk, a very small church.
Recorded straight from the mixing desk to an Ares Pll Nagra digital recorder.
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play “Live in Den Haag”
www.biosphere.no
Wednesday 24th February 2010
Philip Jeck
Time: 20:00
Venue: Hall One
An Ark for the Listener, a new work inspired by Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem The Wreck Of The Deutschland.
"An aspiration in answer to an inspiration,
out of music shaped by all the sea has claimed,
as is the inevitable shipwreck of our existence.
Salvaged out of vinyl, by way of ear, hand and electricity."
"And I have asked to be... out of the swing of the sea." (G M Hopkins)
Thursday 25 February
Time: 20:00
Venue: Hall One
Hauschka with Hildur Guðnadóttir
Haushka is the alias of Dusseldorf keyboardist Volker Bertelman. His critically-acclaimed albums on the 130701 imprint evince a playfully accessible approach to the often austere realm of the prepared piano. Haushka is joined tonight by gifted Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir for a major new, aquatically-themed commission.
Saturday 27 February
Hildur Guðnadóttir
Time: 19:00
Venue: Hall One
Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir has collaborated with the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Múm and Haushka. She released her debut solo album in 2007. An electronic-tinged follow-up, Without Sinking, appeared in 2009 on the Touch label.
More info and tickets at www.kingsplace.co.uk
www.jointhecircle.net
www.philipjeck.com
www.hildurness.com
Jewel case with concertina insert
Artwork & Photography by Jon Wozencroft
Plus bonus 320kbps .mp3 download - 1 track - 33:44
TO:77DL - BJNilsen "Live at Café Oto", Atmospheres 3, 7.xii.09
Available only when purchasing "The Invisible City" via the TouchShop.
Track listing:
1. Gravity Station
2. Phase and Amplitude
3. Scientia
4. Virtual Resistance
5. Meter Reading
6. Into Its Coloured Rays
7. Gradient
8. The Invisible City
About this release:
Recorded and Mixed during 2008-2009 in Berlin.
All tracks composed by BJNilsen using Tape Recorders, Computer, Organ, Acoustic Guitar, Electronics, Viola, Subharchord. Field recordings from; Sweden, Iceland, Norway, UK, Japan, Portugal and Germany. The Subharchord was recorded in the EAM Studio @ Adk, Berlin. Viola played by Hildur I. Gudnadottir.
Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye
Published by Touch Music [MCPS]
Dusted (USA):
In BJ Nilsen’s carefully balanced combinations of natural, performed, and manipulated sounds, nature often seems to have the upper hand. But not on The Invisible City. Its naturally sourced elements, which he’s scrupulously noted track by track, have been digitally processed into subtly humorous grotesques; the bumblebees on “Phase and Amplitude” have been processed into something more akin to a field recording of trucks rumbling in and out a distant construction site, and “Scientia’s” birdsongs has been transformed into pitilessly piercing lances of feedback.
But the humans don’t fare much better. The heroically wailing electric guitar on “Virtual Resistance” gets buried under unidentifiable electronic blasts, bringing to mind images of puny mankind being smudged out by contemptuous Aeolian blasts. And that’s about as evident as people get in this city; it may be the work of mankind, but individual people have been wiped away, perhaps just moments before the listener’s arrival. A weather broadcast flickers into hearing for a moment, and then disappears. An identifiable instrument heaves into the foreground only to be electronically blanched, twisted, and crumpled into something no longer recognizable. The cover images are studies of sparsely lit buildings and empty streets with nary a person in sight. This is the city as experienced by a solitary visitor whose circadian rhythms are set to a different clock. The emptiness is frightening, the occasional surges of activity even more so.
