New Release:
Merzouga: “Mekong Morning Glory” (Gruen 092/11)
Soundscapes
1 Track (49′02″)
CD (500 copies)
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
In the South of Chile and Argentine Mapuche natives live since ancient times and this recording registers the natural environment where they live. Also is captured the ceremonies they do and their music made with handmade instruments like the, trutruka, kull kull and the drumbeat of the kultrun.
History it is recreated by the sounds of the conquerors snippets of a Spanish guitar, Medieval music, the first notes of the National Chilean anthem, the noise of the saws cutting the ancient trees, declarations of Mapuche human rights, among others. […]
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai | Vertikale Skift
This is a new collaboration between sound artists Terje Paulsen (Norway) and Ákos Garai (Hungary) and this isn’t a pure field recording release in this series.
They combine found sounds and the electronic processing offering a wide range of sounds, radio airwaves, sharp edge elements, post-Industrial hum and drones producing dark soundscapes. […]
Nord Rute
Field Recordings & Sound Design: Ross Adams
Deutschlandradio Kultur | 23.12.2011 | 00:05
NATURE: The Water Boatman’s Song
BBC Radio 4, Tue 10 Jan 11.02, rpt Thur 12 Jan 21.02
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Writer Paul Evans accompanies sound recordist Tom Lawrence on a journey in sound across Pollardstown Fen to hear the extraordinary sounds of an underwater orchestra of aquatic insects. Additional sound recordings: Chris Watson, Producer Sarah Blunt
Richard Allen | The Silent Ballet / The 25 Best Winter Albums
Andrea Polli | Sonic Antarctica
Sonic Antarctica is an album that sounds like a soundtrack and unfurls like a film. It’s a combination of tones, field recordings and interviews with the weather station personnel of the South Pole. We begin with a helicopter ride and slowly descend into a world of glaciers and sub-zero readings. By the end, we’ve not only been entertained, but enlightened.
hungbunny | Podcast 227
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Listen to ‘hungbunny – Podcast 227‘
Feature on National Public Radio | All Songs Considered
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Listen to ‘All Songs Considered‘
Review | By Lars Gotrich / All Songs Considered – The Best Outer Sound Albums Of 2011
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
How can you distinguish the quality of one untreated field recording against another? The equipment might be better or the sequence could be cohere into an abstract narrative (see Annea Lockwood’s excellent A Sound Map of the Danube), but it all comes down to sound. And Ernst Karel has found incredible vibrations on these Swiss gondolas. Maybe it helps that I myself experienced these naturally droning and just plain-cool sounding machines when I was 16 — those clicks, whirs and distant moos from grazing cows have stuck with me for over a decade. […]
Review | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
As far as untreated field recordings go–now yer talkin‘. It obviously helps if your ear is attuned to especially wonderful groups of sounds as Karel’s was during some hiking expeditions in Switzerland that involved the usage of various modes of transportation–gondolas, funiculars, etc.–that have as one of their salient qualities the generation of rich and spectacular sonics. He recorded them extensively and extracted the nine pieces presented here without any manipulation. What can one say? […]
Review | By maeror3 / livejournal
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Горный транспорт Швейцарии – слаженно работающая система, обеспечивающая доступ практически в любую горную часть страны в случае как жизненной, так и туристической необходимости. Канатные дороги, горные поезда, подъемные кресла, рассчитанные на нескольких пассажиров, фуникулеры и гондолы – эти и другие технические приспособления перекроили ландшафт километрами рельсов, дорог, проводов. […]
Review | By Annette Eckerle / Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Bettina Wenzel ist Stimmkünstlerin und Komponistin. Das Material der Komponistin ist das Material der Stimmkünstlerin und umgekehrt. Ihre Ausbildung hat Bettina Wenzel von 1992 bis 2001 am Centre Artistique Roy Hart in Frankreich absolviert, nach der Methode des Stimmspezialisten Alfred Wolfsohn und dessen Schüler Roy Hart. Die Idee Wolfsohns von der totalen Entgrenzung der Stimme, womit in erster Linie ein Tonumfang gemeint ist, der jenseits der üblicherweise akzeptierten geschlechtsspezifischen Ausprägung liegt, benutzt Wenzel in ihrem Sinne für intermediale Performances, für Stimmen-Stücke, die inspiriert sind von den bewegten Bildern des Alltags, vom Sound einer Stadt, vom Klang einer Sprache. […]
Review | By MusikTexte – Magazine
Bettina Wenzel | Mumbai Diary
New Release:
Exclusive download edition
Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai: “Vertikale Skift” (GrDl 093/11)
Field Recordings
9 Tracks (55′34″)
Gruen Digital
Secret Thirteen Mix 004 | Jeremy Bible
