[96 Kpbs/44.1 Khz/Stereo unless stated]

All these recordings are exclusive to TouchRadio and are free to listen.

When you click on the audio title you will be directed to a mp3 file. On editions with multiple mp3 files, the link directs to a single .m3u playlist file which will play the mp3s in sequence when opened in your audio player. You can also subscribe for free to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio, via the iTunes Music Store, by clicking here.

08.02.10 - A Journey South – 50:21 - 192 kbps

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.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 49 | Chris Watson

28.01.10 - Live in Den Haag – 37:05 - 192 kbps

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.

01.01.10 - A Rock and a Hard Place – 11:45 - 201 kbps [VBR]

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.

www.bergerandwyse.com
www.brainsandhunch.com
www.myspace.com/thelondonsnorkellingteam

Continue reading: Touch Radio 47 | Pascal Wyse and Tom Haines

10.12.09 - 1/f Noise | Smoothing Out The Press – 59:55 - 151 kbps [VBR]

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).

Continue reading: Touch Radio 46 | Ken Montgomery

21.10.09 - Tanhayi - Live in Tehran – 42:24 - 320 kbps

Biking in Holland | Tears (Sohrab version) | Tanhayi | Satyr | Tears (Esteban Olenikov version Tundra)
| There is an ashtray between us | Tears (Yozhik version) | New Zealand | Barf

Recorded and played live in October 2009. Sohrab used Reason 3, his midi controller (R)evolution UC-16 and a sampler, recorded live through Ambrosia recording software.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 45 | Sohrab

17.09.09 - Ghulja – 44:20 - 192 kbps

"Xinjiang ("new frontier" in Chinese) or Eastern Turkestan is without doubt the first extremely sensitive zone in China, at least in terms of ethnic conflict between the Hans newcomers and muslim minorities who have a longer history of occupation of those areas. Spread from Mongolia to Afghanistan, it is the biggest Chinese province. I was in the north western part of Xinjiang in the prefecture of ILI, called Yining outside of China and Ghulja by the Turkophones, in May and June 2009..."

Continue reading: Touch Radio 44 | Laurent Jeanneau

21.08.09 - Rehearsal Tapes – 16:44 - 196 kpbs [VBR]

Rehearsal tapes from The Suffolk Symphony - recorded and edited during the residency
(August 16th - 22nd).

On August 22nd 2009 Touch will present a multimedia performance of The Suffolk Symphony - the culmination of the week's work undertaken during the residency.

Faster than Sound bring more imaginative experiments with sound and image to the Snape Proms with The Suffolk Symphony, a specially commissioned residency and new work by leading sonic and visual production company Touch. Inspired by the historic coastline of Aldeburgh and its surrounding area including Aldeburgh Music's Snape Proms and its history, Touch will create a new audio-visual symphony from scratch, using only locally sourced sounds and images. Beginning on 16 August, Philip Jeck, BJNilsen, Jon Wozencroft, Philip Marshall and Mike Harding will go on a week-long treasure hunt to unearth old records, field recordings, home-made sounds and images to create a new multimedia Suffolk Symphony, culminating in its first performance on the 22 August.

Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play “Rehearsal Tapes”
www.bjnilsen.com
www.philipjeck.com

21.07.09 - Nacre – 46:39 - 256 kpbs

Nacre was composed for the experimental music festival ‘Skanu mezs’ in Riga, Latvia. The premiere of Nacre was held there on 23rd May 2009 in St. Saviour's Anglican Church. [With thanks to Viestarts Gailitis.]

A video of the installation by Elín Hansdóttir and Hildur Guðnadóttir can also be viewed, when you subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store.

For a church organ and light organ.

Composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir
Performed by Charles Matthews and Hildur Guðnadóttir
Installation by Elín Hansdóttir and Hildur Guðnadóttir
Light organ programmed by Derek Holzer

Nacre is dedicated to Hildur's grandmother Margrét Guðnadóttir, who celebrated her 80th birthday in July 2009. The title refers to her name, since both the noun ‘Nacre’ and the name ‘Margrét’ mean ‘Mother of Pearl’.

Nacre is a written for 2 types of organs; a church organ and a light organ, therefore the score is twofold.

1. Church Organ/DNA:

Nacre's score is in the shape of a 360 degree helix of a double strand DNA. This form was chosen as a connection to Margrét's passionate work as a virologist. DNA forms the basis of inheritance in all organisms, except viruses, although DNA can be found in a few viruses such as herpes. DNA also connects grandmother and granddaughter, whereas it holds genetic information to be passed on from one generation to the next.

2. Light Organ/Newton:

The basis of the light organ is Newton's color circle. He was the first person to connect colour to wavelengths of light and made the colour circle based on that theory. His circle consists of 7 colours and he assigned musical notes to each colour. Newton's scale starts with red, to which he assigned the note D. The scale continues as a diatonic scale from D (also known as the Dorian mode); E=orange, F=yellow etc.

A light system was made specially for Nacre, which reads the frequencies being played on the church organ and triggers coloured lights for each note in Newton's color circle. When the note D is played on the organ, for example, a red light shines in the light organ.

The light organ hangs above the audience. 70 LED lights are arranged in mirror modules that are held up by giant balloons. The floating lights are therefore multiplied and create a slight spatial distortion.

[more photos can be seen at www.hildurness.com]

Score/Performance:

The 21 angström width of the DNA is divided into 3 sets of Newton's 7 colour circle. Each set of colours are played on different manuals of the organ; one set is played on the pedals, another set is played on the 1st manual and the third set is played on the 2nd manual.

The 34 angström length of the DNA serves as a timeline for Nacre.

The form of the DNA determines when each note should be played. When the DNA rises or falls to a note in Nacre's score, it should be played until the DNA rises or falls on the same note, then the note is released. All the notes are indicated in the score with corresponding colours lighting up in the color organ. The result of this is a giant chord, where the overtones engage in a war as to which note shines the brightest in the light organ.

Newton's colour circle is also spread horizontally over the length of the DNA, starting at red with low frequencies and working its way up the frequency scale up to purple.

The “musical colours” of the chord are controlled by the 2nd performer next to the organist, who pulls or pushes the church organ stops in and out, creating an overtone resonance beat according to the horizontal colour circle. Starting with the lower stops and slower beat, working its way up to the higher stops and faster beat.

www.hildurness.com
www.charlesmatthews.co.uk
www.elinhansdottir.net

Continue reading: Touch Radio 42 | Charles Matthews and Hildur Gudnadottir