Enrico Coniglio – Interview @ LOOP – Music, Culture & Technology
Lopa | Enrico Coniglio


 

Review | By Elena Ferrarese / IL GAZZETTINO di Venezia
Lopa | Enrico Coniglio
Nell’ultimo album „Lopa“ i ritratti sonori lagunari firmati da Enrico Coniglio – Enrico Coniglio torna a musicare i ritratti sonori di Venezia. Dopo „Teredo navalis“, pubblicato da Gruenrekorder nel 2020, il compositore continua l’esplorazione del suo territorio natale con l’album „Lopa“, sviluppato questa volta, per scelta, solo in digitale.
Fonico ambientale e artista del suono, membro dell’Archivio Italiano Paesaggi Sonori, Coniglio (Venezia, 1975) incentra da moltissimi anni la sua ricerca nell’indagare la perdita di identità dei luoghi e l’incertezza sull’evoluzione del territorio, con particolare riferimento al contesto della laguna veneta. []


 

Review | By Peter van Cooten / Ambientblog.net
Organic Volatilisation Near Imperceivable | Simon Whetham
I think I can safely assume that you have no idea what the process of fermentation sounds like. Well, look no further: here’s the answer!
Simon Whetham was invited to explore the subject in 2022, and explored and recorded ‘the sounds of various fermentations including red and white cabbage, green beans, ginger, courgette (a huge one donated to the project by the neighbouring florist), (non-lactose) kefir and mead.’
The results were presented in a Swiss installation, but now also as a release on the label experienced in the most fascinating field recordings: Gruenrekorder, who released it on cassette. Which is now sold out but personally I would recommend the digital download anyway due to the intricate details of the sound recordings. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
https://www.citr.ca/episode/20231222
https://www.citr.ca/episode/20231230
https://www.citr.ca/episode/20240113


 

Reviews | By Rigobert Dittmann / Bad Alchemy Magazin (122)
Gold Lines | Bird & Renoult
BIRD & RENOULT, das sind DinahBird und Jean-Philippe Renoult, sie Jg. 1975 und aus London, er Jg. 1967 und aus Paris. Dort ma­chen sie zusammen konzeptionelle Klang­kunst, die um Fragen der Diffusion, Transmis­sion und der Erinnerung kreist, mit dem Oh­renmerk auf Radiowellen, Taperecorder, An­tennen, Transistoren, Ghettoblaster und Un­terseekabel. Protagonist von Gold Lines (Gruen 216/23, MC + Digital) ist einerseits die algorithmische Mikrowellenverbindung zwi­schen der New York Stock Exchange und der Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Und die Ver­bindung zwischen den Londoner und Frankfurter Börsen quer durch Belgien andererseits. Geprassel und eine technische Beschreibung des Transfers mit dicker Amizunge, rhyth­misches Zucken, als würden Nuggets gesiebt, und eine Feueralarmsirene geben dem Ge­schäft der gold- und profitberauschten Heuschrecken den zwiespältigen Anstrich, den es verdient. []

 

I receive you | Bird & Renoult
Bei I receive you (Gruen 216x/23, Postcards + Digital) kreisen BIRD & RENOUL im Dépar­tement Indre nostalgisch um Sendemasten, der mir nächste ist der 125 m hohe Stahlgit­terturm des Bayerischen Rundfunks auf der Frankenwarte. Der Futurist Fortunato Depero hat die Antennen des Hörfunkzeitalters besungen mit: If I were an antenna, I would feed on birds on electricity and on thirst-quenching clouds. I would be the conductor of an or­chestra of tempests and eagle song. Das Pariser Paar orchestriert es mit Shortwave Ra­dios, Found Tapes, Pyral Discs (eine Erfindung von 1934, dem Jahr des Gedichts), Tu­torial Cassettes, einer kaputten Gitarre, dem Gmebogosse 4 (eine Erfindung von Christian Clozier, dem Mitbegründer der Groupe de mu­sique expérimentale de Bourges) und einem Grendel Drone Commander. []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Lopa | Enrico Coniglio
Enrico Coniglio (Venice, 1975) is an Italian sound recordist, sound artist and composer, who is interested in the aesthetics of landscape. He has a degree in Urban Planning and his sound exploration aims to investigate the loss of identity of places and the uncertainty about the evolution of the territory, especially about the Venetian lagoon. His discography of around 40 albums is released on labels such as Crónica, Gruenrekorder, Psychonavigation Records, Touch, among others. His live performances have taken place at the most important festivals in Europe, and alongside Leandro Pisano, he runs the Galaverna digital label since 2012. The title of the album “Lopa” refers to a kind of lagoon bottom made up of mud and where herbaceous plants that grow in the water die. This album is based on field recordings made during the winter of 2021, in the evening, around the historic center of Venice and within its lagoon. []


 

Befreit die Maschinen | Hannes Seidl @ FSK – die ganze platte
Freies Sender Kombinat – Radio
www.fsk-hh.org


 

Reviews | By Rigobert Dittmann / Bad Alchemy Magazin (122)
series invisible | Christoph Korn & Lasse-Marc Riek
“series invisible” (Gruen 215) ist eine 2004 begonnene Kollaboration von CHRISTOPH KORN (Imperial Hoot, Arbeit, Blank) und LASSE-MARC RIEK (der 2003 Gruenrekorder mitbegründet hatte). Dabei sammelten sie zig Field Recordings, die sie aber in einer wei­teren Drehung wieder löschten, um das nur als Notate zu protokollieren – Beispiel: 2 Ort Bahnhof Aufnahme 18.10.2006, 13:05 Uhr, Bad Kleinen Gelöscht am 21.10.2006, 20:04 Uhr Dauer der Aufnahme 4’40“. Als vollständiges Box-Set füllt das 10 CDs und ein Buch. Hier versammelt auf einer CD plus Booklet ist eine Auswahl von 22 solcher Notate, ab­wechselnd gelesen von einer Männer- und einer Frauenstimme: []

 

Lopa | Enrico Coniglio
Der Venezianer ENRICO CONIGLIO fährt mit Lopa (Gruen 217, digital) erneut in die Lagu­nen seiner Heimatstadt – wie schon mit „Teredo Navalis“ (BA 106). Um einzutauchen in die dortige Klangwelt, wie er sie an Winterabenden, wenn der touristiche und überhaupt menschliche Lärmpegel endlich abgeschwollen ist, einfangen konnte. Der Lockdown 2020 schuf sogar die unverhoffte Situation, dass in Venedig etwas von Mark Fishers Eeriness zu spüren war. Wobei mit dem Dämpfen der urbanen Low-Fidelity die Präsenz anderer Sounds wie unters Vergrößerungsglas gerät. Wenn auch immer nur als pars pro toto. Vorbei an den dennoch dröhnenden Docks der Marittima, am Stadtviertel Santa Marta, der Tronchetto-Insel als Lärmkulissen, die sich abklären für das Rauschen von Wind und Was­ser, dessen zeitvergessenes Glucksen und Lappen, das flüsternde Rascheln des Schilfs, knarrenden Draht. []

 

Perifaerye | Jorn Ebner
Auch JORN EBNER war mal in Venedig („Venetian 3“, 7“, 2010). Mit Perifaerye (Gruen 219, LP w/24 p booklet + poster) als urbaner Plunderphonie in 18 Facetten führt der 1966 in Bremerhaven geborene Klang-Bild-Text-Künstler nach Hamburg-Eidelstedt. Stichworte wie ‚Specht‘, ‚Skulptur‘, ‚Glaswände‘, ‚An der Mühlenau‘, ‚Zement‘, ‚Pflugacker, ‚Platten­laden‘, ‚Feldmark‘ verraten die Mixtur aus Wohnblocks, Einfamilienhäusern, dörflichen Resten und sogar Weideland jenseits der A23. Mit Klopfen und Klappern, Stimmengewirr, Spatzenpieps, Amselflöt, Krähenkrah, repetitiven Sequenzen, Lärm in Loops und verhack­stückt, dem Sound der Mühlenau, von Regentropfen, Zuglärm, Fußball, Pferdehufen, die Sekunden klacken. Viele der gerne etwas rhythmisierten Geräusche bleiben an den ver­schliffenen Rändern der Lautwelt unkenntlich. []


 

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Gold Lines | Bird & Renoult
Here are two musicias from France, DinahBird (no space apparently) and Jean-Philippe Renoult, with a strong interest in radio sounds. „Their work includes sound pieces, installations, broadcasts, performances and publications and is often inspired by early transmission technologies and archives. Their current interests include, electromagnetic hums, old weather, loops, drones, and high frequency trading.“ This new cassette deals with the fact that (again, apparently), radio transmissions are used in stock trading. Of the utmost importantce is speed, and radio provides something that is faster than the Internet. This is called High Frequency Trading, and Bird and Renoult are looking for pylons in the landscape used for this, and they recorded the pieces on the cassette ins-yu. One is a line from Frankfurt to London, and the other from New Yourk to Chicago, give or take. Sometimes a voice explains what’s going on, but it’s mostly music. I would have liked the music, even without the backstory, which I find an interestiing addition. Somewhere between a soundcape created with buzzes and hums, radio static and electromagnetic currents and proper electronic composing with these sound events we find the pieces (not sure how many there are on this cassette). Maybe there is some processing going on, and the whole thing has a musique concrète-like approach, which I enjoyed very well. Thanks to the occasionally spoken word, there is also a radiophonic component to this music. I understand the need for a release on cassette, but with the delicacy of some of the music here, I wouldn’t mind a CD version of this. Even when the background story isn’t entirely clear, especially what it is they recorded, the music is very enjoyable. Great release, altogether. []


 

New Releases:

 

 

Bird & Renoult: ‘Gold Lines
Gruen 216/23
Tape + Digital
8 Tracks (42:42)
run: 200 copies

 

 

Bird & Renoult: ‘I receive you
Gruen 216x/23
Postcards + Digital
4 Tracks (61:55)
run: 250 copies


 

Gruenrekorder featured on Bandcamp Daily
The Best Field Recordings on Bandcamp: November 2023
Lopa | Enrico Coniglio


 

Gruenrekorder // Telepapi feat N.iemand @ Xerox Exotique #085

 

Gruenrekorder // Telepapi feat N.iemand @ Xerox Exotique #085
02.12.2023 – 16:30 – 10 €
INM – Institut für Neue Medien, Schmickstraße 18, 60314 Frankfurt am Main
xeroxex.de/?p=1941
inm.de


 

New Release:

 

 

Enrico Coniglio: ‘Lopa
Gruen 217/23 – Gruen Digital
5 Tracks (41:55)


 

Gruenrekorder @ Weltkulturen Museum, Schaumainkai 29, Frankfurt am Main
Opening: 10 November, 7pm
Sound Sources. Everything is Music!
Sounds determine our everyday lives and can be heard all around us, even in what seem to be the quietest moments. Every single place has its own soundscape, shaped by our immediate surroundings, by animals and people, by their actions and interactions. How does the setting affect the perception of what we hear? How do the environment, sound, people and music relate to each other? []


 

New Release:

 

 

Jorn Ebner: ‘Perifaerye
Gruen 219/23 – Vinyl + Booklet + Digital
18 Tracks (34:35)
run: 300 copies

 

***************

 

PERIFAERYE // Listening Event and Sound-Performance
Friday 10 November 2023, 7 pm
Kulturhaus Eidelstedt, Alte Elbgaustraße 12, 22523 Hamburg, room 7.
https://kulturhaus-eidelstedt.de


 

The Nomadic Listener | Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
@ Spr.i.t.Z. Nr. 247, September 2023
Die September-Ausgabe 2023 von »Sprache im technischen Zeitalter« widmet sich den Grenzbereichen akustischer Sprach- und Sprechkunst, die oft außerhalb der etablierten Domänen von Literatur stattfindet. Gemeinsam mit Martin Neusiedl entstand für diese Ausgabe eine Erkundung der »Ars Acustica Linguae«: Unter diesem ästhetisch offenen Begriff werden Arbeiten aus unterschiedlichen künstlerischen Szenen und Randzonen der Literatur gesammelt, die mit Sound, Text und Sprache experimentieren. Es geht um Sound Scapes großer Städte, Kürzesttexte im Ostberliner Dialekt, Hörspielentwicklungen, Experimente mit ›Automatic Speaking‹, ›Phantomworte‹ und den Kanon der Lautpoesie. Klangkünstler·innen und Autor·innen haben Essays verfasst, Fragen beantwortet, Projekte rekapituliert. Sie gewähren Werkstatteinblicke und stellen kurze Arbeitsproben zur Verfügung, die man online nachhören kann.
link


 

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Organic Volatilisation Near Imperceivable | Simon Whetham
On cassette, Whetham has documentation of work carried out at the OVNI, a creative space in Fribourg, Switzerland. Together with Milena Farioli, he did a project that explored the „sounds of various fermentations including red and white cabbage, green beans, ginger, courgette (a huge one donated to the project by the neighbouring florist), (non-lactose) kefir and mead“ and these fermentations he recorded. How is not mentioned, which is a pity. Also, fermenting vegetables isn’t easily found in my kitchen, but there is undoubtedly a fascinating element to giving this stuff and recording the sound – again, if only I knew how. The sounds were played back into the space, using speakers, but „also through the glass of the various jars used and also the plate glass window, as the project fermented inside the ‚jar‘ of OVNI, looked into by the passers-by each day“, which adds further to the fascination, at least on my side. Had I not known all of this, what would I have made of this cassette? It is tough to say, but a living organism (if that is what fermenting is; I am not a biologist) would not easily come to mind. []


 

Reviews | By textura
Both of these recent ‚Sound Art Series‘ releases from Gruenrekorder embody the label’s experimental aesthetic and forward-thinking sensibility, the first from Mexico City-born and Austria-based sound artist Angelica Castelló and the second Bremen-born and Frankfurt-based Hannes Seidl. Whereas Castelló’s fifty-four-minute Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin (Fourteen Reflections on the End) spreads fourteen electroacoustic miniatures across two vinyl sides, Seidl’s Befreit die Maschinen (Liberate the Machines) presents its forty-two-minute ‘Radio drama‘ as a single-track CD, each release available in 300 physical copies.

 

Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Castelló’s functions effectively as a standalone recording, but it actually originated out of a 2019 sound art exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico; in the presentation, recordings were coupled with fourteen magnetic tape-woven bodies hanging in space (photos at her site show one such body hanging from a tree limb). Inspiration for the project came from French medieval poet Guillaume de Machaut, and specifically his words, “My end is my beginning and my beginning is my end” (reminiscent of “In my beginning is my end” from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets). Castelló uses the text as a springboard for self-referential ruminations on memory, death, entropy, “the return that is always renewed [and] the beginning, as an inevitable mirror of the end itself.” While all bodies inevitably decay and die, they’re reborn too, albeit in a different form. []

 

Befreit die Maschinen | Hannes Seidl
In Befreit die Maschinen, Seidl meditates on a number of ideas, including the one that promised automation would free us from the drudgery of repetitive labour to devote time and energy to higher pursuits. Related to that is the fact that digital technologies have made music production possible for a greater number of people. Yet given that people are still working as much today as before, that anticipated future now begins to seem like a naive delusion. To explore such themes in his 2021 radio piece, Seidl used various computer programs to generate sounds and then augmented them with samples from a 2016 lecture by philosopher Michael Hirsch, “Die Überwindung der Arbeitsgesellschaft. Eine politische Philosophie der Arbeit” (“Overcoming the Labour Society. A Political Philosophy of Labour”). Consistent with the content Seidl wished to explore in the work, Hirsch’s lecture visualizes a society where labour and payment are separated, resulting in “less work so that everyone can work and live better.” []


 

Review | By Peter Tracy / a closer listen
Μεσσήνη (Μαυρομμάτι) | BMB con.
Finally seeing the light of day this summer is a recording over two thousand years in the making. Recorded over the course of three days as part of the 2018 Tuned City festival in Μεσσήνη, Greece, BMB con.’s Μεσσήνη (Μαυρομμάτι) is a documentation of a series of performances, a record of the duo’s engagement with a specific place: the ancient city of Μεσσήνη (Messene). The city’s ruined amphitheater, crumbling walls, and surrounding mountains are the backdrop for an exploration of sound and space in which ancient architects become active and contemporary participants. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230729
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230721
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230804
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230812
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230818
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20231006
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230617
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230610
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230624
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20231007-1


 

Interview: David Leutkart | Synthesizer Magazin / Ausgabe 98
Pressure | Markus Mehr
Der Sound von Beton
Sound-Künstler Markus Mehr im Interview
Markus Mehr ist ein deutscher Sound-Künstler. Er veröffentlicht experimentelle Ambient-, Noise- und Drone- Kompositionen und arbeitet an Soundinstallationen. Er begann seine musikalische Karriere 2001 unter dem Namen Aroma mit elektronischer Disco-Pop Musik. Auf den folgenden Seiten spreche ich mit ihm über musikalische Konzepte, die politische Intention hinter seinen Werken, Kompositionsverfahren sowie sein neustes Album PRESSURE, das sich mit der Herstellung von Beton auseinandersetzt. []
Download the interview PDF here


 

Reviews | By Łukasz Komła / Nowamuzyka.pl
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Sięgając po nowy album meksykańskiej kompozytorki, artystki dźwiękowej i kuratorki Angéliki Castelló uświadomiłem sobie, że pisałem o jej twórczości równo dziesięć lat temu przy okazji kasety „Silvertone E Il Sentimento Oceanico” wydanej w nieistniejącej już polskiej wytwórni MonotypeRec. Castelló ma na koncie różnego rodzaju współprace. Lista artystów jest naprawdę potężna, wśród nich m.in. Burkhard Stangl, Maja Osojnik, John Butcher, Dafne Vicente Sandoval, Wolfgang Mitterer, Martin Siewert, Kazu Uchihashim, Bonnie Jones, Jérôme Noetinger, Mario de Vega, Steve Bates.
Najnowsza i niedawno wydana na winylu płyta Castelló „Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin” („Czternaście refleksji na temat końca”) jest zapisem instalacji dźwiękowej zaprezentowanej w Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca w Meksyku w 2019 roku. Czternaście fragmentów, których można słuchać całościowo ciągiem, jak i odbywać pojedyncze, wybrane fragmenty. Otwierający „Rómpeme” (słychać m.in. odgłosy intensywnie tłuczonego szkła) zapowiada, że nie będzie to łatwa podróż pod względem intensywności zestawianych ze sobą faktur, nagrań terenowych czy też zdekomponowanych lub skomponowanych struktur. Ten zestaw utworów powstał na podstawie dźwiękowej antologii Meksykanki. []

 

Of Wolves and People | Melissa Pons & Nils Mosh
Muszę przyznać, że pierwszy raz się stykam się z dorobkiem tych artystów. Melissa Pons to portugalska – jak siebie określa – rejestratorka dźwiękowa i sound designerka. Wkrótce po ukończeniu produkcji muzycznej i technologii w Porto, jej rodzinnym mieście, przeniosła się do Sztokholmu, gdzie rozpoczęła pracę w skandynawskim przemyśle filmowym z renomowanymi domami post produkcyjnymi jako dźwiękowiec. Później korydnowała i zajęła się udźwiękowieniem filmu „Ghabe”, za który otrzymała nagrodę ECA za najlepszy dźwięk. W 2021 roku Pons znalazła się na krótkiej liście Best Field Recordist w pierwszej edycji Sound of the Year Awards, mając wówczas na koncie opublikowane cztery albumy z nagraniami terenowymi zrealizowanymi w Brazylii, Szwecji i Portugalii. Jej wydawnictwa można znaleźć również w katalogu wytwórni Dragon’s Eye Recordings.
Nils Mosh również jest rejestratorem terenowym, a także artystą dźwiękowym i projektantem z Essen w Niemczech. Odwiedzając różne miejsca wsłuchuje się w nie w kontekście społecznym oraz bada je pod kątem interakcji między naturą a wpływami człowieka. Fascynują go szczególnie wilki i pierwszy raz je spotkał w 2017 roku. Owocem tej sytuacji jest nagranie „Das Team”, które zdobyło drugą nagrodę podczas międzynarodowego konkursu stacji radiowej „60 secondes” w Kanadzie. []


 

Review | By Henry Kozok | radiohoerer / Radio – und Medientipps für Neue Musik, Jazz, Film, Konzerte und Hörbares
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Release Tipp: Angélica Castelló – Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin / gruenrekorder
Wenn ich jetzt die Musik von Angélica Castelló höre, frage ich mich, wie ich sie im Mai’23 überhören konnte? Eine absolut eigenständige und faszinierende Klangwelt erwartet Euch. Das Ganze hat auch einen Vorteil. Es gibt sehr positive Kritiken und so kann ich auf diese Links verweisen und nur hoffen, dass ihr Lust bekommt, diese außergewöhnliche Künstlerin zu entdecken. Dazu gibt es noch ein Porträt von Nina Polaschegg über Angélica Castelló.
„Insgesamt präsentiert sich Angélica Castelló mit „Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin” einmal mehr als eine Künstlerin mit einer eigenständigen musikalischen Idee und Vision. Ihre Arbeit ist experimentell, kühn und gleichzeitig fesselnd. Sie zeigt die Vielseitigkeit und kreative Herangehensweise von Angélica Castelló, die es ihr ermöglicht, durch Klänge und Musik emotionale und imaginative Welten zu erschaffen.“ (Michael Ternai) []


 

New Release:

 

 

Simon Whetham: ‘Organic Volatilisation Near Imperceivable
Gruen 220/23 – Tape + Digital
6 Tracks (50:01)
run: 20 copies


 

Review | By Henry Kozok | radiohoerer / Radio – und Medientipps für Neue Musik, Jazz, Film, Konzerte und Hörbares
Of Wolves and People | Melissa Pons & Nils Mosh
Am Wolf scheiden sich seit Menschengedenken die Geister. Es gibt nur eines: Liebe oder Hass. Die einen richten Schutzgebiete für den Wolf ein, die anderen schützen ihre Tiere vor ihm. Beides ist richtig. Umso wichtiger ist diese Veröffentlichung. Melissa Pons hat ihren Weg zum Wolf gefunden. Der hat mit Respekt und Erkennen zu tun. Während Nils Mosh sich mit den folgen der Rückkehr des Wolfes im ländlichen Raum von NRW beschäftigt und auf Spurensuche. PferdehalterInnen, NaturschützerInnen, SchäferInnen und viele mehr erzählen von ihren Sorgen, Vermutungen und Veränderungen im Alltag. Und vielleicht geht es auch gar nicht immer um den Wolf. []


 

Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Befreit die Maschinen | Hannes Seidl
One of the things I remember from reading scientific magazines for kids in the seventies was the thing about machines that would make life easier, freeing us from stupid jobs. The future has arrived, and yet we seem to be slaves of devices, looking at our phones or using AI to answer a question for us (or worse, to be honest – I have not yet gotten a review from AI that I liked). Hannes Seidl uses excerpts from German that translates as „Overcoming the Labour Society. A Political Philosophy of Labour“ by Michael Hirsch, from 2016. Seidl has various bits of software, none specified, to generate sounds, and they go along with the computer-processed sound from the lecture. Seidl selects which becomes part of the piece, so it’s not entirely machines taking over; perhaps, as predicted: machines do not easily take total control (I admit I only follow such developments when handed in my newspaper; I don’t dig deeper). The piece is forty-two minutes and was commissioned for radio. []

 

Of Wolves and People | Melissa Pons & Nils Mosh
[] That does mean Pons is about wolves, and Mosh is about people. On the first side, there is something about wolves, mainly through spoken word, in German. In a documentary style, people talk about wolves, along with sounds from nature, at one point, reminding me of cicadas. It all eludes me to some extent. As I write above, my knowledge of the German language is to the extent that I understand what it is about. Still, as with so many of these things, I don’t care much for spoken words/documentary/interview style, not even when the other sounds are pretty interesting. Give me the information on an insert, and let the sounds speak for themselves. In that respect, I much enjoyed the other side: no spoken word but sounds from wildlife and music. The musical side comes via samples of instruments and is a fine bunch of atmospheric melodies. If the other side is the documentary, then this is the uncut soundtrack, not peppered with spoken word. Combined with field recordings and animal sounds, this makes a pretty interesting piece of music. Maybe the whole concept behind the piece kind of eludes me, but in terms of music, I think this is an excellent piece of music.