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Listen to ‘Secret Thirteen Mix 004 – Jeremy Bible‘
Review | By rm / Gonzo (circus) #106
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Review | By rm / Gonzo (circus) #106
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
Gonzo (circus) #106 | Mind The Gap #93
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Review | By Anti-Gravity Bunny
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Absolutely one of a kind. Karel has made field recordings of gondolas, chairlifts, funiculars, and various aerial cable cars in Switzerland, without any self righteous tweaking or altering. These sounds are coming straight from the cars. Mostly a calm, serene, and hushed album, with lots of motorik rhythms and mechanical percussion breaking through. […]
Helen Mirra | gehend (Field Recordings 1–3)
Opening: Saturday, November 26, 2011, 5 – 10 pm
November 27, 2011 – January 29, 2012
Supplementary events
November 26 + 27, 2011:
Helen Mirra / Ernst Karel: Swiss Mountain Transport Systems: multi-channel version
November 27, 2011, 5 pm:
Helen Mirra / Ernst Karel: Location Recordings
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststr. 69
D-10117 Berlin
www.kw-berlin.de
Review | By Bobby Power / foxy digitalis
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart’s collaborative compilation of field recordings is a harrowing experience. Described as a collection of “recent pictures and sound recordings realised on the grounds of confinement, deportation and extermination of the Second World War, in France and in Poland,” the finished product is a work provocation and meditation. […]
Review | By Richard Allen / The Silent Ballet
Cédric Peyronnet | kdi dctb 146 [e]
[…] The attentive listener begins to anticipate these cacaphonous passages like choruses, regarding the quieter, avian interludes like verses. The piece is somewhat diluted by late repetition – a third downpour would have been more effective if attached to its brethren – but the recording as a whole is a success due to its crispness and its intentional distancing from placidity.
Reviews | By Sean Cooper / Noise From the Field
Barking tree frogs, exploding dragonflies, crackling Arctic fjords—the Top 10 wildest field recordings.
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Review | By DLF / Hollow Press
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
[…] As with all important and truly successful art, “Swiss Mountain Transport System” can radically alter the way one perceives the world.
Be warned: this album requires a good deal of patience. Many will find it boring but for those really willing to sit with it, its rewards continue to unfold listen after listen. It’s refreshingly direct – a rarity in our world of ultra-processed music – and restrained, elegant and as simple as can be. At the same time, it’s deeper and more nuanced than pretty much anything I’ve heard in a long while. A completely essential listen, one I cannot recommend highly enough.
Review | By Jérôme Provençal / MOUVEMENT
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
La mémoire neuve
Parvenir à ne rien brusquer ni contraindre. Savoir reconnaître l’instant juste. Refuser de transiger. Accepter de n’être qu’un opérateur – mais d’une extrême rigueur. Garder en tête que « rien n’a eu lieu que le lieu ». Ne surtout pas chercher à faire dire – ce qui revient presque toujours à faire taire. Laisser au contraire affleurer simplement, avec la conscience aiguë des efforts immenses que réclame ce « simplement », la silencieuse parole du monde. […]
Phonophon | 16.11.2011 | 20:00-23:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
* Nocturnal Emissions (UK)
* DJ Zipo (D)
Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
Review | By Abi Bliss / The Wire – Issue: #333
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Swiss Mountain Transport Systems is framed as a ‘sonic investigation’ into the many chairlifts, gondolas, funiculars and cable cars that navigate the country’s landscape, but it would be naive to suppose that Ernst Karel – once an active improvisor in Chicago; now a manager of the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard – is a dispassionate about where he points his cardioid mics. […]
Ernst Karel @ The Wire | MP3 Specials
Music, much of it exclusive to The Wire, selected to accompany magazine features, interviews and Wire related events.
Listen to Ernst Karel recordings
Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
Eisuke Yanagisawa, an audio-artist interested in field recordings and researching ethnographic matrices (the latter also explored through interesting cinematic experiments), has been studying the linguistic and cultural characteristics of rural Vietnamese since 2006. The results of these studies have helped create an ethnographic movie about gong culture and three experimental films about specific acoustic environments in Kyoto. […]
Gruenrekorder @ textura | TEN FAVOURITE LABELS 2011
Every November since 2005, we’ve honoured ten distinguished labels that have brought us countless hours of joy and enlightenment during the year, and this year’s selections are, as usual, an eclectic bunch.