Late in the journey the album detours into recognizable music. With its swelling guitar noise and organ chords, “Gradient” feels a distant kin to Popol Vuh’s soundtracks for Werner Herzog’s movies, which so often accompanied visual meditations of places that man couldn’t reach or hold. It’s a calming gesture, one that is whipped away by the title track’s final blinding flash of sped-up tape. Nilsen has been working in this vein for a decade, but on The Invisible City he’s really upped his game. This is his most emotionally affecting work to date. [Bill Meyer]
The Silent Ballet (USA):
Long considered a staple in the Touch roster, BJ Nilsen is a master of field recording-based music. Previously stunning audiences with Fade to White and A Short Night, BJ Nilsen doesn't budge an inch on The Invisible City and delivers another disc densely filled with layers of static, electronic hums and pulses and cold, steely recordings. It's a disc that is perfectly befitting of the desolate substructures of a city, where humans are a scarcity and machines tirelessly slave away to keep the infrastructure functioning. From deafening silence to ear drum splitting outbursts of noise, Nilsen shows again why he's one of the most respected experimental artists working today, and why few have been able to match his creative insight.
The Wire (UK):
Mapsadaisical (UK):
In recent years, Christian Fennesz and Philip Jeck may have stolen the critical plaudits for the Touch label, but arguably the label’s most vital artist is Stockholm’s BJ Nilsen. His diverse interests have led him into collaborate with the UK’s premier sound recordist Chris Watson, and with Icelandic experimentalists Stillupsteypa and cellist Hildur Gudnadottir. It is in his solo work, both on record and in concert, that he has brought all this together, fusing field recordings with electronics to create coherent works focusing on the interface between humans and nature. And, particularly in the case of new album The Invisible City, with technology.
Nilsen’s excellent 2006 album The Short Night took him on an Arctic exploration, and while The Invisible City features recordings from as far South as Portugal, it feels little warmer or lighter. For the most part, these are some particularly dark and icy atmospheres, and feel a further step removed from life, if not from civilisation. The images The Invisible City evokes for me are of the unseen networks which support the city: electrical grids, subterranean transport, and telecommunication channels. This may appear odd when you read that the sound sources appear to some extent to be typical Nilsen fare, including bees, wasps, birds and cats, but they too find themselves sucked into these conduits. None of those feature on opener “Gravity Station”, which starts from near silence as “Front” did on The Short Night. Layers of electrical hum and sine waves are topped with a phone line burble which builds in intensity, before exploding into scarred metallic fragments. I think this must be what it would feel like to send yourself by fax (note to self: don’t ever try this). The animals’ attempts at communication bleed into these networks, with the birdsong of “Scientia” and “Virtual Resistance” processed into digital unrecognisability. The latter glows with a harsh street-light buzz, as someone’s footsteps emerge from late night underground station rumble. The train batters on through into “Meter Reading“, the grind of metal-on-metal gradually wearing away at the piece to leave a silent black platform, before tearing off again through the rain on the propulsive title track, ending the album on a thrilling and fulfilling note. The Invisible City fades fast into the distance, into the air, and into the ground. I’ll be taking many return journeys.
Purchases of The Invisible City from the Touch shop come with a download of BJ Nilsen’s performance at Cafe Oto last month.
Brainwashed (USA):
Using unrecognizably tweaked field recordings of cats, crows, bees, wasps, boat ramps, and dead trees, the ever-reliable BJ Nilsen has crafted yet another complex and desolately beautiful suite of droning ambiance that subtly crackles and buzzes with life. The Invisible City might be the first great headphone album of 2010.
Sweden's BJ Nilsen has a surprisingly recognizable aesthetic for such an inherently faceless genre. Superficially, of course, all the central elements of contemporary electronic drone are here: a sustained and hypnotically shifting backbone, subterranean throbs, and a fluttering array of non-musical sounds dancing around it all. However, BJ is in a league by himself in regards to meticulousness, exactitude, and discipline. There is no clutter or bloat here, no laziness, and no attempt to use density to create an illusion of power and depth. Instead, Nilsen very starkly and crisply conveys exactly what he needs to and no more.
In lesser hands, that degree of calculation and artifice would probably result in a bloodless and clinical-sounding album. Actually, I suppose it is not completely unreasonable to describe this album as “clinical,” but it would be totally missing the point. The Invisible City is a deliberately cold, lonely, and futuristic-sounding album. Rather than an invisible city, it much more aptly evokes a haunting and Lynchian tableau of an utterly empty city at night, traffic lights endlessly flickering purposelessly and swaying in the gentle wind. Given the organic and nature-themed roots of much of the album’s source material, that is a pretty perverse place to wind up.