 

Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Information is available about Angélica Castelló’s new record ‚Catorce Reflexiones Sobre El Fin‘, meaning ‚fourteen reflections on the end‘. She composed this music for an installation at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2019. She uses many field recordings, but according to the label, also she refers to her previous work, including voice work, recorded in very high and very low quality. I assume some recordings include her instrument of choice, the Paetzold recorder. There are fourteen pieces on this album (as they were on display in the installation, hanging from the ceiling), and I admit it also sounds like two long pieces, with the occasional silence occurring. The shuffling of a spade in the first piece, ‚Rómpeme‘, reminded me of digging a grave. There are more of these death references, such as the church bells of ‚Bells‘ or the shattering of glass, also an end. There are lots of animal sounds, and there is an eerie atmosphere throughout these pieces. In ‚Un Homme‘, there is the sound of an old record; there is a marching rhythm, jackhammer or funeral march? Hard to say. Castelló carefully uses reverb to add to the creepy atmosphere. []


 

Reviews | By Rigobert Dittmann / Bad Alchemy Magazin (120)
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin (gruen 193, LP), diese ’14 Reflexionen über das Ende‘, spenden zugleich den von Guillaume de Ma- chaut ausgesprochenen Trost der Ouroboros- schlange: Mein Ende ist mein Anfang und mein Anfang ist mein Ende. Die mexikanische Kom- ponistin ANGÉLICA CASTELLÓ, letztes Jahr 50 geworden, hat seit ihrem elektroakusti- schen Solo-Debut „Bestiario“ (2011) das In- teresse an ihr wachgehalten im Spiel mit Burkhard Stangl, Billy Roisz, Jérôme Noe- tinger oder dem Quintett Zimt und Veröffent- lichungen auf Interstellar und Mikroton. Ihr Instrumentarium sind die Paetzold-Bassflöte, Tape, Radio und Electronics, ihr komposito- risches Spektrum umfasst aber auch das vom Ictus Ensemble aufgeführte „Tres Texturas Arácnidas“ (2021) for electric guitar, viola da gamba, recorder, percussion sets, cassette player and electronic sounds, „Star Washers“ (2021) für Orchestra und Electronics, aufge- führt vom Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, oder das Musiktheater „Red Rooms“ (2022), dargeboten vom Ensemble PHACE und Wien Modern. []

 

Befreit die Maschinen | Hannes Seidl
Mit „Stadt Land Fluss“ war HANNES SEIDL bereits auf Gruenrekorder. Als freier Kompo- nist – „We Can Be Heroes“, „Six Pieces to guide you through the Night“, „21 Songs in a Public Surrounding“ – und Musiktheatermacher – „LIEBE“, „ingolf“, „Die Flexibilität der Fische“ – in Frankfurt hat er da ja auch einen kurzen Draht. Ebenso zum Hessischen Rundfunk/hr2-kultur, mit etwa „Das Wetter in Offenbach“, „Good Morning Deutschland“, „selbstLAUT“. Oder Befreit die Maschinen (Gruen 211), als Radiostück, das um die Forde- rung des Philosophen Michael Hirsch kreist: „weniger Arbeiten, damit alle arbeiten und besser leben können“. Hirsch denkt über die Überwindung der Arbeitsgesellschaft nach, darüber, wie sich Arbeitszeit vermindern, Lohn und Arbeit entkoppeln, Reichtümer ver- teilen lassen. Seidl verschiebt den Fokus von virtuosem Selbermachen zu einem ’nach- denkenden Zuhören‘ und praktiziert das, indem er aus computerklanglichen Vorschlägen auswählt. []

 

Of Wolves and People | Melissa Pons & Nils Mosh
NILS MOSH ist ein professioneller Sounddesigner, mit einem Spielbein als Fieldrecorder und Geräuschesammler und als solcher auch ein Reiseführer durch Essen (Sound of Essen). Zur Sound Art Series von Gruenrekorder steuert er GW954f (Gruen 214, LP) bei, gepresst auf recyceltem Eco-Wax-Vinyl von Matter Of Fact in Guestrow. Im Split mit Lament of the wolf von MELISSA PONS, einer portugiesischen Waldläuferin, die mit dem Mikrophon im brasilianischen Atlantikwald oder in Schweden unterwegs gewesen ist, aber auch ‚daheim‘ in Picão, wo der Iberische Wolf geschützt wird. Und damit dessen klagen- des Geheul, das dem Walgesang ähnelt und an Melancholie noch übertrifft. Pons unter- streicht das mit Glockenschlägen. Und suggeriert eine bedrohliche Atmosphäre durch erregten Streicherklang, Schüsse und Hundegebell. []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Befreit die Maschinen | Hannes Seidl
The German composer Hannes Seidl works in different fields such as electroacoustic music, experimental cinema, contemporary classical music, radio, sound installations, video and musical theater. “Befreit die Maschinen” (“Liberate the Machines”) is an electronic music composition consisting of a single 42-minute track of sounds generated by computer programs. Seidl selects the sounds that will be included in the piece, to which samples from a conference by the philosopher Michael Hirsch are included. He declares the maxim: “less work so that everyone can work and live better.” This is linked to the idea of some scientists that robots or machines will replace the human being in those more mechanical or undesirable jobs, so that he can dedicate themselves to leisure, culture and social relations. The afore mentioned maxim is not yet fulfilled, but rather, on the contrary, society fears that robots will cause unemployment and leave it totally defenseless. []


 

Review | By Michael Ternai / music austria
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Mit „Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin” (Grünrekorder) präsentiert ANGÉLICA CASTELLÓ einmal mehr ein eindrucksvolles Beispiel ihrer außergewöhnlichen musikalischen Idee. Es ist faszinierend zu sehen, wie die Musikerin, Klangkünstlerin und Komponistin Angélica Castelló in ihrer neuesten Veröffentlichung „Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin” ihre musikalischen Fähigkeiten und künstlerische Vision zum Ausdruck bringt. Die Tatsache, dass sie diese Stücke speziell für eine Installation im Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca komponiert hat, zeigt ihre Fähigkeit, mit anderen Kunstformen zu interagieren und ein Gesamtkunstwerk zu schaffen. Angélica Castelló verwendet eine Vielzahl von Methoden und Klangquellen, um ihre Musik zu erschaffen. Field Recordings, Stimmaufnahmen, Tapes und Fragmente ihrer eigenen früheren Stücke sowie Anleihen aus anderen Werken kommen zum Einsatz. []


 

Review | By felix / freiStil – Magazin für Musik und Umgebung – #108
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Vierzehn Reflexionen über das Ende ließ sich Angélica Castelló 2019 in ihrer elektroakustischen Musik zu einer Ausstellung von vierzehn Objekten im Museum zeitgenössischer Kunst in Oaxaca, Mexiko, einfallen. Was jetzt auf Schallplatte nachzuhören ist, sind flirrende, schwebende, sphärische, auch zärtliche akustische Interventionen – unter komplettem Verzicht falsch verstandener Ambientmusik, also auf einen schnöden Soundbrei. Ganz im Gegenteil: Castellós Klangerfindungen charakterisiert eine beinah gläserne Transparenz, selbst in ihren heftigeren Passagen bzw. Kulminierungen. Immerhin geht es um nichts weniger als das Ende! Einmal mehr besticht Castellós souveräner Umgang mit (unter anderem in Mexiko, Frankreich und Sizilien aufnommenen) field recordings, mit Kassetten, Stimmen, Radiofrequenzen und anderen handlichen, niederschwellig verfügbaren Quellen. []


 

New Releases:

 

 

Melissa Pons & Nils Mosh: ‘Of Wolves and People
Gruen 214/23 – Vinyl + Digital
2 Tracks (40:54)
run: 300 copies

 

 

BMB con.: ‘Μεσσήνη (Μαυρομμάτι)
Gruen 218/23 – Gruen Digital
2 Tracks (43:44)


 

New Release:

 

 

Hannes Seidl: ‘Befreit die Maschinen
Gruen 211/23 – CD + Digital
1 Track (42:10)
run: 300 copies


 

Record Release Party, 8.7. 2023 @ ORBIT24
Befreit die Maschinen / Hannes Seidl
CD / Gruen 211

 

ATELIER ORBIT24
DeDe Handon/Eva Weingärtner
Orber Straße 24
60386 Frankfurt
www.orbit24.org


 

framework radio | #848
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230526/
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230520/


 

Review | By Eyal Hareuveni / salt peanuts*
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin (Fourteen reflections on the end) originated from a sound art installation of Mexican-Viennese composer and sound artist Angélica Castelló, inspired by the French medieval and poet Guillaume de Machaut, who wrote: «My end is my beginning and my beginning is my end». The installation presented 14 bodies woven with magnetic tapes hanging inert in space, exhibited at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2019. The album weaves 14 electroacoustic miniatures reflecting the sound art installation but with a life of their own. The album is released in a limited edition of 300 vinyls and a download option. []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin | Angélica Castelló
The Mexican composer, sound artist, improviser, curator and teacher, Angélica Castelló, releases her latest „Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin“ album, on the renowned Gruenrekorder, a German label that brings together artists from all over the world who carry out experimental works, using materials of all kinds and field recordings in specific places or in natural or urban environments. This label is also known for the series featuring field recordings and soundscapes.
Castelló studied classical recorder and composition in Mexico, Canada, Holland and Austria. She performs solo or in collaboration with other musicians between Mexico City and Vienna, the latter city, where she begins a career that already has over 20 years, publishing around 30 releases on labels such as Gruenrekorder, Interstellar records, Mikroton recordings, Monotype records, Mosz, among others. She composes for ensembles, fixed media, radio works, and installations and for the Paetzold recorder (at the RADAR festival, in Mexico City, in March 2010, alongside Burkhard Stang, Castelló played this recorder). []


 

Telepapi feat. N​.​iemand | Part 01 – 07
telepapi.bandcamp.com
telepapi.de


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230513-1
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230513
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230512


 

Gruenrekorder @ Concertzender radio – DreamScenes
A non-stop mix of ambient soundscapes, experimental electronics and modern classical music. Produced by Peter van Cooten


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Affects and aesthetic speculations | Nicola Di Croce
[] One such area is Iceland, circled by the Ring Road (Route 1). Three-quarters of the nation’s human population lives in the Reykjavik area, leaving most of the center and much of the outer border to nature. Tourism and development are threatening even these natural environments, but for now at least the population is aware, concerned and active. Di Croce’s travels around the road expose the rich biosphere. Returning to Venice, the artist ends with a shocking parallel: a singing beggar by his home. As often as we ignore the cries of those around us, even more do we ignore the cries of other living creatures, as we continue to tread heavily upon the earth.


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230506-1
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230421


 

New Release:

 

 

Angélica Castelló: ‘Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin
Gruen 193/23 – Vinyl + Digital
14 Tracks (54:00)
run: 300 copies


 

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Sounds of Absence | Various artists
Despite the many negative impacts of the Covid-19 lockdowns, there were plenty of artistic and musical initiatives that drew conceptual inspiration from such an unusual and challenging time. One such project is Sounds of Absence by Peter Kiefer, head of the Art-Research-Sound project at the Mainz School of Music. For this project, Kiefer invited artists to submit field recordings made during the lockdown period, as well as compositions that expressed their experiences and impressions during this difficult period. Many hours of recordings were compiled – sound documents that offered a nuanced insight into the reality of the situation along with codified information on different environments, be they urban or natural. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230325-1
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230324
bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20230117


 

New Release:

 

 

Christoph Korn & Lasse-Marc Riek: ‘series invisible
Gruen 215/23 – Box Set (Book + 10 CDs)
10 Tracks (667:53)
run: 20 copies


 

New Release:

 

 

Nicola Di Croce: ‘Affects and aesthetic speculations
Gruen 213/23 – Gruen Digital
6 Tracks (54:04)


 

FN #5: 22/23 | Feb. 2023

 

Field Notes #5: 22/23 | Feb. 2023

 

We gladly present our 5th issue of Field Notes that across 5 articles (with two accompanying audio works) explore the vast sound world of the Anthropocene. Starting with the collection “Meters” by Angus Carlyle who measures with heightened poetic senses through 20 years of his recordings in the field. Adam Diller augments his project “28 Outfalls” – an internationally exhibited short film about New York City’s sewer overflows – by an illustrated article and a 4-track audio work that is hereby published for the first time. With “United Detachment: Recording Spaces in the Anthropocene” we extend our unconventional trip through New York City by accompanying author cory ryan kasprzyk who reflects on the convoluted positions we inhabit in a world so heavily shaped by our species and only so recently shook by a world-wide pandemic. Meanwhile Bernd Herzogenrath’s essay “in|human rhythms” explores different artistic approaches to escape the rhythmical trappings of the Anthropocene; away from conscious control, opening towards the “nonlinear pulsation of life.” Our magazine closes with the audio paper “We Never Cook for One, We Never Eat Alone” that presents a cooking session by Cyanching Wu, documented by David Vélez. In the accompanying article, David creates a context to appreciate these recordings and the vibrant socio-cultural conditions in which the artists advanced them.

 

The Articles

 
1. Angus Carlyle: Meters
2. Adam Diller: 28 Outfalls + 4-Tracks EP
3. cory ryan kasprzyk: United Detachment: Recording Spaces in the Anthropocene
4. Bernd Herzogenrath: in|human rhythms
5. David Vélez & Cyanching Wu: We Never Cook for One, We Never Eat Alone + 2-hour Recording

 

GET THE FREE PDF AND AUDIO: https://www.gruenrekorder.de/fieldnotes

 

Field Notes is a free bi-lingual magazine (with exception of our current issue that is only available in English) published by the German label Gruenrekorder, edited by Daniel Knef and Lasse-Marc Riek. Generally speaking our magazine is concerned with the phenomenon of sound from the most varied perspectives: artists, musicians, journalists and scientists add to Field Notes with their essays, interviews, travelogues, anecdotes, notes and picture series.

 

FN #5: 22/23 | Feb. 2023

 


 

(Un)heard – open your ears!
Can we hear memories?
Join us on a mental journey to various places around the world and
support our crowdfunding project „series invisible“ on Startnext!
After 19 years of active deleting and documenting, the joint project of
the artists Christoph Korn and Lasse-Marc Riek will be released for the
first time as a limited 10 CD box edition!
We are looking forward to your support!
Thank you very much!

 

https://www.startnext.com/cd-box-series-invisible

 

(Un)erhört – Ohren auf!
Können wir Erinnerungen hören?
Macht Euch mit uns auf eine gedankliche Reise an die verschiedensten
Orte auf der ganzen Welt und unterstützt unser Crowdfunding-Projekt
„series invisible“ auf Startnext! Nach 19 Jahren des aktiven Löschens
und Dokumentierens soll das gemeinsame Projekt der Künstler Christoph
Korn und Lasse-Marc Riek zum ersten Mal als limitierte 10 CD Box-
Edition erscheinen!
Wir freuen uns über Euren Support!
Vielen Dank!


 

Review | By Karl Grümpe / Musique Machine
Acts and Recitals | Michał Wiśniowski
Michał Wiśniowski is a Polish sound artist hailing from Krakow, with his interests revolving around field recordings and ambience. Acts And Recitals, his latest album, is literally a sonic deposit of nine field recordings (or stories as the artist refers to them), captured in a one-month-long journey to Georgia. Wiśniowski created an audio log of found sounds, characterized by the spontaneous truth of the material, which is presented raw and organic. This is a fine and pure example of phonography. The sounds are from various performative objects and machinery, natural and human-produced elements, voices, music and sounds from speakers, urban sounds and so on, which are formed in a series of unified pieces. The perfection of these recordings is so powerful that it transcends far beyond strict field recording definition, venturing into the realms of musique concrète. []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Acts and Recitals | Michał Wiśniowski
Michał Wiśniowski is a Polish sound artist who lives in Krakow and is an inveterate explorer of sounds through field recordings and the ambient as a sound environment. For the latter, Wiśniowski organizes expeditions inside and outside the city of Krakow.
In 2021, he released an EP “Zima nad Bałtykiem (Winter on the Baltic Sea)” consisting of field recordings that focus on the winter sounds of water. In 2022, he released „Organism,“ an album that features apartment blocks as a living organism. He is also the presenter in a radio program that deals with ambience.
The album in question belongs to Gruenrekorder’s „Field Recording“ series, a German label that brings together an important roster of sound artists from around the world. []


 

Gruenrekorder | Soundcloud

 

Gruenrekorder · Acts and Recitals | Michał Wiśniowski

 

Gruenrekorder · Woman Giant | Matthias Engelke

 

Gruenrekorder · Sounds of Absence | Various artists

 

Gruenrekorder · Pressure | Markus Mehr

 

New Release:

 

 

Michał Wiśniowski: ‘Acts and Recitals
GrDl 212/22 – Gruen Digital
9 Tracks (43:45)


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 HOURS OF RADIO ART in a snack size format!
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20221104-1
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20221021
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20221007-1
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20221007
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20220916


 

New Release:

 

 

Matthias Engelke: ‘Woman Giant
GrDl 210/22 – Gruen Digital
16 Tracks (69:09)


 

Gruenrekorder @ Schöner Hören : Kino für die Ohren
Zeitgenössische Audio-Kunst
01/10/2022 / Kooperative New Jazz e.V. / Walkmühle 1
Bornhofenweg 9 / 65195 Wiesbaden


 

Review | By Musik aus meinem Postfach | radiohoerer
Sounds of Absence | Various artists
[] Dass diese Musik, bisher, noch nicht im deutschen Rundfunk gesendet wurde, ist ein Dilemma. Wahrscheinlich sollte ich einen Podcast mit solcher Musik beginnen. Aber das brauche ich nicht, denn es gibt ja „Late Junction“ von der BBC, wo allerlei Musik gespielt wird, die es in deutschen Redaktionen noch nicht einmal aufs Papier schafft 😉
Dort habe ich auch die Musik von Michael Lightborne gehört, der mich dann zu Gruenrekorder führte. Dann fiel mir ein, dass ich noch was von Gruenrekorder auf der Festplatte hatte und so bin ich auf diese Compilation gestossen. Wie ihr sicherlich wisst, ist dies nicht die erste und bestimmt nicht die letzte Compilation, zum Thema Pandemie und Lockdown. Das besondere an dieser Compilation ist ihre Bandbreite, die Gegensätzlichkeit ihrer Entwürfe. Kurz, ihr kompromissloser Ansatz. Und hier bleibt sich das Label Gruenrekorder treu.
So kann ich euch diese Compilation nur wärmstens ans Herz/Ohr legen. Am meisten beeindrucken mich Feldaufnahmen unter Kopfhörern und das ist wirklich faszinierend!


 

Review | By textura
Sounds of Absence | Various artists
With so many public spaces left uninhabited by a human presence during two years of pandemic lockdowns, it makes perfect sense that Gruenrekorder, the Germany-based sound art label known for its many field recordings-oriented releases, would issue a collection exploring the concept of absence and specifically what it sounds like. That’s the question Peter Kiefer, head of the research group ARS (art research sound) at the Mainz Music School, first put to himself and then to others in order to ascertain their responses to the state-of-things. The website ARS created to collect those responses eventually, with curation handled by Wingel Mendoza and Joshua Weitzel, developed into the seventy-two-minute compilation volume fittingly titled Sounds of Absence (available in digital and CD formats). []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Pressure | Markus Mehr
The German composer and musician Markus Mehr released several rock albums between the 90s and 2000s. But it was in 2006 when he made a turn and focused his work on experimental music that began with his album „Lava“ (Hidden Shoal Recordings, 2010).
“Pressure” is a warning about the lack of respect for the environment in concrete construction, where sand, as an inherent material in concrete, is running out. Its character, naturally or artificially reduced to very small particles of metal or mineral, is similar to the work carried out by Mehr, who uses field recordings of concrete domes, construction noises and earth movements, to microrecordings of hardened concrete and seismographs recordings of collapsing buildings. All these recordings are the base material that Mehr manipulates, deconstructs and twists with his electronic devices. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 HOURS OF RADIO ART in a snack size format!
Sounds of Absence | Various artists


 

Review | By field notes Magazin
Sounds of Absence | Various artists
Jedes Stück Musik hat nicht nur eine Geschichte, sondern erzählt auch etwas über Geschichte beziehungsweise reflektiert im Kleinen die größeren historischen Zusammenhänge, in denen es entstand. So zum Beispiel die Compilation »
« auf dem Field-Recordings- und Klangkunst-Label Grünrekorder. Über 17 Stücke hinweg befassen sich darauf so unterschiedliche Künstler*innen wie Alvin Curran, Haco oder Viola Yip mit der Frage, wie der gesellschaftliche Stillstand während einzelner Lockdowns und die damit einhergehende soziale Isolation sich auf ästhetischer Ebene äußerten. Das Ergebnis ist so heterogen wie die konzeptionellen Ansätze der Beteiligten, die Compilation als solche aber ein wichtiges historisches Dokument. []


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Sounds of Absence | Various artists
In the coming years, sonologists will continue to be grateful for the work of field recording artists during the pandemic. Guided by curiosity, working for the most part without pay, such artists captured aural time capsules: innumerable hours of raw material in which is encoded vital information about our species and its relationship to the biosphere. On Sounds of Absence, Peter Kiefer, head of Art-Research-Sound at the Mainz Music School, invited artists to submit recordings captured during lockdown, as well as compositions that express their impressions of the period. The result is a potpourri, from empty to packed, immobile to overworked, with an undercurrent of melancholy. []


 

framework radio | #801
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
Pressure | Markus Mehr


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
ZEITFREI | Matthias Engelke
Matthias Engelke is a German composer and sound artist who has been composing music for contemporary dance theater and theater productions since 2001. In 2021 he released his album “Resonant Dowland” and in 2022 “Zeitfrei”, belonging to the series Sound Art of the German label Gruenrekorder.
Participating in this album is the German soprano Maraile Lichdi, who has been working as an independent opera, concert and lieder singer since 2009. Her repertoire includes almost 40 opera roles and more than 40 concert and oratorio works. Helmut Engelke plays violin and viola, Ulrike Mäding-Lemmerich, plays violin and Matthias Engelke is in charge of the music composition, lyrics, piano and electronics. Matthias Engelke’s work has been focused on the interaction between his composition and analog electronic instruments, as well as how the latter are positioned in the spatiality of a theater. []


 

Review | By Rigobert Dittmann / Bad Alchemy Magazin (115)
Sounds of Absence | Various artists
V/A Sounds of absence (Gruenrekorder, Gruen 209): Was da erklingt, ist Ausfluss des Projekts ARS Art – Research – Sound, über dem Professor Peter Kiefer waltet als Leiter des Studiengangs Klangkunst-Komposition an der HfM Mainz. Kuratorisch tätig waren allerdings Wingel Mendoza als einer, der dem Gott des Windes und der Gelehrsamkeit lauscht und bei „Fünf Wörter aus dem Main“ Hölderlin und Hindemith. Und mit dem Kasseler Klangkünstler Joshua Weitzel ein zweiter, dem man ebenfalls auf hr2-kultur begegnet, wenn Stefan Fricke in der Reihe ‚The Artist’s Corner‘ Ars Acustica moderiert. Sie alle drei liefern auch Antworten auf Kiefers Frage, wie sich Lockdowns und Ausgangssperren akustisch auswirken. 14 weitere Rückmeldungen kamen aus dem totenstillen Hanau (Lasse-Marc Riek), aus Frankfurt (Roland Etzin, Danbi Jeung), London (Emmanuelle Waeckerlé), Kobe (Haco), Nairobi (Raphael Kariuki), Berkeley (Alvin Curran) oder dem eisigen Vilnius (Dominykas Digimas). Meist mit Fieldrecordings von Wind, von fahrenden Zügen, daneben auch mit Samples, Feedback, Synthie oder Electronics, die ein Fehlen suggerieren oder konterkarieren. []


 

New Release | 15 July 2022:

 

 

V.A.: ‘Sounds of Abscence
Gruen 209/22 – CD + Digital
17 Tracks (71:42)
run: 500 copies


 

Jacob Kirkegaard – „Sound – Nature – Environment“
Artist talk June 25, 2022
7 p.m., Black Box, Hochschule für Musik / Mainz

 

Concert June 26, 2022
7:30 p.m., Black Box, Hochschule für Musik / Mainz

 

www.musik.uni-mainz.de
ars.uni-mainz.de


 

Review | By textura
Soundscape Røst – Spaces and Species Vol I | Elin Már Øyen Vister
I haven’t visited the Røst archipelago, located 100 km west of northern Norway, but Elin Már Øyen Vister’s collection of soundscapes from the area grants me a fairly strong impression of what it would be like to do so. As I play the vinyl album (issued in a 300-copy run) and read the accompanying notes for its twelve pieces, the site’s soundworld comes vividly to life as I picture myself on one of its islands surrounded by site-specific birds flooding the air with vocalizations. []


 

Review | By Colin Lang / Musique Machine
Pressure | Markus Mehr
Markus Mehr’s newest release, Pressure, is exactly that: a sonic force pushed to extremes, both in tonality and arrangement. Dealing largely with the environmentally unfriendly phenomenon of concrete construction, Mehr’s electronic minimalism grinds each sound source and field recording down to a granular level, as acoustic metaphor for the sand that makes up a large percentage of concrete materials. Pressure perambulates through different existing architectural structures, and reflects the brutalism of their style and acts, as they stand-in for the rapidly dwindling availability of sand in the world today. []


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Pressure | Markus Mehr
It’s been five years since we’ve seen an album in a concrete box, the last being MYMK’s The Memory Fog. But while that one had to be broken to access the tape within, this one can be opened to find the USB stick. Pressure also joins the ranks of famous recordings using that name, the most notorious being Queen & David Bowie’s “Under Pressure,” Billy Joel’s “Pressure” and Jessica Darrow’s “Surface Pressure.” Yet while those recordings deal with the effects of pressure on the human brain, Markus Mehr has something more literal in mind: the pressure on natural resources used to create cement, including the over-mining of sand. The process uses an inordinate amount of water and energy, while the material takes a toll on the soil and can produce cracks and fissures. []


 

New Release:

 

 

Markus Mehr: ‘Pressure
Gruen 206/22 – Boxed USB + Digital
8 Tracks (46:59)
run: 50 copies


 

Review | By Martin Hufner / HörBar der neue musikzeitung
ZEITFREI | Matthias Engelke
Eine eigene musikalische Welt stoßen hier Matthias Engelke und Maraile Lichdi auf. Natürlich, wer macht das nicht oder hätte nicht diesen Anspruch. Die eigene Welt hier ist keine gänzlich unbekannte, aber doch nie Gehörte. Diese CD mit ihrem wunderbaren Artwork in Booklet und Cover ist gleichwohl speziell und von unerhörter Faszination. Die Kompositionen begeben sich in einer Mischung aus Original-Klängen (Musique concrète) und mittels weiterer technischer Verfahren verfremdeter Klänge auf Wanderschaft in subtilste Klangmischungen und rhythmische Muster. Wie soll man das erklären. Die Musik tänzelt gewissermaßen auf Stiltechniken neuer Musik, improvisierter Wirkung und extremer Reduktion des Materials. Darin entschwebt die solistische oder vervielfachte Sopranstimme von Maraile Lichdi, die wie feinster Stahl die Klanglandschaft aus der Kompositionsdose wie ein heißes Messer in Butter teilt oder mal pikst oder eben darüber zu entfleuchen scheint. []


 

Review | Leiden University
Shizugawa | Andrew Littlejohn
Anthropologist Andrew Littlejohn composes sonic ethnography in Japan
Andrew Littlejohn composed a sonic ethnography with sounds recorded in Japan’s northeastern region. He decided to make recordings because he wasn’t satisfied with the images and videos that appeared after a tsunami struck there in 2011. Most of it was ruin photography, often involving gazing on destruction from the distance. To understand the experience of being in the middle of a changing landscape, Littlejohn composed a sonic ethnography called Shizugawa, named after a district in Minamisanriku Town where he recorded. The work was released by the label Gruenrekorder on the first of December 2020. Shizugawa is a work of field recording, or location-based sound recording: someone goes out into the world with a microphone and records the sounds of the surroundings. Field recording isn’t new in anthropology; today, a number of well-known anthropologists, like Rupert Cox, Steven Feld, Ernst Karel, and Stephanie Spray, use it as part of a multi-modal approach to exploring and representing sounded worlds. []


 