Reviews | By Ron Schepper / textura
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
Issued in a 50-copy run as part of Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series, Eisuke Yanagisawa’s Ultrasonic Scapes makes a strong argument for the accessibility of the field recordings-based recording. It does so by doing two things in particular: drawing upon diverse subject matter in its ten tracks and by presenting its contents with concision, as the CD squeezes its material into a lean thirty-five-minute running time. […]
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
[…] Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen opens with a time-lapse setting called “Point of Gibraltar” that Lawrence edited down from twenty-fours to the six-minute setting heard on the recording in order to reveal to the listener the subterranean world existing below the fen. Using computer software, he was able to capture sounds below the range of human hearing. The mating calls of Water Beetles and the clicking of the Great Diving Beetle are just two of the sounds that appear amidst the teeming sonic activity documented by Lawrence. […]
The Out Door | Turning the World Into Art
The wide world of field recordings with legendary ethnomusicologist Art Rosenbaum, location recordist Ernst Karel, and sound-scapist and Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Chris Watson. By Marc Masters and Grayson Currin.
Tom Lawrence
Tom Lawrence died unexpectedly on Wednesday 19th October 2011.
We are deeply affected and very sad. He was a wonderful person to work with.
Our thoughts are with his family and all those who were close to him.
ELEKTRIA | Das Klangfestival
15.-20. NOV 2011
St. Johannis-Harvestehude
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Comments @ http://typerecords.com
Review | By Chris Whitehead / The Field Reporter
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Stridulate: (Of an insect) to make a shrill sound by rubbing wings, legs or other body parts together.
As any sound recordist knows, dropping a hydrophone into a body of water crosses a threshold. A barrier is broken between our world and an alien realm that exists alongside it. Bubbles rising from underwater plants become radar blips. Unfathomable clicks and pulses emanate from the unseen inhabitants of a veiled world. […]
Sonic Vigil 6
22 OCT 2011 2:00PM – 9:00PM
TRISKEL CHRISTCHURCH / €5.00 at the door
Sonic Vigil is Ireland’s premier sound art/ improvisation event and this year it takes place on 22nd Oct in Christchurch Triskel Cork. The event is curated by The Quiet Club and Gurenrekorder (Germany) and this is the sixth running of the event. Whilst the event has become synonymous with St Fin Barr’s Cathedral the organisers continue their policy of pushing the boundaries of sound and listening have changed the venue to explore the sonic possibilities of Triskel’s new Christchurch space.
This space has been hailed as one of the best acoustic spaces in the country and Sonic Vigil has been programmed to exploit this to the full.
A special feature of this year’s event will be video and live projections by video artist Claire Guerin. The event which is scheduled to run for over seven hours and the audience are invited to come and go as they please.
A highlight of the event will be the launch of a recording and film of last year’s event. This will be in the unique format of a USB key in the shape of a cassette tape containing both the audio and film of last year’s spectacular event.
Coming out very soon:
New Release:
Exclusive download edition
Pacho Apostolo: “Wallmapu” (GrDl 096/11)
Soundscapes
1 Track (30′00″)
Gruen Digital
Opening of the installation | Air Pressure
Whitworth Art Gallery / 4 November / 6 – 8pm
Exhibition continues until 15 January 2012
Air Pressure is a collaboration between Acoustic Science (Kozo Hiramatsu, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), Sound Art (Angus Carlyle, University of the Arts, London) and Anthropology (Rupert Cox University of Manchester)
www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk
Artbook/CD out on Gruenrekorder in January 2012
The Wire’s November Office Ambience | Issue #333 (Nov 11)
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Compiled by The Wire Sound System.
