Artwork & track listing
www.go-mag.com. To obtain a copy, email Nina at GO MAG
www.go-mag.com. To obtain a copy, email Nina at GO MAG
Live performance on pipe organ and synthesiser. Recorded at Cambridge Unitarian Church, Saturday 28 April 2012 by Norman Ipsmael using a Tascam DR-07. Thanks to Jo Brook/Bad Timing, Simon Scott, Norman Ipsmael and Benny Nilsen.
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Play John Chantler "Cambridge Unitarian, April 2012"
www.inventingzero.net
Photo: Daniel Menche
Live Performance on April 21st, 2012 at the YU Contemporary Art Center located in Portland, Oregon USA. This concert was a two hour non-stop performance and this recording only captured an hour and fifteen minutes due to a recording failing. The amplifiers also blew out at the end. The room in which this concert was performed was the size of a city block (68,000 ft/20726 m) and had enormous room acoustics with considerable natural reverberations. Maximum volume was used, for 120 bodies were present to absorb this 120 minute sonic mass.
"Boredom is tuneless matter. Tears are music in material form." (E.M. Cioran)
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play Daniel Menche "Live YU"
danielmenche.blogspot.com
Maia Urstad (Bergen) - 'Radio Field'
"As a sound installation artist I have always been intrigued by how we communicate. My fascination with the sending and receiving of messages, and how they may be converted on their way, has led to a series of artworks containing portable radio transmitters and receivers..."
Maia Urstad is an artist working at the intersection of audio and visual art. She was educated at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts and has also a background in rock music.
Jiyeon Kim (Seoul)
Jiyeon Kim started her career as media art project producer, then she moved to the soundmaker/musician field. She mainly uses field recordings with sounds made with handmade analogue sound devices and acoustic objects as her source. Currently she experiments on resonating different materials in various methods with diy microphones, amplifiers, analogue oscillators, which leads her to develop unconventional ways of field recording. Jiyeon is also working as a sound educator, actively programming and running various sound workshops for young people. She aims to inspire participants to engage with their sonic environments in an artistic and social way. This summer, Jiyeon is invited to 3 weeks of a field recording residency near Verona and Naples in Italy, where she will explore sound environments of abandoned places in rural areas.
Sandra Jasper (London/Berlin)
Sandra Jasper is a geographer currently completing her doctorate at the UCL Urban Laboratory. Her thesis "Cyborg Imaginations: Nature, Technology and Urban Space in West Berlin (1961-1989) draws from diverse fields, such as sound art, engineering and architecture. Sandra teaches on the UCL MSc Urban Studies and convenes "Stadtkolloquium" a postgraduate research network. Her recent publication "Phantom limbs: Encountering the hidden spaces of West Berlin" came out in "Urban Constellations" (Jovis, ed. by Matthew Gandy).
"The UCL Urban Laboratory, established in 2005, is a university-wide initiative to bring together the best urban teaching and research at UCL. Our activities build on the full spectrum of work at UCL across the arts and sciences ranging from civil engineering to film studies, from urban history to the latest developments in architectural design."
www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucfasaj
www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab
Dawn Scarfe (London)
Dawn Scarfe’s work ranges across a variety of media from site-specific installation and performance to field recording. It explores how listening might be directed to heighten our perceptions of particular environments. Multi-speaker installations (such as Tree Music) and resonating acoustic glass sculptures (Listening Glasses) ask us to re-think and re-negotiate our impressions of our surroundings. Individual parts of her works are encouraged to respond to each other or to enter into a dialogue with their environment.
Recent exhibitions include Klinkende Stad Kortrijk, ZKM Karlsruhe, Q-O2 Brussels, La Casa Encendida Madrid, TONSPUR Museumsquartier Vienna, Bios Athens, Space Studios and 176 Zabludowicz Collection, London. She completed a PhD in Sonic Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London in December 2011.
Dawn will present an introduction to her work with glass including Tuning to Spheres: an installation/performance which uses assorted wine glasses as acoustic resonators. A number of wine glasses sit on a turntable. A small loudspeaker plays sine tones tuned to the pitch of a particular glass, causing it to resonate as it passes underneath the speaker.
