4 Reviews | By Ron Schepper / textura
Cédric Peyronnet | kdi dctb 146 [e]
Issued in a silver case as part of Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series, kdi dctb 146 [e] is a fifty-five-minute single-track work by sound artist Cédric Peyronnet. Though originally composed as four-channel piece, it’s still effective when heard in the recording’s standard stereo format. The work in question is the product of three years of sound recording in and around the Taurion river valley in France that allows the listener to vicariously experience the location. Natural sounds appear throughout, starting with an overhead plane, then birds chirps, cricket sounds, and buzzing flies, but—more than anything else—water, with some variations of it surfacing as burbling river sounds, drizzling rain, and crashing waves. […]
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] As a result, one hears the two pieces as compositions of an unusual sort that are in some strange way suggestive of classical form in their structural design. Equally fascinating are Bick’s detailed descriptions (in the booklet that comes with the recording) where he writes about “singing flames” (within glass tubes, gas flames are tuned to specific notes), “ice sizzle” (as glacial ice melts in the sea, bubbles of air create an explosive popping noise that becomes a multi-voiced sizzle), and the crackle of snowflakes and the creak of cracking ice. Ultimately, the two pieces on this fascinating recording unlock some of the sonic mysteries of the earth’s primal elements by granting such an up-close perspective, and they also serve as a reminder of their indomitable status.
Various Artists | Playing with Words: an audio compilation
Playing with Words appears in not just the two guises covered here but in three, with the comprehensive portrait provided by the two-CD audio compilation and DVD completed by the anthology Playing with Words: the Spoken Word in Artistic Practice (Cornerhouse Books). The Gruenrekorder items alone prove to be more than enlightening, however, in their documentation of the sound poetry, text sound composition, and spoken word fields. The collective genre shows itself to be an incredibly fertile zone, and one that appears to have benefited greatly from the possibilities that electronic technologies have introduced in the past few decades. The rich wellspring of creativity, playfulness, and imagination catured on the CD set in particular is remarkable. […]
Various Artists | PLAYING WITH WORDS – LIVE
[…] The greatest portion of the DVD is given to Blonk in a wide-ranging performance where he’s seen slipping in and out of multiple languages; he gives a seeming master class in vocal techniques by at times wailing like an animal and simulating a gremlin and sputtering machine engine, his face and body elastically pulling in multiple directions as he does so. But the DVD’s high point is Sianed Jones’ mesmerizing twenty-minute performance. Armed with a violin, she begins with four minutes of wordless vocalizing that’s reminiscent at times of folk chant—joyous and celebratory, with an undercurrent of mournful lament—before bringing the instrument’s plucks into the mix and then bowing, the violin’s tones a contrasting harmonic complement to her incredibly versatile vocalizing.
Review | By Dan Warburton / Paris Transatlantic Magazine
Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham | The Clearing
[…] What Sharp plays is unashamedly tonal, even the way she tunes up on track four – The Clearing was written as a homage to John Martyn’s „Small Hours“, another idyllic open-air recording of note on 1977′s One World – and wouldn’t, I suppose, be out of place in the new age bin along with the whale songs, but don’t let that put you off. You may well find yourself listening, as she puts it nicely, „with a certain reverence, a feeling of being let into a secret, albeit a poorly-kept one that happens every day. This is bird-business and will happen whether we are here or not.“–DW
Gruenrekorder on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/gruenrekorder
Review | By Josh Landry / Musique Machine
SUSPICION BREEDS CONFIDENCE | THE FAUNA AND FLORA OF THE VATICAN CITY
[…] I found „The Fauna and Flora of the Vatican City“ to be an intensely enjoyable and unique album that perfectly skirts the thin line between thematic consistency and diversity, not to mention the lines between a great many genres of electronic music. The imperfect, unstructured nature of the rhythms will certainly put off some listeners, but it shouldn’t come off as random to anyone. Whether you need something to provide a mood-enhancing backdrop while you do work at the computer, or crave some new work of sonic architecture to analyze and listen to deeply, this record should satisfy.
Reviews | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] The pieces are clearly assembled and strike me as having something of the character of your standard magnetic tape works of the 60s, i.e., more concerned with contrast between blocks of sound, timbre and texture than structure (I’m certainly being unfair both to those older composers and, likely, Bick). This can make for intriguing listening on one level but I come away, ultimately, unsated. I need more mystery, maybe.
Cédric Peyronnet | kdi dctb 146 [e]
A multi-layered field recording done in and around water sources in the Taurion Valley in western France. Water indeed predominates, backed up heartily by birds, closed out by boat engines. There’s more air in play than in the Bick which gets a thankful nod of appreciation from me as well as a more natural ebb and flow, largely with regard to dynamics. […]
Various Artists | Playing with Words: an audio compilation
Admittedly, I found the prospect of a 2-CD set of avant vocal works to be daunting. Of the 41 artists represented here, I only recognized a handful of names and those (like Jaap Blonk, Paul Lansky, Pamela Z and Brandon Labelle) didn’t exactly have my heart doing flip-flops. Still, I noted that the collection ended with a piece by Julien Ottavi, and I persevered. […]
Various Artists | PLAYING WITH WORDS – LIVE
[…] There’s also an accompanying DVD from the 2009 festival with six performances, the only non-aggravating one, for my taste, again courtesy Sianed Jones who delivers an outstanding, lengthier example of her vocal/violin stylings–really good. In fairness, Jaap Blonk fans, of which I am not one, will enjoy his outing as well.
In which Wenzel deploys site recordings from Mumbai which are perfectly enjoyable, ranging from street sounds to musical ceremonies, but insists on threading them with her vocals which, generally speaking, are somewhere in Shelley Hirsch territory, admittedly not a destination I find very appealing. […]
Reviews | By Oreshkin Sergey / maeror3.livejournal
Кто-то привозит из путешествий множество фотографий, чтобы потом рассматривать их и вспоминать о дивных (впрочем, тут кому как повезло) странствиях. Кто-то привозит мысли и впечатления, чтобы доверить их бумаге или клавиатуре компьютера. Немногие люди, воспринимающие окружающий мир скорее органами слуха, нежели зрения, привозят многочасовые аудиозаписи, сделанные ими на протяжении всего маршрута, чтобы потом, прослушивая их снова и снова, воссоздавать звуковую атмосферу далеких мест у себя дома. […]
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
Огонь и лёд…идеальные объекты для философских метафор и размышлений на тему несовместимых вещей, соединение которых может породить взрыв и мгновенное разрушение. Если они и соединяются, то только с помощью таких людей, как Андреас Бик, который собрал из звуков, порождаемых огнем и холодом две продолжительные композиции, удостоенные наград на фестивалях электроакустической и экспериментальной музыки. […]
Andreas Bick’s recording of the phenomenon of dispersion of sound waves in ice sheets.
Free download > [here]
Review | By Tina Manske / CULTurMAG
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] Bick gelingt es, auf künstlerischem Weg die in Feuer und Eis enthaltene ‘Musik’ hörbar zu machen. Unter den Phänomenen, die man hier zu Gehör bekommt, finden sich singende Eisberge (eingeschlossenes Wasser, das mit Hochdruck durch Hohlräume gedrückt wird, erzeugt Oszillation und damit die singenden Töne), singende Flammen (ein Phänomen, das bereits im 19. Jahrhundert von Frédéric Kastner entdeckt wurde), die Geräusche, die Berliner Seen während Temperaturveränderungen in den frühen Morgen- und späten Abendstunden von sich geben und das Entzünden von Alkohol in Flakons. Den Fall von Schnee hörbar zu machen, dürfte zum Schwersten gehören, dessen man sich als Klangkünstler annehmen kann. Bick gelingt das Kunstwerk, indem er die Kristalle auf Alufolie fallen lässt, die wiederum direkt an ein Mikrofon angeschlossen ist. Der einzige Sound auf der CD, der nicht von den Elementen selbst herrührt, ist der leise Ruf einer Robbe von unter dem Eis. Romantisch.
Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Various Artists | Playing with Words: an audio compilation
[…] The double CD seems connected to a book of the same name, and has music that has been made with the use voice, leading to sound poetry, speeches, narratives, abstract pieces, solo and multiple voices. Forty one relatively short pieces by people who have a reputation to keep up in this field such as Sten Hanson, Pamela Z, Brandon LaBelle, Alessandro Bosetti, Jaap Blonk, Barry Truax, Jorg Piringer, Trevor Wishart, Julien Ottavi, Lina Lapelyte, Leigh Landy, Lars Gunnar Bodin, Paul Lansky and Iris Garrelfs. […]
Various Artists | PLAYING WITH WORDS – LIVE
[…] Piringer has a nice piece of rhythmic sounds from the mouth and computer animation. Biswas plays without words for a while, and then starts singing (?), Huelstrunk uses a bit of electronics. Jones plays a bit of violin and also ‘sings’ and at times comes closer to traditional music, whereas Parry is more narrative but very funny and very short. Jaap Blonk closes the (long!) evening and proofs to be the master of the genre of sound/text/voice/poetry, a class actor at that. So this is what sound poetry looks like. Curious.
The third release using voice is by Bettina Wenzel. She was in Mumbai where she did some field recordings and played some sounds. These are a quite alright, but it eludes me why she wanted to add her abstract use of the voice to these, other than perhaps that just the field recordings and played sounds aren’t the strongest in the world. But the addition of voice however adds an odd ball to these recordings, and doesn’t say much about Mumbai itself. […]
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] This is some excellent piece of musique concrete in the best Luc Ferrari tradition. Its not easy to tell the pieces apart, but throughout the geyser explosions on the ‘fire’ piece sounded a bit more dynamic and the ‘frost’ piece more subdued. That might be just my perception, culled from daily life. In the winter time I always think its quieter outside than in the summertime. Two excellent pieces, well presented here, with extensive liner notes.
Cédric Peyronnet | kdi dctb 146 [e]
[…] The use of river sounds may work a bit on the bladder, but Peyronnet knows how to construct a fine piece of music and there is also the sounds of birds and insects. This too stands in the best Ferrari tradition of a natural soundscape, and Peyronnet brings an almost sunny feel to a grey day. I have no idea what the weather conditions were when these sounds were recorded, but it made me wanting to pack up my suitcase and go to a sunny place – and that is a rare thing! An excellent fifty-five minute piece of soundscaping.
New Release:
Andreas Bick: “Fire and Frost Pattern” (Gruen 074/10)
Field Recordings
2 Tracks (52′52″)
CD (500 copies)
New Release:
V.A.: “Playing with Words: an audio compilation” (Gruen 065/10)
Sound Art
41 Tracks (116′08″)
Double CD (500 copies)
V.A.: “Playing with Words: an online compilation” (Gruen 065/10)
Sound Art
Free Download
Format: MP3 (320 Kbps)
New Release:
V.A.: “Playing with Words – Live” (Gruen 083/10)
Sound Art
6 Tracks (100′03″)
DVD (500 copies)
New Release:
Bettina Wenzel: “Mumbai Diary” (Gruen 086/10)
Soundscapes
9 Tracks (44′10″)
CD (500 copies)
New Release:
Cédric Peyronnet: “kdi dctb 146 [e]” (Gr 078/10)
Field Recordings
1 Track (54′47″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
Reviews | By Oreshkin Sergey / maeror3.livejournal
Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham | The Clearing
Приятно, когда увлечение музыкой помогает не только заполнить полки и прочее жизненное пространство коробочками с дисками, но еще и как-то расширить свой кругозор, узнать о чем-то новом. Свежий релиз лейбла «Gruenrekorder» (CD-R в стильной металлической коробке, ограниченный тиражом в 50 штук) поведал мне о мероприятии, которое называется «International Dawn Chorus Day», по нашему что-то вроде «Всемирный день Рассветной Песни». […]
Hein Schoer | Two Weeks in Alert Bay
Работа Хейна Шоера под названием «The Sounding Museum: Two Weeks in Alert Bay» была выпущена при поддержке, ни много, ни мало, «Юнеско» в рамках проекта «Sound Chamber – Acoustic Worlds of the Indigenous Peoples of North America». Видимо, отсюда и весьма представительное издание – лакированный digipack и многостраничный буклет с фотографиями, в котором сам автор рассказывает о своих странствиях по Северной Америке и Канаде, где, в частности, и родился на свет этот альбом. […]
Phonophon | 04.12.2010 | 20:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Pressrelease (pdf)
* Kolter (D)
www.myspace.com/kolterrr
* Dirk HuelsTrunk (D)
Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
Reviews | By Richard Pinnell / The Wire – Issue: #321
Hein Schoer | Two Weeks in Alert Bay
PETROLIO | End of Vision
The German Gruenrekorder label explores phonography in many forms, extending their activities beyond their substantial catalogue of CDs into publications, events and lectures held on the subject of field recording, natural acoustic phenomena and the links with experimental music. These two recent releases, while both involving field recordings to some degree, illustrate the wide range of activity undertaken by the label. Hein Schoer’s release is the end result of two weeks’ recording in a remote coastal area in British Columbia. Some 35 hours of crystal clear recordings have been collated and compiled into a kind of audio diary of Schoer’s visit. […] Conversely, the Italian trio Petrolio bury any trace of field recordings deep in their electroacoustic soundworld. Partly improvised, but arranged into a predetermined three part structure, the trio worked with electronics, samplers and field recordings alongside drums, bass, clarinet and piano. […]
Articel | by Fritz Trümpi / Wiener Zeitung
Die Geräusche der Geschichten
Tonjäger suchen nach Tierstimmen, Klängen und Geräuschen – Verwendung in Film und Hörspiel
Reviews | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside
Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham | The Clearing
„Disarming“ is a word that comes to mind, perhaps. A simple enough idea, elegantly manifested–record a harpist out in the environment, in this case bird-filled. The dangers are obvious and, I must say, my expectations were somewhat along Rhodri Davies lines as far as the likely music was concerned so that when I heard the decidedly melodic content and „standard“ technique employed, I feared that the result would be overly cloying. I might say that it comes close to that sometimes but by and large, skirts that particular danger and ends up as a very enjoyable release. […]
Craig Vear | Aud Ralph Roas’le
A set of six field recordings, I guessing layered in from various locations though I’ve been wrong often enough about that before. They seem to be pure sounds, often aqueous in nature, with various manifestations of water churning against piers or boats or rocks or what-have-you. One often hears undercurrents of engines, low thrums that reverberate below the liquid, implying the earthen basin in which it lies. There’s one violent track where, it appears, a massive storm erupts, overwhelming the recording equipment to a degree where distortion sets in. […]
Petrolio is Luca Robba (drums, voice, laptop, samplings), Michele Spanghero (double bass, live electronics, field recordings) and Ugo Boscain (contrabass clarinet, piano), with Allen Scrigner appearing on the first two tracks, wielding „samplings“. The music might be described as isolationist free improv in that a similar chill, bleak feel is in effect as was heard in more rockish contexts in the mid 90s (remember Scorn? Godflesh? God?). […]
Yet another Italian trio, this time from Naples, with F. Gregoretti (drums), M. Gabola (reeds) and M. Argenziano (guitar, synth, electronics). After the claustrophobic feeling of Petrolio, the kind of scrabbling, old-timey (that is, reaching as far back as the 70s) approach heard herein feels open and, well, fun. Not that this sounds like a Bailey/Parker/Bennink trio–there’s much more bottom, more oblique nods to metal and other rockish forms (perhaps even Last Exit)–but even at its darkest, there’s a sense of the wide open. A severe grinding aspect is also often in play, the sounds seeming to be wrenched from the players’ guts. […]
Review | By Bob Baker Fish / Cyclic Defrost
PETROLIO | End of Vision
[…] The electronics sound incredible, particularly when combined with the wind instruments, there’s a real depth and presence to the sounds, yet also a kind of fusion where you’re often not even sure what instruments you are hearing. As a live performance it’s incredibly accomplished, particularly when you consider its improvisatory nature.
