Monat: August 2020

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New Release:

 

 

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

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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. […]

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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. […]

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

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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. […]

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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. […]

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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.

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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. […]

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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. […]

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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. […]

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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. […]

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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/

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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. […]

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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. […]

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

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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. […]

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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. […]

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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. […]