Listen to a selection of tracks from The Wire’s November Office Ambience
Gruenrekorder @ VERORTUNGEN / ENTORTUNGEN: URBANE KLANGRÄUME
Exhibition from 15.10. – 13.11.2011
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Since the mid nineteen’s Ernst Karel has been active releasing both solo albums and collaborative projects. He works with analog electronics and with location recordings. The sounds on “Swiss Mountain Transport Systems” consist of recordings taken in different locations of Switzerland during the summer and fall of 2008 plus electronic processing. […]
Phonophon | 24.10.2011 | 20:00-23:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Press release (pdf)
* Merzouga (D)
* Clemens Hausch (AT)
Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
UK sound artist Craig Vear works in contemporary, improvised and electroacoustic music field. He awarded a joint fellowship from Arts Council England and the British Antarctic Survey’s Artists and Writers Programme. So he went to the Antarctic Peninsula in the winter (Austral summer) of 2003-2004 to record field recordings for the source for music composition. […]
Reviews | By Nick Cain / The Wire – Issue: #332
Recently there has been an upsurge in the use of field recordings by a range of practitioners. One of its most vexing traits is the frequency with which the recordings are treated to fit the requirements of an existing vocabulary, whether it be Noise, drone or electroacoustic Improv, draining them of locality or character. German imprint Gruenrekorder’s Field Recordings series offers a haven of site-specificity. The label also runs Soundscapes and Sound Art lines, whose releases subject field recordings to various compositional or conceptual strategies. The 30 or so Field Recordings CDs mostly contain unprocessed location recordings. The results can be hit or miss, but this pair of discs are two of the series’s more rewarding entries.
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
Eisuke Yanagisawa’s Ultrasonic Scapes collects ten recordings of ultrasonic (beyond human audio perception) sounds, made mostly in Kyoto with the help of a bat detector, and presents them untreated save for slight amplification. There are a couple of nature recordings: bat calls (unfurling patterns of click-tones), and a noisy cicada chorus. But mostly Yanagisawa is interested in listening to the hidden sounds of electronic devices and urban public spaces. […]
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
UK recordist Tom Lawrence finds similar certainties in a very different environment. Water Beetles… is a collection of underwater recordings from a 550 acre untouched marsh in Co Kildare, Ireland. In his notes Lawrence explains the historical and geographical context for each of the tracks, as well as the compositional processes he’s used – mostly simple montage or timelapse editing, blending different recordings from the same location with great sensitivity. […]
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
[…] An amazing almost 40 minutes long disc that belongs to the digital series of German Gruenrekorder label. The composition weaves birds, flies, found objects, oscillators like, layers of sounds processed that create both abstract soundscapes and drifting melodies sparse in a moody ambient.
Acrylnimbus | free download
Autumn Appreciation Society: Octember
Suspicion Breeds Confidence: The Pink Carpet
Suspicion Breeds Confidence: When We Devoured The Patina Of Ages
Reviews | By Dan Warburton / PARIS Transatlantic Magazine
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
To quote acoustic ecologist David Dunn (who certainly knows what he’s talking about): „All of the sound we hear is only a fraction of all the vibrating going on in our universe.“ Well, there’s certainly a hell of a lot of vibrating going on in these ten tracks, and it started thousands of years before Tom Lawrence took his hydrophones into Pollardstown Fen, a 550-acre alkaline post-glacial fen in County Kildare, Ireland. As the album title makes clear, most of these amazing sounds are produced by insects rubbing bits of their bodies together – „stridulation“ sounds better – and Lawrence had to sit heroically through hours of thunderstorms to record it („this song was actually recorded at the end of an eight-hour stridulation“). […]
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
Though this release, like the Tom Lawrence disc mentioned above, is part of Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording series, there’s no way you could actually ever hear the sounds it contains in a field, or anywhere else for that matter, since, as the title makes clear, they lie outside the range of human hearing. „All ultrasonic sounds were captured and real time converted by a bat detector,“ writes Yanagisawa, so it’s not surprising the disc kicks off with four and a half minutes of.. bats, which, when „converted“ (transposed down, is that?) produce a strange and rather attractive fluttery clicking. […]
Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Beetles For Sale
The German label Gruenrekorder is of course home to many fine examples of field recordings and related sound art, but this new one by Tom Lawrence ought to win some sort of award from whatever papal body or other officiating body in Western Christendom decides such matters. Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen (GRUEN 087) is an ambitious, meticulously documented and radical work, which aims to set high standards in this area and at the same time reveal new aspects to the hidden worlds of underwater life. […]
The Wire | Sleeves Received
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Sleeves Received is a Tumblr documenting gems from The Wire’s mail bag.