Yet there’s also a coldness and bleakness to the music, that whilst being occasionally punctuated by isolated sweeter tones, only highlights the darkness and distance. It’s very unsettling music.
The packaging however is amazing, coming in an incredibly elegant tin cd box that has to be seen to be believed. It’s sleek and minimal and really adds to the feeling that this is strange and treasured artifact.
Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham | The Clearing
A new installment in Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series, The Clearing is an hour-long document recorded by Simon Whetham of Rebecca Joy Sharp playing harp surrounded by sounds of wildlife at Liverpool’s Sefton Park. The recording session began at daybreak on May 3rd, 2009 (also International Dawn Chorus Day) with the two meeting at 3:45 in the morning and recording for two hours at the center of the park. Rain complications forced the session to be cut short (the album’s shortest piece appears to capture Sharp tuning up against a crackling backdrop of rain) so the two reconvened the next day at the same time and place, with the weather more cooperative the second time around. […]
Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham / ‚The Clearing‘ Launch Event Part 2
A live reimagining of harp and dawn chorus recordings released by Gruenrekorder October 2010.
www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=2874
With special guests
Cotton & Rosey: a further collaboration of harp and electronics
Wednesday 10th November
The Arts House, Stokes Croft, Bristol
Doors: 7:30pm
Cost: Free – Donations welcome
Bettina Wenzel / Mumbai Diary
Installation 13th – 16th November 2010
Out on Gruenrekorder / 01.12.2010
New Release:
Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham: “The Clearing” (Gr 077/10)
Field Recordings
6 Tracks (57′39″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham | The Clearing
‘On this album you will Rebecca (Joy Sharp) and the wildlife of Sefton Park were conversing with one another – a truly beautiful experience – one I will always be thankful I was witness to, and able to record’, writes Simon Wetham on the cover of this release. So just what did Whetham do here? Setting up a bunch of microphones (or perhaps even one?) and watch Sharp play the lever, which is a Celtic harp. It was recorded at the International Dawn Chorus day – 3rd of May 2009 of which I never heard, but the dawn chorus is captured beautifully here. The birds sing great and Sharp’s harp sings nicely in the morning light. […]
Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
PETROLIO | End of Vision
Luca Robba, Michele Spanghero, and Ugo Boscain bring radically different backgrounds to their PETROLIO project: Robba is a former punk rock drummer presently concentrating on electronic music and playing with David Toop’s Unknown Devices Orchestra, double bass player Spanghero is currently focused on improvised and electronic music and works for three international contemporary art galleries, and multi-instrumentalist Boscain is an improviser who has become a specialist on the contrabass clarinet instrument. The group itself came together when Robba encountered the duo Mimesys featuring Spanghero on double bass and electronics and Boscain on clarinets at an experimental music festival in Italy. […]
Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
Hein Schoer | Two Weeks in Alert Bay
Hein Schoer, cultural soundscape producer and the prime mover behind the research project “The Sounding Museum,” inaugurates the CD series with a captivating meditation on the Native community of Alert Bay, British Columbia. It’s more than a sound portrait of the physical activities in play on a given day—construction work being done, children being taught, and so forth—as it also focuses on the myths (about the raven and creator entity U’melth, for instance) and ritual dances and chants that are so much an inextricable part of the West Coast community’s culture. In one sense, the work documents the people’s ongoing attempt to strike a balance between the modern and traditional in their lives. […]
Review | By Joshua Meggitt / Cyclic Defrost
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
[…] Frequently the noise is overwhelming, not in the sense of harsh volume but of overcrowding, of there being too many elements to absorb. At other times it becomes music, cars swinging doppler effects like strings, voices taking on tonal form. Both works trail off into pleasingly bucolic finales, birdsong accompanying calm, spacious pockets of activity, possibly sourced from a suburban picnic, reminding listeners that it’s not all go in Cairo. The packaging is particularly lavish, making for an attractive alternative travel guide for anyone visiting the city.
Review | By Mohammed Ashraf / The Silent Ballet
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
[…] I’ve lived in Cairo all my life, and initially thought that any attempt to capture the city’s essence on tape would be destined to fail. Not to underestimate Aubry’s abilities, but the amount of entangled sounds, noises of all forms coming from all surroundings, and sheer cacophony of the whole place is just too much to portray in an hour-long recording, not to mention making something meaningful out of it. Surprisingly enough, these artists were able to make it happen with their blend of music and accompanying text. They have been able to achieve an extremely difficult feat and portray the city in a manner that hasn’t been done before. […]
Review | By Fabrice Vanoverberg / Rifraf
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
Review | By Jan Denolet / Dark Entries
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
Dit hier is nog een knutselwerkje waarvan de som van de delen een prachtig totaalkunstwerk vormen. Eerst en vooral hebben we de eenvoudige maar in het oog springende -want atypische- rechthoekige kartonnen verpakking. Daarin vinden we naast de CD ook nog begeleidende poëzie, zonder verdere opsmuk gedrukt op groot posterformaat. Die poëzie is van de hand van Stephane Montavon en omschrijft -in het frans- diens beschouwingen over diens verblijf in Caïro. […]
Reviews | By Ron Schepper / textura
Packaged in gleaming silver cases (and black felt inside), these two new releases in Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series are radically different creatures (both in CD-R format and available in fifty copies). Presented as six pieces, Craig Vear’s Aud Ralph Roas’le is a relatively straightforward field recordings-based collection, while Marcus Obst’s one-track outing, Day in Dwarfs Capital, is as unusual as its title suggests.
Craig Vear | Aud Ralph Roas’le
Aud Ralph Roas’le captures sounds recorded at the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and coastline throughout 2007-8 when Vear was working alongside the Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences (CEMS) at the University of Hull as an artist-in-residence and engenders a powerfully evocative sense of place through its up-close renderings of aural landscapes. In many of the pieces, identifiable natural elements—the crash of waves, creak of a boat, chirp of birds, dribble of water—help transport the listener into a specific geographical setting with relative ease. […]
Marcus Obst | day in dwarfs capital
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. […]
Review | By Massimo Ricci / TEMPORARY FAULT
Andrea Polli | Sonic Antarctica
[…] The verbal material is mainly interspersed by the continuous irregular pulse of the electronic signals that come from various weather stations placed in the explored areas, and – very infrequently – other types of sound such as walking on a glacier, the inside of helicopters in flight, radios and even a short snippet featuring penguins. Therefore be warned: this is more a spoken record than a collection of Antarctic sounds. An interesting listen from an intellectual point of view; a little less in terms of power of evocation elicited by field recordings. But, ultimately, it’s indubitably a sincerely purposed mission.
Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Hein Schoer | Two Weeks in Alert Bay
Field recordings at work here. Presented in a glossy digipack and extensive, full color booklet. No doubt no money was spared by those who hand out grants. Or perhaps the tourist office of Alert Bay in British Columbia where one Hein Schoer recorded thirty-five hours of music in 2009. An area which I never visited. I was listening to this work, which has a ‘full version’, a ‘workshop edit’ and a ‘walk-in edit’, and thinking about the whole notion of field recordings and works like this. […]
As we know by know the main portion of releases on Gruenrekorder consist of field recordings and music made using them. However, more and more we also hear releases from say the world of improvisation. Here’s an Italian trio: Luca Robba (drums, voice, laptop, samplings), Michele Spanghero (double bass, live electronics, field recordings) and Ugo Boscain (contrabass clarinet and piano). ‘The music was played live and recorded with omni-directional microphones’ it says on the cover, but they could have fooled me. First of all, the recording quality is great and secondly, it doesn’t sound like the product of pure improvisation. […]
Review | By Stephen Fruitman / sonomu.net
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay | landscape in metamorphoses
No other nation is as synonymous with ”metamorphosis” as India. While its civilization is ancient, its vast population is wildly heterogeneous, its landscape richly variegated, its gods innumerable and mercurial. Millions make pilgrimmages seeking one sort of enlightenment or another. Its musics are arguably more well-known and influential than those of any non-Western nation. And in the discourse on the transformation of the global economy, India´s name is a constant.
”Audio practitioner” Budhaditya Chattopadhyay has chosen to illustrate the transformations of India in its most prosaic but palpable form, as he records the sound of Tumbani, the region in which he grew up and which is undergoing such a drastic modernization, he fears for the survival of the collective memory. […]
Sound@Media presents
– Roland Etzin
– 10(itta x marqido)
Date: 28.08.2010 (Sat), pm 7:30
Place: MoonJi Cultural Institute, Saii
Entry Fee: 5,000 won
Waldlust
25.08.2010 / Klub Moozak (Vienna, AT)
Gruenrekorder in Seoul / Korea / August 19 th – 31 st 2010
Closing party: Aug. 29 th, 6-8pm @ MV Agusta
Press release (pdf)
Curated by Mary Song, Coordinated by Jina Nam
Part 1 – Introduction: Gruenrekorder
Part 2 – Via Mongolia by Roland Etzin
Pictures by Katrin Hoedemacker, Sound Recordings and Pictures by Roland Etzin
With friendly support by Young Kyun Ryoo
Review | Mike Wood / foxy digitalis
[…] Songs like “Hesitant ham” or “Triumphant march without tattoo or direction” are more generic free jazz freakout: blaring and distorted horns that sound almost conservative in their keeping to recognizable Free tropes. The closer, though, “Illusionary antics with spiraling cyborgs,” is brilliant, a frantic tribal noise intro, that slowly dissolves into a sustained low hum, and an industrial fadeout to a piece that began like ritual music for cannibals.
Shamefully limited to only 50 copies and coming in a bulky tin cigarette case, “Strongly Imploded” will probably be more read about than heard. But Freefall deserves to be heard. Their chaos is fun and ferocious, and even with the occasional clunkers, they make daring and roaring music that is quite out and adventurous.
New Release:
Hein Schoer: “Two Weeks in Alert Bay” (Gruen 082/10)
Soundscapes
3 Tracks (69′34″)
CD (300 copies)
New Release:
PETROLIO: “End of Vision” (Gr 076/10)
Sound Art
9 Tracks (56′22″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
Review | Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
The Gruenrekorder German label founded in 2003 by Lasse-Marc Riek and Roland Etzin has released last year among other discs, Ben Owen’s “Two” album which consist of field recordings taken from the coast of Jacob Riis Park, Queens and the Carroll Street Bridge, Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn, New York. The source sounds are streams of water, rain, crackles that seem stones moved by the force of the water, wind blowing and birds. All of these sounds produced rich tones and a fine soundtrack for a natural landscape.
Review | Massimo Ricci / Brain Dead Eternity
Angus Carlyle | Some Memories of Bamboo
Since Carlyle’s name was new to yours truly, I went for a Google search and the most satisfactory description was the following: “… Angus’ work explores the intersections between culture, technology and creativity. More specifically, he is interested in how our constructed ‘landscape’ modulates a sense of the relationship between human beings and the environment”. Not a truer word indeed, as this collection of location recordings testifies. Limiting the action to the small suburban district of Kami-Katsura in Kyoto, this man succeeded in presenting an artifact that is not comparable with the current overabundance of field recording-based releases – a dime a dozen lately – as in this case the sounds really tell a story of their own, perfectly portraying the difficulties revealed by each setting and the fickle temporariness of the situations he researched through. Carlyle is very precise, explaining in the enclosed booklet circumstances and utilized materials, adding his reflections about those moments. […]
Review | Aurelio Cianciotta / neural
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
A simple white sheet, 51 by 84 centimeters, with the poetry of Stéphane Montavon spread over it. The CD is basically environmental field recordings, made by Gilles Aubry in Cairo, Egypt, in a bathroom, in a covered market, in a basilica and in a courtyard. Finally, other „audio catches“ that can be traced to a refrigerator and a parking house, all gathered in a large box made of rough thick cardboard, held together by a coarse rubber band. The titles, the authors’ names and the other information are just engraved, without any ink. […]
Review | By Roger Batty / Musique Machine
day in dwarfs capital | Marcus Obst
[…] 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.
Reviews | Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Although the label Gruenrekorder is mostly known for their releases dealing with field recordings, here they also present another side of the coin. Strongly Imploded is a four piece improvisation group from Italy and has members from One Starving Day, Weltraum and A Spirale: F. Gregoretti (drums), M. Gabola (reeds), M. Argenziano (guitar) and SEC_ (synth and electronics). With their background in improvised music from a louder edge, its no surprise to know that also Strongly Imploded sees a similar combination of noise, improvised music and free jazz. They have seven tracks here, no doubt the result of a direct to tape playing, but perhaps with some edits. […]
Aud Ralph Roas’le | Craig Vear
[…] Six pieces of these aquatic recordings, and although the website of Gruenrekorder says Vear works with computer technology, I think that these six pieces simply work with pure and untreated sounds from nature. Washes of sound and wind, blowing straight into the microphone, but they are quite different pieces. ‚Spurn Head‘ is almost like a noise piece – that loud – but ‚River Esk Frozen‘ is, on the hand, a water piece and some branches near the shore. A plane comes over in ‚Filey Brigg‘ and bird calls in ‚Grosmont‘. Cut from reality, but presented as a composition and I must say this works quite well.
Review | Héctor Cabrero / Le son du Grisli
les écoutis le caire |Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon
Entre deux plaques de carton gris, Gilles Aubry et Stéphane Montavon ont dissimulé Les écoutis Le Caire. Avec, il y a aussi un poster-poème « moderne » conçu par Montavon dans l’idée des calligrammes, c’est donc à dire : beaucoup moins « moderne » qu’il n’y paraît. Beaucoup moins « moderne » que le disque de field recordings qu’il cache en tout cas.