]]>Voice, cello & electronics: Hildur Gudnadottir
Recorded & mixed by Tony Myatt
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Artwork & Photography by Jon Wozencroft
Track Listing:
1. Prelude 4:11
2. Leyfdu ljosinu 35:14
Hildur Gudnadottir's new album 'Leyfdu ljosinu' (Icelandic for 'Allow the light'), was recorded live at the Music Research Centre, University of York, in January 2012 by Tony Myatt, using a SoundField ST450 Ambisonic microphone and two Neumann U87 microphones. (NB - It was not played in a concert environment and there was no audience.)
To be faithful to time and space - elements vital to the movement of sound - this album was recorded entirely live, with no post-tampering of the recordings' own sense of occasion.
A multichannel version (Touch # TO:90USB) is also available - a 2GB USB stick in hand-made (by the artist) paper cover.You can read more about this here.
Pre-order Hildur Gudnadottir "Leyfdu Ljosinu" [CD] in the TouchShop
Pre-order Hildur Gudnadottir "Leyfdu Ljosinu" [USB Stick] in the TouchShop
www.hildurness.com
Voice, cello & electronics: Hildur Gudnadottir
Recorded & mixed by Tony Myatt
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Artwork & Photography by Jon Wozencroft
Track Listing:
1. Prelude 4:11
2. Leyfdu ljosinu 35:14
Hildur Gudnadottir's new album 'Leyfdu ljosinu' (Icelandic for 'Allow the light'), was recorded live at the Music Research Centre, University of York, in January 2012 by Tony Myatt, using a SoundField ST450 Ambisonic microphone and two Neumann U87 microphones. (NB - It was not played in a concert environment and there was no audience.)
To be faithful to time and space - elements vital to the movement of sound - this album was recorded entirely live, with no post-tampering of the recordings' own sense of occasion.
A multichannel version (Touch # TO:90USB) is also available - a 2GB USB stick in hand-made (by the artist) paper cover.You can read more about this here.
The Silent Ballet (USA):
Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir has recorded with bands like Múm and Throbbing Gristle, toured with the likes of Animal Collective, and released two albums on Touch, but somehow her name seems to be absent in discussions about leaders in the experimental/classical realm. What can we say? It's a male-dominated industry. Guðnadóttir's latest work, Leyfdu Ljosinu (translation: "Allow the Light") is a forty minute, two track effort that features just Guðnadóttir, her cello, and whatever live manipulations could be squeezed out. Despite Guðnadóttir's ties to other artists, she tries to keep her solo work just that - hers alone. Leyfdu Ljosinu exemplifies this mindset, as it was recorded live in one setting, with no post-processing and no audience. The absence of a crowd may or may not be of consequence, but the album certainly sounds as if it was created in an empty space and given all the room it needed to expand and conquer the surrounding noises. When played at low volumes, Leyfdu Ljosinu may seem quaint or charming, but when the audience bares the full force of the music, its haunting, forceful nature is fully revealed through ghastly waves of droning cello. Perhaps its the Icelandic stigma forces this conception, but there is a bitterness on Leyfdu Ljosinu that is not too common of works in this realm, and would certainly be an uncharacteristic move on the part of Peter Broderick, Richard Skelton, Greg Haines, Zoë Keating, Julia Kent, or many of the other more prominent modern cellists. On Leyfdu Ljosinu, Guðnadóttir is carving out her own identity, and it is a wonderful sight to see.
