day in dwarfs capital | Marcus Obst

 

day in dwarfs capital | Marcus Obst

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Reviews

 

 

I am not a scientist, I am a dreamer. So one morning I awoke and got a field recording from a trip to dwarfs capital on tape.

recorded 24.09.2005, in Froent Tor, DC

 

Excerpt:

MP3

 

1 Track (53′50″)

CD-R (50 copies)

 

 

„Froent Tor, population: 350, population total height: 1 metres…
Behind the ore mines in a landscape far far away, experienced travellers may find a place named Froent Tor, well-known not only for its indigenous woodcraft but also for its healing thermal springs. Doctor Weimar Zuckerbrot, regarded as one of the luminaries in the field of atopical healing and medical micropurification, recommended Froent Tor as one of the top health spas in his essential papers „Der Kurschatten als mathematisch-anthropologische Quisquilie“ and „Why your skin now blisters“.
In detail Doctor Fürchtegott Pelikan took some further examination of the city’s most mysterious place: the „Fichtnergrotten“ – a grotto located in the woods of Froent Tor-Neuflyn (just a few steps nearby the local tannery Schlocke GmbH). Rumours say that the old dwarf-workers burried their first born turtles in the soil of that spot to reveal the powers of a native goddess called Gitte to give the population an increddible soft and tender skin but the ritual failed and the young turtles‘ souls now roam in that grotto and can never go to rest. But all this is just empty talk: In fact the autochtonous echoes produced inside the place carry a massive amount of stimulating and healing sine waves.
All in all Froent Tor leads the pole position of international health spa-lists with good reasons. With this recording you can get a small glimpse of the magic the city has to offer. Have a nice trip and…get well soon!“ M.U.

 

(c) Audio by Marcus Obst

Field Recording Series by Gruenrekorder

Gruenrekorder / Germany / 2010 / Gr 072 / LC 09488

 


 

Reviews

 

Ron Schepper | textura

A fifty-four-minute, single-track piece recorded in September 2005 in Froent Tor, DC, Marcus Obst’s Day In Dwarfs Capital includes the somewhat vague and mystifying artist statement: “I am not a scientist, I am a dreamer. So one morning I awoke and got a field recording from a trip to dwarfs capital on tape.” Additional information at the label site brings more clarity to the project, or at least the locale. In the woods of the remote Froent Tor (population: 350), which is apparently renowned for its healing thermal springs, a mysterious grotto (“Fichtnergrotten”) exists where, legend has it, old dwarf-workers buried their first-born turtles, believing that doing so would incite a native goddess called Gitte to enhance the town residents‘ skin quality; alas, the ritual failed and so the turtles‘ souls are condemned to roam the grotto forevermore. In keeping with the story, the recording is likewise strange. If its source materials are natural sounds, they’re of a distinctively alien kind; for all one knows, they’re untreated, but they nevertheless exude a quasi-electronic and industrial character. Myriad unidentifiable sounds make up the piece, with all of them repeatedly bobbing to the ever-steady surface throughout the recording. Muffled, rustling, and whirring noises appear, some seeming object-related and others traffic-generated—perhaps the distant whooshes are trucks and cars driving past the forest site. Close listening reveals a faint industrial drone in the background and even fainter siren-like wails popping up now and then; in the thirty-ninth minute, what sounds like a blurry radio transmission emerges for a few seconds. Are the wails the cries of turtle souls in agony? Are the rustling noises indicative of their movements? No answers can be conclusively given to such questions, leaving the listener to simply take the recording’s enigmatic content on its own inexplicable terms.

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Roger Batty | Musique Machine

Marcus Obst is a German sound artists, field recording manipulator and often playful sonic arranger who is been active since 1997. „day in dwarfs capital“ is his forth solo release, through he released twenty three releases under his most know project Dronament- he is also involved in the following projects Oscillator, D.Rhythm:O & Marcus Murkes.

Though only recently released the single fifty three minute track on offer here dates back to 2005. The pieces title  is extremely apt as its built from tiny and often speeding field recording elements that Mr Obst uses to creating this wonderful alien, tiny and often playful piece of sound art, which gives one the feeling of visiting an active and busy dwarf city.

The piece mixes together the following elements in a intrigue yet quite open and offten distant sound soup: sped -up racing track sounds, buzz saw or drill textures, all manner of scuttling that sometimes rhythmic ,  baby bird like cheeping and murmurs, longer mechanical like drones, a few very subtle harmonic elements along the way too, and all manner of often sped up sonic textures.  The piece is quite active, yet its also often strangely soothing and relaxing in its distant busyness. Obst keeps the track both pleasing, varied and entertaining through-out its near on hour runtime as it busily and often playfully whizzers, darts and clamours around you.

So „day in dwarfs capital“ is certainly quite an original, detailed and intriguing take on the sound art genre, and its made me egger to track down more of Mr Obst work. So if your enjoy sound art with a playful, quirky and active edgy this is certainly worth a look.

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Frans de Waard | VITAL WEEKLY

„I am not a scientist. I am a dreamer. So one morning I awake and got a field recording from a trip to dwarfs capital on tape“ it says somewhat cryptical on this release. „Recorded 24.09.05 in Froent Tor, DC“, wherever that may be. Marcus Obst we know best from his own label, Field Muzick, and his moniker Dronaement, but here went to Gruenrekorder, which is this fifty-three minute work. Its a strange piece, that might be entirely based on field recordings, but also has a slight electronic feel to it. Its hard to say wether these electronic sounds are also field recordings (like using some sort of transport vehicle being used here, or toy like instruments) or were added later on. A strange conceptual piece of music. Not with a lot of changes but with sounds dropping in and out all the time. Quite a nice backdrop to whatever you are doing. An odd mechanical field recording drive to it. In all its strangeness quite an effective recording. (FdW)

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