Sur ce disque, il y a inévitablement des bruits. Des bruits de la ville qu’est Le Caire aujourd’hui (tentaculaire, étendue, inembrassable d’un coup d’un seul, que ce soit du regard ou de l’oreille). L’auditeur que nous sommes tombe sur une allée au trafic dense ou sur un chantier certainement ralenti par la chaleur. […]
New Distribution:
Thomas Tilly: “Cables & Signs (ten underwater field recordings)” (GrD 17/10)
Field Recordings
10 Tracks (54′56″)
CD (500 copies)
New Release:
Craig Vear: “Aud Ralph Roas’le” (Gr 075/10)
Field Recordings
6 Tracks (44′45″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
New Release:
Strongly Imploded: “Freefall” (Gr 073/10)
Sound Art
8 Tracks (41′12″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
Review | By Dan Warburton / Paris Transatlantic Magazine
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
„The place is just crazy!“ said a friend of mine about a recent visit to Cairo. „It took me thirty minutes to cross the bloody street!“ Well, it wasn’t just any street as it turned out, but Ramses Square, through which 35,000 pedestrians and a quarter of a million vehicles pass every hour. If you’re interested, there are plenty more alarming statistics to be found online about Africa’s largest (population 15 million) city, where noise levels downtown frequently hit 90dB at 7.30am – a 1994 local law stipulating that they shouldn’t exceed 52dB during daytime and 37 at night has been blithely ignored – but Berlin-based Swiss sound artist Gilles Aubry’s claustrophobic montage of field recordings gives you a pretty clear idea of what the place must be like. […]
Radio | 30.07.2010 | 20.30 Uhr | Fieldrecordings
Lasse Marc-Riek, co-founder of the recordlabel Gruenrekorder
Bayern 2 / Hörspiel und Medienkunst:
WORLD LISTENING DAY / Gruenrekorder
Start playlist: Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 08:30 PM
End playlist: Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 04:00 AM
Sunday, July 18th, 2010: ALL DAY
On KKWNE:
stream.cannibalcaniche.com
Gruenrekorder starts on July 18th at 22:30 PM end on 19th near 03:00 AM
PLAYLIST: pdf
Selection of field recording compositions available on free download on several great labels and netlabels.
Reviews: Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
The most vivid thing I’ve heard from Gilles Aubry. This field recordist usually invites us to explore static sound spaces for long stretches of time. But not this time. Les écoutes le caire features two half-hour tracks, both made of overlaid field recordings weaving dynamic and active webs of sound, even though the sources are closed spaces. A developed, mature piece of work enriched by poems by Stépane Montavon, presented in a booklet/poster that reads like a road map that (mis)guides your mind as the sounds go by. I must point out the packaging; two pieces of embossed cardboard held together by a rubber band. Simple, stripped down, esthetic. […]
Guillermo Escudero | LOOP
Swiss sound artists Gilles Aubry and Stéphane Montavon have collaborated in different projects exploring field recordings techniques. „Les Écoutis le Caire“ is printed in a rectangular cardboard that comes with a French text in the inner sleeve written by Stéphane Montavon with Aubry field recordings taken from urban places in Cairo. Not only pure recordings but some of them are processed which contain voices, sounds of cars, claxons, noises of metal beats, jackhammers like and some others barely identifiable. […]
Sonic Vigil V
St Finn Barre’s Cathedral / Cork City / Ireland / Sat 17TH July / 1pm-8pm
Pressrelease (doc) | Line up (doc)
Following on from its hugely successful fourth outing last year Sonic Vigil returns with a stunning line up of leading international musicians and sound artists as well as some of the foremost practitioners on the booming Irish scene.
Curated by the Quiet Club and Gruenrekorder, this unique event is again being held in St Finn Barre’s Cathedral. During its four years in existence SV has established itself as one on the highlights of the well-filled Irish experimental music and sound art calendar. Earlier this year saw the launch of its four CD box-set Sonic Vigil 4 in a signed limited edition of one hundred and fifty, which has met with high critical acclaim. Continuing with its innovative approach to programming events this year it will again include a Field Recording Festival with some of the world’s leading exponents. Artists include Karen Power (Irl), Soft Day (Irl), Lasse-Marc Riek (DE) The Quiet Music Ensemble (Irl), Sunfish (Irl), David Toop (GB), The Quiet Club (Irl), D’incise (Ch), Anthony Kelly & David Stalling (Irl), John Byrne (Irl), La Société des Amis du Crime (Irl), Kevin Tuohy and Roland Etzin (DE), The Concerned Parasites ubh Körka Gweena.
A major highlight of the festival is the appearance of David Toop, recognised as one of the world’s leading exponents of sound art. Toop’s new book “Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener” is due to be published next month.
Of special note in Sonic Vigil V are performances by poets from the Sound Eye Festival, including Maggie O’Sullivan, a master of word music and verbal sound effect.
Other highlights include several quadraphonic sound pieces and the premier of John Byrne’s Turntable Parlour Orchestra which will have twenty artists performing on turntables.
Coinciding with Sonic Vigil V will be the launch of Sound Stations. These stations have been designed by students of the Cork Centre for Architectural Education and fabricated by them in the National Sculpture Factory. They contain CDs of works from open submission to a worldwide open call. The Sound Stations will be officially launched on Sunday 18th July, which has been designated World Listening Day, and will run for a week. Records from both the Gruenrekorder Label and Far Point Recordings will be available for sale at the concert further details from sonicvigil@ireland.com or on www.sonicvigil.blogspot.com
Lasse-Marc Riek – SAISON CONCRÈTE | 25.06.2010 | 19:00 | free
Geräusche des Monats live im Funkhaus von Deutschlandradio Kultur
Hans-Rosenthal-Platz, 10825 Berlin
www.dradio.de
www.gruenrekorder.de
www.lasse-marc-riek.de
Phonophon | 23.06.2010 | 20:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
* Etienne Coussirat & Emmanuel Holterbach (F)
www.myspace.com
www.orbes.over-blog.com (Video Etienne Coussirat)
Verein zur Förderung von Phonographie und experimenteller Musik e.V.
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Marcus Obst | day in dwarfs capital
[…] 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.
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Thomas André | Recorded in China
[…] „Recorded in China“ consists in 10 tracks mostly taken in Beijing and in the Great Wall in Spring 2007. These are pure field recordings with no treatment that shows various passages of the China capital: airport, temples, Great Wall, parks. In these places we can hear people talking, smiling, singing and playing the Chinese violin and guitar. This CD-R in a limited run of 50 copies is a trip in itself that it feels very real. André captures the essence of the environment, its people and landscapes. […]
Interview | by Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Lasse-Marc Riek es un grabador de campo y artista sonoro vigente desde los ’90 presentando su trabajo en instalaciones sonoras, conciertos, lecturas y exhibiciones. Nuestro protagonista ha dado conciertos en galerías, museos de arte e iglesias.
En 2003 junto a Roland Etzin fundaron el sello Gruenrekorder en Frankfurt que está dedicado a los paisajes sonorous, registros de campo y composiciones electroacústicas. Marc Riek trabaja en los campos de la ecología acústica, bio acústica y fonografía. […]
Review | By Fabrice Allard / EtherREAL
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
d’incise est le projet du Suisse Laurent Peter, basé à Genève et membre du collectif Audioactivity. Nous avions déjà écouté quelques unes de ses productions (on vous conseille par exemple l’electronica crépitante de Les dérives, publié en 2005 et disponible en libre téléchargement sur son site web), plutôt expérimentales et mêlant influences electronica, field recordings et musique concrète. Laurent Peter est extrêmement productif et il est un peu difficile de suivre toutes ses productions (en solo ou avec Cyril Bondi en tant que Diatribes) et netlabels (Insubordination un peu plus porté sur le jazz et l’impro, Audioactivity au spectre assez éclectique mais restant globalement axé sur l’électronique). […]
New Release:
Marcus Obst: “day in dwarfs capital” (Gr 072/10)
Field Recordings
1 Track (53′50″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
Now here is an interesting, and in no small amount embarrassing little situation. A couple of weeks back a CD arrived here that I have played a few times over the last couple of days and quite enjoyed. Nothing unusual there. The problem was, as I initially wrote this post, I had no idea what it is called, or what label it is on… The thing is, it is a disc that has no type on the actual face of the CD, and comes wrapped up in a very elegant oversized heavy grey die cut card sleeve held together with a rubber band enclosing only a very large poster sized sheet of text written in French but not containing any details about the music. Until I had played the disc a few times I had not noticed that there is indeed identifying text on the card sleeve, but it is not printed, rather embossed (or what ever the opposite of embossing is?) into the rear of the sleeve, so it took some noticing. […]
Neue Klangwelten in der Dauerausstellung des Nordamerika Native Museums
Exhibition opening: 02/06/2010 – 6pm
Soundscape Southwest, USA (Harald Brandt, Karin Isernhagen)
Soundscape Pacific Northwest Coast, Canada (Hein Schoer, Heidrun Löb)
Bei Interesse melden Sie sich bitte bei Hein Schoer unter heinschoer@yahoo.de.