The liner notes provide a very interesting inventory of the sounds used for each individual track, which makes for an engrossing listening experience. Given that most of the field recordings are digitized into oblivion, I found it fascinating to try to figure out when exactly I was hearing an “amplified chair dragged across floor” or “dead trees leaning up against each other.” On the rare occasions when the source material is clearly recognizable, it is usually employed to disquieting effect (particularly the snowy footsteps in “Virtual Resistance”). The unnerving barrenness and alienation of the album creates a kind of vacuum that heightens the impact when anything recognizably human intrudes (and renders it vaguely sinister). Also, while there is generally not much overtly musical happening aside from occasional shimmering organ chords, vintage analog synthesizer fetishists will be thrilled to learn that Nilsen uses a subharchord for several tracks.
Those already familiar with BJ Nilsen’s work will not be surprised by much here, but they certainly will not be disappointed either. Nilsen has a very distinct and specific vision and he is steadily progressing and evolving within those narrow confines, but his trajectory is not likely to be obvious to casual listeners. The important thing is that BJ excels at what he does: the compositions themselves may be overtly minimal in nature, but the production transforms the base materials into something much deeper and more mesmerizing. This is layering at its most deft, as the glacially unfolding framework of the pieces houses a panning and warping hive of small-scale chaos. The Invisible City is a subtly mind-bending album of crystalline clarity and cold beauty. [Anthony D'Amico]
VITAL (Netherlands):
By now BJ Nilsen (or rather BJNilsen) is a mainstay on the Touch label. He is not a man of many words, or big concepts. I am not sure what the title 'The Invisible City' refers to, but it does have a detailed list of all of his sound sources per piece. Its an interesting read of 'amplified chair dragged across floor, window shutters, steel whistle coffeepot, dead trees leaning against each other, train, footsteps in snow, crows, rain' but also acoustic guitar feedback, tapeloops of found sounds, pitch regulated viola, B&K Sine Random Generator Type 1204, virtual Hammond Organ and such like. The titles of his pieces do not give away much either: 'Gravity Station', 'Phase And Amplitude', 'Scientia', 'Virtual Resistance', 'Meter Reading', 'Into Its Coloured Rays', 'Gradient' and the title piece. If necessary at all, one could consider Nilsen to be part of the crowded scene of people who create atmospheric, drone based music through all sorts of means, but at the end of the chain there is always the computer: all pieces list 'various DSP' at the end. That renders some of the sounds, if not all, beyond recognition. As said this music is highly atmospheric and finds its origin in drone music. This is a fine disc, don't get me wrong. There is some excellent music on here, that is at times more daring then the usual 'field recordings and drone music', with some nasty frequencies here and there, and some sudden changes. That is what sets BJNilsen apart from many of his peers. But somehow I also had the impression that 'heard it already' is also part of this. It seems to me that BJNilsen created some fine work which is already in his line of work, rather than making the next move. That perhaps is the only downside to this release. If you are not familiar with his work, then this is good release to get to know his work, and perhaps if you can never get enough, then this will prove no disappointment either. An absolutely great disc. [FdW]
Spinner (Spain):
Touch, una de las discográficas más exquisitas al mismo tiempo que atrevidas y fiables (publican poco pero siempre mantienen el listón de calidad bien alto) de todas las que puedes llevarte a casa, estrena el año con 'The Invisible City'. El nuevo largo de, apenas cumplidos los 35, uno de los compositores experimentales (por la rama ambiental) más prolíficos de nuestro tiempo. Él es BJ Nilsen: denle la bienvenida a su hogar.
El sueco, antes -cuando su leitmotiv artístico consistía casi exclusivamente en jugar con loops de cinta- conocido como Hazard, cuenta con ocho discos -nueve si contamos éste que hoy comentamos; casi todos ellos en Touch Records- bajo la abreviatura de su propio nombre de pila (BJ no quiere decir otra cosa que Benny Jonas) en lo que ha durado el último lustro.