Review | By Lutz Vössing / skug
Sounds of the Projection Box | Michael Lightborne
Lektion im Musikhören – Das Label Gruenrekorder veröffentlicht Field Recordings am laufenden Band. Ob das Musik ist oder etwas anderes, kann man beim Lauschen der von Michael Lightborne aufgenommenen Geräusche aus dem Kino-Projektionsraum jetzt selbst eruieren. Wie wir unsere Musik hören, bestimmt auch ein wenig mit, was wir als Musik definieren. Sei es der aufdringliche Refrain eines Popsongs über Kopfhörer in den Öffis oder das andere »Extrem«, nämlich das bedächtige Lauschen von Feldaufnahmen zu Hause, mit dem Booklet in der Hand. Im Unterschied zu eingängiger Popmusik: Diese ist leicht verständlich und erschleicht sich auf perfideste Art die Aufmerksamkeit, ist zwischendurch und ohne jegliche Vorkenntnisse konsumierbar. Jene Feldaufnahmen hingegen entfalten ihre ganze Wirkkraft oft erst nach ernster Auseinandersetzung mit dem Gegenstand, dem man auch erst dann wirkliches Interesse entgegenbringen kann. Diese Aufnahmen ergeben Sinn durch die Idee, welche in ihnen verwirklicht wird und meist ausführlich (vom Künstler) beschrieben dem Werk beiliegt. []


 

©ovid’s metamorphoses
At the first „big lockdown“ in the first Corona pandemic year we Bernd Herzogenrath and Lasse-Marc Riek conceived and curated an international art project. The project is titled ‚©ovid’s metamorphoses‘ and is based on the idea of the ‚broken telephone game‘. In the style of ‚Covid-19‘ we played in 19 rounds with a total of 133 international artists* from the fields of film, sound, text and photography. We would be very happy to receive support for the production of a publication.
www.startnext.com/en/covids-metamorphoses


 

New Release:

 

 

Matthias Engelke: ‘ZEITFREI
Gruen 208/22 – CD
13 Tracks (79:21)
run: 500 copies


 

framework radio | #783
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
Soundscape Røst – Spaces and Species Vol I | Elin Már Øyen Vister


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan
CITR’s 24 HOURS OF RADIO ART in a snack size format!
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20220107-1
https://www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20220117-1


 

Review | By textura
Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di ComposizioneSergio Armaroli & Alessandro Camnasio
The booklet included with the physical CD release of Mahler (in/a) Cage, the latest addition to Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series, provides helpful context for the recording. In the “Preludio,” the work is described as a “possible reconstruction of a hypothetical and natural soundscape, within Mahler’s music or rather his musical imaginary following some archetypal signals (e.g. cowbells, birdsongs).” Even more helpful are notes by Alessandro Camnasio, credited as the sound engineer for Italian sound artist Sergio Armaroli’s project. Referring to the process by which details at the site were first captured and then subjected to shaping in the studio, he states that de-noising processing was used to purge the field recordings of car and machinery noises in order to “recreate a soundscape closer to the one that Mahler probably heard during his stays in Dobbiaco.” Further to that, water sounds were coloured with resonances tuned to specific frequencies from Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) and the soundscape sculpted to reconstruct “Mahler’s subjective listening experiences in those places.” []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di ComposizioneSergio Armaroli & Alessandro Camnasio
Gustav Mahler lived his last years in the town of Dobbiaco / Toblach (Bozen), Northern Italy, where he composed the work “The song of the earth” (“Das Lied von der Erde”) between 1907 and 1909. This work was carried out in the period of the year in which Mahler himself resided in Dobbiaco and the purpose was to evoke the soundscape that accompanied Mahler when he composed the aforementioned work. The recording session was completed in the summer of 2020 by the Italian Alessandro Camnasio, Italian composer, sound designer, editor and sound engineer, together with Sergio Armaroli, sound artist and vibraphonist who currently lives in Milan. Field recordings include water, cars, animals, birds, tractors, bells, children playing, and the hum of the field being held like a drone. []


 

Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di Composizione
@ ACL 2021 ~ Top Ten Field Recording & Soundscape

The natural world existed long before the creation of instruments: music made by wind and waves, birds and beasts. During the pandemic, many people have rediscovered the aural joys of nature: music that is always playing, and that can best be heard without headphones. Field recording artists capture these sounds like others do photographs, and share their sonic souvenirs with the world.
This year’s picks travel from the heat of a volcano to the frigidity of Antarctica, with pit stops in between: rainforests, greenhouses, hidden islands and rivers. Some of these sounds exist a long plane ride away; others have been lost forever; still more wait just outside our windows, waiting to be heard. […]
Mahler recorded Song of the Earth in the cozy environment of the Composition House (pictured at the top of this article). Over a century later, Armaroli and Camnasio attempt to recreate his sonic environment using concepts from Cage. Toward the end of this imaginative reconstruction, the strains of Mahler’s labor waft through an elaborate tapestry of rural sounds. (Richard Allen)
link


 

Review | By Ettore Garzia / Percorsi Musicali
Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di ComposizioneSergio Armaroli & Alessandro Camnasio
Mahler (in/a) Cage: panorami sonori fisiognomici
Sull’idea del soundscape si può certamente effettuare un’analisi temporale retroattiva per accogliere corrispondenze con il pensiero di un compositore: l’idea del vagare o passeggiare su un territorio per trovare suoni naturali da filtrare nella composizione fu una fonte d’ispirazione per molti dei compositori romantici del periodo ottocentesco. Lo fu per Schumann in Waldszenen così come lo fu indiscutibilmente per i compositori del Nord Europa che l’applicarono con soavità differenziate nella musica (da Grieg a Sibelius); un compositore come Mahler, per esempio, dimostrò di avere un amore fortissimo per alcune zone alpine frequentate fuori da Vienna, che servirono come zone-cuscinetto dell’anima: Mahler incrementò i suoi soggiorni soprattutto negli ultimi anni della sua vita, quando in essa si stavano concentrando parecchie disgrazie (la perdita della figlia, la remissione del lavoro a Vienna e soprattutto un cuore irrimediabilmente malato); il soggiorno prescelto da Mahler fu quello incantevole di Dobbiaco e gli studiosi dell’austro-boemo hanno da tempo sottolineato l’importanza di una delle sue ultime opere, la Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) per due voci contralto e tenore più orchestra, riconoscendone un particolare valore finale, un senso di devozione alla natura con riguardo del testo poetico, posto come una riorganizzazione di poesie cinesi tradotte in tedesco. []


 

New Release:

 

 

Gruenrekorder: ‘Anniversary Issue
Gruen 200/21 – Blank Tape
run: 50 copies
⇒ added freely to all orders of 3 or more items while stocks last


 

New Release:

 

 

Elin Már Øyen Vister: ‘Soundscape Røst – Spaces and Species Vol I
Gruen 204/21 – Vinyl + Digital
12 Tracks (53:30)
run: 300 copies


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di ComposizioneSergio Armaroli & Alessandro Camnasio
What did Gustav Mahler hear as he composed The Song of the Earth? This inviting question is answered by Sergio Armaroli and Alessandro Camnasio on Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di Composizione, whose title refers not to putting the composer in a cage, but to John Cage, whose concepts inform the execution. In his last years, Mahler resided in Dobbiaco (Bozen), writing in the evocatively named Composition House. Armaroli and Camnasio begin recording outside the house and gradually work their way toward, and then in. A distant hum marks “The sound of the earth: at dawn,” punctuated by birds as they begin to awake and sing: the call to the composer to awake, fling open the sashes and begin to write. But perhaps Mahler had a different start in mind: to walk the meadows and drink in the soundscape. Would Mahler have brewed a cup of fine Italian coffee, or donned a cap and perhaps a pen? Would he have stopped to appreciate the sound of the day’s first cowbell, anticipating the arrival of more? Were the creative thoughts already beginning to unfold? []


 

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di ComposizioneSergio Armaroli & Alessandro Camnasio
This new Gruenrekorder release is one of those releases that I don’t know about. Now, suppose you don’t read any of the text, inspect the cover, and know anything about the musicians; what do you hear? Field recordings from the countryside, I would say. Water, cars, some animals, tractors, children are playing. Did I at any point think this is the house in which Gustave Mahler composed ‚Das Lied Von Der Erde‘, among other works (his last)between 1909 and 1911. I have no idea where to find Dobbiaco/Toblach (Bozen) on the map, and I pride myself on some geographical knowledge. Sergo Armaroli visited the place and recorded his sounds, according to John Cage’s ideas as laid in ‚Sculptures Musicales‘, „an exhibition of several (sonic sculptures), one at a time, beginning and ending „hard-edge“, concerning the surrounding „silence“, each sculpture within the same space the audience is. []


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Soundlapse | Various artists
The “golden year” for soundscapers has drawn to a close, and the results continue to be published. During lockdown, field recording artists were able to capture environments in an unprecedented, nearly pristine fashion, immune from the intrusions of humanity. The sonic arm of the Soundlapse project is based on Chilean recordings made by Rodrigo Torres, Cristóbal Briceño and Felipe Otondo were sent to multiple artists for interpretation. In eight tracks, one may experience the wetlands of Valdivia’s “Parque Urbano El Bosque” through a variety of lenses. Part of the project’s appeal is discovering what each artist hears and chooses to highlight in the same collection of sounds. Two include sirens, perhaps a nod to the piercing reminders of COVID. []


 

New Release:

 

 

V.A.: ‘Soundlapse
Gruen 207/21 – Gruen Digital
8 Tracks (70:03)
⇒ free mp3 version available


 

New Release:

 

 

Sergio Armaroli & Alessandro Camnasio: ‘Mahler (in/a) Cage | Casetta di Composizione
Gruen 203/21 – CD + Digital
7 Tracks (74:00)
run: 300 copies


 

3 Reviews – Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke
Mannheimer Morgen (25.5.2021)
Das Porträt: Der Komponist Matthias Engelke bearbeitet 400 Jahre alte Lautenlieder von John Dowland elektronisch Renaissance im Klanglabor
Mit Matthias Engelke kann man sich über viele Dinge unterhalten. Unter anderem über „post-petrarcistische“ Gedichte, Minnelieder und Miles Davis. Aber auch über Corona: Engelke, ein Komponist und Sounddesigner, der gerade eine Aufnahme von elektronisch überarbeiteten Lautenliedern von John Dowland auf den Markt gebracht hat, hat nämlich Molekularvirologie studiert. Er deutet an, dass er in dieser Pandemie-Zeit ungefähr auf einer Linie mit Karl Lauterbach und Christian Drosten liege. Engelke bedauert, dass die rationale, wissenschaftliche Betrachtungsweise in der öffentlichen Diskussion oft einen schweren Stand habe. Beim Telefongespräch mit ihm fällt die Verständigung indessen leicht: „Dann doch lieber über John Dowland reden.“ Engelkes CD basiert auf der Musik zu einer schon 2013 aufgeführten Tanztheaterproduktion, auch wenn sie später für die Tonaufnahme substanziell verändert wurde. []

 

Eva-Maria Magel | FAZ (21.1.2021 – FRANKFURT)
Steht dieses lyrische Ich in einer alten Fabrikhalle? So klingt es, wenn die betörende Stimme „Flow My Tears“ intoniert. Hier ein Schaben, dort ein leichter Hall, hier so etwas wie ein zerborstenes Fenster. Der einsame Sänger aus dem frühen 17. Jahrhundert, eine geniale Inszenierung des höfischen Frühbarock, scheint in einem Eisenwerk des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts zu stehen, während die Relikte der Industrie leise vor sich hin knarren. Es sind vor allem die Orte der Moderne, bisweilen aber auch Natur, die John Dowlands berühmte Lieder sanft in unsere Gegenwart heben. Die Betonung liegt auf sanft. Denn es mag hier mal krachen und dort knarren, es gibt auch zackige Beats. Aber am Wohlklang dieser fast ätherischen Stimme rührt fast nichts. „Resonant Dowland. Songs for Tenor and Electronics“ nennt Matthias Engelke sein Solo-Debüt, soeben als CD erschienen beim für experimentelle Tonkunst bekannten Hanauer Label Gruenrekorder und auf Downloadplattformen erhältlich. []

 

Bernd Feuchtner | Fono-Forum (Ausgabe 06/2021)
Resonant Dowland. Dowland/Engelke: Songs For Tenor And Electronics (2020); Gruenrekorder – John Dowlands Lautenlieder sind beliebt und wunderschön. Doch schon im Elisabethanischen Zeitalter galt der Prophet nichts im eigenen Land. Dowland verbrachte die meiste seiner produktiven Zeit an kontinentalen Höfen. Die von Elisabeth verweigerte Stelle des Hoflautenisten erhielt er erst von James I. Es waren vor allem Percy Grainger und Benjamin Britten, die ihn mit ihren Bearbeitungen wieder bekannt machten, und der Counter-Pionier Alfred Deller nahm Dowland-Songs auf Platte auf. Die Lieder haben ihren eigenen Zauber, für den die jugendliche, schöne und ausdrucksstarke Tenorstimme von Matthias Engelke wie geschaffen scheint. Vor allem aber hat Engelke zwölf Dowland- Songs in seine eigene, moderne Musikwelt gezogen. Er begegnet ihnen mit Respekt, verwandelt sie sich aber an und ersetzt die Laute mit heutiger zartfarbener Elektronik. Sanft sind Melodie und Timbre, aber sie halten den elektronischen Klängen mühelos stand. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ The Edge of Music: Field Recording
Musiksendung von Radio Q, dem Campusradio an der Universität Münster
Unter „Field Recordings“ versteht man zum Beispiel Audio-Aufnahmen in der Natur oder von Menschenmengen. In der Musiksendung „The Edge of Music“ fragen sich die Moderatoren Jan-David Wiegmann und Moritz Meyer: Was haben Field Recordings mit Musik zu tun? Dafür sprechen sie mit Lasse-Marc Riek und Roland Etzin vom Field-Recording-Label „Gruenrekorder“. Sie erzählen von ihren eigenen Erfahrungen mit dieser Kunstform. Die Label-Chefs beantworten außerdem die Frage, wieso viele Künstler auf ihrem Label nicht aus dem Musikbereich kommen, sondern aus der Wissenschaft. In der Sendung gibt’s außerdem ein Interview mit Musiker „KMRU“ aus Kenia. Er verbindet in seiner Musik Field Recordings mit elektronischen Klängen.
www.nrwision.de/mediathek/the-edge-of-music-field-recording-210616
www.radioq.de/2021/06/the-edge-of-music-field-recording


 

Gruenrekorder @ Globalwize Radio show # 384
WeltBeat | MusicLover – die Internationale des guten Musikgeschmacks
www.weltbeat.net
www.weltbeat.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Globalwize384.pdf
www.mixcloud.com/Greedio


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
24 Hours of Radio Art 2021 Programming Schedule + Podcasts
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20210306


 

Review | By Martin P / Musique Machine
Stadt (Land Fluss)“ | Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl
Here’s a rather odd package from Gruenrekorder, which consists of a printed piece of cardboard with a CD attached to the reverse, and a booklet held on with a rubber band – it’s unclear if this is conceptual or just pragmatic and somewhat ugly. The CD contains one long 42-minute track, ‘Stadt [Land Fluss],’ based on the music theatre piece of the same name by Daniel Kötter and Hannes Seidl, whilst the booklet compiles text from the piece and photographs from a performance of it. ‘Stadt [Land Fluss]’ explores issues of urban space, urban planning, architectural design, and the politics of the urban. The 42-minute track is an odd beast, equal parts engaging and, frankly, less-engaging. To summarise crudely, the piece is dominated by dark drones and enigmatic micro-sounds, and pounding electroacoustic sounds and raw field recordings; there are all manner of electronic noises, the scraping of guitars, aeroplanes flying overhead, rhythmic techno-esque sections, primitive whines, and obscure tones. []


 

Review | By Roger Batty / Musique Machine
Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke
ow, this is something rather different from German field recording/ sound art label Gruenrekorder- an album’s worth of modern/ avant-garde takes on songs from the Renaissance period, created by the use of male tenor vocalising and experimental electronics. All making for an album that very much feels like it’s in its own strange reality- somewhere between the 16th century and glitched-up future. The release appears in the form of a twelve-track CD. It’s presented in a four-panel digipak, which features a thirty-six-page booklet- that takes in a blend of moody, if abstract photos, and the full texts for the songs. So as we’ve come to expect from the Gruenrekorder, a nice arty presentation. []


 

Liebe Hörer:innen aus der Region Offenbach am Main
unser Kollege und Freund Budhaditya Chattopadhyay hat eine spannende Arbeit „Aural Drift“ im Rahmen des Festivals Tonfunktion an verschiedenen Orten der Stadt umgesetzt!

 

Die Soundarchitektur einer Stadt ist eine genuine Textur aus Signal- und Orientierungslauten, Funktionsrauschen und Sprache, dem steten Wandel der Zeit unterworfen. In Form einer ethnologischen Klangfeldforschung untersucht der Künstler Budhaditya Chattopadhyay diese sonische Struktur – Gefüge und Verwerfungen der Offenbacher City. Seine Klangarchäologie schenkt unerhörten Winkeln und Orten des öffentlichen Raums Gehör und legt historische und soziale Schichten als akustisches Material frei. Die Arbeit manifestiert sich in Form einer mobilen Ausstellung gesammelter Klanglandschaften, abruf- und hörbar durch hinterlegte QR-Codes an spezifischen Orten der Stadt.

 

Termine und Orte: www.mousonturm.de/events/aural-drift
Auszüge von „Aural Drift“ werden am 13.6. um 11.30 Uhr auf EOS Radio gesendet.


 

PRESSURE | SOUNDINSTALLATION
Markus Mehr – markusmehr.de
MITTWOCH, 16. JUNI 2021 UM 19:00 UTC+02
Neue Galerie im Höhmannhaus
Vom 16.06. bis zum 18.07.2021
PRESSURE ist ein begehbarer Klangkörper, der rundum mit dem Galerieraum und den Konditionen sei- ner Architektur interagiert. Dabei wird nicht nur die planvollen, ästhetisch-konstruktiven Elemente von Architektur als human gestalteter, gebauter Welt berücksichtigt, sondern reflektiert ebenso Aspekte menschlicher Destruktion und Naturzerstörung, für die sie stehen kann. []


 

Review | By Martin Hufner / HörBar – neue musikzeitung
Stadt (Land Fluss)“ | Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl
A Radio-Play, altdeutsch, ein Hörspiel. Wie ein kluger Radioautor in den 60er Jahren bereits bemerkte, ein doppelter Imperativ als Kompositum. Hör‘! plus Spiel‘! Kann sein, dass man sich bewusst für die englische Form entschieden hat, das mehr in den Theaterbereich lugt – und das, obwohl das Theater hier gerade als Performance der Klänge und Worte zusammentrifft. Spielen wir also das Spiel? Davon zuerst das Spiel: Stadt Land Fluss. Aber keine Bange, es gibt hier nicht ein eitles Wissensquiz in neuen Klängen. Sondern, basierend auf den Musik-Theaterstücken, die Hannes Seidl mit Daniel Kötter in den letzten Jahren erschufen, eine Radioreduktion – oder, warum Reduktion? – Neusubstanziierung. Siehe auch die Anmerkungen von Hans-Peter Graf unter dem Titel „Hören mit dieser Technik ist ein gehendes Hören – Stadt (Land Fluss) von Daniel Kötter und Hannes Seidl in Berlin“ in der nmz. []


 

Christina Kubisch & Annea Lockwood / The secret life of the inaudible
@ shut up and listen!
Transdisziplinäres Festival für Musik und Klangkunst
Hörraum – Sonntag, 6. Juni 2021, 11:30


 

Matthias Engelke: Resonant Dowland, Songs for Tenor & Electronics (Gruenrekorder)
@ Longlist 2/2021 / Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik
Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke


 

Review | By textura
Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke
Classical purists might balk at the idea of giving John Dowland songs an electronic makeover, but they would be wrong to dismiss Matthias Engelke’s project out-of-hand. While his ‘digital recomposition‘ of the Renaissance composer’s material is thorough, it’s not disrespectful, and the results repeatedly reveal the care with which the German sound artist has crafted the twelve productions. Engelke ensures the songs don’t get lost, even when the arrangements re-position them within digitally sculpted spaces. The temporal divide separating Dowland’s time and ours collapses in these treatments; at the same time the electronic intervention can’t help but put distance between them, and as a result balance and tension are both present. Such melding of analog-generated and electronic material has been, it seems, a long-standing area of interest for the producer. []


 

Review | By Gerardo Scheige / MusikTexte 168
Stadt (Land Fluss)“ | Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl
Das Morgen im Heute
Zum Hörspiel „Stadt [Land Fluss]“ von Daniel Kötter und Hannes Seidl
Ist unser Planet bereits vollständig kartographiert? Unzählige im Weltall kreisende GPS-Satelliten, die jeden Millimeter der Erde abgemessen haben dürften, drängen uns förmlich ein entschiedenes Ja auf. Dennoch: Wäre die Welt ein Gemälde, stünde die Sichtbarkeit aller Farbtupfer nicht zwingend für das Erkennen und Begreifen ihrer Zusammenhänge. Genauso verhält es sich im Kleinen mit der (Groß-)Stadt, diesem paradigmatischen modernen Mikrokosmos. Gebäude, Straßen, Parks, Kanalisationssysteme, Lichtsignalanlagen stellen eine visuelle und haptische Ordnung her, die ein schier endloser, aus Stimmen, Hupen und Sirenen geknüpfter Geräuschteppich ergänzt, hinterfragt und bisweilen wieder aufhebt. Und mittendrin: das Individuum. []


 

Review | By Henry Kozok / radio.friendsofalan.de
Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke
CD Tipp: „Resonant Dowland“ Matthias Engelke
Shakespeare und sein Zeitgenosse John Dowland sind heute immer noch aktuell. Shakespeares Dramen werden auf allen Bühnen der Welt gespielt. Und John Dowland? Auf LastFM, nur als Beispiel, haben seine Lieder in diesem Jahr 102.000 Hörer gefunden. Das finde ich beachtlich. Wie können neue Hörer einen Zugang zu seinen Liedern finden? Eine interessante und sehr hörenswerte Möglichkeit hat Matthias Engelke mit seinem Projekt „Resonant Dowland“ gefunden.
Ich möchte mich recht herzlich bei Matthias Engelke bedanken, dass er mir auf meine Fragen sehr umfangreich geantwortet hat und ich diese hier einbinden kann. Schon in seiner Jugend ist Matthias Engelke mit der Musik von John Dowland in Berührung gekommen. Seine Mutter, die Barock Flötistin ist, führte mit u.a. Bob Spencer ausgewählte Songs von John Dowland auf, wie „In darkness let me dwell“ oder „Come again“. []


 

Review | By (DM) / VITAL WEEKLY
Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke
Matthias Engelke from Stuttgart, Germany studied biology and chemistry. Besides he studied piano (classical and jazz) and developed a strong interest in electronic music. He works mainly as a composer for theatre- and dance productions. In his compositions, he often shows an interest in integrating analogue sounds in the context of electronically generated music. For ‘Resonant Dowland’ Engelke selected songs from Renaissance composer, singer and lutenist John Dowland. He embedded and integrated these solo vocals works in an electronic environment. Not however in the sense of background. The album is subtitled: ‘Songs for tenor and electronics’. For this project, subtitled ‘Songs for tenor and electronics’ seeks for another between the two. He is not the first one to confront this old music with modern idioms and techniques. John Surman and Barry Guy a.o. made a jazz-oriented version of some of his songs. Also, French guitarist, David Chevalier did this on his album ‘Dowland – a game of mirrors’ (2014). Engelke’s project is rooted in his biography. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
24 Hours of Radio Art 2021 Programming Schedule + Podcasts
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20210206-1
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20210206


 

Gruenrekorder @ The Sound Projector Radio Show
The Submarine Hotel
www.thesoundprojector.com/2020/10/16/the-submarine-hotel
Over The Cliff (repeat)
www.thesoundprojector.com/2020/10/10/over-the-cliff-repeat
Sale Ends At Midnight
www.thesoundprojector.com/2020/01/17/sale-ends-at-midnight


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
Silva Datum Musica (GRUENREKORDER Gruen 187) by Plein Air has unusual sounds, and it’s an LP that starts out nice, but sadly I soon sensed it’s not really going anywhere. Tim Collins and Reiko Goto have, with the help of other scientists, found a way to process “plant bioacoustics” into sound, much like Michael Prime (a legitimate predecessor who is not even mentioned in the notes) did in the 1990s. They do it with one leaf on one tree at a time, and a number of species / varieties are “played” on this record, one side in Glasgow and another in Cologne. Not to deny the scientific basis for this (I think it’s mostly to do with photosynthesis), and I’m prepared to believe we are hearing a tree “breathing”, and Collins and Goto are serious about their work. []


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
11min | snow
11min are a Korean duo, and their instrumental LP is called simply Snow (GRUENREKORDER GrD 31). Jiyeon Kim takes the name 11, and she plays the piano, composes, and does sound design; Sangyong Min is the drummer and engineer/producer. What we hear is very restrained, ultra-cool minimal pieces where every piano note resonates with an evocative echo, while the drummer produces a clipped and understated swing-rhythm with the precision of an electronic calculator. I felt the music is trying to be modern classical in some way, yet it is clearly informed by dance culture and electronica, despite being played all-acoustic. []


 

Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Auf Einladung der Kurator*innen des „quartiersparcours“, einer Serie von Kunst-Interventionen auf dem Gaswerks-Areal, hat Reinhard Gupfinger aus dem Track „Ohrentauchen mit Echolot“ ein dreidimensionales Objekt kreiert, das demnächst im Gaswerksgelände angebracht wird. Reinhard und Gerald Fiebig wurden zu dem Thema in einer Folge des Podcasts zu dem Projekt interviewt, und die Signation des Podcasts (gleich am Anfang) zitiert den Track aus der CD.
Hier könnt ihr es nachhören und nachlesen:
http://what-goes-on.de


 

Review | By Marco De Vidi / il manifesto
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Teredo navalis è il nome di un mollusco che si nutre del legno delle navi. È uno dei quasi invisibili elementi di Venezia e della sua laguna, un ambiente che ha un suo suono, una topofonia, un’identità sonora che esprime tutta la ricchezza e la complessità di un paesaggio che difficilmente ci accade di ascoltare. Enrico Coniglio, musicista e urbanista, che da anni esplora questi luoghi di confine tra terra e acqua, ha catturato i movimenti di flora e fauna, un’ecosistema vivissimo e cangiante, che esiste nel margine, sempre a rischio di scomparire. L’uomo se ne tiene a distanza, osserva, solo raramente esprime una minaccia. In questo caso registra: lavorando soprattutto di notte, nell’area tra Murano e Sant’Erasmo, la laguna nord, utilizzando idrofoni e sensori elettromagnetici, captando il respiro di ciò che si trova sotto la superficie dell’acqua. Il field recording confluisce nell’elettronica, in suoni ambient e droni, che rivelano la profondità di un habitat in continua trasformazione, sconosciuto a chi segue gli estenuati itinerari della città turistica. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
24 Hours of Radio Art 2021 Programming Schedule + Podcasts
https://www.citr.ca/2021/01/15


 

SOUNDS LIKE…VIENNA | Julia Bünnagel
@ Łukasz Komła favorite albums of 2020 in the world
Podsumowanie roku 2020 – Świat – Łukasz Komła
https://www.nowamuzyka.pl


 

Review | By Roger Batty / Musique Machine
Circles and Cycles | Kg Augenstern
Circles and cycles (Tentacles in Sicily– scratching the surface) is an intriguing concept based field recording release ,which depending on your enjoyment of more textured/ noise-based field recordings, is either a rewarding sonic journey, or somewhat of a folly. Here from Germanys, Gruenrekorder is a CD and glossy booklet release, and as we’ve come to expect from the labels it’s another very classy bit of presentation. KG Augenstern are the German duo of Christiane Prehn and Wolfgang Meyer- they live & work on a ship, and their work sits in audio-visually/ audio-kinetic installation, performance and video side of things. They have been working together since the early 2010s, and this is the duos second release on Gruenrekorder- with their first been 2016’s Tentacles(also a CD/ book set) which featured bridge based field recordings made on rivers & canals between Berlin and North-East France. For this new release the pair have selected several abounded sites near Sicily- and in each, they make a recording of their tentacle( a thin metal pole). []


 

Reviews | By textura
Circles and cycles | Kg Augenstern
It’s a safe bet no one else’s artistic practice is quite the same as Kg Augenstern’s. Operating under the alias, Christiane Prehn and Wolfgang Meyer use custom-designed “tentacles,” in simplest terms extendable fibreglass canes that from a fixed position scratch surfaces in circles, to generate audio documents of physical settings. For their second Kg Augenstern release on Gruenrekorder (the first 2016’s Tentacles), the Berlin-based duo decamped to Sicily in autumn 2019 to collect recordings of ten abandoned places, including an old prayer hall in Palermo that was used for a site-specific audiovisual display of the project. In addition to the audio component, the release includes images captured by a camera installed in the centre of the circles as scratchings were made. No humans appear in the photos; instead, there are ruins that in their decaying condition retain the residual trace of their creators. For each location, two pages of photos show the site itself; two subsequent pages show the tentacle reaching onto the surface. []

 

Stadt (Land Fluss)“ | Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl
[] Issues of trade, tourism, industrial development, financing, public spaces, policing, urban control, socialism, and identity arise as historical cases are referenced to strengthen positions (Haussmann in Paris and mobilizations in Argentina as examples). Details accumulate to form a dense stream of electronic and real-world sounds, the texts less converging into shared viewpoints but instead accentuating the vast number of perspectives that emerge when such issues are broached—more questions than answers, in other words. Perhaps that’s one reason why the sound design seems to grow denser as the piece progresses, with the buzzing mix perhaps intimating that positions lose ground when they multiply so abundantly. As the work’s end approaches, the speakers tellingly recede from view and the city as a bustling, sprawling organism takes over, almost as if it’s got a mind of its own. Are Circles and Cycles and Stadt (Land Fluss) musical works? Not in any conventional sense, yet they are music, albeit strange music, of a particular kind—they’re Gruenrekorder projects after all, and one would be naive to expect anything but something unusual from this always compelling label.