Groove (Germany):
Experimedia (USA):
A lovely album of cello/voice/electronics compositions by Hildur Gudnadottir recorded live at the Music Research Centre (University of York) in January of this year. Touch's press release notes that the original live recordings have not been edited as "to be faithful to time and space." The effect of this move is the establishment of a sense of intimacy and even immediacy in these glacially moving string compositions. The album begins with a brief string prelude before the centerpiece, "Allow The Light" takes center stage. Thirty-five minutes in length, the piece is really quite beautiful, with angelic, clarion vocals eclipsing beautiful string arrangements for cello. Midway through the piece its initial frailness gives way to a more spectacular and assertive movement, building to a frenzied mass of bowed strings and booming electricity clouds. Impressive and immersive listening, and typically top-notch presentation by Touch. [Alex Cobb]
VITAL (Netherlands):
'Allow The Light' is what the title means, and its a live recording 'with no post tampering of the recordings', but its not played in a concert environment and without audience. So I am not sure what point has to be proven here, if any of course, but Hildur Gudnadottir is excellent player of the cello, electronics and voice. Following the short opening piece, aptly named 'Prelude', the main course is served, the title piece. For both her cello and voice, Gudnadottir uses loop devices to multi-layer her own playing and while at it, add more new layers - live. A method that is hardly new new these days and shocking, but unlike so many guitarists who keep doodling about with a few simple tunes, Gudnadottir crafts together a whole piece of humming voice, in tune and then slowly adds, little by little, her cello playing, slowly amassing, while voices are disappearing, ending in a grand finale. An excellent, somewhat moody and atmospheric piece of music. Why 'live without audience', or 'nopost tampering' are irrelevant questions once you heard this. There is not much else to say about this piece: simply a lovely direct piece with a great quality. If Gudnadottir plays concerts like this in front of real audiences: bring it on, I'd say. [FdW]
Off The Radar (France):
Cela ne parlera peut être pas à tout le monde, mais sur papier From The Mouth of The Sun est tout sauf un duo de debutants. Mieux, l'association entre Dag Rosenqvist et Aaron Martin a quelque chose de directement engageant. C'est sûrement que les deux hommes ont été responsables de disques boulversants : le premier nous avait tout simplement giflé avec The Black Sun Transmissions sous son pseudonyme Jasper TX, une leçon de drone/ambient grésillante/modern classical noir qui compte encore comme l'un des meilleurs de sa catégorie il y a tout juste un an ; le deuxième nous est connu pour sa magnifique collaboration avec Machinefabriek et sa plantureuse discographie. Et Woven Tide a tout de la promesse tenue. Tantôt limpide, tantôt bourdonnant, cet ensemble oscille entre modern classical lyrique et orchestration claire-obscure. Ses lignes sont explicites, le trait est assurément précis – grâce notamment à des balises rythmiques en trompe-l'œil. On passe de pièces en pièces comme dans un parcours éclairé à la bougie. C'est peut-être cet aspect populaire et pourtant tranchant qui fait de ces huit titres une si belle balade. Une pièce de référence pour les deux bougres, une de plus, qui se résume comme le croisement entre le meilleur d'Hildur Gudnadottir et la série Xerrox d'Alva Noto. [Simon Bomans]
Heathen Harvest (USA):
Recorded live at the University of York, one woman and a cello was all it look to make this album. Iceland’s Hildur Guðnadóttir will most likely ring bells with the Heathen Harvest readership for her work in Throbbing Gristle and Scandinavian experimental/electronic ensemble “múm”, but here she is alone in another of her solo efforts. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know Hildur was making her own albums but Leyfðu Ljósinu is her eighth such work since 2006. Don’t let the fact that this is a ‘live’ release generate the idea that you’ll be able to hear the whoop and hiss of an audience in the background – far from it – Leyfðu Ljósinu is a live album in a studio sense only, which means the whole thing was done in one take, free from editing and overdubs. There is no background noise, there is no interference. Everything you hear in this work is purely organic, recorded using nothing else but a SoundField ST450 Ambisonic and two Neumann U87 microphones. It is an exquisitely intimate work.