Reviews | By Mark Wharton / IDWAL FISHER
[…] Gruenrekorder don’t just release Field Recordings and Sound Art though, you’ll find them investigating Soundscapes as well as running a workshop and an intermittent dual language downloadable PDF magazine called Field Notes. Its archived and worthy of your attention. Theres also a few more free downloadable albums beside the one I mentioned. Having never heard of Gruenrekorder a month ago I know find myself a fervant fan. […]
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
[…] At least with Field Recordings you know what you’re getting. It says it on the tin. Swiss Mountain Transport Systems is, as you’d expect, the sound of ski gondolas, funiculars and chair lifts all doing what they do up the sides of Swiss mountains. The genius of it all is finding the musicality within these things. So the door locks, the winding motors, the support towers, the funicular tracks and the non mechanical outside sounds such as cow bells and people al become part of a greater experience. […]
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
[…] Pollardstown Fen is a calcium rich, spring fed fen in Ireland which has become home to all manner of wildlife including numerous species of water beetles. Tom Lawrence took his underwater microphone there and recorded what happened beneath the surface. Apparently water beetles like to stridulate. Stridulation being the ability to announce ones presence by the rubbing one body part against another. […]
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] I’ll never forget and one I’m grateful to Bick to be able experience again.
Ice, snow, frost, cleaving icebergs, Bick uses them all to good effect and incredible sounds they make too. Capturing the sound of falling snow flakes by attaching contact mics to sheets of tin foil also works. If only I could shake off this new age thing maybe I could like it just that little bit more. I’d have been quite happy to have listened to all of these sounds as individual tracks. Collaging them into ‘suites’ or ‘symphonies’ or ‘patterns’ leaves me um … cold. […]
Various Artists | Playing with Words: an audio compilation
[…] There’s clips plucked straight from Radio 4, someone reading out the letter they’re writing with the sound of pen scratching on paper, there’s an incredible Trevor Wishart track that I’m desperate to share with anybody who’ll listen and a track by Salome Voegelin in which someone struggles to read a flyer with Welsh language in it in a supermarket cafe. Totally wonderful. Its a rewarding listen even if there are a few bumps along the way but the best thing about it is the fact that its available as a free download from the Gruenrekorder website. […]
NTS Radio | The Compass Series
Sounds and alternative realities from around the world
Nord Rute – Gruenrekorder / CD out on Gruenrekorder in February 2012
Listen to ‘The Compass Series – Playlist 26/08/11′ (Soundcloud)
Review | By Elliot Loe / The Field Reporter
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
[…] The chirping sound of the crickets, cows and cowbells, voices and dialogues, everything has been carefully included to provide a full aural experience of, first and foremost, the transport system but also to give us a quick glimpse of the Swiss mountain landscape.
As it often happens with Gruenrekorder’s works, this is an ambitious project that requires great attention and patience to be completely understood.
A fine work indeed that deserves to be listened.
Review | By John McEnroe / The Field Reporter
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
[…] Swiss mountain transport system is a great example of how methodical work can also lead to very strong sensible experiences capable to deal with actual perceptive implications of the object such as movement, vehicle, space, inside, outside…
When John Cage entered into an anechoic chamber he noticed there was no silence because he could hear something…his body, the vehicle.
Gruenrekorder @ MOOZAK FESTIVAL 2011
festival for audio- video and installation art
www.moozak.org/festival
Reviews | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Martin Clarke | Caucasus Tapes
In 2009 Martin Clarke and Alicja Rogalska did a research and residency trip to some regions of the ex Soviet Union like Armenia and Georgia. The recordings captured rain, people and dogs barking in a rural area and it seams is during the night, a religious man singing and praying, mothers and children talking in a close room, bells of a church, car engines, bird songs like, French people playing a guitar in a café, people attending a church chant, natives playing folk music, water dropping over a metal stuff… […]
This is one of the releases of the digital series on German Gruenrekorder label which deals with experimental and field recordings. “The Maker” is part of a series of four works under the title of “Centre and Edge”, which explores the sound world of a particular region like the Southern Scotland, among others. […]