 

Reviews | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Three Acoustical Surveys
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Enrico Coniglio has been researching the Venetian lagoon for 15 years. His latest findings are published in the form of sound art, on the CD Teredo Navalis (GRUEN188 CD). His work has evidently provided him with deep knowledge of specialist areas like tide systems, marine life, and an understanding of the nature of the territory which few of us can hope to achieve. He’s also aware of constant and profound change in the environment, and not just in the water – the “post-urban and post-industrial” landscape interests him too. He’s conducting an ecological enquiry for sure, but on his own terms; most of us, myself included, see the “crisis” in Venice as one created by tourism, with the flooding problem and the damage to historically and culturally important buildings uppermost in our minds. But Coniglio sidesteps this particular debate, in favour of examining what he considers to be the more “marginal” parts of the lagoon, referring specifically to a location between Murano and Sant’Erasmo which is where he chose to put his hydrophones in the water, along with electromagnetic sensors. []

 

Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring
Michael Lightborne‘s previous record for this label was the excellent Sounds Of The Projection Box, released in 2018 as a beautifully packaged LP record with plenty of photographic illustrations of his theme. He made documentary recordings of the sounds of projection booths in UK cinemas, but also contextualised the work with his detailed, well-considered annotations and observations. That rigour is much in evidence on today’s record, Ring Road Ring (GRUEN 195). He made recordings of the ring road in Coventry, a structure that was built after the war in the hopes of allowing traffic to bypass the city, so the council could make good on its plan to build a pedestrianised centre. There are numerous concrete pillars supporting this road, and this is where Lightborne attached his microphones to collect his field recordings. These are presented on the record; first as a long (10:53) piece, the title track in fact, which collages and layers a number of the original recordings together into a mini-symphony of grey, droning sounds. []

 

Various Artists | Next City Sounds: Interfaces
Both Teredo Navalis and Ring Road Ring are examples of a single artist’s investigation of a very specific location, using sound art. By contrast, the record Next City Sounds: Interfaces (GRUEN 192) is a highly collaborative effort, involving multiple creators in its realisation, and was also a very interactive event, allowing the audience to participate in its making to some extent. I think it’s a document of what transpired on one day in Karlsruhe in August 2018, as part of a larger cultural event called KAMUNA, the Karlsruher Museumsnacht. It involved three locations in the city, one of which was the pedestrianised Kaiserstrasse; the creators involved were Lasse-Marc Riek; the electronics duo Linto + Røyk; the performance art group KITeratur; and the group No Input Ensemble. Though separated in space, all of these people were generating sounds and contributing to the general audio data-stream – Lasse-Marc did it with field recordings to make a “live collage”, Linto + Røyk performed live electronica and modular synth music, No Input Ensemble did their act live in part of the ZKM arts lab, and so on. []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke
This is a new release in the Sound Art Series on the German label Gruenrekorder. This is a work of German composer and sound artist, Matthias Engelke, who performs the songs of Renaissance composer John Dowland. Engelke composes music for theater with analog electronic devices where music, sound, dance and movement interact. Tenor singer hold the romantic Renaissance charm and brooding character of Dowland’s songs. As the electronic arrangements flow and weave a perfect symbiosis between two different worlds and different times. And here we can see how complementary they can be. For example, the rhythmic beats in “White as lilies was her face” perfectly match his playful nature. On „The lowest trees have tops“ the string arrangements give a ceremonial aura to a nostalgic song. „Lady if you so spite me“ at times approaches the IDM genre with its emerging beats, while the singer coexists in a different space, as if he were in a parallel dimension. []


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Shizugawa | Andrew Littlejohn
This resonant recording scores the aftermath of one disaster, but by extension speaks to those caught in the midst of another. Recorded in the flattened town of Shizugawa following the devastating tsunami of March 2011, Andrew Littlejohn‘s study traces what was lost, and what arrived in its place. The survivors dig through the rubble, unearthing recent artifacts of suddenly vanished lives. They no longer hear pedestrians, commerce, children at play. The wildlife seems louder, as its competition is gone. The wind and waves are now a constant part of the audible soundscape, no longer soothing but lurking; what once seemed benign became a bearer of death. According to Littlejohn, “two Shizugawas overlapped: one of memory and one emerging.” The only constant, present before and after the tsunami, is the quartet of locally-composed songs on the emergency broadcast system, sounding at 6, 12, 5 and 9, and all heard on this recording. Endō Miki died sending a final warning, as did Satō Yoshio, the composer of the noon song. []


 

Review | By textura
SOUNDS LIKE…VIENNA | Julia Bünnagel
As ever, appearances deceive. A photo on the back cover of Sounds Like…Vienna shows Julia Bünnagel standing behind a DJ-like setup at an outdoors city space, an image that suggests the twelve-inch release could possibly be a dance-related release from Gruenrekorder. But anyone familiar with the experimental imprint knows it would never do something so, well, normal, and sure enough closer inspection reveals that the release is consistent with its other products. Bünnagel, you see, has created a recording that doesn’t merely simulate the sound of the city, it is the city—or at least one representative part of it. For this project, she’s created a record using slabs produced from molds of the city’s sidewalk and streets; consequently, the sounds generated when the turntable’s needle rides the disc’s surface derive, literally, from Vienna’s physical surfaces. []


 

Review | By textura
The Nomadic Listener | Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
The Nomadic Listener is a field recordings release with a difference. Rather than being a pure audio document of international locales, it’s an augmented book project by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay that ties sixty written reflections and abstract images to unedited field recordings, with audio details accessed from a QR code included inside the handsome volume (the digital component is available from Gruenrekorder, the book from Errant Bodies Press in Berlin). In another iteration the work might have been titled The Nomadic Listener, Viewer, and Thinker, so inextricably bound are the text and visuals to the sound dimension. Here’s a project that fully engages the senses and mind, so much so it renders the possibility of distraction moot. As one absorbs the text and image for each part as the field recording plays, one naturally considers the connections between them and reflects upon Chattopadhyay’s own musings. []


 

Reviews | By Rigobert Dittmann / Bad Alchemy Magazin (109)
Resonant Dowland | Matthias Engelke
Ach, semper Dowland, semper dolens. MATTHIAS ENGELKE, manchen vielleicht bekannt als Hauskomponist der Choreographin Irina Pauls, vergegenwärtigt auf Resonant Dowland (Gruen 197 w/Booklet) den elisabethanischen Lautenisten und Songwriter John Dowland auf gleich mehreren Ebenen: Bildlich mit der Fotoserie ‚Licht/Light‘ von Gustav Franz, textlich mit dem Essay ‚Palimpsest‘ von Christian Lemmerich und den von Sadness, Sweetness, Darkness erfüllten Lyrics der einst in London oder für den King of Denmark angestimmten Songs, die, anders als ich sie etwa durch Deller Consort kenne, nun ‚for Tenor and Electronics‘ erklingen. Was immer tiefer in der Zeit versinkt und als Geschichte verkrustet, zoomt Engelke heran, ungeachtet dessen, dass von Love, Pleasure und Melancholia, wie sie die Lovers & Ladies um 1600 bewegten, nur der schöne Schall nachhallt, ob in ‚historisch informiertem‘ Retro als Countertenor-Kitzel, ob in der Aboutness Benjamin Brittens oder Stings. []

 

Stadt (Land Fluss)“ | Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl
Allein hat der Filme- & Musiktheatermacher DANIEL KÖTTER das Mittelmeer KATALOisiert (2013), für ‚Hashti Tehran‘, ‚Desert View‘ & ‚Rift Finfinnee‘ (2017-20) hat er die Kamera auf Teheran, Cairo und Addis Abeba gerichtet. Zusammen mit dem Komponisten HANNES SEIDL realisierte er den Multi-Channel-Triptychon ‚Arbeit und Freizeit‘ (2009-11) und die musiktheatralische Trilogie ‚Falsche Arbeit, Falsche Freizeit‘, dessen dritter Part Stadt [Land Fluss] (Gruen 199 w/Booklet) nun mit dem Akzent auf Stadt als Hörspiel erklingt. Unter Einschluss von Sounds von Christina Kubisch und Musiken von Sebastian Berweck, Martin Lorenz und Andrea Neumann, zu eigenen Texten und Zitaten des neomarxistischen Humangeographen & Sozialtheoretikers David Harvey. Am Beispiel der Hafencity Hamburg wird nach der DNA einer Stadt gefragt: Who produces…, who reproduces the city? Die zahlungskräftige HafenCity-Klientel? Elphi-Touristen? Stadtentwicklung als Kopfgeburt am Reißbrett und auf dem Immobilienmarkt erweist sich als highly destructive für das Wesen von Urbanität. []

 

Circles and cycles | Kg Augenstern
KG AUGENSTERN? Das sind doch die mit den „Tentacles“ (Gruen 170) und der Flussfahrt mit ihrem MS Anuschka von Berlin nach Paris, auf der sie unterwegs mit ihren Tentakeln, ihren Fühlern, an sämlichen Brücken kratzten. Circles and Cycles (Gruen 202 w/Book) zeigt Christiane Prehn and Wolfgang Meyer auf einer anderen Mission: Archimedes, Kierkegaard, nein, Tentacles in Sicily – Scratching the Surface . Als doppelköpfiger Herakles lösten sie nicht zwölf, aber doch zehn Aufgaben und alle wieder nur mit ihren Tentakeln. Sie scratchten und kraulten 1. ‚a Lido‘ (die in den 60ern erbaute Feriensiedlung Lido Las Vegas), 2. ‚a Mountain Village‘ (das Bergdorf Cunziria, wo Gerberei betrieben wurde), 3. ‚a Commercial Area‘ (ein in den 90ern entstandenes Gewerbegebiet südlich von Catania), 4. ‚a Castle‘ (das 1930 errichtete Castello del Duca di Misterbianco), 5. ‚a Furniture Store‘ (das Ende der 70er eröffnete brutalistische Möbelhaus Sicilmobile) []


 

Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Circles and cycles | Kg Augenstern
First, let me say something about the package. I know I usually don’t, but in this case: great stuff. The first comes with a square 18×18 cm book with lots of photos and the other on a sturdy piece of carton and separate leaflet. Both packages detailing what we hear. KG Augenstern is not the name of one person. It is a duo from Berlin, Christiane Prehn and Wolfgang Meyer and explores sites with what they call “Tentacles“, „extendable fibreglass canes that allow them to touch and extract the sounds of the places they are travelling through“. I’d say, watch a YouTube from them and things will become clearer. In the autumn of 2019, they went to abandoned places in Sicily and explored these. []

 

Stadt (Land Fluss)“ | Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl
The other release is a radio play by composer Hannes Seidl and media artist Daniel Kötter and it’s about ‚the city‘, „What does, what could the city of the future sound like?“ To that end, there are texts, music, interviews and an installation/music theatre piece. Some text is in German and some in English, but much just went by me (me and texts; that’s common to happen). The text is also available in an English translation in the booklet. The music is by Sebastian Berweck, Martin Lorenz, and Andrea Neumann, while Christina Kubisch provided electromagnetic sounds. If I’m honest (and I should be) I quite enjoyed this what it is probably not; or, perhaps, not intended as such, and that is a piece of music. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
https://www.citr.ca/episode/20201130
https://www.citr.ca/episode/20201204-1
https://www.citr.ca/episode/20201205
https://www.citr.ca/episode/20201207


 

Review | By Roger Batty / Musique Machine
Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring
Ring Road Ring is a twelve-inch vinyl release that brings together around half-an-hours worth of road field recordings captured by contact microphones attached to the concrete pylons around the Ring Road, which loops around the city of Coventry in the West Midlands. The recordings here go from untreated & lightly manipulated/ arranged- with the sonic pallet moving from melancholically droning, muffled almost beat like texturing, and churning industrial-like sonic constructions. The release appeared this year on highly respected German field recording/ sound art label Gruenrekorder. []



Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents

CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
The Nomadic Listener | Budhaditya Chattopadhyay


 

New Release:

 

Field Notes #4: 20/21

 

Field Notes #4: 20/21
is a free bi-lingual magazine published by the German label Gruenrekorder, edited by Daniel Knef and Lasse-Marc Riek. Generally speaking our magazine is concerned with the phenomenon of sound from the most varied perspectives: artists, musicians, journalists and scientists add to Field Notes with their essays, interviews, travelogues, anecdotes, notes and picture series.


 

New Release:

 

 

Manfred Waffender: ‘JOHN COUSINS & THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WAVES
GrD 32/20 – Bluray
1 Track (76:00)


 

New Release:

 

 

Matthias Engelke: ‘Resonant Dowland
Gruen 197/20 – CD
12 Tracks (78:59)


 

Review | By Robert Klages / Der Tagesspiegel
Circles and Cycles | Kg Augenstern
Tentacles | Kg Augenstern
In der Luft fischen
Christiane Prehn und Wolfgang Meyer erforschen als Kunstduo „Kg Augenstern“ den Klang von Brücken und verlassenen Orten.
[…] Für ihr letztes Projekt im November 2019 haben Prehn und Meyer ihr „schwimmendes und tönendes Labor“ verlassen und sind in Sizilien an Land gegangen, um dort verlassene Orte und Ruinen mit ihren Tentakeln abzutasten.
„Wir wollten den ihm eigenen, spezifischen Klang eines jeden Ortes erforschen. Die Untersuchung wurde ergänzt durch Experimente mit roher Schafwolle und Ton, sowie in den Ruinen vorgefundenen Materialien“, erzählt Meyer. „Die Orte befinden sich in einen Zustand zwischen menschlicher Anwesenheit und ihrer Abwesenheit.“
So zum Beispiel die Kapelle der Santa Maria del Sabato in Palermo, die mal eine Moschee, dann eine Synagoge und später ein christlicher Betsaal war – und nun verlassen ist. Hier fand die Ausstellung „Tentacles in Sicily – scratching the surface“ statt. Das dazu entstandene Buch mit CD „Circles and cycles“ ist gerade beim Klangkunstlabel „Gruenrekorder“ erschienen.


 

New Release:

 

 

Kg Augenstern: ‘Circles and Cycles
Gruen 202/20 – Book + CD
11 Tracks (37:44)


 

New Release:

 

 

Andrew Littlejohn: ‘Shizugawa
Gruen 194/20 – Gruen Digital
1 Track (27:24)


 

New Release:

 

 

Daniel Kötter & Hannes Seidl: ‘„Stadt (Land Fluss)“
Gruen 199/20 – CD + Digital
1 Track (41:58)
Gruen Digital
1 Track (41:58)


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20201023-1
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS


 

Gruenrekorder @ The Tape Review Show
Adrian Shephard and Rinus van Alebeek talk about several methods and ways to relax, pop-up bicycle lanes, vegan water, the ghosts of Berlin, Stalin organs, ketamine and play and discuss music that was send in or given by friends of Radio On.
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine


 

framework radio | #725
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
SOUNDS LIKE…VIENNA | Julia Bünnagel


 

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Various Artists | Next City Sounds: Interfaces
During the 20th edition of Kamuna on August 4th 2018, a habitual music event in the Karlsruhe Museum, three different in-situ performances took place. The locations were the project room ßpace, the space Halo ARS and the pedestrian area Kaiserstraße, connected to the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), The first space was given to the sound-artist Lasse-Marc Riek, who in real time presented some quite naturalistic field recordings, mixed with some recorded sounds, in a hyper-vivid combination. The other room, directly run by the artists, in the east area of Karlshrue, was employed for the live performance by Lintu + Røyk. Their set was made with modular synths and they presented a quite raw and experimental kind of electronic music. In the pedestrian area of Kaiserstraße, KITerature gave life to a participative performance called “SYNONiMUS”, while the No Imput Ensemble was in the basement of ZKM under the blue cube. All these sonic inputs were directed to the ZKM, and then re-processed and reused in a sound installation by Yannick Hofmann, Marco Kempf, Ben Miller, Sebastian Schottke and Dan Wilcox. []


 

Review | By Wolfgang Fuchs
freiStil – Magazin für Musik und Umgebung / #92
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Various Artists | Next City Sounds: Interfaces
Various Artists | un|sounding the self — a portrait

 

Spannungsfeldaufnahmen – Neues von Gruenrekorder
Hier handelt es sich ja nicht um die ersten Auseinandersetzungen mit Tonträgerinnen aus dem Hause gruenrekorder. Dennoch seien an dieser Stelle ein paar grundlegende Ideen erlaubt. Alleine der Labelname eröffnet schon eine ganze Fülle an Gedanken- und Sinneswelten. Das “gruen” könnte einen Aspekt von Ambient im Sinne einer Alltagsklangkulisse suggerieren, eine gewisse Sanft- und Entspanntheit im Umgang mit Aufnahmetechniken, eine Idealvorsellung von Natur als Ausgangspunkt und mittlerweile krassem Kontrast zu unserer hochent- und verwickelten Welt etc. In direkter Verbindung mit dem “rekorder” schummeln sich dann des weiteren ein paar Konzepte auf die imaginäre Lichtung, von wegen grüner, nachhaltiger oder sogar “neutraler” Fixierung von Klängen. Hier, am Übergang, am Grat zwischen Objektivierung und Subjektivierung von Schallereignissen agiert gruenrekorder. Im Spannungsfeld zwischen unbekümmertem Hinhören und avanciertem Selektieren, Verwerfen, Überlagern, Umschichten und schließlich Fixieren haben es sich zahlreiche AkteurInnen bequem und unbequem gemacht. Dementsprechend vielfältig gestaltet sich auch der Katalog von gruenrekorder. Von beinahe rohen Feldaufnahmen im Grätzl nebenan, bei deren Wiedergabe auf dem eigenen Heimsystem bei offenem Fenster die eine oder andere Fehllokalisierung von Sounds eintreten kann, bis hin zu komplexen sonoren Verzahnungen und Umerzählungen.

 

Enrico Coniglio veröffentlicht mit teredo navalis eine akustische Projektion der Lagune von Venedig auf CD-Format. Basierend auf field recordings aus dieser Region kreierte dieser Klangkünstler mehr als lediglich “sonic postcards”, sondern einen Zwischenbericht von Forschungsaktivitäten in diesem fragilen Ökosystem zwischen “unberührter” Natur und den durch Menschen verursachten Dauerstörungen. Verschiedenste Mikrofonierungen über und unter Wasser ermöglichen dieses Eintauchen in einen facettenreichen Klangkosmos.

 

Next City Sounds: Interfaces wiederum ist als Momentaufnahme eines Events in und um das ZKM Karlsruhe entstanden. Die auf der vorliegenden CD kondensierten Klänge speisen sich aus field recordings (Lasse-Marc Riek), Synthesizer/Elektronik (Lintu + Røyks), ätherischen Rauschflächen und Feedback (No Input Ensemble) und den Stimmen einer partizipativen Sprechperformance der Gruppe KITeratur. Das dabei entstandene experimentelle Hörstück bewegt sich im offenen Feld zwischen Ambient (auch unter dem Aspekt Drone), Musique Concrète und anderen Ausprägungen zeitgemäßer und gehobener Klangkunst.

 

Einen Schritt weiter in Richtung einer Entschleunigung und Ausdünnung des am Ohr angelegten Informationsschwalls geht un|sounding the self – a portrait. Dieses auf DVD gebannte audiovisuelle Portrait der beiden US-amerikanischen Künstler Christopher Shultis & Craig Shepard ist eine intensive Auseinandersetzung mit der Triade composing-performing-listening und vor allem mit deren wechselseitigen Beziehungen, Abhängigkeiten und Alleinstellungsmerkmalen. Nicht von ungefähr kommt die Pionierarbeit von John Cage ins Spiel, hat jener viel zitierte und bemühte Universalkünstler doch mit wesentlichen Fragen zu unserer (menschlichen) Rolle in einem alle Sinne umfassenden Kosmos unzählige Diskurse angestoßen. Eine erfreuliche Auflösung vieler Problemstellungen und Anhandlungen ist aber auch in diesem Fall die Einsicht, dass keine Hörefahrung mit einer anderen ident sein kann. Niemand kann beispielsweise seine/ihre akustischen Eindrücke eines Spaziergangs durch einen Park in der individuell erlebten Breite und Tiefe einer anderen Person zur Gänze nachvollziehbar vermitteln. Die eigenen Trittgeräusche, als eine Soundspur von vielen, bleiben immer die eigenen, die sonst niemand reproduzieren kann. Was schon passieren kann, ist das Versinken in einem einstündigen audiovisuellen Machwerk (Regie: Christoph Collenberg) als eine von vielen Möglichkeiten, sich dem Phänomen der Kontemplation und deren Wirkmacht aus einer weiteren Perspektive nähern zu können. “There’s no one left to tell you what to do. Just watch this film but if it tries to give you advice, ignore it. After the end get up and listen around, see if the world sounds any different. No time with silence is wasted time. (…)”


 

Review | By Roger Batty / Musique Machine
Various Artists | Next City Sounds: Interfaces
Next City Sounds: Interfaces is a sixty-two-minute work that moves between music, sound art, and field recording. It’s certainly a shifting & drifting, at times fairly daring sonic experience which largely managers to keep ones attention held & focus, which is a fairly difficult feat for a work that blends & shifts through different genres of the sound. The release appears on the German label Gruenrekorder- who put out stuff in the untouched field recordings, sound art & sounds aping genres- so really the perfect place for a release like Next City Sounds: Interfaces. It comes in the form of a CD- which presented in an oversized A5 sized brown card folder- which takes in monochrome city map artwork & embossed lettering- with the whole thing been topped off with a 16 page A5 detailing the idea behind the project, and the artists involved- so another very nicely presented & distinctive bit of packing from the folks over at Gruenrekorder. []


 

Review | By Łukasz Komła / Nowamuzyka.pl
SOUNDS LIKE…VIENNA | Julia Bünnagel
Asfaltowe winyle. Od razu wyjaśnię, że nie chodzi o płyty winylowe opatrzone stemplem warszawskiej wytwórni Asfalt Records, a zupełnie o coś innego. Bohaterką tego wpisu jest Julia Bünnagel – niemiecka artystka / performerka dźwiękowa i rzeźbiarka. Jej twórczość koncentruje się zarówno na rzeźbach, dużych instalacjach modułowych, obiektach dźwiękowych, jak i grafice. Inspiruje się często cybernetyką, architekturą, science-fiction, muzyką i teorią percepcji. Bünnagel jest także członkinią kolektywu artystycznego Sculptress of Sound, z którym występował w latach 2011 – 2018, dając spektakularne spektakle dźwiękowe. Od 2017 roku współtworzy soundartowy projekt Frauke Berg / Julia Bünnagel / Anja Lautermann. Solowe sety gra jako Noise-DJane. Bünnagel zabiera nas do Wiednia, gdzie znajduje się kluczowy budulec dla jej niecodziennych winyli. Tworzy kamienne płyty, kształtując ich powierzchnię w taki sposób, by odwzorowywały strukturę chodników i ulic, jakie można spotkać w stolicy Austrii. []


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
SOUNDS LIKE…VIENNA | Julia Bünnagel
I’ve fallen in love with this performance video. Many people make field recordings, but few cut out circles of concrete and play them like records. And then even fewer go out in public to share what they’ve done. To our knowledge, there’s only one, which makes Julia Bünnagel a true original. Does Sounds Like … Vienna sound like Vienna? That’s a trick question. The records literally are Vienna, so from this angle yes, the record of records one receives in the mail (to save on postage, these are made of vinyl) does sound like Vienna. The counter-point is that one should not expect the city to sound like this when one visits for the first time, unless one is fortunate enough to see the artist set up on the street outside one’s hotel. But listen deeper and one might hear the real sound of Vienna, delivered in sonic metaphor, a mesmerizing blend of repetitions and jutting angles, both rhythmic and offbeat, soothing and off-putting, until it clicks and one exclaims, “Oh, Vienna!” in a tone that may or may not echo Ultravox. []


 

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
SOUNDS LIKE…VIENNA | Julia Bünnagel
How does a city sound? That is a question that occupies the people at Gruenrekorder, offering many releases that deal with field recordings. This new release is slightly different and wackier take upon the answer to that question. Julia Bünnagel is a DJ from Cologne who uses the surface of a city on a turntable. She casts
surfaces from the pavement and streets and puts these on her turntable and on this 12″ she has three examples of how Vienna sounds. I haven’t been to Vienna since the early ’80s, I think, and I’d love to go back. I don’t think I will put my ear to the ground and listen to the pavement and streets. Not because I know what they sound like after hearing this record, far from it, but because I wouldn’t be surprised if they all sound the same. Noisy that is. If you still have vinyl and you still play them (the second is not always a consequence of the first), then you know what vinyl with a lot of dust sounds like. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.