Su trayectoria, en todo caso, se remonta a comienzos de los noventa cuando con 15 añitos publicó su primera referencia; siendo a mediados de la siguiente década cuando definitivamente fija su atención "en los sonidos de la naturaleza y su efecto sobre los humanos", tal y como reza en su página web. Pese a lo intrincada que pueda parecer su propuesta, los resultados de dicho esfuerzo han sido utilizados tanto para rellenar CDs como para sonorizar documentales, cortinillas televisivas e incluso anuncios.
'The Invisible City', a publicar el próximo 19 de enero, llega tras el estupendo 'The Short Night' (Touch, 07) si atendemos en exclusiva a su relación con el sello inglés (entre medias quedan un par de cositas para The Helen Scarsdale Agency y Editions Mego). Son ocho canciones grabadas en Berlín para poco más de una hora de música que, considerando los medios utilizados, no hace sino incidir en lo que ha sido su más reciente corpus de trabajo.
Aquel fruto de una mezcolanza de instrumentos vintage tocados por el propio Nilsen (órgano, guitarras acústicas, hasta un subharchord; la viola es cosa de nuestra querida Hildur Gudnadóttir) y sonidos ambientales grabados in situ (lo que se conoce como grabaciones de campo, en este caso realizadas en países como Suecia, Islandia, Noruega, el Reino Unido, Japón, Portugal o Alemania) y luego modificados y ensamblados a través de un ordenador y el uso de cintas.
Además, si te haces con su versión en compacto (también está disponible para descarga) te llevas gratis a casa media hora de música en directo a cargo de BJ Nilsen: la que sonó en el Cafe Oto de Londres el pasado mes de diciembre con motivo del ciclo 'Atmospheres 3'. [Zigor Cavero]
kindamuzik (Belgium):
Het geluid van de natuur en de effecten ervan op mensen, de perceptie van tijd en ruimte zoals die via muziek ervaren kan worden, en dit in een elektronisch jasje: deze abstracte omschrijving vormt al jaren de leidraad in de muzikale zoektocht van de Zweed Benny Jonas Nilsen.
Meer dan tien albums heeft BJ Nilsen als soloartiest op zijn naam staan en de laatste vijf kwamen steevast uit op het Britse label Touch, dat al een hele reputatie opgebouwd heeft als forum voor allerhande gewaagde geluidsexperimenten. Soundscapes staan vaak centraal, het belangrijkste onderdeel van BJ Nilsens geluid.
De minimale composities op The Invisible City zijn complex samengesteld. Geluidsopnames uit Zweden, IJsland, Noorwegen, Groot-Brittannië, Japan, Portugal en Duitsland worden gecombineerd met een arsenaal aan uiteenlopende instrumenten. Alles wordt door BJ Nilsen georkestreerd en Hildur Gudnadottir, die vorig jaar nog het onvolprezen Without Sinking afleverde, snelt op viola te hulp.
Minutieus vormgegeven impulsen volgen elkaar op en details gaan organisch in elkaar over, zodat er telkens een intense muzikale textuur ontstaat, perfect om geestelijk in te verdwalen. BJ Nilsens scheppingskracht wordt gekenmerkt door variatie, wat ervoor zorgt dat de onzichtbare stad zich in acht bewegingen uitstrekt en haar geheimen prijsgeeft: het resultaat van de subtiele aanpak van een intrigerend geluidskunstenaar. [Hans van der Linden]
Dark Entries (Belgium):
Reeds (checking) 28 jaar is Touch Music bezig met het uitbrengen van commercieel niet voor de hand liggende muziek.The Hafler Trio, Strafe für Rebellion, Z'ev, Evan Parker, Christian Fennez, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson en Jana Winderen zijn zo al van die artiesten die ondertekende in het verleden Touchgewijs leerde waarderen. Na Oren Ambarchi vorig jaar komt nu ook BJ Nilsen het lijstje vervolledigen. De man heeft in het verleden al heel wat uitgegeven, maar -toegegeven- we zijn hier niet altijd van op de hoogte gebleven.
Wat de man op deze The Invisible City presteert is bijna buitenissig te noemen. Naast gitaren,orgel en viola (gespeeld door Hildur Gudnàdottir) stoeit de man ook met de geluiden van onder andere vogelzang, straalvliegtuigen, versterkte stoel, koffiepot, bijen, wespen en zelfs 'tegen elkaar leunende bomen'... Het resultaat is dan ook cinéma voor de oortjes. vooral het lange Virtual Resistance en het bijna sacrale Gradient. Hiermee heeft hij ondertekende volledig mee. Dit is zeker geen gemakkelijke plaat om naar te luisteren, maar wie de moeite neemt wordt zeker beloond.