www.nonam.ch / More info (pdf)
Upcoming Release:
15.08.2010 / Hein Schoer / The Sounding Museum: Two Weeks in Alert Bay
CD / Gruen 082
Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
les écoutis le caire, the latest release in Gruenrekorder’s always captivating Field Recording Series, is a dual project involving a sound composition (premiered on Deutschland Radio in 2009) by Gilles Aubry, a Swiss sound artist currently residing in Berlin, and a poetic text in French by Basel, Switzerland-based Stéphane Montavon. The CD, which arrives housed within a large-format cardboard case with die-cut circles punched out of its cover and blind embossed type on its backside, features two long-form settings (a half-hour and twenty-four minutes, respectively). The opening piece is a half-hour sound portrait of a busy city where public transit systems and blaring car horns jostle for position and crowd into a mix that draws from recordings collected in Cairo at a bathroom, market hall, basilica, courtyard, and parking house. […]
Sound Art in Cork: A Brief History by Michael Daly
JOURNAL OF THE NORTHSIDE FOLKLORE PROJECT
Interview | By Tobias Fischer / tokafi
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Scenery of Water
Eisuke Yanagisawa: „Water in borrowed landscapes“
We take so much for granted. The sound of water, for example. We speak of it with a kind of nonchalance as though we knew exactly what it were. But is it ever the same? And does it actually exist at all? On „Scenery of Water“, Eisuke Yanagisawa has embarked on a journey to explore these questions and has returned with a few remarkable answers – some of them trivial but nonetheless inspiring, others unexpected but nonetheless entirely logical. „We can’t listen to water itself. We can only hear the impact of water on something“, Yanagisawa writes in his introduction to „Scenery of Water“, „When I listen to the sounds of a shallow stream for a while, I suddenly feel as if I were caught in the water and hearing them from inside of the water. […]
Review | By Nicole Caligaris / Sitaudis.fr
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
La justesse de ce pari artistique est de combiner les trois dimensions fascinantes du Caire : le son, le temps, l’espace, dans une très intéressante proposition, sous élégant cartonnage, d’un poème poster de Stéphane Montavon et d’un CD de musique acousmatique de Gilles Aubry.
Avant toute chose, plaisir musical, une métropole s’écoute : elle se livre dans le son que la vie produit, qui a formé profondément l’enfance de ses habitants, qui les tient ensemble, qui les lui attache, qui rend étranger l’étranger. Le son du Caire dit la puissance de cette ville, un son flux, épais, continu, variant de hauteur selon les heures, pas de rythme, charriant des éclats, des pointes, des crêtes à l’intérieur de sa pâte constante. […]
Phonophon | 15.05.2010 | 20:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
* TBC/ CoCo (D)
www.hoerbar-ev.de – TBC
www.myspace.com – CoCo
* Tectonis (AT)
www.myspace.com – Clemens Hausch
www.myspace.com – Benedikt Guschlbauer
www.myspace.com – Gerald Krist
Verein zur Förderung von Phonographie und experimenteller Musik e.V.
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Lasse-Marc Riek – HABITATS (CDR by 3Leaves)
This is the second release on Hungarian label 3Leaves run by Ákos Garai.
Lasse-Marc Riek is a German sound artist who runs the Gruenrekorder label that release many pure field recordings artists and this is the case for “Habitats”, which was recorded in Finland in Spring of 2007 and also electronically manipulated. The CD also contains a slideshow video based on photographs by Anne-Berit Riek, mainly with a variety of birds, and on the inside cover Lasse-Marc Riek did an accurate description of the different birds which are recorded. The field recordings took place in different spaces like in the forest (recorded far and close from it) where there are a wide range of bird’s songs and flies and as a backdrop, a drone. […]
Review | By RBD / Bad Alchemy Magazin
Lasse-Marc Riek – HABITATS (CDR by 3Leaves)
Der 1975 in Bad Segeberg geborene Phonograph, Bioakustiker und Materialbildner, in BA bekannt als Gruenrekorder, nimmt einen hier mit in die Wälder und an die Seen Finnlands. In Lappajärvi, Alajärvi, Soini, Österö und Björköby belauschte er die Vogelwelt in ihrem natürlichen Habitat, insektendurchbrummt, windumspielt. Auch wenn, oder gerade weil, er die Klanglandschaften im Heimstudio noch sanft nachbearbeitet, mit sirrendem Gedröhn etwa oder ausgedehnter Stille, ist Landschaft nie etwas, dem man von Außen gegenübersteht, kein Gegenstand. Aber auch keine entmenschte Idylle, Rieks Gastgeber gibt Anweisungen, wie man sich in der Blockhütte zurecht findet, Holz wird beigeschafft, Eimer mit Wasser gefüllt, das Feuer knistert. […]
Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
Gilles Aubry provides claustrophobic urban field recordings brought back from certain enclosed spaces, showcasing them on Les Écoutis Le Caire (GRUENREKORDER GRUEN 061) over two lengthy suites of edited material. Amongst these intensive and crowded rumblings, the sense of despair is only barely kept at arm’s length, and even hardened city dwellers such as myself blanch at the harsh realities with which this French Swiss audio composer confronts us. A counterpoint of sorts is provided by the words of Stéphane Montavon, printed in harsh red and black typography on a paper which had been folded up and inserted into the release as a ‘word map’. […]
Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
In a very nice cardboard sleeve we find a CD (by Gilles Aubry) and a large poster with a text in French by Stephane Montavon. I am sure lots of people speak or read French, but there are more who don’t. So it eludes me why this is part of it. No doubt there is a relation to the two pieces on the CD, which were recorded during a six week stay in the CD. Aubry taped the busy city from within rooms with ‘resonant properties’: a bathroom, a market hall, a basilica, a courtyard, a refrigerator and a parking house. You hear the city, but its always a bit remote, a bit far away, a bit blurred. Its not a strict fifty minute recording here, but Aubry has made a collage out of these recordings, superimposing them (which means he layered a few), in order to further blurr the effect. […]
New Release:
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon: “Les écoutis le caire” (Gruen 061/10)
Soundscapes
2 Tracks (52′45″)
CD (500 copies)
Reviews | By Zipo / aufabwegen
Angus Carlyle | Some Memories of Bamboo
[…] Diese Vogelperspektive gibt es bei Field Recordings und der Kunst, mit Landschaftsgeräuschen zu komponieren so erst einmal nicht, zumindest nicht in der direkten Vermittlung. Angus Carlyle tut aber das, was alle ernstzunehmenden Field Recordists machen: er dokumentiert mit viel Respekt vor den Orten und Geschehnissen an ihnen die Routen seiner “sound maps”, alle in einem ruhigen Bezirk im Umfeld von Kyoto entstanden. Wer mag kann sich im aufgeräumt gestalteten Textbooklet verlieren. Die Klänge, die Carlyle hier gesammelt hat sind bizarre und Nähe schaffend zugleich: entfernter Verkehr, Wetter, dann aber plötzlich ganz nah eine Gesangsmelodie, dann wieder schwüle Hitze und ganz stille Passagen. Some Memories Of Bamboo ist ein echtes Juwel dieses Genres, weil es Sorgfalt und Detailfreude walten läßt.