 

JULIA BUNNAGEL „SOUNDS LIKE… VIENNA – B1“ – SOUNDS LIKE… VIENNA
JULIA BUNNAGEL „SOUNDS LIKE… VIENNA – A1“ – SOUNDS LIKE… VIENNA
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200918-1/
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200911-1/
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200911/


 

New Release:

 

 

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: ‘The Nomadic Listener
Gruen 201/20 – Book + Digital
60 Tracks (210:18)
Gruen Digital
60 Tracks (210:18)


 

„Climata“
We are very pleased that the series of lectures and the exchange within our residency project „Climata“ will start next week with a lecture by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay.

 

https://www.praksisoslo.org/events-calendar/2020/8/chattopadhyay
Furthermore, we are looking forward to presentations by
Sep 1, 2020, Mikel R. Nieto
https://www.praksisoslo.org/events-calendar/2020/9/darksound
Sep 9, 2020, Leah Barclay and Annea Lockwood
https://www.praksisoslo.org/events-calendar/2020/8/listening-to-rivers
Sep 29, 2020, Hildegard Westerkamp
https://www.praksisoslo.org/events-calendar/2020/9/westerkamp

 

These events will take place online in English and is free to join. It is the first event in a series addressing issues relating to sound and ecology. It takes place alongside PRAKSIS’s seventeenth residency, Climata – Capturing change at a time of ecological crisis. Climata has been developed with sound artist Lasse-Marc Riek and Goethe-Institut Norwegen. It includes collaborations with Norsk Teknisk museum, Gruenrekorder and Notam.


 

New Release:

 

 

Julia Bünnagel: ‘SOUNDS LIKE…VIENNA
Gruen 198/20 – Vinyl
3 Tracks (21:58)
run: 300 copies


 

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
11min | snow
The name of the duo doesn’t refer to the track’s duration. 11 is the moniker of Jiyeon Kim, a sound artist and pianist collaborating here with the drummer Sangyong Min, another talented musician. The sounds of Snow imprint themselves on the listener, thanks to their improvisational character, full of jazzy veins and delicate harmonies. Together they give life to some airy but controlled sequences, where no instrument in particular rules over the others. The whole flux of the different passages gives the sound a distinctive character, thanks to a cooperative work, which is “vintage” and free form at the same time, based on the assonance and syntony of the rhythms and on the relationship and the encounter of converging styles. The atmospheres are always gentle and muffled; the duo is not searching for any contrast or formal opposition. []


 

Review | By PROGRESS REPORT
David Rothenberg & Korhan Erel | Berlin Bülbül
Whilst listening to David Rothenberg and Korhan Erel’s ‘Berlin Bülbül’, roughly translated as ‘Berlin Nightingale’, its hard not to smile. This comes from the intricate interplay of the playing. Rothenberg’s runs are graceful but belie the complexity that lies beneath. Erel’s electronics fill some of the gaps left by the sonorous clarinet. Instead of trying to fill all the space with dense sound, here they let each other have room to breath and work. The results are striking, whilst being enjoyable. Then there is the sound of birds, peppering each track. As they cheap, and flutter about, it gives the sounds a sense of rhythm they would not have had. And it is this rhythm that is fundamental to the album’s charm. []


 

Sold out @ Gruenrekorder still available here: bandcamp
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR


 

Review | By la NUOVA di VENEZIA e Mestre
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Enrico Coniglio è un “cacciatore” di paesaggi sonori. Racconta la laguna, ma anche la città, la zona industriale di Marghera, le sue fabbriche e il porto, non con parole o immagini, ma con i suoni che ogni agglomerato, ogni essere vivente, ogni angolo di laguna o di mare emettono. Ma non i suoni superficiali, Enrico raccoglie quelli profondi dell’anima, di tutto ciò che ci circonda. Enrico è un musicista, perché con quei suoni lui compone e pubblica dischi, cd o affida la sua musica a link per non perdere il contatto con una realtà che vuole la rete il grande contenitore di quanto la fantasia e l’estro umano producono. Lui non racconta, per intenderci, il rumore dell’infrangersi delle onde sul bagnasciuga, che chiunque di noi può ascoltare seduto in spiaggia. Lui ascolta e registra quello che sta sotto alla superficie dell’acqua. I suoni degli esseri viventi che popolano il fondale. I suoi ultimi lavori sono dedicati alla laguna nord. []


 

Review | By Michele Palozzo / Esoteros
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Each landscape is inexhaustible, since any point of view eludes infinite others: in addition to its vastness, its changeability over time ensures that the limits of human sensoriality could never fully grasp a phenomenon, but only carry out partial reconnaissance through which to rebuild one’s own image of reality.
This is what pushes artists like Enrico Coniglio to return almost obsessively to the same places, to always observe with a high degree of attention the sound events that occur within a context in perpetual evolution, tracing in an equally provisional way the edges of a “topophony” that from sensory experience translates, with all evidence, into a place of the soul. With the natural and artificial ecosystem of the Venetian lagoon Coniglio has established different relational practices over time, mixing the documentary intent with a fine compositional sensitivity rooted in electroacoustics. In his first album for the twenty-year German label Gruenrekorder – specifically focused on the arts of field recording – the artist’s intervention on direct samplings is almost only “assemblatory”, a fact that renders even more fascinating and revealing the approach to Teredo navalis, a scenario worth exploring with a good pair of headphones. []


 

2 Reviews | By Tom Sekowski – Salty Swift / Flashes of Timeless Joy
Heike Vester | Marine Mammals and Fish of Lofoten and Vesterålen
Recorded by oceansounds / Norway
Andrea Polli | Sonic Antarctica
German experimental label Gruenrekorder continues to put out some fine releases that go that extra mile to document the sounds of our dying planet.

 

Although “Ocean Sounds” is not credited to any one person, it’s only fitting to put Heike I. Vester in the spotlight. Heiker is a biologist, coordinator and founder of Ocean Sounds organization that specializes in preserving bio-acoustic sounds of marine animals. Her specialty is vocal behaviours of killer whales. Recorded for the most part in northern precipices of Norway, “Ocean Sounds” is split between the sounds of the killer whales as well as those originating from pilot whales, dolphins, harbour seals and basking sharks. It’s great to hear these mammals being recorded with such closeness and ear for detail. You can hear the tails slapping as the killer whales are feeding on herring using a method called carousel feeding. Whales herd the herring, bring it to the surface and then hit it with their tails to kill or stun it. The high-pitched buzzing sounds clatter in very electronic manner. These are in fact the whales communication methods which they use to find the herring. Then we have the male sperm whale who is echolocating [method which is used to locate squid or fish in depths up to 2 km below sea level]. The sounds are soft and percolating; resembling a tea pot on low boil. Atlantic white-striped dolphins are a delight to listen to. As they perform an acrobatic show for Heike, one hears an enticing sequencing of clicks and soft snaps. Other than producing a crucial document, Heike shines a spotlight on mammals that rival with human kind for intelligence.

 

Moving from one pole to the other, we find ourselves in the midst of “Sonic Antarctica”. Recorded by Andrea Polli, the disc is a living document of some of the scientists that live there for extended periods of time. But this isn’t just pure field recordings. According to the album jacket, the album “features natural and industrial field recordings, sonifications and audifications of science data and interviews with weather and climate scientists.” Complete with brisk winds, crackling ice, what we have on offer are talks by scientists on weather conditions and life in Antarctic. “I Don’t Have the Data” features a number of these scientists discussing how crucial it is for science to have a role in saving the eco-system of the ice-covered continent, while winds billow in the background. “Countdown” has a different set of scientists discussing their love of their jobs, interaction with elements and their fascination with weather patterns. All the while, Andrea Polli creates a rough-sounding snow storm that encapsulates the conversation. “No Boundaries” features more clicks and high-pitched short-wave radio signals that are meshed with further confessions from the scientists. If anything, “Sonic Antarctica” serves as a day-in-the-life of scientists working persistently on this cold, cruel continent.


 

Review | By Łukasz Komła / Nowamuzyka.pl
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Zanurzmy ucho w wodach Laguny Weneckiej.
Enrico Coniglio to włoski artysta dźwiękowy, gitarzysta i kompozytor, od wielu lat zajmujący się field recordingiem. Na swoim najnowszym wydawnictwie Teredo Navalis kontynuuje badania nad ekosystemem Laguny Weneckiej, choć nie są to nagrania terenowe w czystej postaci, a jedynie stanowią punkt wyjścia do stworzenia soundscape’owych kompozycji. Proces rejestrowania odgłosów wody wypełniającej lagunę przebiegał nocą i za pomocą czujników elektromagnetycznych oraz hydrofonów, a także różnych mikrofonów – obuusznych, kontaktowych i pojemnościowych. Coniglio skupił się na północnej części laguny, gdzieś między wyspami Murano, Burano, Sant’Erasmo a otaczającymi je piaszczystymi brzegami. []


 

Review | By SoWhat
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Il legame di Enrico Coniglio con il fragile territorio nel quale vive ha caratterizzato numerose opere da lui pubblicate a proprio nome o sotto diversi alias solitari o collaborativi. I cinque cortometraggi sonori racchiusi in “Teredo Navalis” vedono l’artista veneziano tornare a confrontarsi con il misterioso incanto lagunare, attraverso frequenze mai come in questa volta connesse all’elemento acquatico dei suoi luoghi d’origine. Il lavoro descrive infatti un itinerario immaginario nella parte settentrionale della laguna, idealmente immergendo l’ascoltatore nella densità limacciosa di acque tuttavia brulicanti di frammenti più o meno organici, che conferiscono ai suoi brani uno svolgimento in qualche misura dinamico, come prolungati piani sequenza a pelo d’acqua. []


 

Review | By music won’t save you
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Il legame di Enrico Coniglio con il fragile territorio nel quale vive ha caratterizzato numerose opere da lui pubblicate a proprio nome o sotto diversi alias solitari o collaborativi. I cinque cortometraggi sonori racchiusi in “Teredo Navalis” vedono l’artista veneziano tornare a confrontarsi con il misterioso incanto lagunare, attraverso frequenze mai come in questa volta connesse all’elemento acquatico dei suoi luoghi d’origine. Il lavoro descrive infatti un itinerario immaginario nella parte settentrionale della laguna, idealmente immergendo l’ascoltatore nella densità limacciosa di acque tuttavia brulicanti di frammenti più o meno organici, che conferiscono ai suoi brani uno svolgimento in qualche misura dinamico, come prolungati piani sequenza a pelo d’acqua. []


 

Review | By Souterraine
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
La laguna di Venezia ed Enrico Coniglio. L’instancabile mappatura del field recordist continua senza sosta. Un’indagine critica, approfondita, fondata su una prospettiva ecologica e un’estetica precisa. Nuove registrazioni sul campo circoscrivono quei suoni ridondanti, particolari o tipici dell’area nord del bacino costiero, compreso tra le isole di Murano, Burano, Sant’Erasmo e i suoi banchi di sabbia circostanti, catturati da sensori elettromagnetici, microfoni binaurali, idrofoni, microfoni a contatto e a condensatore. “Teredo Navalis” (2020) non si configura, però, come una mera cartolina sonora, perché rappresenta il risultato finale di una processo di ricombinazione di elementi che documenta con accuratezza quanto accade di notte, dentro e fuori dall’acqua in un’area marginale, il cui fragile equilibrio naturale è minacciato dalle scellerate azioni umane. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.

 

ENRICO CONIGLIO · TEREDO NAVALIS
MICHAEL LIGHTBORNE · RING ROAD RING
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200703-1/

 

CHRISTOPH COLLENBERG, JAKOB GENGENBACH, BERND HERZOGENRATH · UN / SOUNDING THE SELF — A PORTRAIT
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200705/

 

VARIOUS ARTISTS · NEXT CITY SOUNDS: INTERFACES
CHRISTOPH COLLENBERG, JAKOB GENGENBACH, BERND HERZOGENRATH · UN / SOUNDING THE SELF — A PORTRAIT
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200727/


 

Review | By Mirco Salvadori / ROCKERILLA
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Mesi di isolamento hanno assurdamente rappresentato una pausa salvifica per Venezia, una parentesi che non durerà a lungo ma lascerà un ricordo indelebile tra gli abitanti di una città non più immersa nel silenzio, una delle sue primarie fonti di respiro, lo stesso che alberga sotto la superficie dei bassi fondali della Laguna tornata momentaneamente alla natura a tempo determinato. E’ qui, nella Laguna Nord, tre le isole di Murano e Sant’Erasmo, che Enrico Coniglio ha immerso i suoi microfoni. Tra i bassi fondali di un territorio a rischio, in balia di scelte politiche ottuse e cieche. Da solo, alla ricerca del linguaggio dimenticato e sconosciuto della propria città, quello dei fondali lagunari. Un viaggio salvifico nel cuore della notte, alla scoperta del dialogo costante tra la moltitudine di specie viventi, immerse nella melma di un territorio in continuo cambiamento, legato al respiro delle maree. []


 

Review | By Łukasz Komła / Nowamuzyka.pl
Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring
Dźwiękowy świat obwodnicy w Coventry.
Powyższy lead może wydawać się absurdalny, nieatrakcyjny i wcale niezachęcający do odkrycia brzmień betonowej konstrukcji obwodnicy otaczającej angielskie miasto Coventry położone w środkowej części kraju, w hrabstwie West Midlands. Może jednak dacie się namówić? Dwa lata temu pisałem o innym wydawnictwie Michaela Lightborne’a – brytyjskiego artysty audiowizualnego – zatytułowanym Sounds of the Projection Box, na którym dokumentował zmieniającą się strukturę dźwiękową wnętrza projektora kinowego. Ring Road Ring to z kolei podróż w głąb betonowych konstrukcji generujących niemal industrialne pasma o dość niskich częstotliwościach. Budowa tego obiektu rozpoczęła się pod koniec lat 50. XX wieku, a zakończyła w 1974 roku. Projektowi przyświecały górnolotne pomysły, dotyczące między innymi nowoczesnego rozwoju miasta i zadbania o pieszych. []


 

framework radio | #720
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring


 

Review | By Denis Boyer / FEARDROP
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Enrico Coniglio a, autant que l’amour de la musique, celui de la lagune de Venise, sa ville. Il voit combien elle est menacée, fragile, et il est arrivé plusieurs fois qu’il intègre des field recordings de cette lagune à son instrumentarium. Mais c’est exclusivement avec eux qu’il a composé les cinq pièces de Teredo Navalis, car selon lui, ils constituent une véritable méthode de connaissance du territoire exploré. Le parti pris est de se concentrer, bien plus que sur les mouvements de l’eau, sur les sons des formes de vie que la lagune héberge ainsi que sur ceux que la surface envoie. L’eau est donc considérée comme un véhicule, et les clapotis sont presque absents des compositions de ce court album. []


 

3 Reviews | By textura
Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring
All three of these recent Gruenrekorder releases are quintessential label products: adventurous, thought-provoking, and unusual. Michael Lightborne’s and Enrico Coniglio’s are grounded in field recordings, Coventry Ring Road and the Venetian Lagoon the sites used for their respective projects; an entirely different animal, un|sounding the self — a portrait combines an hour-long video and booklet for its in-depth portrait of American artists Christopher Shultis and Craig Shepard.

 

Issued in vinyl and digital formats, Lightborne’s thirty-three-minute Ring Road Ring is strongly rooted in a geographical location, with its seven tracks using low-level vibrations pulsing through Coventry Ring Road as a springboard (to capture the sounds, he attached contact microphones to concrete pylons supporting the road). Built in Coventry, England between 1960 and ’74, the road formed part of the city’s rebuilding plan after WWII and was intended to keep growing levels of traffic away from the city core as well as promote the idea of a pedestrian-focused setting. Today, however, the project is regarded as something of a failure as it’s alienated pedestrians and had a detrimental effect on the city centre; as a result, plans are afoot to disassemble and repurpose the structure (one rumour has it that the road may be closed to traffic and converted into a city park). []

 

Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
While work by Coniglio has appeared on many a label (Touch, Infraction, and Dronarivm three of many), Teredo Navalis is the first time the Italy-based guitarist, field recordist, and sound explorer has appeared on Gruenrekorder. The thirty-eight-minute CD finds him firmly in soundscaping mode, its five tracks constituting the next chapter in his ongoing study of the Venetian Lagoon (the title, incidentally, refers to a marine organism also described as a bivalve mollusc or naval shipworm that commonly dwells in the wood of ships). Using electromagnetic sensors, hydrophones, and contact, condenser, and binaural microphones, Coniglio gathered sounds during the night at the north side of the lagoon, a site home to crabbers, gulls, and native terns but also boats used for public transportation. One of his goals with the project was to document in sound the fragile balance between the setting in its natural state and the impact human intervention has had upon it. While untreated aquatic sounds form the basis for the work, the compositional process involved an intense layering of micro-elements. []

 

Various Artists | Next City Sounds: Interfaces
Both components of un|sounding the self — a portrait are required for a proper appreciation of this ambitious creation. Reading the booklet, a 116-page ‘Field Manual‘ featuring texts by the artists, the director Christoph Collenberg, and the collection’s editor Bernd Herzogenrath, without the film makes for an incomplete experience; watching the hour-long DVD without the clarifying details provided by the booklet is just as incomplete. (In Collenberg’s words, un|sounding the self — a portrait is an “experimental, audiovisual double portrait that borrows from a documentary approach.”) However different Christopher Shultis, percussionist and Professor Emeritus of the University of New Mexico, and Craig Shepard, trombonist and Wandelweiser collective member, are in their artistic expression, their interests converge in two key areas: their lives, philosophies, and creative approach have been profoundly influenced by Henry David Thoreau, specifically his thoughts about walking and natural sound, and the art and writings of John Cage. []


 

Review | By Łukasz Komła / Nowamuzyka.pl
Various Artists | Next City Sounds: Interfaces
The last one, for now, is a release that is a compilation but it is also one track. From what I understand this a recording of an event that took place on August 4, 2018, on three different locations in Karlsruhe; The project room ßpace, the artist-run space Halo ARS and the pedestrian zone Kaiserstraße. They were all connected to the ZKM, the big media art place in the same place. At ßpace, label boss Lasse-Marc Riek played field recordings, noises and soundscapes, at Halo ARS was the duoLintu + Røyk with modular synthesizers and on the street were members of KITeratur to which people participate (adding random spoken words) and the No Input Ensemble performed in the subspace under ZKM’s blue Cube (doesn’t make four locations? I copied it all from the press text. []


 

Review | By Roger Batty / Musique Machine
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Teredo Navails takes us down in the depths of a Venetian Lagoon- utilizing & blending sounds recorded via electromagnetic sensors, binaural microphones, hydrophones, contact, and condenser microphones- the CD/ digital release offers up a collection of five soundscapes. The album falls somewhere between lightly simmering ’n‘ churning drone matter, hovering & at time piercing tone studies, & water/ pipe field recording. The idea of a release based around water recordings normally has one expecting lulling, subtle & soothingly tonal work, but this release is often fairly pressing & at times searing in it’s feel. The release appears on the highly respected field recording & sound art label Gruenrekorder. The CD comes in a six-panel mini gatefold- this features a low key green, grey & white color scheme, with a blend of murky pictures of the lagoon, a short write up about the project, a sea reed like art- all making for a sleek & artily understated bit of packaging. []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring
This LP belongs to the field recordings and soundscapes series of German Gruenrekorder imprint. Michael Lightborne is a sound artist from Coventry, England and academic based in Birmingham, UK, and Cork, Ireland. Ring Road in Coventry, England is a ring road which forms a complete dual carriageway circuit around the city center. It was intended to be an urban solution to privilege pedestrians, but it ended up hindering traffic in the city center and harmed pedestrians. Lightborne put contact microphones on the piles at various points on the ring road and to the artist’s surprise, these sounds sounded melancholic. „Fortran“ that opens this album displays penetrating and hypnotic rhythmic pulsations. []


 

framework radio | #715
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
Craig Vear | Antarctica


 

Review | By Elena Ferrarese / IL GAZZETTINO di Venezia
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Nel disco di Coniglio i suoni della natura – Un viaggio sonoro immaginifico per esplorare il mondo dei suoni delle aree liminali della laguna di Venezia. E la nuova proposta musicale del compositore veneziano Enrico Coniglio con il nuovo disco intitolato „Teredo Navalis“, uscito per la casa discografica tedesca Gruenrekorder.
Enrico presenta una serie di composizioni basate su microsuoni della fauna e flora lagunare di vel me e barene, tipiche strutture morfologiche di un ambiente naturalistico in cui la pressione antropica resta ai margini, ma rivela la sua silenziosa presenza. Tutti i suoni sono stati raccolti per lo più in orario notturno, molti sotto acqua, utilizzando idrofoni, microfoni a contatto e sensori elettromagnetici nell’area nord della laguna, tra Murano Sant’Erasmo e zone limitrofe. []


 

Review | By Joe Versalis / ZERO
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
I micro suoni della laguna e le sue lunghe notti
Teredo Navalis è l’ultimo lavoro di Enrico Coniglio, un viaggio concreto tra barene, velme e isole dove il tempo si è fermato, o quasi – Per una strana coincidenza il nuovo lavoro di Enrico Coniglio è uscito lo stesso giorno in cui una nube nera veniva eruttata da uno degli stabilimenti chimici di Porto Marghera, prima di collassare al suolo come monumento temporaneo di monito sulle persistenti pericolosità dell’area. È il 15 maggio. Nella stessa data il sound artist veneziano, con l’ultimo disco „Teredo Navalis”, pubblicato dalla casa discografica tedesca Gruenrekorder, ci porta idealmente agli antipodi, declinando una formula completamente diversa nel rapporto tra ambiente lagunare e l’umana téchne. []


 

Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Enrico Coniglio | TEREDO NAVALIS
Gruenrekorder latest batch of releases shows their interest in all things sound art and field recordings. The latter is present on the release by Enrico Coniglio. He has on-going research in the Venetian Lagoon, and recordings were made at the north side of the lagoon, „between the islands of Murano, Burano, Sant’Erasmo and their surrounding sandbanks. Here it is possible to find, on the one hand, aquatic spawning grounds for crabbers, high-tide roosts for gulls and native terns; on the other, boats for the public transportation are moving along the main navigation channels“, as he says. It is not a postcard of the place, according to Coniglio, where one sticks a microphone in the air and records some stuff; he uses electromagnetic sensors, binaural microphones, hydrophones, contact and condenser microphones to capture his sounds and uses them in the five pieces on this release. []

 

Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring
And on vinyl, we find Micheal Lightborne, with a follow-up to his LP ‚Sounds Of The Projection Box‘ (see Vital Weekly 1146) in which he used recordings made in a cinema projection box. This time we find him outside, alongside the megastructure of the Coventry Ring Road. When they started to rebuild the heavily bombed city after World War II, they decided to keep the traffic outside the city centre and keep it pedestrian-friendly. But the plan didn’t work and Lightborne writes, „Nowadays, the Ring Road has come to be seen as a misguided Modernist project that ended up deterring pedestrians and killing the city centre. The process of disassembling, mitigating, and repurposing the structure is already underway“. He attached contact microphones to the structure and captures the vibrating of the structure. The record opens up with some field recordings from around the Ring Road and ends with „induction coil“ recordings, meaning he captured some of the electromagnetic fields from around the structure. []

 

Various Artists | Next City Sounds: Interfaces
The last one, for now, is a release that is a compilation but it is also one track. From what I understand this a recording of an event that took place on August 4, 2018, on three different locations in Karlsruhe; The project room ßpace, the artist-run space Halo ARS and the pedestrian zone Kaiserstraße. They were all connected to the ZKM, the big media art place in the same place. At ßpace, label boss Lasse-Marc Riek played field recordings, noises and soundscapes, at Halo ARS was the duoLintu + Røyk with modular synthesizers and on the street were members of KITeratur to which people participate (adding random spoken words) and the No Input Ensemble performed in the subspace under ZKM’s blue Cube (doesn’t make four locations? I copied it all from the press text. []

 


 

 


 

Please help to support this project
Walking to Toonoja / Ingeborg Entrop / Gruen 184
:: I am working on a new artist book ‚Walking to Toonoja‘ about walking as a form of listening. The book will contain a new sound piece, which allows you to be carried away along a walk, and an essay that investigates walking and listening, in particular how walking itself can be seen as a form of listening. To make the actual book, I could use some help! I started a crowdfunding campaign via voordekunst. Please take a look at the project page:

 

www.voordekunst.nl/projecten/10185-walking-to-toonoja-1

 

Do you think this project is of interest and should be realized? Then I would really appreciate a donation, or share the link with other art, walking and listening enthusiasts!