WIRE stelde ooit: "Touch releases force you to listen harder..." en zo is het maar net.
8/10
Aquarius Records (USA):
It could be a coin toss as to who's our favorite recording artist on Touch. Christian Fennesz, Phillip Jeck, and Chris Watson are all impeccable musicians working for the legendary label; but BJ Nilsen is the one artist who may be lurking beneath the radar a bit and has NEVER failed to deliver a great record. His work has always been focused on the drone, beginning back in his earlier sample heavy orchestrations as Morthound through Cold Meat Industries and onto his recordings as Hazard through the Touch imprint Ash International. Throughout his career, he's often tapped into the psychic and physical cold of his native Swedish landscape. That was definitely the case for his North album as Hazard and the three alcoholically bent records made in collaboration with Stilluppsteypa for Helen Scarsdale; and it's certainly true for The Invisible City.
A shimmering glow from an aggregate of rasping frequencies opens the album, sounding almost like a chorus of poorly grounded street lights offering their sustained, post-Ligeti plainsong to vacant streets on some cold wintery morning in Oslo. After some exploratory field recordings of bees and sympathetic atmospherics, Nilsen snaps into a frozen blur of softened distortion (e.g. Machinefabriek, Fennesz, and Lawrence English) laced with half-melodic phrases and shortwave transmissions echoing like distant ghosts on "Virtual Resistance." It's a signature move for Nilsen, and it's one that he's masterfully executed. Another great Nilsen strategy: his phased loops with theatrically brooding ambience and tactile field recordings, reappears on that same track which morphs into a shadowy post-apocalyptic smear somewhere between Deathprod and Barn Owl. Digital errata suspended in darkened rooms, barren windswept tones, and haunted field recordings dominate The Invisible City, which stands as another monumental achievement for BJ Nilsen.
Other Music (USA):
BJ Nilsen has always been a favorite Touch operative of mine, and this latest full-length is an apt distillation of his sound to date. His last record, The Short Night, pulled into focus his amazing lightness of touch, as he carefully sculpted haunted field recordings and layered icy-cold monosynth. The results were ineffably affecting, and The Invisible City poises itself as the logical extension of those themes. Here the environmental recordings are pushed still further into the background, cloaked in dusty, buzzing synthesizers and malfunctioning oscillators. The drones that gradually trickled to life on its predecessor form the backbone of the album, giving it a doomed register Sunn O))) fans will no doubt be drawn to. When the guitar feedback drones of "Gravity Station" morph into machine noise and binary chatter there can be no doubt of the spine chilling potential of the record, and its ability to incite fear and awe from the listener. Thankfully, Nilsen calms his arsenal for the central section of the album, slipping into a gaseous ambient haze (helped by fellow Touchy Hildur Gudnadottir) which never totally disappears, fading into the album's second half like the ghost of Florian Fricke. There is something crucially human about Nilsen's productions; whether this comes from his use of the sounds around him or from his defiant compositional touch I am not sure, but it serves to make his albums incredibly listenable. Those who think ambient experimental is all horn-rimmed glasses and studied theories... well you're half right - but try not to forget about the humanity in it all. [JT]
Boomkat (UK):
Exceptional new album from BJ Nilsen featuring the sublime Viola contributions of Hildur Gudnadottir and made with the aid of Tape Recorders, Computer, Organ, Acoustic Guitar, Electronics, Viola, Subharchord and field recordings from Sweden, Iceland, Norway, UK, Japan, Portugal and Germany* Celebrated sound artist BJ Nilsen's last album 'The Short Night' was an endlessly rich and rewarding album, one that's really grown in stature ever since its release a couple of years back, so we've been eagerly awaiting this brand new album - "The Invisible City". Recorded in Berlin, the album explores the potential of one of the very earliest synthesizers, the Subharchord stationed at Berlin's Udk, a relic of former GDR engineering developed to explore subharmonic sound. Nilsen uses these sources and many others to weave complex, anachronistic and challenging narratives which never fail to immerse you into his world, exploring physical and psychogeographic relationships between sounds, whether savouring the crunch of snow underfoot or juxtaposing sheer scales of sound both artifical and supra-natural with a riveting unpredictability. Fast becoming one of our favourite artists on the always-compelling Touch imprint, Nilsen has once again delivered an album that's both fearlessly dark, almost unnervingly so, and yet somehow inherently tender, letting in rare shafts of light through its tight-woven web of gloom. Very highly Recommended.