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
[…] Dieses Mal ist das schweizer Projekt D’Incise aufgefordert uns die Variationsmöglichkeiten der Verarbeitung von Feldgeräuschen darzulegen. Die Klänge wurden im Sommer 2007 gesammelt in Polen und der Tschechischen Republik. Sie reichen von urbanen Soundscapes bis hin zu intimen kleinen Naturknistereien. Die Montage ist hier nicht nur das Gestaltungselement Nr. 1, sondern es erfolgt auch eine dezidiert “musikalische” Auseinandersetzung, indem z.T. sogar kleine Rhythmen hinterlegt werden oder eine elektronische Fläche als Stütze angelegt wird. D’Incise ist ein Projekt, welches man sicher im Auge behalten sollte.
Review | By Chris Downton / Cyclic Defrost
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
Geneva-based electronic producer D’Incise (real name Laurent Peter) is a member of that city’s Audioactivity music & visual collective and has spent the last eight years assembling an impressively large back catalogue of releases for a range of netlabels including Zymogen and Antisocial. This latest release Secheresse Plantee En Plein Ciel, his fourth album in total and his first for Gruenrekorder, sees Peter crafting a ‘blurred travel diary’ drawn from field recordings made in the Czech Republic and Poland, resulting in eleven sinister and atmospheric tracks veering from musique concrete through to dark ambient. […]
Review | By Oreshkin Sergey / maeror3.livejournal
Andrea Polli | Sonic Antarctica
Работая с полевыми записями, многие исполнители стараются передать атмосферу определенного места, зафиксировать окружающие звуки, уловить, возможно, некую не потревоженную еще человеком первозданность. Многие, но не все. Андреа Полли дает возможность взглянуть на Антарктиду глазами…нет, скорее, «услышать» ее ушами немногочисленных людей, проживающих на исследовательских базах и посвятивших свою жизнь исследованию этого континента. «Sonic Antarctica» – это отчет о путешествии, где большее внимание уделяются разговорам об Антарктиде. […]
Review | By szola / Soundscaping
LASSE-MARC RIEK – HABITATS (CDR by 3Leaves)
“Habitats” was recorded By Lasse-Marc Riek while in Finland in spring of 2007. The beginning of “Habitats” is narrated by Lasse-Marc. He explains that the record deals with habitats, areas and living spaces. The piece, he continues, researchers the interplay between natural elements on the one hand and passages he had arranged at a later stage. It deals with the directional hearing, a vast array of bird voices and the silence between these sounds. […]
Gruenrekorder: Special Offers
5-Releases Subscription & Record Bundles
New Distributions:
Ákos Garai: “Pilis” (GrD 16/09)
Soundscapes
1 Track (50′17″)
CD-R (150 copies)
Lasse-Marc Riek: “Habitats” (GrD 15/10)
Soundscapes
1 Track (58′33″)
CD-R (150 copies)
Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
LASSE-MARC RIEK – HABITATS (CDR by 3Leaves)
[…] Lasse-Marc Riek documents the outdoor nature and wildlife of Finland on Habitats (3L002), paying particular attention to wind, weather, water and birdsong. (Dozens of bird calls are catalogued on the cover). His concise and modest sleeve note reveals how his work his given him a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of forest life, and he advises us to listen to the “vast array of bird voices, as well as the silence one can detect in between all of these different sound sources.” A beautiful and serene record.
Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
LASSE-MARC RIEK – HABITATS (CDR by 3Leaves)
[…] The recording of birds is great – even when they don’t make the same sense as they do to him. Its hard to say wether these recordings were combined into one, or wether they actually reflect a real time recording, which was then spliced together. The whole piece is separated into eigth parts, cut into one track on the release. A wonderful release of some great recordings, which make my longing for springtime even greater. Pure, poetic field recordings.
Reviews | By Oreshkin Sergey / maeror3.livejournal
Альбом Бена Оуэна называется «Two» не просто так – материал, вошедший на диск, посвящен двух состояниям воды, активному и пассивному. Это, конечно, не дополнение к фундаментальным законам физики о трех агрегатных состояниях воды, это, скорее, попытка зафиксировать при помощи микрофона состояние покоя этой субстанции (например, лужу, на гладкой поверхности которой так красиво отражаются облака) и ее необузданную энергию (см. обложку и любое побережье на этой планете в ненастную погоду). […]
Heike Vester | Marine mammals and fisch of Lofoten and Vesterålen
В отличие от многочисленных и малоинтересных альбомов из серии «Музыка в гармонии с природой» (названия, конечно, могут меняться, но смысл остается все тот же), на которых голоса морских обитателей сопровождаются необременительной музыкой для релаксации, «Marine Mammals And Fish Of Lofoten And Vesterålen» является серьезной и, в первую очередь, научной работой, чуть ли не аудио приложением к диссертации. Вышел он под эгидой «WWF», да и сама Хейке Вестер не музыкант, а ученый из Норвегии, специалист по биоакустике и эхолокации морских животных. […]
Review | By Dan Warburton / Paris Transatlantic Magazine
Angus Carlyle | Some Memories of Bamboo
These 13 splendid field recording-based soundscapes were recorded in 2008 in Kami-Katsura in the suburbs of Kyoto, Japan. „There is a special tranquillity here which is reflected in the acoustic atmospheres from before dawn until after dusk,“ writes Angus Carlyle in the handsome oversize (14x26cm) digipak, which also includes a 12-page booklet describing the circumstances surrounding each recording in detail. […]
Qwartz edition 6
The Gruenrekorder release „Bukarest | Bucure?ti – fragmente“ by Greta Hoheisel & Norbert Lang is nominated in the Qwartz Artwork & Packaging category.
Field Notes, the Gruenrekorder Magazine
The German Gruenrekorder is one of the most active record labels in the global soundscape community, and they’ve recently begun publishing a bilingual online magazine. The most recent edition includes an interview with the passionate phonographer Walter Tilgner (a key European recordist whose work in the 1980s paralleled that of Gordon Hempton and Bernie Krause in the US), a collection of old Chinese texts regarding silence and noise compiled by sound artist Lin Chi-Wei, and anecdotes by Yannick Dauby regarding his recording and hearing experiences with frogs.
The Acoustic Ecology Institute / www.acousticecology.org
Cork Phonographers Union: First meeting 25th Feb
Thursday 25th Feb. is the first gathering of the Cork Phonographers Union who will “MEET” on the fourth Thursday of each month (6:00pm-8:00pm ) in the Guesthouse, 10 Chapel St, Shandon, Cork and anyone interested in phonography, field recording etc. in their various forms are welcome to attend. It is a forum to meet and discuss work, exchange ideas and information and present work. This month’s “MEET” will be addressed by Roland Etzin sound artist and co director of Gruenrekorder. He will discuss the work of Gruenrekorder one of the leading labels for phonography in the world and also present some of his own works.