 

New Releases:

 

 

Enrico Coniglio: ‘TEREDO NAVALIS
Gruen 188/20
Soundscapes
CD + Digital – Tracks (38:11)
run: 300 copies

 

 

V.A.: ‘Next City Sounds: Interfaces
Gruen 192/20
Sound Art
CD – 1 Track (62:12)
run: 500 copies

 

 

Michael Lightborne: ‘Ring Road Ring
Gruen 195/20
Field Recordings
Vinyl + Digital – 7 Tracks (32:47)
run: 300 copies

 

 

Christoph Collenberg, Jakob Gengenbach & Bernd Herzogenrath:
un|sounding the self — a portrait
Gruen 196/20
Soundscapes
DVD + Booklet – 1 Track (60:00)
run: 500 copies


 

Song from the forest | 20.04.2020 Doku & Reportage ∙ hr-fernsehen
Please enjoy and have a look at the cd as well.
www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=12032
www.ardmediathek.de/ard/player/song-from-the-forest


 

Gruenrekorder @ Bepi Crespan Presents
CITR’s 24 Hours of Radio Art in a snack sized format.
Dark Ambient. Drone. Field Recordings. Noise. Sound Art. Or something.

 

SNOW KEEPS FALLING & GUST
11MIN · SNOW
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200404

 

BREAKING DOWN THE THING
MICHAEL LIGHTBORNE · SOUNDS OF THE PROJECTION BOX
www.citr.ca/radio/bepi-crespan-presents/episode/20200402


 

11min | snow @ Radio Universidad de Chile
LOOP.CL (SEÑAL 2): Jueves 5 marzo 2020
Programa: LOOP.CL (SEÑAL 2)
www.loop.cl


 

Gruenrekorder @ SOUND – Klang erleben
08. März bis 03. Mai 2020
Eröffnung: Sa., 07. März um 18 Uhr

KunstLANDing | Landingstraße 16
63739 Aschaffenburg
www.kunstlanding.de


 

CD TIPP: KUHZUNFT – Slotmachine | radio.friendsofalan.de
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
30 kurze Stücke und keines länger als 1 Minute. Miniaturen wenn man so will. Da dauert das lesen der Playlist mit den dazugehörigen wechselnden Besetzungen fast länger … Ein sehr kurzweiliges Vergnügen bei dem mir die 30 Minuten immer viel zu schnell vorbei sind. Höchst spannend wird hier in den unterschiedlichsten Besetzungen und Stilen musiziert und das ist ein Grund mehr um auf die Webseite zu gehen und diese Maschine in Gang zu setzen. Viel Vergnügen !


 

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
With the recent upsurge of interest in environmentalism, so-called ‘green’ themes have emerged in both mainstream and Avant Garde cultural outputs. That said, it’s not a new thing that plants and their imaginary worlds are given special attention. This has been a focus throughout the history of the visual arts, architecture, dance and music. So too, this theme goes beyond the borders between primitivism, modernity, post-modernity and contemporary work. Tim Collins and Reiko Goto, featuring the programmer and sound artist Chris Malcom, generate data in real time. Given that the sounds are musical enough to engage the listener, the timbres and the volumes respond to the lights, temperatures and audience. They also change according to different set-ups, with specific parameters for the localization and the kinds of plants the recordings are taken from. These are made mainly by contact microphones. A computer almost never generates music on its own and elements such as rhythm, melody, plot, time and harmony are always working as a function of something else. []


 

Michael Lightborne | Ring Road Ring @ The Institute of Spectra-Sonic Sound
This week featuring: Leif Elggren, M.B., Stefan Schmidt, Torba and many more.
Broadcast Saturday night from 10 pm – midnight (PT) on KEPW 97.3 FM Eugene, Oregon


 

2 Reviews | By textura
11min | snow
Gruenrekorder upholds its reputation for unusual catalogue items with its latest releases, the more conventional of the two a vinyl set by Seoul-based piano-and-drum duo 11min (the album’s actually issued by Weather Music with vinyl distribution handled by Gruenrekorder) and the other, a book-and-flexi-disc research project titled A soft hiss of this world, more characteristic of the label’s experimental-leaning output. Let’s begin with the more accessible release, snow, a six-track, instrumental offering from 11 (pianist Jiyeon Kim) and min (drummer Sangyong Min). As presented on the thirty-seven-minute album, 11min’s sound is neither jazz, pop, nor minimal electronica but rather acoustic material sensitive to texture and dynamics, executed with improv-like spontaneity and amenable to electronic treatments. The record splits down the middle, with the A’s four pieces credited to 11min and the flip 11 alone, the concluding “loose” and a fourteen-minute remix both Kim productions. The tracks aren’t intended as naked exercises in virtuosic display, which the opening title track makes clear. Here and elsewhere, Kim and Min craft delicate settings where texture is paramount. For “snow,” Min establishes a simple yet nonetheless effective drum pulse with brushes over which Kim drapes equally simple phrases, the pauses between them long enough that pedal sustain is conspicuous. []

 

Tim Ingold & Carmen Pardo & Mikel R. Nieto | A soft hiss of this world
Issued as part of Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series in a 500-copy edition, A soft hiss of this world is, in its visual presentation, a logical sequel to the previous book project by sound artist Mikel R. Nieto: whereas Dark Sound challenged the reader by having its words appear black on black, the new book presents its texts by Nieto, Tim Ingold, and Carmen Pardo as white on white. Such a choice might seem perverse, but there is a reason for it, given that the research project has to do with the ‘sound‘ of snow, which on the immediate experiential level seems non-existent, and relatedly silence. As with the previous book, the new one’s texts are presented in multiple languages, in this case Basque, Spanish, and English. The genesis for the project was 600 hours of field recordings collected by Nieto in the Finnish landscape, recordings of snow, ice, and snowflakes made using microphones capable of capturing activity at a level below the threshold of human audibility. One particularly fascinating thing about the six minutes of material presented on the transparent flexi-disc is that every time it’s played the turntable needle wears away the vinyl such that, like the snowflake, each play brings the recording one step closer to extinction; in Nieto’s words, “each listening destroys the sound. []


 

Review | By Ben Taffijn / NIEUWE NOTEN
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Op ‘Gasworks’, uitgebracht door het in veldopnames en geluidsinstallaties gespecialiseerde Grünrekorder, bracht geluidskunstenaar Gerald Fiebig een vijftal stukken bijeen die hun oorsprong vinden in de Gaswerke van Augsburg-Oberhausen (niet te verwarren met de beroemde Gasometer in Oberhausen in het Ruhrgebied), een fabriekscomplex waar tot 2001 gas werd gewonnen uit kolen. Het complex is inmiddels een centrum voor kunst, zoals met veel industrieel erfgoed in Duitsland en vormt daarmee een prima decor voor wat Fiebig wil vertellen. ‘Nach der Industrie’ vormt de meest directe link met het erfgoed. Fiebig interviewde in 2007 Johann Artner die van 1947 tot 1989 in deze smerige en gevaarlijke fabriek had gewerkt en verwerkte deze fragmenten, samen met het geluid van een gasbrander in de keuken tot een boeiende compositie. Artner verhaalt hier, in prachtig zeer slecht te verstaan dialect, over de beroerde arbeidsomstandigheden, de gevaren die de werknemers liepen, de slechte verdiensten in die eerste jaren en het gebrek aan werkelijk alles tot aan zeep aan toe. []


 

Review | By Duncan Simpson / Musique Machine
Sounds of the Projection Box | Michael Lightborne
Sounds of the Project Box is a record born out of a research project based at the Film and Television Studies Department at the University of Warwick; that frazzled edgeland of the humanities which also gave us the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, the shrapnel of which can still be found drawing blood across the arts and in enclaves of radical politics. The modus operandi of The Projection Project is more antiquarian and sedate than the CCRU’s output. Essentially it’s a piece of cultural anthropology documenting the behind the scene life of the few 35mm film projectionists left in the UK and the sound-world they inhabit. All lavishly presented with Gruenrekorder’s signature levels of care and rigour. []


 

Review | By felix / freiStil – Magazin für Musik und Umgebung / #88
11min | snow
Weather Music / Gruenrekorder – Jiyeon Kim (p, e), Sangyong Min (dr)
Es deutet auf lustiges Korea hin, wenn sich ein Duo 11min nennt – wobei 11 von Jiyeon Kim verkörpert wird und min von Sangyong Min. Minimalistisch haucht eine/n auch die Musik dieses Klavier-Schlagzeug-Duos an. Aber mindestens. Zwar stellt sich anfangs die Frage, wozu so ein schmalbrüstiges Statement die Verewigung auf Vinyl überhaupt erforderlich machte. Mit Fortdauer der Zeit löst sich diese Frage in Nullkommanichts auf, und im Immerwiederhörenwollen treffen wir auf einmal auf Soul aus Seoul. Knapp, magnetisch, meditativ, fesselnd – und glücklicherweise länger dauernd als elf Minuten, wie man ursprünglich befürchten würde. Snow ist demnach eine Platte, die man ruhigen Gewissens einen Tag lang laufen lassen kann, ohne dass die Musik darauf auch nur Sekundenbruchteile lang an den Nerven sägen würde. Sehr speziell, sehr super.


 

Review | By Łukasz Komła / Przekrój
11min | snow
11min to artystyczne alter ego dwojga muzyków pochodzących z Seulu: 11 (Jiyeon Kim) – pianistki i kompozytorki oraz min (Sangyong Min) – perkusisty, inżyniera dźwięku i producenta. Płyta snow jest ich pierwszym wspólnym dziełem. Żadne z nich nie debiutuje – Kim wydała solowy album Transparent Music, który w 2018 r. był nominowany do Korean Music Award, a Min jest bardzo doświadczonym i cenionym perkusistą oraz uznanym inżynierem dźwięku zajmującym się wszechstronną produkcją i masteringiem. Można go także usłyszeć w różnych grupach oscylujących w pobliżu indie rocka. Prowadzi ponadto swoje studio nagraniowe pod nazwą studioLOG. []


 

A Closer Listen’s Best Field Recording & Soundscape Albums of the Decade
Daniel Blinkhorn ~ Terra Subfónica (Gruenrekorder, 2013)
Billed as a series of “radiophonic miniatures,” Terra Subfónica is the aural version of a breakfast cereal variety pack. Blinkhorn serves computers and clocks, serenades and seas, the amplified human body and the sound of his own children playing with toys. The album is held together by a sense of wonder. While listening, one begins to think about the sounds of one’s own house, car and community, and the question, “What makes a sound appealing?” Those unsure of what they enjoy may find some direction here; and if not direction, joy. (Richard Allen)
link


 

Review | By Jack Chuter / ATTN:Magazine
11min | snow
It’s disarming to hear a piano played like that. I mean it as a high compliment, but the melody on opening track “snow” carries the slow, plodding concentration of a grade 1 practice exercise. It’s simple to the point of being tuneless, and perhaps that’s the whole point: when the façade of composition is removed, all that’s left is an instrument resounding in a room. My focus settles on how pedal sustain melts the notes together, or how the accompanying brush kit skims over keys as pebbles on placid water, or how a layer of microphone noise lingers over the mix like frost on a window. The fact that the second track, “gust”, opens on a succession of arpeggiated cascades and cut-up percussion only affirms my theory: the opening track, while still pleasant on its own, is a means of listener calibration, stimulating an awareness of tonal quality that frames the understanding of the album thereafter. The record is not only a duet between pianist Jiyeon Kim and drummer Sang Yong Min, but a dialogue between human intention and the feral interventions of environment and circumstance. []


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Tim Ingold & Carmen Pardo & Mikel R. Nieto | A soft hiss of this world
Four years ago, Mikel R. Nieto released Dark Sound, a black book with black type and a black CD that served as a meditation on noise. A soft hiss of this world is the yin to its yang, a white book with white type and a clear Flexi-disc that addresses silence, sound and snow. The two form a fascinating diptych. Dark Sound is the more political, an indictment of the intrusion of noise from profit barons and non-indigenous people; in this stark context, silence implies silencing. Yet while A soft hiss of this world is less overt, its societal implications range from the censorship of speech to the extinguishing of languages. Just as snow can muffle or amplify, and the color white can mean all colors or none, the winter landscape ~ and in this case, soundscape ~ is transformed into a tabula rasa. Again, those who purchase the bundle will need to deal with some necessary frustration. The type is best read on an angle in direct light (sunlight being better than artificial light in this instance). []


 

Sounds of the Projection Box | Michael Lightborne @ BBC Radio 3
Listen now (Feb 2020) – Late Junction – www.bbc.co.uk


 

2 Reviews | By Łukasz Komła / Nowamuzyka.pl
Nowości z Gruenrekorder
Pod koniec zeszłego roku, niemiecki label Gruenrekorder wydał kolejną książkę z udziałem Mikela R. Nieto oraz nagrania projektu eksperymentującego z liśćmi drzew.

 

Tim Ingold & Carmen Pardo & Mikel R. Nieto | A soft hiss of this world
W 2016 roku opisywałem na Nowej Muzyce poprzednią pozycję książkową autorstwa Mikela R. Nieto pt. Dark Sound. Hiszpański artysta dźwiękowy przybliżał tam wiele interesujących zagadnień związanych z hałasem, ciszą i słuchaniem. Do książki była dołączona płyta wypełniona nagraniami terenowymi pochodzącymi z lasów tropikalnych położonych we wschodniej części Ekwadoru.
Tegoroczne wydawnictwo A soft hiss of this world jest owocem współpracy Nieto, Tima Ingolda (brytyjski antropolog społeczny specjalizujący się m.in. w badaniu ludów fińskich) i Carmen Parado (badaczka z tytułem profesora na Uniwersytecie w Gironie, zajmująca się muzyką współczesną). []

 

Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
To pierwszy album tych artystów w barwach Gruenrekorder. Reiko Goto pochodzi z Japonii i jest badaczką skupiającą się na relacjach między żywymi istotami a środowiskiem. Interesują ją m.in. sosnowe lasy kaledońskie, a jej prace często przybierają formę instalacji czy swoistych spektakli. Tim Collins to z kolei amerykański artysta, planista i pracownik naukowy. Zajmuje się opracowywaniem projektów związanych z przyrodą i kulturą. Chris Malcolm jest szkockim programistą z ponad dwudziestoletnim stażem. Ma również spore doświadczenie w muzyce eksperymentalnej, tworząc innowacyjne narzędzia i instrumenty zarówno do pracy studyjnej, jak i na koncerty. Malcolm na scenie korzysta ze starych komputerów i konsol.
Plein Air to system i jednocześnie oprogramowanie dające szerokie możliwości w kreowaniu nowych poziomów ekspresji, które są niedostępne w przypadku tradycyjnych instrumentów i metod związanych z elektroniką. Na albumie Silva Datum Musica / Plein Air znalazły się kompozycje powstałe przy użyciu syntezatora ściśle powiązanego z roślinami. []


 

Review | By Duncan Simpson / Musique Machine
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
Gruenrekorder are a label with a reputation for bringing truly novel experiences in sound to the listening public and PLEIN AIR: Silva Datum Musica is no exception. It’s ostensibly a multidisciplinary project bringing together artists Tim Collins and Reiko Goto with sound programmer Chris Malcolm to create an interface to „initiate an ethical consideration of trees, using sound to focus the attention and the imagination“. This approach has been refined to a point where the whole „performance“ is centred on a single leaf where sensors measure the rates of photosynthesis, transpiration and other plant biochemical processes. The data from those sensors is then manipulated and transposed by Malcolm into composed sound. The four pieces on side A of this handsomely presented vinyl were recorded live in Glasgow, Scotland and the side-long piece of side B in Cologne. []


 

Reviews | By Rigobert Dittmann / Bad Alchemy Magazin (104)
11min | snow
Da sitze ich und starre, wie Parzival auf drei Blutstropfen im Schnee, auf den schwarzen Schnee von snow (GrD 31, LP) und komme erst Flocke für Flocke dahinter, dass sie vom Nachthimmel fallen und dass 11m nicht 11 Minuten meint, sondern das Seouler Duo von Jiyeon Kim = 11 und Sangyong Min. Zwei, die auch schon, meditativ und nostalgisch, „Transparent Music“ (2017) hingetüpfelt haben, nachdem 11 allein ihre „11 EP“ (2014) als poppige Singer-Songwriterin geschmachtet hatte. Die transparente Musik spielt 11 jedoch auf dem Piano, ostinat klimpernde Muster, die zwischen Satie, Debussy und New Simplicity changieren, besonders wenn Min mit seinem Drumming pausiert. []

 

Tim Ingold & Carmen Pardo & Mikel R. Nieto | A soft hiss of this world
[…] 11s Cover für „snow“ ist wie ein Einzelbild aus MIKEL R. NIETOs Videoessay „Citizen Kane“. Über Schnee im Stummfilm (Alice Guys ‚L’Hiver, danse de la neige‘) und bei Debussy (‚La neige danse‘). Über Schnee als Borromäischer Knoten aus Naturphänomen, Erinnerung & Tod, zwischen kristallisierter H2O-Physik, Johannes Keplers „Neujahrsgabe oder Über den sechseckigen Schnee“ (1611), Ernst Haeckels „Kristallseelen“ (1917), Conrad Aikens „Silent Snow, Secret Snow“ (1934), Yoko Onos ‚Listen, the snow is falling‘ (1969). Mit André Bazins ‚Il neige sur le cinéma‘ (1948) als Spur hin zur Schneekugel von „Citizen Kane“. Schnee bricht den Schlafzauber der Wicked Witch of the West, DiCaprio bricht mit seinem „The Revenant“-Oscar eine Lanze für mehr Schnee, und das Geheimnis von ‚Rosebud‘ quillt als schwarzer Rauch wie aus einem Auschwitz-Krematorium. []


 

Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Tim Ingold & Carmen Pardo & Mikel R. Nieto | A soft hiss of this world
If I could do that all day, plus listening to music (without the obligation to write about it) and drink coffee (and hopefully still sleep well at night), then that would almost perfect; maybe watch one movie every evening. But a book that makes it difficult for the reader is not well spending on me. Mikel R. Nieto already published a hard to read a book (Vital Weekly 1037), called ‚Dark Sound‘. That book was all black letters on black paper and you would have to sit either in sunlight or a strong lamp. I tried and I failed. This new book is about silence and the sound of snowflakes. []

 

11min | snow
You would think that 11min stands for 11 minutes, but it a piano player who is called 11 (I will refrain from ‚Stranger Things‘ jokes) and Sangyong Min on drums. For both, we could not find much information online, as the latter brought me to car websites, even when the spelling is slightly different. The mastering was done in Seoul, so these musicians could also be from South Korea. Gruenrekorder is a label mostly known for their releases with sound art and field recordings, but they also have a section devoted to improvised music and that is the field where we find the music on this album. []


 

Very special winter bundles:

 

All Our Vinyls” (10 x vinyl – 100 €)
Dark Hiss” (2 x books – 34 €)


 

New Release:

 

 

11min: ‘snow
GrD 31/19 – Vinyl
6 Tracks (37:01)
run: 300 copies


 

New Release:

 

 

 

Tim Ingold & Carmen Pardo & Mikel R. Nieto: ‘A Soft Hiss of This World
Gruen 191/19 – Book & Flexi-disc
1 Track (6:00)
run: 500 copies


 

CD TIPP – Label: Gruenrekorder
Musik von David Rothenberg und Gerald Fiebig
Von Henry Kozok

 

Seit 2003 ist das deutsche Label Gruenrekorder zuständig für Fieldrecordings, Sound Art und vieles was nie in gängige Schubladen passt oder in die Kataloge des Online Handels. Wer interessiert sich schon dort für Musik aus dem alten Gasometer in Augsburg, den Gesang der Vögel in den Parks von Berlin und Helsinki? Lasse-Marc Riek und Roland Etzin interessiert es.

 

Aus Richtung Nürnberg mit der Bahn kommend fährt man in Höhe Augsburg-Oberhausen am Gasometer vorbei. Es ist nicht zu übersehen. Ein Zeugnis eines Industriezeitalters das der Vergangenheit angehört. Der Augsburger Gerald Fiebig hat in diesem Gasometer 2013 eine faszinierende Klanginstallation eingerichtet, welche auch die Grundlage der CD ist. Siehe hierzu auch die vielen Reviews dazu.
soundcloud.com/gruenrekorder/gasworks-gerald-fiebig-feat-emerge-christian-z-muller

 

Etwas ganz untypisches für Gruenrekorder wurde mit der Vogelmusik von David Rothenberg veröffentlicht. Was aber auch die ganze Bandbreite dieses Labels ausmacht. Mit dem Gesang der Vögel wurde in den Parks von Berlin und Helsinki musiziert, dort wo die Nachtigall noch singt … Jedenfalls bis 22.00 Uhr, dann muss Schluss sein. Musik nach 22.00 Uhr geht nicht und wenn sie noch so schön ist.
soundcloud.com/gruenrekorder/nightingale-cities-david-rothenberg

 

Für alle die sich einen Überblick über die Klangwelt von Gruenrekorder verschaffen wollen, sei hier die Soundcloud Seite empfohlen und der Text von Holger Adam auf Testcard, der bei fast allen Reviews zu den Gruenrekorder Veröffentlichungen zu finden ist !

 

Genannte Veröffentlichungen:
David Rothenberg: ‘Nightingale Cities
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller: ‘Gasworks


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
My Favourite Things – From 8th February 2019 we have the Merzouga team on Gruenrekorder. Eva Popplein and Janko Hanushevsky wowed the crowds with their 2013 release based on wax cylinders found in the Berlin Phonogram Archive, leaving us in no doubt as to their historical sensibilities and their thoroughness in surveying and sampling ethnic music from the early part of the 20th century. For De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements (GRUEN 185), they’re drawing inspiration from a work of classical antiquity, Lucretius’ epic “didactic” poem De Rerum Natura (On The Nature Of Things). In this work, the Roman poet Lucretius was attempting to explain to his readers the philosophy of the earlier (Greek) philosopher Epicurus. By modern writers and thinkers, Epicurus is now claimed as a an early “humanist” of sorts – he wanted to banish fear of the supernatural, free mankind from living in fear of the gods and deities that supposedly governed our lives, and to that end he started to explain how the universe came into being. []


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities
Clarinettist and sound artist David Rothenberg made the Cicada Dream Band record for Gruenrekorder in 2014 (with Pauline Oliveros and Timothy Hill); that record made use of insects and birdsong as part of its conceptual whole. A similar approach is used on Nightingale Cities (GRUENREKORDER Gruen 189), a double CD set of music recorded in Berlin and Helsinki. The nightingale is the key. Rothenberg claims this particular bird has “helped me to find the perfect sound”. He enlisted the help of various musicians and singers, plus field recording technicians, and they went out and played in the raw, creating music right there in the forests along with the song of the nightingales. The sessions have been thoroughly documented in the fat book of notes – photographs and annotations galore, meticulously detailing the circumstances of each separate track. []


 

Gruenrekorder @ The Sound Projector Radio Show
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
www.thesoundprojector.com/2019/06/07/powering-up
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
www.thesoundprojector.com/2019/04/12/keep-saying-yes


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Fossil Fuel Project – Based on very scant clues, I would guess there may be a trend emerging among phonographic types and installation artists to try and document old 20th century buildings and their functions. I only have two recent examples I can call to mind: Aldaris, which Rihards Bražinskis and Raitis Upens made for Unfathomless in 2017, and which used sounds from an old beer brewery; and Optimistic Modernism, which was recorded in a now-closed printing works that had formerly specialised in the old technique of photo-litho. Today though we have Gasworks (GRUENREKORDER Gruen 179), made by Gerald Fiebig with the help of EMERGE and Christian Z. Müller, and it may serve as a tertiary entry in my imagined series. Fiebig has been making sound works out of the old gasworks in Augsburg-Oberhausen for over ten years now. The present CD, released by Gruenrekorder who specialise in this sort of thing and spare no expense in supplementing the record with full colour booklets of notes, compiles examples drawn from many of his major experiments and soundworks in one place. []


 

Review | By Duncan Simpson / Musique Machine
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine

This is a really fun little thing Gruenrekorder have put out. It’s ostensibly a project branching out from a website created by Achim Zepezauer which replicates an old One Arm Bandit slot machine, but instead of displaying fruit it plays an overlaid combination of three 45 second audio fragments from artists ranging from Jaap Blonk to John Chantler and Zepezauer himself. This 10″ vinyl release – neatly presented with cute crayon artwork collects 30 of the possible combinations spat out by the slot machine, each with a title constructed in a similarly random way. The opening spin Cowshed Neck Rupture throws out Jerome Noetinger, Simon Whetham and Zepezauer himself, combining with glitchy electonics, field recordings and tape effects. And on the second, Noetinger’s classic concrete tape distortions continue alongside Serge Corteyn free improvising on the guitar and Pablo Paredes‘ piano. And so it goes on, each pull of the machine throwing up unique and often quite natural sounding combinations. []


 

Review | By Robert Barry / The Wire Magazine (The Wire 429)
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
The photo on the innersleeve shows the interior of a glass domed building. In the centre sit two young trees in big black plant pots. They are surrounded by equipment stands, wires snaking from the leaves to the ground and up to a chipboard box. A pair of human legs, with what looks like a computer keyboard resting on their lap, extend from beneath the box to the floor. If the image conjures up some bizarre plant-machine-human hybrid straight out of the pages of a Donna Haraway manifesto, the truth is not far off. All the bulbous electronic bloops and clattery percussive slashes on Plein Air are derived from realtime data on the photosynthesis and transpiration rates of different plants. Must be one of the few shows where the band get their instruments from a tree nursery. []


 

 

SOUND DIALOGUES – Klangwald im Palmenhaus
Liebe HörerInnen und Hörer!
Singt da eine Rote Waldameise aus Finnland, ein Brüllaffe aus Amazonien oder eine Rotbauchunke aus Deutschland?
Der Klangkünstler Lasse-Marc Riek setzt vom 28. Oktober bis 12. Januar, täglich ab 9 Uhr, im Palmenhaus den Zauber und die Schönheit des Lebensalltags von Tieren akustisch in Szene. Die Komposition aus natürlichen Umgebungslauten verschiedener Lebewesen, Landschaften und Kontinente verwandelt das Palmenhaus in einen Klangwald.
Die Besucher*innen können kleine und große Geräusche entdecken, Klangorte erkunden und deren akustische Umgebungen aus ihrer eigenen Hörperspektive erforschen. So wird der Hörsinn in besonderer Weise geschult.
Der Klangkünstler Lasse-Marc Riek (*1975) arbeitet vielseitig mit den Geräuschen unserer Welt. Er ist leidenschaftlicher Geräusche-Sammler und greift für den Klangwald im Palmenhaus auf Tierlaute zurück, die er in den vergangenen 20 Jahren gesammelt hat. Für den Klangwald haben die Künstler Rodolphe Alexis, Marc Namblard, Tom Lawrence, David Michael und Roland Etzin weitere Aufnahmen zur Verfügung gestellt.
Mit der Installation bringt er die pflanzliche Vielfalt des Hauses in Bezug zu einer akustischen Diversität von Tierlauten verschiedener Herkunft und Art.
Spitzen Sie die Ohren und hören Sie Insekten, Amphibien und Säugetiere aus Europa, Afrika, Süd- und Ostasien sowie Süd- und Zentralamerika.