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Tom Lawrence is a sound recordist, musician and educator. Tom works at School of Communications, Dublin City University where he is a lecturer in film music, recording practice and sonic art. This CD contains recordings made in the Pollardstown Fen which is a National Nature Reserve since 1986. It is also a Special Area of Conservation, located in Northern Ireland. […]
Gruenrekorder Newsletter | QR Code
Review | By Zipo / aufabwegen
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Es ist fast unglaublich, dass diese Klänge unbearbeitet sein sollen: Die Wasserläufer aus dem Bioreservat Pollardstwon Fen in Irland machen eine spektakuläre Noisemusik. Von kruschelndem Whitenoise Gebrutzel über acidmäßige Fieps- und Sirenentöne ist hier das ganze Klangarsenal der Industrial-Szene vertreten, aber in echt! Die CD von Tom Lawrence, liebevoll mit Texten dokumentiert, ist wieder mal ein Fall von: die Schönheit ist um uns herum, wir müssen sie nur erkennen. […]
Phonophon | 07.09.2011 | 20:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Press release (pdf)
* Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (IND) & Lasse-Marc Riek (D)
http://budhaditya.org
http://naadmedia.org
http://lasse-marc-riek.de
* Autumn Appreciation Society (D)
http://acrylnimbus.de
https://gruenrekorder.de
Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
New Release:
Ernst Karel: “Swiss Mountain Transport Systems” (Gruen 091/11)
Field Recordings
9 Tracks (77′50″)
CD (500 copies)
Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Since a few years I no longer go on ‘holiday’ – for the simple reason I don’t like it very much. But when I was much younger and going with my parents, Austria and Switzerland were preferred destinations. So the travel up and down the mountains in a gondola is something I am familiar with. The moment you leave the station, going up (down), the passing of one of those pillars and then the sense of floating in between those pillars, weightless without much sound, bumping into the end station. […]
Review | By Alan Smithee / The Field Reporter
[…] The piece on its formality is very efficient -although the poetry seems blur whether in the description of the method or in the method itself- as in the end The maker is about natural patterns and the dynamics of this patterns on the structures they are part of; the sonority of The maker presents this constantly changing organic sonority that is full of poetry as Wyness managed to put the pure essence of his theoretical considerations into a strong sensible experience.
Review | By Axel Ganz / Jahrgangeräusche – Popkultur und unbedingte Zonen
Das Bröckelige trifft das Glatte. Das Raue begegnet dem Schmeichelnden. Das Verzögernde zieht am Dynamischen. Konträre akustische Stofflichkeiten werden in Enge übereinander gefächert. Es entsteht dichte Konfrontationen. Aber keine Seite gewinnt. Gegensätzlicher kann das genreübergreifende Arbeiten kaum sein.
Ein äquatorialer Komposthaufen als Ort für Fieldrecordings ist durchaus ungewöhnlich. Und wieso liegt die Betonung auf der geografischen Verortung? […]
Swiss Mountain Transport Systems, multi-channel version
Helen Mirra and Ernst Karel at Audiorama
Time: 4-8 pm, Thursday 1 September 2011
Audiorama, Sluppskulsvägen 30, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm
www.audiorama.se
CD out on Gruenrekorder in September 2011
Review | By Oliver Laing / Cyclic Defrost
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
I suppose I should give this collaboration between Belgian visual artist Sylvestre Gobart and French musician (and in this case, sound-recordist) Stéphane Garin its exhaustive full title – Gurs, Drancy, Bobigny’s train station, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Chelmno-Kulmhof, Majdaneck, Sobibor, Treblinka. Phew; and it’s an exhaustive listening experience, as extreme, in its own way, as the pure digital sine wave manipulation of my previous review of Cyclo. […]
Review | By Joshua Meggitt / Cyclic Defrost
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
[…] All sounds on Eisuke Yanagisawa’s Ultrasonic Scapes are derived from natural and inorganic sound sources captured with bat detectors, devoid of additional processing, and its actually quite a marvel. The opening sounds of, yup, bats, provides the obvious sonar pings and squawks one expects from these creatures, but the rest is united only by a kind of electronic creak typical of these devices. […]
Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
Today was a nice day. I had the day off of work and half intended sitting at my desk all day catching up on a large number of outstanding administrative tasks, but the day was lovely, warm sunshine woke me relatively early and so Julie and I headed off to the River Thames in West Oxford and after a walk along the banks sat and read for a good few hours, catching the sun a little and working up a thirst that we quenched at a nice riverside pub. […]
The Sound Projector Radio Show 29th July 2011
Eisuke Yangaisawa – „Cicada Chorus“
Listen to ‘The Sound Projector Radio Show 29th July 2011′ (Stream)
The Wire On Air | Adventures In Modern Music 28 July 2011
Tom Lawrence – „Miltown Feeder“