The idea of intimacy should always create a feeling of the up-close and personal, and this concept is extremely relevant here. The choice to use microphones rather than DI’ing jack-to-jack means that the whole recording has a tactile reality to it. Everything seems so immediate in its proximity that you can feel the soft air wake from the brush of the bow on the cello, sense each scratch of a string and hold each vocal exhalation sensually close. Guðnadóttir is an expert in the multifaceted, through clever use of electronic manipulation she is able to overlay her own vocals and cellowork several times through the album during the live setting, giving the album a feel of the singular and multiple. But even these multiple overlays still seem to retain a personal rather than epic air to them. This album is not about the grandiose, it is about the minimalist, and Guðnadóttir is always careful to ensure that this remains the case throughout the record’s 39 minutes.
Technically, Leyfðu Ljósinu is all about texture. It is an extremely tangible album. Musically, it’s a journey from a heavenly ambient realm into somewhere wholly darker. The title literally translates as “Allow The Light”, an extremely curious title for such an eerie piece of work. Starting off with the tantalisingly slow and meditative repetition of some cello chords, the album very gradually descends into somewhere supernatural and unsettling through the use of repeated sung vocal patterns, musical ambience and eventually, energetic, angst-ridden cellowork. What begins as something meditative and warm snakes its way through sonic pathways of despair and doom towards an angered and violent conclusion before dropping everything and leaving us naked in a miasma of our own bewilderment. Such is the intensity of the closing moments that we almost end up feeling sonically ravished and left for dead, as our perpetrator slits us with her last chords, jilts us in an instant and leaves us at the crest of our own climax. As an audience, for all intents and purposes, we have been very much used.
Leyfðu Ljósinu is masterful at its approach to the minimalist. The album seems to go through four distinct ‘waves’, each building on the last and getting gradually more intense until the closing cadences. It’s hard to accurately categorise this work, but though it’s a classical album in ingredients, it retains a feel of the ambient and dark ambient. The layers are so lifelike and well-pieced together that it reminds me of the truly excellent work Shutûn by the collaboration Troum & All Sides, such is its genius at meshing long ambient sections and giving them their own personality.
More than anything though, Leyfðu Ljósinu is a visual work. The sounds here are so intimate and undeniably real that the album takes on a graphic element. It retains an ability to aggrandize certain colours and associations which will be very personal to each listener. It creates such a sentience within the audience’s psyche that it almost runs its own story in filmic effect, transcending the aural layers into which it’s pressed. On the surface, the title of “Allow The Light” may refer to coaxing the brighter layers out from this piece of minimalist classical music, but more than that it’s a plea for us to see the beauty in everything musically dark. Leyfðu Ljósinu stands proudly in its own category as one of the most authentic, emotive and vivid works in ambient music this year. It lacks nothing.
The Wire (UK):
Other Music (USA):
A stark, breathtaking work from the Icelandic composer and performer, recorded entirely live with no overdubs, just Gudnadottir's voice, cello and electronic manipulations, using an Ambisonic mic and a pair of Neumanns. The ambiance of the room is thick and intense, with a long, achingly pure vocal and string tones floating in the air as if they have actual weight and body, as the composition builds and recedes, and builds and recedes, over 40 minutes.
Norman Records (UK):
I don’t know a lot about this lady but she did a thing on Sonic Pieces not too long ago with Hauschka that Phil thought was amazing so I’m pretty curious to listen. This album was recorded live in York in a non-concert environment and has all sorts of lovely shimmering drones on it. I don’t have the artwork to hand because of a bizarre mix-up involving Brian, who was originally going to write this review, taking it home with him without the disc in it...which sounds like it was his fault but it was actually mostly mine. Looking at a previous release I see she played cello, zither, processors and voice, so I’m assuming that’s what’s going on here. There’s definitely a cello involved and lots of soft processed drones anyway.
At the start it’s quite neoclassical-sounding but later on we get into somnolent soundscaping business with creeping high and mid tones slowly morphing and swelling in quite a sinister way, with a kind of Lawrence English-ish blurriness, but a slow melodic heart that falls somewhere between Stars of the Lid and Deathprod. It’s well relaxing, actually, and the patient droneophiles amongst you are certain to be completely swept up in the full, soft tones and mournful strings.
