Monat: August 2022

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Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop – Pressure | Markus Mehr

 

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

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Review | By field notes Magazin – Sounds of Absence | Various artists

 

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

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Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen – Sounds of Absence | Various artists

 

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