 

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung von Gruenrekorder.
Info: www.palmengarten.de
Teaser: www.soundcloud.com
Presse: www.fr.de
Vielleicht sehen und hören wir uns mit großen Ohren in Frankfurts einzigem Dschungel


 

Review | By Soundohm
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
A ten years project by Tim Collins, Reiko Goto and Chris Malcolm culminates on ‚Plein Air | Silva Datum Musica‘.
By nature, experimental music is defined by singular, radical thinking. It is a push, joining ideas and sound, toward the unknown and unheard. Yet, setting the ambitions of this remarkable creative context aside, it remains rare to encounter objects which veer so far from the beaten path that they feel like their own quiet revolution of one – challenging the very conceptions of music, as the architects of the avant-garde once did. This, in the simplest terms, is what Plein Air | Silva Datum Musica, the culmination of a ten year project by Tim Collins, Reiko Goto, and Chris Malcolm, has seemingly managed to do. Comprised of recordings made on a custom built, plant-driven synthesizer, issued by the German imprint Gruenrekorder – it is an extension of their long standing dedication to musical and sound-art efforts built from field recordings, a stunningly beautiful and radical rethinking of the base notions of organized sound. []


 

Review | By textura
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
Only on Gruenrekorder, it seems, would a release appear claiming to present “recordings from a plant-driven synthesizer” and focusing on “plant bioacoustics.” The German label has a reputation for bringing unusual projects into the world, and its dedication to the strange and fascinating is one of the things to admire most about the imprint. This latest outing (issued in an LP edition of 300) certainly qualifies as different: to record the material, Tim Collins and Reiko Goto worked with a custom-built instrument that uses software programming by Chris Malcom and scientific sensors to produce “real-time tree leaf data.” Said device transcribes into sound form (data-sonification, in other words) the ‘music‘ produced by leaves, material whose timbre and volume are determined not only by the specific tree type but also conditions in the immediate environment such as temperature, light, carbon dioxide, and humidity. []


 

framework radio | #686
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR


 

Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR @ Radio Universidad de Chile
Programa: LOOP.CL (SEÑAL 2)
www.loop.cl


 

Review | By TJ Norris / Toneshift
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
With each names for trees, this latest collaboration between Tim Collins, Reiko Goto, Chris Malcolm (here as Silva Datum Musica) is a unique journey into the great outdoors via a custom-built plant-driven synthesizer – you heard that right. An instrument that “uses scientific sensors and software programming to generate real-time tree leaf data. Light, photosynthesis and transpiration modifies sound: the rhythm, melody, texture, tempo and harmony shift with atmospheric conditions and tree response – electronically.” The trio act like performative sound painters on Plein Air. The outcome has a droopy quality on Alder, that seems like a retro flashback, like the accompaniment to a silent movie. This continues with gaseous exhaust and flourishes of organ and mysterious tones right into Oak and through the manipulated forest. Having taken a decade to orchestrate this, there were obviously a lot of technical aspects to overcome in the process – but this blend of scientific photosynthesis, etc. has a great impact on the pleasant awkwardness of the chords. This has the presence of something circus-like, or perhaps an organ grinder in the streets of Paris circa the 1950’s – it’s impossible to peg, and exciting to contemplate. Having been recorded in Scotland there lays the essence of the place in the tonal shadows. []


 

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR
A subject about I surely have very little knowledge of is that of bioacoustics; you know, where biological events turn into sound. I know John Cage experimented with plants, Michael Prime also, and I’m sure there is much more out there, but I have not much idea about that. Silva Datum Musica is a duo of Tim Collins and Reiko Goto and together they created a ‚plant-driven synthesizer‘. It uses sensors and software „to generate real-time tree leaf data. Light, photosynthesis and transpiration modify sound: the rhythm, melody, texture, tempo and harmony shift with atmospheric conditions and tree response – electronically“, which is a pretty cool idea. Ideally, every plant sounds different, one would think. Here we have two different recordings, both live. One side has four pieces, recorded in 2017 in Scotland and one long piece from Cologne in 2015. []


 

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Kuhzunft-slotmachine is the brainchild of Achim Zepezauer, a musician, composer and organiser of events. It originated as a website project, focused on an image of a child-like slot machine, painted with pastel colours. Clicking on the start button elicits combinations of pre-recordings, each one lasting exactly 45 seconds and placed into three distinct slots. Instead of we the usual images of fruits, stars and bells, we have photos of the artists and the titles of tracks. This vinyl document, released by Gruenrekorder, includes only a selection of the possible recordings related to the different artists. In the online project, new contributions are added with some regularity, making a total of 225 recording and 11.390.625 possible configurations (in February 2019). []


 

framework radio | #685
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities


 

Robert Schwarz | DOUBLE NEGATIVE @ Radio Universidad de Chile
Programa: LOOP.CL (SEÑAL 2)
www.loop.cl
Silva Datum Musica | PLEIN AIR on air: August 29th 2019


 

Reviews | By Holger Adam / testcard #26: Utopien
Draußen vor der Tür: Field-Recordings und Sound-Art von Gruenrekorder
Gruen, gruen, gruen sind alle meine Farben – bereits zum dritten Mal in Folge eine Gruenrekorder-Kolumne in testcard. Wie immer kommt man aus dem Staunen nicht heraus, wenn man sich die Veröffentlichungen des Frankfurter Labels anhört. Unerschrocken und ohne mit der Wimper zu zucken haben sie die Geräusche von laufenden Filmprojektoren auf Vinyl gepresst: Sounds Of The Projection Box heißt das Album von MICHAEL LIGHTBORNE und es dokumentiert das Rattern der Maschinen, deren Geräusche üblicherweise nicht aus der Kabine von Filmvorführern hinaus dringen. Geräusche, die vom Aussterben bedroht sind, weil Filme ja mehr und mehr digital an Lichtspielhäuser übermittelt und dort abgespielt werden. Insofern wird hier akustisches Kulturerbe archiviert, und wer die Platte auflegt, kann sich bei geschlossenen Augen in die Rolle des Filmvorführers imaginieren und zusätzlich versuchen, den Tonspuren bzw. -fetzen der ablaufenden Filme ein zusätzliches Narrativ abzuringen. Ähnlich abenteuerlich auch die Aufnahmen von GREGORY BÜTTNER, der für Voll.Halb.Langsam.Halt die Fahrt eines alten Dampfschiffes, eines Eisbrechers dokumentierte, bearbeitete und sein Vorgehen sowie das Ergebnis wie folgt kommentiert: „I had the chance to take a trip on the ship from Rostock to Rügen over the Baltic Sea in 2010. The body of the ship is completely built from metal, so it is a big resonant room which sounds very different on each spot which I put my contact mics on (I used two contact mics, so I could record in stereo). I walked around the ship, placing my mics on different areas of the ship and also directly on parts of the steam engine, which is still fired by coal. For the composition I only used the pure recordings without additional sound manipulations, only juxtapositions, transitions and cuts.” Alles klar? Der Kahn bzw. das, was Büttner aus seinen Geräuschen macht, kann locker mit Merzbow mithalten. Harter Stoff. Metallisch kühl, aber weniger krachend klingt auch Gasworks von GERALD FIEBIG feat. EMERGE & CHRISTIAN Z. MÜLLER. Der Ort als Resonanzkörper für Geräusche bildet das Ausgangsmaterial für diese CD. Entsprechend räumlich ist in der Tat viel von dem, was es zu hören gibt, organisiert: Echo und Hall spielen eine große Rolle im Klangbild – aber auch eine dialekt-gefärbte Stimme, die von der industriellen Nutzung des Gebäudes erzählt, kommt, ergänzt um Geräusche, zu Wort. So entsteht für das Gaswerk von Augsburg-Oberhausen ein Denkmal. Der gleichermaßen verspielte und dokumentarische Charakter der musikalischen Arbeiten verwandelt den frühindustriellen Arbeitsalltag in eine geisterhafte Klangreise: „Des gibt’s heut‘ nimmer.“ Bemerkenswert. Maschinenmusik ist auch auf der Slotmachine-10“ versammelt, einem Projekt von ACHIM ZEPEZAUER, der von unterschiedlichen Musiker*innen jeweils 45 Sekunden lange Klangskizzen anfertigen ließ, die in der Logik eines Spielautomaten und nach Zufallsprinzip geleichzeitig aufgerufen werden können. Realisiert ist das im Rahmen einer Online-Anwendung, die das Bedienen eines virtuellen Spielautomaten zur Erzeugung der Zufalls-Kompositionen zugänglich macht, hier: http://slotmachine.kuhzunft.com. Viel Spaß! (Die 10“ dokumentiert nur einen kleinen Teil der gewissermaßen unendlichen Kombinationsmöglichkeiten.) Auch KATHARINA KLEMENT liefert mit Peripheries, einem akustischen Portrait der Stadt Belgrad, eine quirlig-nervöse und herausfordernde Arbeit ab. Unter Zuhilfenahme des Stadtplans erstellte Klement eine kartographisch inspirierte Partitur. Verschiedene Lokalitäten in der Stadt wurden aufgezeichnet und ineinander gemischt. So entsteht ein wahres Klang-Gewimmel, das beizeiten wirklich anstrengend sein kann. Ich empfehle nach Selbstversuch folgendes: Die Aufnahmen auf dem Balkon abspielen und die Balkontüre offenlassen, während man im Zimmer bleibt. So entsteht der Eindruck, draußen sei Belgrad! Bei der Gelegenheit gebe ich gerne zu, dass mir im Zweifel die eher ruhigen Aufnahmen aus tropischen Gefilden lieber sind. F. Guyana von MARC NAMBLARD hilft sich vom Stress in Belgrad zu erholen. Allerlei hypnotisches Summen, Surren und Dröhnen der Flora und Fauna von der Nordküste Südamerikas! Auch DAVID ROTHENBERG hat wieder mit allerlei Vögeln Musik gemacht und sich für Nightingale Cities auch zusätzliche menschliche Instrumentalist*innen dazu geholt. Die in Berlin und Helsinki angefertigten Aufnahmen gehören sicherlich zum zugänglichsten Material in dieser Kolumne, die Vögel sind freundliche Wesen, die Musik ist es auch. Wer noch nie eine Gruenrekorder-Produktion gehört hat, kann vielleicht auf diesem Weg einen sanften Einstieg in den Katalog des Labels finden. Frühlingsmusik. Ganz anders und noch besser: die Windharfen-Aufnahmen auf Path Of The Wind von EISUKE YANAGISAWA. Windharfen, große Saiteninstrumente in die Brise gestellt, werden buchstäblich von der Natur gespielt und je nachdem, wo die Windharfen standen mischen sich unterschiedliche Umgebungsgeräusche unter die betörenden Klänge der Instrumente. Ambient Drone mit Seemöve. Minimal Music mit Meeresrauschen. Näher an New Age Klanglandschaften waren Gruenrekorder vielleicht nie, und es schadet nicht: Absolutes Highlight! Das Meer rauscht auch auf De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements von MERZOUGA, die nichts geringeres als eine Komposition auf Grundlage des Lehrgedichtes von Lucretius‘ wagen. Soweit so ambitioniert, aber da muss man sich nicht abschrecken lassen. Musik ist immer Ausdruck von Ideen, hier eben einer dezidiert philosophischen. Und elektronische Musik eignet sich auch nicht erst seit gestern, zur Verdeutlichung, mithin Vermittlung abstrakter Vorstellungen. Und so knistert es kleinteilig, die Atome tanzen unsichtbar aus den Lautsprechern, eine Stimme flüstert hier und da Versatzstücke in englischer und lateinischer aus dem Gedicht usw. – ein kurzeiliges, abwechslungsreiches und durchaus spannendes Hörerlebnis, das dem Überbau entsprechen mag; letztlich aber spielt es zum Genuss der Komposition keine entscheidende Rolle, würde ich meinen. Ähnlich gelagert ist es womöglich im Fall von The Secret Life of the Inaudible von ANNEA LOCKWOOD und CHRISTINA KUBISCH anzuhören. Die beiden Klangkünstlerinnen haben sich Soundfiles von an sich bzw. für Menschen nicht hörbaren geophysikalischen Phänomenen zur gegenseitigen Bearbeitung vorgelegt: elektromagnetische Wellen, Ultraschallwellen, Sonnenwinde… akustische Ereignisse also, die zunächst technisch in eine für das menschliche Ohr hörbaren Frequenzbereich überführt werden müssen und von Kubisch und Lockwood bearbeitet wurden, und die dann – wie auch immer das im Detail von Statten ging – daraus sozusagen dunkle Materie gewannen. Mich würde einmal interessieren, inwiefern, das geologisch-kosmische Quellenmaterial, wo es ohnehin in den hörbaren Bereich übersetzt und also synthetisiert werden muss, nicht auch anders, also mit weniger Aufwand, generiert werden könnte? Ich nehme behelfsweise an, es wäre nicht dasselbe! Wie dem auch sei, das Ergebnis fasziniert: Sunn O))) – Kindergarten dagegen. Finster dräuende, pechschwarze Klangflächen. Wahrhaft infernalische Musik aus dem Reich des sonst Nichtwahrnehmbaren. Hervorragend.


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Three Bells in a Row – An enjoyable spin is Slotmachine (GRUENREKORDER Gruen 186), a ten-inch vinyl record credited to Kuhzunft who is in fact the multi-media artist Achim Zepezauer. He appears here with a large number of guest musicians, supplying all manner of sound art, noise, electronic interventions and conventional musical accompaniment, in duo or trio combinations; in some cases, Zepezauer doesn’t even appear on the track, but when he does he’s playing electronics and drum computer. The next thing to note is that each track is timed at less than a minute, generally aiming I think for the 45-second mark; there are 30 tracks on this 10-inch LP, and in terms of durational minimalism this one ups the ante on The Residents Commercial Album, still for me the benchmark of this sort of exercise with its precisely-configured 60-second tracks. []


 

Review | By testcard #26: Utopien
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Metallisch kühl, aber weniger krachend [als „Voll.Halb-Langsam.Halt“ von Gregory Büttner] klingt auch Gasworks von GERALD FIEBIG FEAT. EMERGE & CHRISTIAN Z. MÜLLER. Der Ort als Resonanzkörper für Geräusche bildet das Ausgangsmaterial für diese CD. Entsprechend räumlich ist in der Tat viel von dem, was es zu hören gibt, organisiert: Echo und Hall spielen eine große Rolle im Klangbild – aber auch eine dialekt-gefärbte Stimme, die von der industriellen Nutzung des Gebäudes erzählt, kommt, ergänzt um Geräusche, zu Wort. So entsteht für das Gaswerk von Augsburg-Oberhausen ein Denkmal. Der gleichermaßen verspielte und dokumentarische Charakter der musikalischen Arbeiten verwandelt den frühindustriellen Arbeitsalltag in eine geisterhafte Klangreise: „Des gibt’s heut nimmer.“ Bemerkenswert.


 

Review | By Bernd Sievers / eclipsed
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Aus der Kuriositäten-Kiste – Die Gaswerke im Augsburger Stadtteil Oberhausen nahmen 1915 ihren Betrieb auf. Sie sind ein Sinnbild für die Spätphase der Industrialisierung. Die Gestaltung ihrer Fassade lehnt sich an den Renaissancestil des Augsburger Rathauses an. Nicht deutete bei ihr auf die harte, gefährliche Arbeit im Inneren des Gebäudes hin. 2001 wurde der Betrieb eingestellt. Danach wurde das Gelände für Festivals und andere Events genutzt. Der Soundkünstler Gerald Fiebig etwa veranstaltete zwischen 2010 und 2016 in den Gaswerken Klanginstallationen. Dabei nutzte er auch die Akustik des großen Gastanks (Höhe: 85 Meter, Durchmesser: 45 Meter). Wer nicht dabei war, kann die Klänge nun auf dem Album „Gasworks“ bestaunen.


 

Review | By Augsburger Allgemeine
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Gerald Fiebig fängt das Echo des Industriezeitalters ein. Jetzt gibt es seine akustischen Erkundungen auf einer CD zum Nachhören. Gerald Fiebig, Jahrgang 1973, leitet seit 2015 das Kulturhaus Abraxas. Er studierte Literaturwissenschaften in Augsburg, schreibt Gedichte und beschäftigt sich seit 2006 auch mit Klangkunst. 2013 wurde Fiebig für seine Klanginstallationen mit dem Kunstförderpreis der Stadt ausgezeichnet.

 

„Gasworks“ heißt eine neue CD von Ihnen – eine akustische Erkundung des Gaswerks in Oberhausen. 2017 hatten Sie einen Lyrikband („nach dem nachkrieg“) vorgelegt, der um die Geschichte des Kasernenareals rund um das Abraxas kreist. Woher diese Affinität zu Augsburger Ortsbefragungen?

 

Gerald Fiebig: Ich habe mich häufig mit konkreten Orten auseinandergesetzt – nicht nur in Augsburg. Bei den von Ihnen genannten Projekten geht es um die Geschichte von Gebäuden. Ich erfinde ja nicht, ich finde. In dem Fall in Augsburg.

68 Minuten dauert Ihr Klangkunstwerk, das größtenteils im Gasometer aufgenommen worden ist. Was erwartet den Hörer? []


 

eldoradio* – KlangWelten* – Kuhzunft bei eldo*
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
Lasse-Marc Riek | Helgoland
Musik und mehr mit Achim Zepezauer. Alle zwei Wochen Dienstags im Monat von 22 bis 24 Uhr bei eldoradio*
Genres und Schubladen werden ignoriert. Achim Zepezauer arbeitet seit vielen Jahren als Musiker in vielen Projekten. Unter anderem spielt er seinem Elektronik-Setup solo oder bei „The Dorf“ und kuratiert die Konzertreihe „mex“ mit experimenteller Musik im Künstlerhaus Dortmund.


 

Review | By MOS2000 / hifi-forum.de
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Jetzt wird es etwas komplizierter – das hier ist keine einfache 10″-Vinyl – es ist Teil eines Kunstprojektes, bei dem man durch die Kombination von jeweils 3 „Musik-/Geräuschfetzen“ jeweils einen Track erzeugt. Auf der 10″ finden sich 30 Tracks aus dieser „Slotmachine“, welche seitdem noch gewachsen ist und inzwischen 225 Tracks enthält und damit eine theoretische Kombination von > 11 Millionen Varianten zuläßt. Die Scheibe selbst ist eine kleine „Dokumentation“ aus der Gesamtmenge. Der Typ selbst macht jede Menge kranken Sch**ß mit Audio-Artefakten und Installationen die irgendwie was zum klingen bringen – sowas muss man unterstützen – mal bei den Links unten reinklicken, diese „cardtalk“ Sache ist echt crazy. Kreativ…
www.slotmachine.kuhzunft.com
www.kuhzunft.com
www.kuhzunft.com/cardtalk.html
www.discogs.com/Achim-Zepezauer-Slotmachine


 

David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities @ The Guardian
Why nightingales are snubbing Berkeley Square for the Tiergarten
Scientists, including a descendant of Charles Darwin, are researching the birds’ preference for Berlin — by Philip Oltermann


 

Path of the Wind | Eisuke Yanagisawa @ Radio Ö1
Ö1 Kunstsonntag: Frischer Wind
„Frischer Wind“ ist das Motto unseres heutigen Kunstsonntags. Zu hören sind Sounds einer Äolsharfe – auch Geister-, Wind- oder Wetterharfe genannt.
Gebaut und an verschiedenen Orten in Japan aufgestellt wurde dieses Instrument von dem Ethnographen, Fieldrecorder und Filmemacher Eisuke Yanagisawa aus Kyoto. Eine Äolsharfe ist ein Saiteninstrument, dessen Saiten durch Einwirkung eines Luftstroms zum Klingen gebracht werden. Eisuke Yanagisawa interessieren die kulturellen, ökologischen, geographischen, akustischen und historischen Perspektiven des Klangs. Alle Aufnahmen, die Sie im heutigen Kunstsonntag hören können sind unter dem Titel „Path of the Wind“ bei Gruenrekorder erschienen – auf diesem Label finden Sie Soundart, Fieldrecodings und Soundscapes, also Klanglandschaften. […]


 

Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
(Text: Eva Poepplein) „De Rerum Natura – Dance of the Elements“ ist eine verspielte Übersetzung der naturphilosophischen Thesen von Lukrez. Der römische Dichter, Naturwissenschaftler und Philosoph hat schon vor 2000 Jahren die These aufgestellt, dass alles, was wir sehen und mit unseren Sinnen wahrnehmen können aus kleinsten, unteilbaren Teilchen besteht. Das Leben ist ein unendlicher Tanz der Elemente, ein ewiges Werden und Vergehen. Und während alles auf der Welt, Menschen, Tiere, Wälder, Meere, Flüsse, Gebirge, vergänglich ist, sind – so Lukrez – die unsichtbar kleinen Teilchen, aus denen alles besteht, ewig.

 

Das haben wir zum spielerischen Kompositionsprinzip erhoben und eine kleine Kosmologie nach Lukrez komponiert. Abstrakte kleinste Klangelemente rasen durch den Raum, verbinden sich zu konkreten Formen, (das sind für uns konkrete Geräusche/Field-Recordings und konkret musikalisches Material, Melodiefragmente, Rhythmus, Harmonie). Durch das 39-minütige Stück, das als Kompositionsauftrag für den finnischen Rundfunk entstanden ist, weben sich Textfragmente aus Lukrez‘ Gedicht in Englisch und Latein, gesprochen von Jankos Bruder, dem Schauspieler Stefko Hanushevsky, der es auch war, der meine Nase vor vielen Jahren auf diesen wunderbaren antiken Text gestupst hat.

 

Der Grafiker Leopold Lenzgeiger/U9 hat hat sich für sein Artwork von den Lukrez’schen Gedanken inspirieren lassen und fand, kein Mensch sollte das Artwork einfach so designen. Also hat er Pinsel Und Stifte an Ästen und Zweigen befestigt und Papier davor gestellt. Das gesamte grafische Vokabular dieser CD hat der Wind in den Bäumen auf Papier gemalt.


 

Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine @ Radio Panik – Indiedrome
& Daniel Blumin: www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/83968
& Andrew Backhouse: The Parish News – One-Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Edition


 

Review | By baze.djunkiii / nitestylez.de
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
And now to something completely conceptual, a new way of interactive composition technique introduced by Achim Zepezauer and his Kuhzunft project which results in this 10″ to be released on the Gruenrekorder-imprint on February 1st, 2k19. All 30 – sic !!! – under one minute tracks on this one have been composed as a collage using a virtual slotmachine of sorts filled with 158 45 second recordings provided by a set of 13 different artists including the likes of Jaap Blonk, Jerome Noetinger, John Chantler, Zepezauer himself and many more which are then randomly layered with the program to create a full blown collage of three simultaneously played tunes. []


 

Review | By Stuart Bruce / Chain D.L.K.
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Thirty tracks on a 24-minute, 10” release is not a misprint- although in principle it’s 90 tracks, in a way. Thirteen different artists have collectively offered up 90 sonic ideas, all given single-word names and all but one of them between 45 and 50 seconds long, and Achim Zepezauer as Kuhzunft has grouped them together into packages of three layers that are run concurrently, each package forming one of the 30 named tracks. It’s claimed that this is completely random- hence the slot machine theme- but at times you do suspect that a bit of curation or pre-planning has taken place, on the grounds that some of the tracks work very well together. []


 

Review | By Łukasz Komła / #Kwartlanik Przekrój
David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities
David Rothenberg to amerykański klarnecista, kompozytor, profesor filozofii, absolwent Harvardu, a także wykładowca w New Jersey Institute of Technology. Autor wielu interesujących książek, np. Why Birds Sing (2005) i Thousand Mile Song (2008) oraz filmów dokumentalnych, w których opisuje i bada muzykę przez pryzmat świata zwierząt. W 2014 r. ukazał się niesamowity album Cicada Dream Band nagrany przez Pauline Oliveros, Davida Rothenberga i Timothy’ego Hilla, na którym znalazły się improwizowane nagrania w otoczeniu odgłosów cykad, świerszczy, humbaków, żab i ptaków. Rok później Rothenberg zainicjował w Berlinie projekt skupiający się wyłącznie na śpiewie słowików. []


 

Marc Namblard | F.Guyana @ Radio Ö1
Ö1 Kunstsonntag – Tropische Hitze Teil 1
Ist Ihnen auch so heiß? Vielleicht hat es ja schon ein wenig abgekühlt in Ihrer Region, aber die letzte Woche hatte es in sich. Noch ein wenig Abkühlung kann nicht schaden. Wir hören Soundscapes vom Strand in Awala in Französisch-Guayana, aber auch im Dschungel musizieren echte Pfeiffrösche und Gelbrücken-Stirnvögel. Der Künstler Marc Namblard hat diese Aufnahmen mitgebracht und sie begleiten uns durch den heutigen Kunstsonntag. […]


 

Review | By (DM) / VITAL WEEKLY
David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities
David Rothenburg is building up an interesting life work. He is working on ‘interspecies music’! Several of his earlier projects for Gruenrekorder, a German label specialised in field recordings, soundscapes and sound art, has been reviewed here. But with this new release, it started to work for me what Rothenberg is exploring. This project took five years (2014-2018), doing recordings in Berlin and Helsinki, including a book as well as a documentary. Gruenrekorder again releases this double CD, with a 20-page booklet included. Disc one has 72 minutes of recordings done in Berlin. For disc two we are 69 minutes in Helsinki. []


 

MERZOUGA IM WIRE TAPPER
Das renommierte Fachmagazin WIRE, das monatlich in London erscheint, bringt in seiner neuesten Ausgabe den 50. WIRE-Tapper heraus. Diese Compilation CD stellt viermal jährlich aktuelle Positionen experimenteller Musik aus der ganzen Welt vor. Der Jubiläums-Tapper enthält eine „Best of“-Bonus-CD, und unter den 18 ausgewählten Titel ist auch ein Stück von Merzouga, „Fragment #2“ von unserer 2012 „Music for Wax-Cylinder“ Veröffentlichung (Gruenrekorder, GRUEN 124).
Merzouga | 52°46’ North 13°29’ East – Music for Wax-Cylinders
www.thewire.co.uk


 

Review | By Duncan Simpson / Musique Machine
David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities
Philosopher and musician David Rothenberg has had a fascinating and singular career. Through his many books and recordings Rothenberg has forged a niche for himself as something of an interspecies musicologist. Beginning with his first book Why Birds Sing: A Journey Into the Mystery of Bird Song he has explored both human and animal relationships to sound and the environment by way of mutual song. This has on several occasions – as it does here on his fourth outing for Gruenrekorder – taken the form of actually playing along with the calls of animals. Nightingale Cities is a sprawling 2CD collection of recordings of Rothenberg and others improvising with those birds in and around Berlin and Helsinki. The release coincides with the publication of a book of the same name. []


 

Upcoming Release: 11min [snow]
Vinyl / GrD 31
www.tumblbug.com/11min_vinyl


 

2 Reviews | By textura
Two wildly contrasting releases accentuate the huge range of Gruenrekorder’s discography. On the one hand we have a single-track, thirty-eight-minute sound composition by Merzouga that merges philosophical musings by the Roman poet Titus Lucretius Caro (c. 99-55 BCE) with field recordings and instrumental sound treatments, on the other a wacky ten-inch by Kuhzunft (Dortmund-based dadaist Achim Zepezauer) featuring thirty forty-five-second tracks and based on the concept of an interactive slot machine.