Norman Records (UK):
The news of a new BJ Nilsen album coming out had me anxious. I must admit that I got into this Swedish sound artist quite late on, but better late than never as they say. His latest album for Touch 'The Invisible City' has arrived and what a thoroughly absorbing listening experience it is. The use
of field recordings, concrete techniques, DSP and electronic treatments really build an otherworldly environment that's exceptionally vivid, which (at various moments) has a delicious sense of impending doom and at others an almost spiritually uplifting (for me anyway) vibe. The range of instruments and source material used here is exceptionally imaginative: tapes, guitar, piano, glockenspiel, chairs dragging across floors, coffee pots whistling, the list is endless etc… Within my headphones I can
really just lose myself here for eternity and forget the outside world exists, but then the CD ends and I'm compelled to hit play again. I shall certainly be whacking this onto my iPod for a late night stroll around the city when no soul is around and imagining an alternative reality. I can see it now, Greggs the bakers, drunks stumbling about trying to beg fags, good and bad architecture, the bright lights, the bus journey home and my own secret audio.
Blow Up (Italy):
Jewel case with concertina insert
Artwork & Photography by Jon Wozencroft
Plus bonus 320kbps .mp3 download - 1 track - 33:44
TO:77DL - BJNilsen "Live at Café Oto", Atmospheres 3, 7.xii.09
Available only when purchasing "The Invisible City" via the TouchShop.
Track listing:
1. Gravity Station
2. Phase and Amplitude
3. Scientia
4. Virtual Resistance
5. Meter Reading
6. Into Its Coloured Rays
7. Gradient
8. The Invisible City
About this release:
Recorded and Mixed during 2008-2009 in Berlin.
All tracks composed by BJNilsen using Tape Recorders, Computer, Organ, Acoustic Guitar, Electronics, Viola, Subharchord. Field recordings from; Sweden, Iceland, Norway, UK, Japan, Portugal and Germany. The Subharchord was recorded in the EAM Studio @ Adk, Berlin. Viola played by Hildur I. Gudnadottir.
Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye
Published by Touch Music [MCPS]
You can download a MP3 of Meter Reading by clicking here.
Buy The Invisible City plus bonus live MP3 download in the TouchShop
www.bjnilsen.com
Track listing:
1: Pillars of Wisdom - 5m27s
Filmed and edited by Paul Williams on location in Abu Dhabi.
Soundtrack: Gel by Philip Marshall, published by Touch Music [MCPS].
Paul Williams writes: "Arriving in Abu Dhabi my initial reaction, standing on the balcony of my hotel room on the 20th floor, was disorientation and near-vertigo. Laid out before me was a building site on a scale I had never seen before; a small island was under construction.
This was “a room with a view” of a very different kind. Not some picturesque vista illustrating historical achievement but a vast, stark scene of becoming; a display of the knowledge, effort and will required to alter the landscape and create a new world. The skyscrapers I was watching turn from plans into reality suggested the phrase “Pillars of Wisdom”, adapted from the title of T.E. Lawrence’s account of his life in Arabia.
As the days went by the view became a site of contemplation. There was always something going on, some detail that warranted attention: the endless comings and goings of the work-crews, the slow gestures of the cranes, the shifting patterns of aircraft warning lights.
I wanted to capture something of what I was witnessing so, as you survey these monuments rising from the white sand, look closely and you will see tiny events occurring: the slow trajectory of a car's headlights, the flare of a welder's torch at night, even a bird flying across the face of the sun…
As I have come to know this landscape I am continually reminded that even though we live beneath the gaze of giants, made with our own minds and hands, it is our simple joys that continue to define us as human."