Gruenrekorder on radio framework / resonancefm / London / Sunday 21th at 10pm local time
phonography/field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley
3LEAVES / New release out now: HABITATS by Lasse-Marc Riek
The work at hand, „Habitats“, deals with habitats, areas and living spaces. In this particular case, these spaces were created from a pool of acoustic field recordings I realised while in Finland in Spring of 2007. Over the course of the past year, I have, for various reasons, increasingly been absorbed by the sounds emited by nature. The piece researches the interplay between natural elements on the one hand and passages I arranged at a later stage on the other. It deals with directional hearing and of course with the vast array of bird voices – as well as the silence one can detect in between all of these different sound sources.
www.3leaves-label.com
Review | By Wonderful Wooden Reasons / Issue 32
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
Using recordings sourced through travels in the Czech Republic and Poland mixed with various identifiable (and not so) instrumentation d’incise has created a really quite marvellous collage of sound. His take on electronic music is one of disjointed melodies and broken ambience that allows him to hold the listener in a limbo like sense of disorientation. His field recordings are beautifully chosen and there are moments where the grimy mundaneity of contemporary life almost breaks through before it’s all is pulled back into the panoptic swirl by the quality of his music. […]
Review | By Acoustic Ecology Institute / AcousticEcology.org
Andrea Polli | Sonic Antarctica
While pondering Antarctica, I want to also mention a recent CD release that will appeal to the science-minded among you: Andrea Polli, an educator and sound artist with a special interest in sonification of scientific data, especially as related to climate change, spent much of her time in Antarctica following working scientists around as they pursued their many fascinations. Her CD, Sonic Antarctica was released last year on the fantastic German Gruenrekorder label; the CD is a uniquely satisfying immersion into the sounds and science of the southern continent. […]
Review | By Sara Bracco / SENTIREASCOLTARE
Andrea Polli | Sonic Antarctica
L’album raccoglie sessanta minuti di paesaggi neutrali dell’Antartide catturati dai microfoni di Andrea Polli nelle sette settimane (2007-2008) che l’artista ha trascorso on site con una serie di scenziati (biologi, climatologi e geologi) presso la sede della National Science Foundation.
In pratica è la versione seria di Eskimo dei Residents con i droni a portarsi dietro i materiali più differenti: dai dati scentifici estrapolati dalla stazione meteo (Countdown) ai suoni naturali (chiacchere di pinguini, sfrigolii del ghiaccio, passi sulla neve), dalle interviste (A Modelis a Cartoon) alle trasmissioni radio (Round Montain). […]
Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
[…] Subtle melodies, bass lines, and electronic rhythms thread themselves through dense and often slow-moving thickets of samples (city traffic, public voice announcements, trains, people, animals, industrial clatter) in a project that d’incise likens to a blurry travel diary. There’s no shortage of textural content, with clicks, static, and other noise details surfacing alongside the ‚melodic‘ material. At times, the d’incise sound strays into others‘ orbits. One could imagine “Sécheresse en périphérie” appearing on Autechre’s EP7, for example, given how similar d’incise’s beatwork and ponderous tonal weave is to tracks on that recording. […]
New Distribution:
Stefan Funck/tbc: “Demar/Sediment” (GrD 14/09)
Sound Art
5 Tracks (44′29″)
12″
Review | By aufabwegen / magazin
Heike Vester | Marine mammals and fisch of Lofoten and Vesterålen
Hinter Oceansounds verbirgt sich die Meeresbiologin Heike Vester, die seit Jahren faszinierende Aufnahmen aus den Tiefen einfängt. Die Walgesänge und Fischtöne sind in einen größeren Soundscape eingebunden, der zum Beispiel auch Bootsgeräusche oder ähnliches mit einfängt. Faszinierend.
Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Various Artists | SONIC VIGIL 4
Its sunday, around noon. The only thing on my desk to review today is ‘Sonic Vigil 4′, a four CDR set by Gruenrekorder, who curated this as an event (together with the Quiet Club and Soundeye) in Cork, Ireland. Much like what I am doing – sitting back and listen to roughly five hours of music – is what happened on that day at the St. Fin Barre’s cathedral in Cork. […]
Review | By Rui Eduardo Paes / Críticas – Novas
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
Seja como for, é a solo que melhor compreendemos aquilo que D’Incise procura, e é esse o caso destes registos. O menos interessante será „Sécheresse Plantée en Plein Ciel“, não pela música proposta, que chega em alguns momentos a requintes de sombria beleza, mas porque cai em redundância a nível de materiais e de atmosferas. […]
Das Geräusch des Monats / Deutschlandradio Kultur
2010: „Kalenderstücke“ by Lasse-Marc Riek
Whatnight #3 DATA
Presented and curated by Whatspace / Netherlands and Gruenrekorder / Germany
New Release:
V.A.: “Sonic Vigil 4” (GrD 13/09)
Soundscapes
14 Tracks (288′27″)
Box Set (4 CDs) (150 copies)
Reviews | By Will Montgomery / The Wire – Issue: #311
Heike Vester | Marine mammals and fisch of Lofoten and Vesterålen
German label Gruenrekorder has put out some of the strongest of recent times, putting its name behind relatively low-profile recordists as well as bigger names. Heike Vester’s Marine Mammals and Fish of Lofoten and Vesterålen is a set of straight nature recordings, documenting various whale species, along with basking sharks, seal pups and more. […]
Angus Carlyle | Some Memories of Bamboo
[…] For a moment while shuffling through these recordings, I thought that Angus Carlyle was a marine mammal, a seal on some Nordic shore, perhaps. As it turns out, it was just his snores. „Dawn Town“ features an early morning recording of a Japanese Buddhist temple ceremony taking place near where Carlyle was staying – the phonographer fell asleep at the mic. […]
Michael Peters | Field Recordings from Barbados
[…] Little changes on the surface, although of course the sounds are constantly shifting, with the leisurely pace of minimal electronic work of such artists as John Hudak. After a while the trees and frogs no longer sound like trees and frogs: all is a miasma of interlocking repetitive patterns. The play between stasis and variation draws you back to these recordings again and again.
Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
[…] Its hard to tell what exactly he recorded in these locations, but it surely sounds quite fascinating. The microphone comes very close to whatever the events are that are captured here, as think they are events. Winds blowing through a pipe in the ‚Gowanus 2‘, maybe rain drops upon contact microphones in ‚Soft Magnetic Se‘? Since I don’t know what it is, its hard to guess, but its also were the beauty of the recording lies I think. Beyond the ‚ordinary‘ capturing of recordings out there, this is quite a fascinating release of crackles, cuts, hiss, almost electro-acoustic in execution, like a turntable left outside in ‚Atlantic Jetty S-N 1‘. An excellent release! Totally captivating! (FdW)
Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector music magazine and radio show
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
D’Incise has I think played with Diatribes, the didactic improvising combo from Switzerland, but here he be with a solo effort Sécheresse Plantée en Plein Ciel (GRUENREKORDER Gr 071). This is an interesting approach to field recordings, which allows the possibility of radical cut-ups and electronic treatments, to create a disorienting sonic portrait of everyday life in the Czech Republic and Poland. The murmured banalities of humankind are given an extra thrilling and slightly dangerous edge by these digital interpolations. […]
Field Notes #2:
Listening, Documenting
The second issue is out now available on www.gruenrekorder.de/fieldnotes
This issue features an interview with the passionate phonographer Walter Tilgner, the second and final part of Stefan Militzer’s essay about “Tones, Sounds and Noises,” a collection of old Chinese texts regarding silence and noise – compiled by sound artist Lin Chi-Wei –, anecdotes by Yannick Dauby regarding his recording and hearing experiences with frogs as well as thoughts and reports based on Gabi Schaffner’s personal experiences with accidentally deleted or never recorded sounds from Finland. The magazine closes with an essay of the componist and sound artist Andreas Bick regarding the construction of meaningful correlations when listening – “listening is making sense.”
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