Fluid Radio (UK):
It doesn’t seem fair to refer to the community of Icelandic composers as a music scene. Cross the ocean, several aesthetic styles and a decade or two, and revisit late 1990s pop punk for that. Blink-182, Third Eye Blind, and The All-American Rejects may each have produced some terrific music on their own — a true scene, in more ways than one — but tell us without Googling it which one recorded “Graduate.” Give up? So do we.
But back to Iceland, it seems impossible that, 15 years from now, anyone here will confuse the work of Jóhann Jóhannsson with that of Wildbirds and Peacedrums, or the compositions of Ben Frost with those of múm. The community might be tightly-knit, and mutually supportive, but the country’s musical breadth is just as remarkable as its depth. It is often remarked that the relatively small population produces astonishing numbers of world-class musicians, but their artistic range is no less impressive.
Yesterday Touch announced the return of Hildur Guðnadóttir. In the paragraph above we listed four diverse artists or ensembles, born or based in Iceland. Cellist, vocalist and composer Guðnadóttir has worked with each of these and a dozen others, a well-established figure in this small, prolific society. Her previous solo album Without Sinking was a collection of ravishing, deep-throated arrangements for cello, zither, and voice, alongside organ, bass, and clarinet. Yet one-sheets, reviews, and concert announcements — including this review — still rely on the gently backhanded introduction, “Best known for her collaborations with…” Perhaps another collection of relatively short instrumental tracks, however gorgeous, was somehow too anonymous. Just like how — after a few years in the working world — we don’t remember the great university professors, or even the excellent ones. Only those who lectured in their bare feet and brought their dogs to class. Leyfdu ljosinu should help out in this respect.
Guðnadóttir’s third album, Icelandic for “allow the light,” is cut into two installments but was clearly composed and intended as a single movement. (Opener “Prelude” trims about four minutes away from the rest, which clocks in at around 35 minutes. Such an oddly-placed digital marker was probably intended only for the requisite free download.) The arrangement — and from here we’ll only speak of Leyfdu ljosinu as a whole, irrespective of tracks — slowly builds from silence and single cello notes, through adagio harmonies and delicious patches of blank canvas. A whispered vocal loop appears: two-word, two-note melodies, first unedited and accompanied with a single, purring cello, but soon gaining momentum with echoes and slight permutations. This way a choir forms, and it is worth noting here that the album “was recorded live at the Music Research Centre, University of York, in January 2012.” In other words, the buoyant voices and the synthesis of the loops into a separate instrument were achieved in one take. Yet the processing is never used as structure, only as finishing.
The cello begins a gradual return somewhere around the midpoint, in sparse, slicing notes and spotlight accuracy. The specific weight of the first act gives way to a blurred urgency in the second, and for at least a few minutes the sum of string vibrations has a downright ambient fullness. Distinct notations come back into focus during the final minutes, with a punching, kinetic arrangement, a well-earned climax, and a few seconds of breath afterward. It is a long piece, and it doesn’t subdivide well. Much better to take it in during one uninterrupted 40-minute listen. It values colour over pattern, tension over relief. Meaning those already familiar with Guðnadóttir may prefer Without Sinking on strictly aesthetic grounds. But for those of us who are new to her work, and for those who were hoping the follow-up would be something more along the lines of a manifesto, Leyfdu ljosinu is unforgettable. [Fred Nolan]
]]>
Chris Watson - installation inspired by "After the Deluge (Na de Zondvloed)" by Roelant Savery @ Broel Museum. Unfortunately Chris Watson cannot be present for family reasons, so his work will be presented by Mike Harding from Touch.
Jana Winderen - installation - "The Moat" & live performance.
]]>
Photo: Mike Harding and Philip Marshall
Achim Mohné [00:00 to 29:11] uses three Omnitronic decks, Philip Jeck [26:51 to 63:16] uses two Dancettes and sampler. Recorded by Philip Marshall from desk to hard drive.