Buy Pillars of Wisdom in the TouchShop
www.ashinternational.com
Eighty miles off the coast of mainland Scotland, the archipelago of St Kilda is host to almost a million seabirds each summer. Beginning underwater, this journey takes in the remote island group – with its gurgling seawash, gannets and storm petrel – before sailing east to the Shiants, home to puffins, guillemots, fulmars and razorbills. Finally, a mix of the exotic and commonplace – Carrion crow, wren, herring gulls. heron, ringed plover, cuckoo, oystercatcher, song thrush, common sandpiper – heard at dawn on the island of Rhona.
Sound and photography: Pascal Wyse and Tom Haines. Recorded in June 2009 with Dolphin Ear hydrophones, Sennheiser and DPA microphones and Sound Devices recorders.
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play “A Rock and a Hard Place”
www.bergerandwyse.com
www.brainsandhunch.com
www.myspace.com/thelondonsnorkellingteam
Track listing:
I. Crepuscule
light, curtain, wind
audio: Amelita Galli-Curci sings Massenet
78rpm from 1921
II. Screen
16mm projector, b/w flicker, projection
audio: Stephan Mathieu
III. Eye
light, reflection
audio: Stephan Mathieu plays Sylvain Chauveau (excerpt)
IV. Sonnenschatten
light, mobile, shade
audio: Heinrich Isaac
78rpm from von 1928
V. Licht
kitchen cabinet, sunlight reflection
audio: (silent)
VI. Hoch
garden, picnic gramophone, 78rpm record with bird song
audio: unknown throssle
captured on 78rpm shellac in 1932
VII. Sonne
light, mobile
audio: Stephan Mathieu, text by Yoko Ono
VIII. Two Dots
empty turntable
audio: François Couperin, "Le Carillion de Chitere" 78rpm from 1934
IX. Code
16mm projector, b/w flicker, puzzled webcam
audio: Stephan Mathieu (from “Process”)
“Nine webcam movies for handheld devices shot with my laptop's camera between September and October 2009. The soundtrack is basically what was playing then. 10 Minutes is dedicated to Anna Carolina Mikalef.”
Buy 10 Minutes in the TouchShop
www.bitsteam.de
www.ashinternational.com
The same evening sees London Contemporary Orchestra also perform the world premiere of Shiva Feshareki’s “TTKonzert” (a concerto for turntables and orchestra), alongside performances of Steve Reich's “Different Trains” and the UK premiere of John Cage's “Seventy-Four”.
These performances are part of the Roundhouse's Reverb series, which “explores the many sides of music at the Roundhouse through world and UK premieres, genre-defying performances, fresh collaborations and a new approach to classical music.”
More info and tickets at www.roundhouse.org.uk
www.lcorchestra.co.uk
www.biosphere.no
Below – a video for “Opaque” from “Without Sinking”, directed by Markus Wambsganss.
]]>1/f Noise – While teaching sound art in Cincinnati Ohio's art school DAAP, Montgomery organized sonic tours of the Ceramics Department. The audience was blindfolded and led one by one down 8 flights of stairs into a series of listening stations where ventilators, burning kilns and other machinery were in use (2008).
Smoothing Out The Press was composed using the Sound of Sanding from the Crest Hardware Show plus recordings made at Ben Owen's Middle Press in Brooklyn while printing the Ministry of Lamination’s Almost Blank Notebook letterpress edition (2007).
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Play “1/f Noise | Smoothing Out The Press”
www.ministryoflamination.com
Mapsadasical has published a review of Monday's Atmospheres 3 event at Café Oto: “Touch’s series of Atmospheres events, of which this is the third installment, has an increasingly loosely-framed agenda to explore the sounds of the natural world. In previous years they have set up camp in the Museum of Garden History in Lambeth, with its fine old trees and historic garden. The move across town to Dalston, with its fine old, er, well, lets just say that the move across town to Dalston has added a different dimension to that theme. At least one of the evening’s performers was to pick up on that more urban aspect during the evening, although the quality of the sets from all three of Lawrence English, BJ Nilsen and Philip Jeck was – naturally – of the highest order.”
Read the full review at mapsadaisical.wordpress.com
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