 

Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
Available in digital and CD (500 copies) formats, De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements is a recent creation by sound artists Eva Pöpplein and Janko Hanushevsky, who’ve operated as a duo since 2002. While their material slots itself comfortably enough within the electro-acoustic soundscaping genre, they bring an unusual slant to it in blending field recordings with Pöpplein’s electronics and Hanushevsky’s prepared electric bass. Certainly this recent single-movement soundscape, originally created as a commissioned radio piece inspired by Lucretius’s poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), is as unusual. The text shows him to be a kindred spirit to Presocratics Leucippus and Democtrius, atomists who contend that while forms themselves have a finite lifespan, the tiny elements from which they’re created are eternal; according to atomism, those micro-units collide to produce forms but then come apart and reassemble into others. Woven into the sound design are passages spoken in English and Latin by Stefko Hanushevsky taken from six Lucretius books. []

 

Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Though Kuhzunft’s Slotmachine release has been issued in digital and ten-inch vinyl formats (500 copies), the project’s interactive concept is best served by its web-based presentation. In that format, the user’s able to combine pre-produced recordings displayed in three slots, just as fruits and other elements are on a standard casino machine. Whereas the vinyl release features thirty miniatures involving contributions from thirteen artists, the online version obviously has the potential to offer many more variations. On the ten-inch, Zepezauer, credited with electronics, acoustics, and drumcomputer, is joined by a long list of provocateurs, among them Jaap Blonk (voice), John Chantler (modular synth), Rhodri Davies (harp), Gaile Griciute (prepared piano), Jérôme Noetinger (tape machine), Michael Vatcher (drums), and Simon Whetham (field recordings). []


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Sounds of the Projection Box | Michael Lightborne
Projecting Into The Past
Michael Lightborne made sound recordings of projection booths in UK cinemas, and now releases the results as an LP called Sounds Of The Projection Box (GRUENREKORDER GRUEN 177). As you know this German label specialises in unusual field recordings and phonography experiments, and this particular item is explicitly contextualised as part of the “Field Recording Series by Gruenrekorder”. Across ten tracks, what we hear are straight-ahead documentary recordings of the apparatus of film projectors, and their associated accoutrements, played back in pleasing episodes of sound art. We not only hear the motor of the projector whirling, but also the protectionist handling metal cans of film, opening and closing the door of the projector, and at least two instances where splicing tape (I assume) is being used to make repairs to broken strips. []


 

New Release:

 

 

Silva Datum Musica: ‘PLEIN AIR
Gruen 187/19 – Vinyl
5 Tracks (50:42)
run: 300 copies


 

Gruenrekorder @ Phonophon meets SCHIRN: Konzert
Auf Gitarre, Bass, Xylophon und Panflöte des Künstlern Pedro Reyes sowie auf einem Schlagzeug der Künstlerin Caroline Mesquita spielen sechs Mitglieder von Phonophon ein Klangkonzert der besonderen Art: Die Instrumente wurden von Reyes aus konfizierten Waffen der mexikanischen Drogenmafia geschweißt.

 

Das Konzert bildet einen Beitrag des Eröffnungsfestivals, in dessen Rahmen am 22. und 23. Juni viele Instrumente der Ausstellung BIG ORCHESTRA von MusikerInnen bespielt werden.

 

23.06.2019 | SCHIRN KUNST­HALLE FRANK­FURT am Main, 60311 Frankfurt
Beginn: 14:00 – Eintritt: 10 Euro (für beide Festivaltage)
www.schirn.de


 

framework radio | #673
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
CLUBbleu | DARK~asian~ENERGY [singa~core album]


 

Review | By textura
David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities
On Nightingale Cities, clarinetist David Rothenberg expands on the duet approach of his earlier ‘interspecies‘ recordings by including others. To that end, he and like-minded musicians collaborated with nightingales in Berlin and Helsinki over a five-year period, the results documented in this double-CD release (a companion to the recording is Rothenberg’s 2019 book Nightingales in Berlin). One of the best things about this unusual project is that it’s not field recordings-based in the usual sense: a recording of that kind typically sees the artist collecting sounds from the environment and merging them with material, musical or otherwise, generated at a different place and time; in Rothenberg’s case, interactions with nature, in this case nightingales, happen live and are recorded in real-time. (His music projects involving non-human species haven’t centered on birds exclusively, by the way, but also have included ones with whales and bugs.) []


 

Review | By textura
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Issued in a 500-copy CD edition, Gasworks collects five works Gerald Fiebig (b. 1973) created at the former gasworks in Augsburg-Oberhausen, two of them respective collaborations with EMERGE and Christian Z. Müller. With the site the focus of Fiebig’s artistic practice for more than a decade, it’s a space he’s come to know intimately, and the pieces, created between 2010 and 2016, reflect a broad range of explorations, including a live improvisation performed in the echo chamber of the large gas tank, processed recordings of the sounds of gas and industrial equipment, and a sound installation piece built around a 2007 interview with the late Johann Artner, a gasworks employee from 1947 to 1989. Its large metal tank, eighty-four metres high and forty-five in diameter, has afforded the Augsburg-based sound artist a wealth of reverberative sound possibilities to work with. []


 

HörSaal#12 – NACHTIGALLEN – Erweiterte Filmvorführung und Soundwalk
Nachts zwitschert es aus Büschen und Hecken: Bald ist es wieder so weit.

 

Sa 01.06., 14.45 – 16.30 Uhr, Casino Filmtheater, Aschaffenburg,
Nightingales in Berlin Finland and Germany 2019 | 52 min | ENGLISCH
Director: Ville Tanttu | Producer: David Rothenberg | Preis 10 €

 

Eckhard Kuchenbecker und Lasse-Marc Riek laden Euch ein dabeizusein, wenn es wieder heißt: „OHREN AUF!“ im großen Saal, Casino Filmtheater, Ohmbachgasse 1, 63739 Aschaffenburg

 

Es ist Nachtigallenzeit wie man unschwer hört in Feld und Flur. Für die, die nicht wie wir nachts über Wiesen und durch Auenwälder streifen haben wir einen Nachtigallen-Hörsaal zusammengestellt. Zur erweiterten Filmvorführung bieten wir den aktuell erschienenen englischsprachigen Film „Nightingales in Berlin“ von David Rothenberg und dem Regisseur Ville Tanttu. Beide werden im Kino und danach zu Gast sein um mit uns den Hörsaal auf interessante Weise den Nachtigallen zu widmen. Dann werden wir auch die Nachtigallen, die ich erst gestern Nacht frisch mit meinen Mikrofonen eingefangen habe wieder freilassen. „Die Nachtigallen haben mir geholfen, den perfekten Sound zu finden.“ (David Rothenberg)

 

Ab 21.00 Uhr gibt es im Café Krem, Riesengasse 10, bei Bernhard Hench die Gelegenheit zu einem Austausch zwischen den Künstlern und Gästen.

 

Ab ca. 22.30 Uhr begleiten wir den Künstler bei einem Klangspaziergang, um den Aschaffenburger Nachtigallen zu lauschen und mit ihnen zu musizieren.

 

Weitere Informationen zum Ablauf findet Ihr im Anhang und hier bei Facebook
www.facebook.com/events
www.facebook.com/hoersaal.aschaffenburg


 

Reviews | By Rigobert Dittmann / Bad Alchemy Magazin (102)
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Die Städte, phosphoreszierend am Ufer, die glosenden Werke der Industrie, unter den Rauchfahnen wartend gleich Ozeanriesen auf das Dröhnen des Horns… Mit diesen Zeilen von W. G. Sebald, in „Nach der Natur“ gerahmt von Albrecht Altdorfers Visionen einer im Feuersturm verzehrten Stadt (auf „Lot und seine Töchter“) und des Gemetzels der „Alexanderschlacht“, gibt GERALD FIEBIG seinen Gasworks (Gruen 179) eine Stimmung wie auf William Turners ‚The Fighting Temeraine‘. Last Exit: Abwrackwerft, Elefantenfriedhof der Industrie. Erstes Stadium: Nach dem Paradies. Zweites: Nach der Natur. Drittes: Nach der Industrie, post-industrial. Fiebig, bekannt durch seine Klangkunst bei Attenuation Circuit und durch Gedichte wie zuletzt „nach dem nachkrieg“ (parasitenpresse), taucht mit den Ohren in das von 1915 bis 1968 betriebene und bis 2001 als Verteiler genutzte Gaswerk in Augsburg-Oberhausen, das, ähnlich wie die Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, mehr und mehr als Kulturpark genutzt wird (Modular Festival, Brechtbühne…). []

 

David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities
DAVID ROTHENBERG ist Klarinettist, erprobt im Spiel mit Scanner, Pauline Oliveros, Iva Bittová, Marilyn Crispell, er ist Professor of Philosophy and Music und er ist der Autor von „Sudden Music: Improvisation, Sound, Nature“ (2002), „Why Birds Sing“ (2005), „Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound“ (2008), „Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution“ (2011) oder „Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise“ (2013). Lauter Bücher mit Musik. Zu seinem neuesten, „Nightingales in Berlin“, gehört Nightingale Cities: Berlin / Helsinki (Terra Nova, TN 1920 / Gruen 189, 2 x CD), aber auch schon „Berlin Bülbül“ (TN 1511 / Gruen 159). Beides mit Electronics von Korhan Erel, Rothenberg mit auch noch Bassklarinette, Seljefløyte, Furulya oder iPad, sowie nun auch noch den Sängerinnen Lembe Lokk & Cymin Samawatie, der Geigerin Sanna Salmenkallio und weiteren Berliner Bülbüllauschern, die sich die Nächte um die Ohren schlugen, um mit Nachtigallen zu musizieren. []


 

Review | By TJ Norris / Toneshift
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
From what looks like an intensely researched recording by sound installation artist and composer Gerald Fiebig comes five live pieces (2010-16) relating to the former gasworks in Augsburg-Oberhausen (built in 1915 to turn coke coal into gas for the town) in collaboration with EMERGE and Christian Z. Müller. The album contains “processed recordings of the sounds of gas and industrial machinery, stories told by a former gasworks employee, and live improvisations in the echo chamber of the large gas tank.” Fiebig has been recording for just over a decade and has a fairly large discography over this short period, he is also the owner of the former label/magazine Gebrauchtemusik. The gasworks, being the subject of this record still stands, fully preserved today. []


 

Review | By Martin Schmidt / a3kultur
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
Mit »Gasworks« legt der Augsburger Soundartist Gerald Fiebig seine Premiere auf dem renommierten Label Grünrekorder vor. Die CD versammelt Klanginstallationen, Radiostücke und Live-Performances, in deren klanglich-thematischem Mittelpunkt das ehemalige Gaswerk in Augsburg-Oberhausen steht. Die von 2010 bis 2018 reichenden Arbeiten entstanden zum Teil zusammen mit Kollegen wie EMERGE und Christian Z. Müller. Verfremdete Gas- und Industriegeräusche, O-Ton-Erzählungen des langjährigen, mittlerweile verstorbenen Gaswerk-Mitarbeiters Johann Artner und Live-Improvisationen im Hallraum des großen Gaskessels bilden das kompositorische Material des Albums. Ergebnis ist ein Senderdurchlauf aus Drones, Ambient, Dokumentarischem und Musique concrète – trippy und schwärend. []


 

SONIC MMABOLELA 2019
7th Annual Workshop/Residency for sound artists & composers
at Mmabolela Reserve, Limpopo, South Africa

 

Conceived and directed by Francisco López (www.franciscolopez.net)
Coordination and logistics by Barbara Ellison (www.barbaraellison.com)

‘Sonic Mmabolela’ is a 2-week workshop/residency for professional and semiprofessional sound artists and composers with previous experience in the area of sound experimentation and sound recordings. It takes place at Mmabolela Reserve, in the Limpopo province of South Africa, right at the border with Botswana. It involves field work, studio work and theoretical/discussion presentations. The workshop/residency has a special focus on creative approaches to the work with environmental sound recordings, as well as the role of listening, through an extensive exploration of natural sound environments. It does not have a technical character but is instead conceived and directed towards (i) the questioning of canonical conceptions of so-called ‘field recordings’, and (ii) the development and realization of projects of sonic creation by the participant artists/composers with the recordings gathered and through the experience of dedicated listening in natural environments.

 

Dates Workshop/Residency: 16-29 November 2019
Deadline for registration: 1 July 2019
[but open only until filling the limited maximum capacity of 10 participants]
Detailed information here: www.franciscolopez.net/field.html


 

LASSE-MARC RIEK / ROLAND ETZIN / GERALD FIEBIG / LDX#40

 

LASSE-MARC RIEK / ROLAND ETZIN / GERALD FIEBIG / LDX#40
field-recordings / experimental / 8-bit soundscapes
II Frankfurt / Augsburg

 

Samstag, 11.05.19
Die Ganze Bäckerei
Frauentorstr. 34, 86152 Augsburg
Einlass: 20:00

 

www.facebook.com/events
www.attenuationcircuit.de


 

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
David Rothenberg | Nightingale Cities
David Rothenberg is a musician with a calling: to hear, appreciate, and participate in the music of the animal kingdom. A triptych of books on whale music, bird music and bug music has cemented his reputation. In 2019 he returns with a defined focus ~ the music of the nightingale ~ and this time, he’s brought friends, who play everything from frame drum to laptop (playing the birdsong of the nightingales back to the nightingales). Nightingale Cities is the two-disc facet of this release, while Nightingales in Berlin is the title of the book and film, all premiering this spring. “The biggest thing is to not play ~ just listen.” says Rothenberg. “Listen most of the time.” The opening statement of the trailer sets us at ease. []


 

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller | Gasworks
German sonic artist Gerald Fiebig has been working since 2007 in the former gas factories in Augsburg-Oberhausen for his historical and sound interest. These factories opened in 1915 representing the heyday of the industrial era in Germany. Today, they are converted into cultural centers where technology and minimalist designs have erased the difficult conditions in which their workers worked. „Gasworks“ compiles sound installations, radio compositions and live performances, created between 2010 and 2016, some of them together with Sascha Stadlmeier aka EMERGE and others, with Christian Z. Müller. This CD consists in five tracks that include processed recordings of gas sounds and industrial machinery, stories told by a former employee of the gas factory and improvisations live in the echo chamber of the large gas tank. []


 

Nightingale Cities | David Rothenberg
May 9th – Nightingales in Berlin presentation Sammlung Hoffmann Berlin
May 11th – world premiere Nightingales in Berlin film, BUFA Berlin
June 12th – David Rothenberg and Elliott Sharp book presentation, with Christian Marclay, Iklectik Arts, London

 

many more Berlin events listed on

 

www.nightingalesinberlin.com
www.davidrothenberg.net


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Voll.Halb.Langsam.Halt | Gregory Büttner
Steam Metal – Hamburg sound artist Gregory Büttner often surfaces on his own 1000Fussler label, but here he is on Gruenrekorder, the home of artistic field recording releases. Voll. Halb. Langsam. Halt. (Gruen 181) was recorded on an old steamboat that was built in the 1930s and happens to be made completely of metal. Using his contact mics, Büttner has created a “metal” record putting him directly in line with Test Dept, Neubaten, and other industrial acts who recycled metal to produce a robust clang. The difference is that Gregory Büttner’s odyssey – he did in fact make a trip on this old ice-breaker steamboat, crossing the Baltic Sea on it – is subdued, restrained, and textural in nature. We get a strong taste of the “grain” of the metal, often conveyed through semi-mechanical puttering sounds, and probably what we’re hearing there is a distant echo of the coal fired steam engine of this beast. []


 

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Path of the Wind | Eisuke Yanagisawa
Wind Deities – Eisuke Yanagisawa it was who used a bat detector to create an interesting record of bat-frequency sounds around 2011 or 2012. Now this Japanese film-maker and researcher has made Path Of The Wind (GRUENREKORDER GRUEN 182), a lovely record featuring the sounds of the Aeolian harp, also called the wind-harp. Long a favourite with people who love the weather and the environment, these devices (not much more than a resonating box and some strings to be blown by the wind) have a history going back to the 17th century and have even featured in classical composition and poems from the romantic era. []


 

2 Reviews | By Łukasz Komła / Nowamuzyka.pl
Z nowym wydawnictwem powraca duet Merzouga i do katalogu niemieckiej oficyny dołącza Achim Zepezauer z projektem Kuhzunft.

 

Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
Austriacko-niemiecki duet Merzouga – Eva Pöpplein (elektronika) i Janko Hanushevsky (elektronika i gitara basowa) – nie wydaje zbyt często nowych płyt. Poprzedni ich album „52°46’ North 13°29’ East – Music for Wax-Cylinders” ukazał się w 2013 r. Warto wspomnieć, że artyści działają pod tym szyldem od 2002 r. W oryginalny sposób łączą nagrania terenowe z brzmieniem instrumentów i elektroniką. „De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements” to prawie czterdziestominutowa kompozycja będącą dźwiękową interpretacją „O naturze rzeczy” autorstwa rzymskiego filozofa i poety Lukrecjusza (ur. ok. 99 p.n.e., zm. ok. 55 p.n.e.). Epikurejska filozofia Lukrecjusza była nieznana przez wiele stuleci i została odkryta dopiero w XV w. []

 

Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Achim Zepezauer to niestrudzony eksperymentator oraz wyznawca DIY. Od wielu lat rozsadza swoją twórczością wszelakie ramy gatunkowe, dodatkowo opakowując ją w przygotowaną przez siebie oprawę graficzną itd. Wystarczy przywołać jego wydawnictwo „Cardtalk” (2017) z okolic spoken word, którego można słuchać bez użycia odtwarzacza. Podobnego zabiegu dokonał Paweł Romańczuk jako Małe Instrumenty, ale w oparciu o płytę winylową. Zepezauer jest znany także z improwizowanych występów (splata ze sobą np. sample, taśmy) oraz z tego, że miksuje na żywo koncerty innych artystów. Jego sztuka charakteryzuje się poszukiwaniem dźwięku między tonalnymi i atonalnymi krajobrazami dźwiękowymi. []


 

Review | By Denis Boyer / FEARDROP
Voll.Halb.Langsam.Halt | Gregory Büttner
Compositeur expérimental vivant à Hamburg, Gregory Büttner est aussi field recorder. En 2010, il a pu séjourner à bord d’un vieux brise-glace à vapeur lors d’une traversée de la Mer Baltique. Il y a placé des micros-contact et cet album en rapporte les sons remarquables. Il s’agit évidemment d’un geste réfléchi, porté à un environnement riche en particularités sonores. Ce n’est en aucun cas une phonographie aléatoire dans laquelle il faudrait, au petit bonheur, espérer trouver à la battée, une ou deux pépites sans aucune certitude sur leur carat. Gregory Büttner a délibérément élu ce vieux bateau à vapeur pour son potentiel sonore. Le musicien précise qu’il a laissé ses enregistrements intacts, sans autre manipulation que les transitions. []


 

Review | By David Murrieta Flores / a closer listen
Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements begins with glissando bass tones and an electronic field of a thousand little raw, swarming blips and noises, creating what is simultaneously a vast and dense soundscape. Based upon the first-century BC poem by Lucretius, the album attempts to translate the text into an aural experience, with the Roman poet’s innovative style, which turned common words into philosophical concepts or plainly invented new ones when none would suffice, aptly reflected by the mixture of field recordings, spoken word, and electronic collage. The sound of the waves crashing upon the beach is not just the sound of the sea, it is also a sign of a magnificence that has no need for gods, only a nature of which we are but an extension. []


 

New Releases:

 

 

David Rothenberg: ‘Nightingale Cities
Gruen 189/19 – Double CD
24 Tracks (141:00)
run: 500 copies

 

 

Gerald Fiebig feat. EMERGE & Christian Z. Müller: ‘Gasworks
Gruen 179/19 – CD
5 Tracks (68:18)
run: 500 copies


 

framework radio | #671
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements


 

Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine @ WFMU
Daniel Blumin: Playlist from February 1, 2019


 

Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine @ BBC Radio 3 – Late Junction
Feb 6th 2019 – www.bbc.co.uk


 

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Sounds of the Projection Box | Michael Lightborne
With reference to retrofuture aesthetics, we need to mention Sounds of the Projection Box, an act of reverence to the vintage technology from Michael Lightborne, an artist and Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Television Studies, at the University of Warwick (UK), where he works focusing on the relationships between cinema, sound and architecture, documentarism and field recordings. The album’s opening track, “The Thing”, also a special event from Mediafest 2018, starts with owls standing out as fragments from cine-phonographic recordings, and immediately makes clear that the operational choice is firstly sentimental and is made following a poetics typical of the art forms the artist is familiar with. But this method at the same time can be used also to analyse other fields and activities. []


 

Review | By Duncan Simpson / Musique Machine
Path of the Wind | Eisuke Yanagisawa
The Aeolian harp is a stringed instrument – usually hand crafted – which produces a range of harmonic tones when wind passes across it. It has a long history – imbued with romanticism and mysticism – stretching back to antiquity, from where it derives its name from Aeolus, the Greek God of the wind. For Path of the Wind – Eisuke Yanagisawa’s third record for Gruenrekorder – the Japanese film maker and field recordist constructed his own Aeolian harp, mounting two microphones into its sounding board. He then recorded the tones produced at a variety of locations across Japan. []


 

Review | By Uwe Bräutigam / nrwjazz
Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
Dance of the Elements ist elektronische Musik mit tiefsinnigem Hintergrund vom Duo Merzouga. Das antike philosophische Großgedicht De Rerum Natura (Über die Dinge der Natur) des römischen Dichters Lukrez (95-55 v. Chr.) ist die Inspirationsquelle von Merzouga. Das Duo besteht aus der in Köln lebenden Elektronikmusikerin und Tonmeisterin Eva Pöpplein und dem Jazzbassisten und Komponisten Janko Hanushevsky. Die beiden sind durch ihre mit vielen Preisen ausgezeichneten Hörspiele und Soundcollagen bekannt. Sie arbeiten in unterschiedlichen Bands und Projekten mit Jens Düppe, Annette Maye, Udo Moll, Lucas Niggli und anderen Musikern zusammen. []


 

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
The word Kuhzunft doesn’t exist in German; it is the word Zukunft (‚future‘) pronounced in a silly way. This is the project of Achim Zepezauer, who gets credit for electronics, acoustics, drum computer, realization, drawing an idea. I’d say the idea is the most important thing here. „This 10“ vinyl record documents the website project of musician/artist Achim Zepezauer. It mixes up recordings of 45 seconds long in a slot machine. Online the user can combine three tracks by 13 different artists with different instrumentations, either hand sorted or completely randomized from the 158 recordings. []


 

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Merzouga | De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
This is already the fourth release by Merzouga (Vital Weekly 812, 912 and 922), the duo of Eva Pöpplein (computer) and Janko Hanushevsky (prepared bass guitar) and the third one for Gruenrekorder. They are a duo of improvising with electronics and so far I wasn’t blown away by their music, even when the last one seemed to be the best of the lot. Here they take a poem by Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius as their starting point. In this poem, he presents „an entire cosmology: based on the principles of atomism {…} explains the nature of the mind and sound and the development of the world. []


 

Review | By Brian Morton / The Wire Magazine (The Wire 421)
Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer) | Slotmachine
Achim Zepezauer is a relatively recent member of German ensemble The Dorf, the most interesting big band in Europe. His electronics are always vividly detailed and atmospheric, but their most striking characteristic is how neatly and they fit into the band’s sprawlingly exuberant aesthetic. The is something different, a programme of 30 collaborative pieces, all of them approximately three quarters of a minute in length, programmed into an online ’slot machine‘ that allows the user to play simultaneous combinations of three. It’s compelling stuff and could become a dangerous habit. []

 

Robert Barry | The Wire Magazine (The Wire 420)
Article – Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer)

 

SLOTMACHINE special track bei the WIRE
Hear an exclusive mix from Achim Zepezauer’s Slotmachine


 

New Releases:

 

 

Kuhzunft (Achim Zepezauer): ‘Slotmachine
Gruen 186/19 – 10″ + Digital
30 Tracks (24:00)
run: 500 copies

 

 

Merzouga: ‘De Rerum Natura / Dance of the Elements
Gruen 185/19 – CD + Digital
1 Track (38:22)
run: 500 copies


 

Review | By ROBIN DENSELOW / SONGLINESISSUE 131
Various Artists | MALI BLUES – SOUNDTRACK
Fatoumata’s return home
This is the soundtrack to a documentary by the German filmmaker Lutz Gregor, which chronicles the return to Mali of Fatoumata Diawara after she had achieved success in Europe. It also examines the country’s battered music scene in the aftermath of the attacks on music by Islamic extremists. There are four songs by Diawara, all featured on her debut album, Fatou, although the version of ‘Boloko’ heard here is a live recording. Then there are three from that glorious ngoni (lute) virtuoso Bassekou Kouyaté, including the rousing ‘Desert Nianafing’, on which he and his band Ngoni ba are joined by the great Afel Bocoum and by Ahmed Ag Kaedi, who further demonstrates his guitar skills on three contributions by Amanar, the desert blues band he leads. There’s more Malian guitar blues from the excellent Samba Touré, and, in contrast, a couple of hip-hop tracks from the energetic Master Soumy. If the film is as good as its soundtrack, it is well worth seeing. []


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