Déphasage #24 - 25.09.13
Playlist :
01/ Marina Rosenfeld - Seeking Solace / Why, Why ? (“P.A. / Hard Love” / Room 40)
02/ Marina Rosenfeld - I Launch Attack… (“P.A. / Hard Love” / Room 40)
03/ Seaworthy + Taylor Deupree - February 22, 2013 (“Wood, Winter, Hollow” / 12k)
04/ Seaworthy + Taylor Deupree - Hollow (“Wood, Winter, Hollow” / 12k)
05/ Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville - Au Clair de la Lune (“An Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music” / Sub Rosa)
06/ Bebe & Louis Barron - Bells of Atlantis (“An Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music” / Sub Rosa)
07/ Eugenius Rudnik - Collage (“An Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music” / Sub Rosa)
08/ Dark Side of the Audio System - Loop 4 (“Loop Collections 9” / Analog Path)
Bonus podcast
09/ Dark Side of the Audio System - Loop 7 (“Loop Collections 9” / Analog Path)
I’ve started with Marina Rosenfeld, a composer and conceptualist from New York City. She’s used to create “radical sonic collision” and for this project she has developed a PA system as a sound generator thanks to feedback, noises from the place where the installation is placed and the use of her voice. Indeed, at first some sounds that are on this release from Room 40 were produced at location in New York on Park Avenue and in Liverpool’s Renshaw’s hall car park. A good way to use a PA to make music and not to play music to large audiences.Moreover, she has invited Annette Henry aka Warrior Queen, jamaican singer that we can hear in dub and dancehall productions or featured on some The Bug releases. Marina Rosenfeld has also invited a cellist named Okkyung Lee.
So, as we see there is a collision at every level and we don’t want to complain about this because when we listen to “P.A. / Hard Love” we’re inevitably surprised by the atmosphere that is emanating from the different pieces. We don’t know exactly where we are, even the voice of Warrion Queen don’t give a clue about what’s happening, actually it’s the contrary, we’re lost but it’s good. I can say it’s one of the most surprising releases that I’ve listened to recently.
Then, we have completely changed the mood with some more relaxing tones from Seaworthy and Taylor Deupree, the latter is really an adept of collaboration lately because he works only by this way and has just released another production with Ryuichi Sakamoto.
For this one on 12k, of course, he invites us with Seaworthy to dive into the drowsiness of winter and its atmosphere. It inspired our two artists, which have recorded in Deupree’s studio located near a huge park with an incomparable wildlife and flora hit by the Hurricane Sandy a few months before. It’s this wildlife that reappear and those branches and trees on the ground who portrayed the atmosphere of this release. As usual with Deupree we know where we are, we believe in it, the ambiance is here, we’re nostalgic and we only want one thing, that the cold nights of winter come back to make us go inside in a warm place and listen to this record under the conditions it deserves.
After the winter dreams we had, we went into music history thanks to the label Sub Rosa and its collection titled “Anthology on Noise and Electronic Music”, that started on 2002 and ends on 2013 with the release of this 7th and last “chapter” as Sub Rosa say of this experimental music bible.
With these 3CDs set that retrace a lot of gold gems of the genre between 1860 and 2012 there are a lot to bear with. 1860 can seem weird, but it’s actually the year of the first human recording ever, thanks to a french man named Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. Inventor of the “phonautographe”, 17 years before Edison and his “phonograph”, except that our friend Edouard-Léon have not the same success as his american counterpart. Unlike Edison, he was not able to play back the recordings he made on his invention, it’s quite a shame yes… But thanks to some clever people we recently managed to listen to this first recording and we discover it was “Au Clair de la Lune”, a nice way to introduce a lot of big changes and evolutions on music over the 20th century because of and thanks to this invention.
Then, it was the turn of Bebe & Louis Barron, couple that belongs to the precursors and pioneers of electronic music and famous for their soundtrack of the science-fiction movie “Forbidden Planet”. It was with the first oscillators, magnetic tapes and an unusual creativity that they wrote the first movie soundtrack only with electronic generated sounds. This OST does not appear on this release but we can find a less known production that they wrote for an experimental movie of Ian Hugo based on the writings of his wife Anais Nin, movie titled “Bells of Atlantis”.
Finally, you could have listened to a tape collage of the polish composer Eugenius Rudnik, who is also a pioneer in his country because he has founded the first electroacoustic music school in Poland.
I’ve then finished the show with some more analog experiments on tape with Dark Side of the Audio System, project of Shinubo Neboto, a composer from Japan who has released last may on the japanese label Analog Path a production named “Loop Collections 9”.
This one consists of short melodic patterns played on piano, and as the title tells us, are looped almost endlessly. But, what is specific about the work of this japanese sound artist is that each loop go trough a tape recorder that has a lot of playback issues. The first take is recorded back again on the tape recorder, the second take obtained goes back again and he goes on and on until the sound of the piano fades away and that another instrument emerges, the tape recorder. Usually, this one does not express himself so easily and it’s a good thing to hear him. Close to the work of William Basinski, “The Disintegration Loops”, to name it, that you can hear behind my voice during the show, the approach of Shinubo Neboto is more impressionist and romantic in its soul than his american counterpart.
Thanks Antoine.