The resurgence of vinyl in recent years is a phenomenon which has not gone unnoticed; as CD declines sharply, its audio limitations exposed not only by advances in other technologies, but also by the myths propagated at the inception of digital exposed, so artists explore and demand other formats to express their work. Although a business model is still some way off the traditional artist » label » distribution » shop paradigm, it is clear this is being radically overhauled and replaced by online sales platforms set up by the artists themselves. But vinyl seems to have escaped this process, and continues to grow. Why is that?
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play "VINYL+, Live at ZKM, Karlsruhe 21st April 2012"
www.achimmohne.de
www.philipjeck.com
The third and last in a series of reworkings of Sohrab material by artists showing solidarity to his cause for legal status in Germany.
Ash International mix content providers:
Maia Urstad - Himmel über Bergen 5:00 | Zerocrop - Susanna (Zerocrop remix) 10:54 | Sarah Nicolls - Orshab 17: 15 | Achim Mohné - Syntactical audio observation of the apparatus 26:18 | BJNilsen - Marg Bar (DUB) 35:15 | Jim O'Rourke - Somebody 44:22
Buy Sohrab "You Are Not Alone lll" in the TouchShop
www.touchmusic.org.uk/sohrab
The third and last in a series of reworkings of Sohrab material by artists showing solidarity to his cause for legal status in Germany.
Ash International mix content providers:
Maia Urstad - Himmel über Bergen 5:00 | Zerocrop - Susanna (Zerocrop remix) 10:54 | Sarah Nicolls - Orshab 17: 15 | Achim Mohné - Syntactical audio observation of the apparatus 26:18 | BJNilsen - Marg Bar (DUB) 35:15 | Jim O'Rourke - Somebody 44:22
]]>VINYL+
ZKM – Karlsruhe, Germany, 21.04.12
Touch presents...
Philip Jeck
Achim Mohné
The Ash International Sound System
Alongside this event will be the T-B A21 Sound Space:
The T-B A21 Sound Space is a project commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary to bring to a larger audience the unique series of compositions that were produced for The Morning Line. The Morning Line was conceived as an interdisciplinary platform structure by artist Matthew Ritchie with architects Aranda\Lasch and Arup AGU, where artists, architects, engineers, physicists and musicians would each contribute their own specialised information to create a new form.
Studio 672 – Köln, Germany 23.04.12
Touch presents...
BJNilsen
Achim Mohné
The Ash International Sound System
Track listing:
Side A: Quanta of Light l 19:24
Side B: Quanta of Light ll 21:35
The fifth in the series of limited edition vinyl in the Tone 45 series. 100 copies only are available in the TouchShop. Artist's note: the distortion on the run in groove on side a is intentional...
Buy Daniel Menche "Quanta of Light" [White Label vinyl] in the TouchShop
danielmenche.blogspot.com
Track listing:
Side A: Quanta of Light l 19:24
Side B: Quanta of Light ll 21:35
The fifth in the series of limited edition vinyl in the Tone 45 series. 100 copies only are available in the TouchShop..
Artist's note: the distortion on the run in groove on side a is intentional...
]]> Reviews:Norman Records (UK):
Ahh yes another of those limited edition Touch white label LP’s, this time from long-time favourite Daniel Menche. The grooves on the vinyl are so fine that I though both sides were blank to begin with! Thankfully that’s not the case, where dropping the needle onto the grooves has Daniel masterfully harnessing the frequencies with total control. Essentially this is very heady extended drone music done properly, gradually building until it becomes foggy and fuzzed up. Later on it sounds like there may be some organ drones in there but I can’t be sure. I could just happily lie on the floor right now and temporarily make the world go away. A total bliss-out and not as aggressive as a lot of his catalogue and may even appeal to followers of Tim Hecker and the like.
]]>An evening celebrating Touch's 30th anniversary and the release of Oren Ambarchi's striking new album Audience of One - a four-part suite which moves from throbbing minimalism to expansive song-craft to ecstatic free-rock. Ambarchi will perform alongside the unparalleled aural intensity of Daniel Menche and BJ Nilsen's layered sound environments.
www.orenambarchi.com
danielmenche.blogspot.com
www.bjnilsen.com
www.cafeoto.co.uk