Eisuke Yanagisawa – „Bat Calls“
Listen to ‚Adventures In Modern Music 28 July 2011‘ (Stream)
The Silent Ballet | Release of the Month – July – 2011
[…] In the past month alone, we’ve seen the release of albums that amplify the sounds of water beetles and abandoned malls; an album performed on broken harmoniums; a debut EP presented in a box of beach glass; and a concert event preserved on a flash drive hidden in a pocket-sized tiger.* This is an extremely exciting time for music, if one knows where to look. […]
Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Gruenrekorder always knows where to find new people involved in the world of field recordings. Here its one Tom Lawrence, who created a CD with ten different pieces all recorded at the Pollardstown Fen, ‚one of the last remaining calcium-rich spring-fed post-glacial valley fens in Western Europe‘. Sticking his microphone mostly below the water level, he picks up animal life, water beetles and water bugs and such like. Amazing stuff! The singing of the beetles, as captured in ‚Seven Springs‘ sound great. […]
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
[…] Which also happened with the release by Eisuke Yanagisawa, who I assume is from Japan, and picked up the sounds of the cicadas, bats and drone sounds from street lights and feeds them through signal processors. He has a release before (see Vital Weekly 684), which seemed all more in pure field recordings, but this new one has unmistakenly a more electronic feel to it. That however is an illusion: all of these sounds were captured with a bat detector, picking up and translating sounds that are usually beyond the audible range. Ultrasonic sounds. […]
Review | By Michael Viney / The Irish Times
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
[…] To discover the underwater sounds of the insect world – to realise they exist at all – is a mind-blowing event in one’s sharing with nature, rather like hearing whalesong for the very first time or seeing Earth from space. For that I have to thank Dr Tom Lawrence, lecturer in sound and music at Dublin City University, acoustic ecologist and brilliant wildlife sound recordist.
Two years ago, he spent six months capturing the sounds of Lough Neagh, above and below the waves, for a BBC Radio 4 natural history programme. […]
Reviews | By Brian Olewnick / The Bird Cage
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
[…] Tom Lawrence’s „Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen“ (Gruenrekorder) is a set of ten recordings of just that, as well as a good deal of plant life. All of the sounds–and there’s an impressive variety of them–were recorded beneath the surface of the water, the mic often positioned quite close to the stridulating insect. The sounds are reasonably fascinating–how could they not be?–all clicks and whirs and guttural buzzes and whines, sometimes possessing an eerily human quality, like a covey of muttering old crones or some guy iterating a brief, pained cry. […]
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes
[…] Eisuke Yanagisawa’s „Ultrasonic Scapes“ offers a case that is, in one sense, at an opposite end of things but in another, comes up against the same problem. He uses a bat detector to makes his recordings. One track, indeed, depicts bats while another goes after a choir of cicadas but the majority, eight out of ten cuts, pick up the faintly heard, to human ears, sounds of the industrialized world, including electric gates, street lights, muted TVs and computer innards. […]
Phonophon | 13.08.2011 | 20:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
* Pit Noack (D)
* Theodore Goodman (D)
Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
New Distribution:
Lasse-Marc Riek: “Harbour” (GrD 18/11)
Field Recordings
8 Tracks (32′12″)
CD
New Release:
Mick O’Shea: “Spectrosonic Drawings” (Gruen 079/11)
Sound Art
1 Track (10′52″)
Drawing, 12″ & CD (1 copy)
New Release:
Exclusive download edition
James Wyness: “The Maker” (GrDl 095/11)
Field Recordings
1 Track (42′41″)
Gruen Digital
New Release:
Tom Lawrence: “Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen” (Gruen 087/11)
Field Recordings
10 Tracks (70′46″)
CD (500 copies)
New Release:
Eisuke Yanagisawa: “Ultrasonic Scapes” (Gr 081/11)
Field Recordings
10 Tracks (35′06″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
Angus Carlyle & Rupert Cox / “Three Toho Scenes” – From Air Pressure (Gruenrekorder) in The Wire & The Wire Tapper 26 | #330 | August 2011
Artbook/CD out on Gruenrekorder in January 2012
Includes Tapper CD: The Wire Tapper 26:
The latest volume in our series of experimental and underground music compilations featuring 20 new, rare or unreleased tracks from Tirudel Zenebe, Joe Morris Wildlife, Anne James Chaton & Andy Moor, Walter Schnaffs, Wooden Kimono and more.
Click here for a PDF with the full tracklist.
Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
[…] I don’t have any recordings of Lee Patterson’s work in this area so I can’t really compare it to anything, but it feels very cleanly recorded, with the sounds mostly uninterrupted, and when they are, its by thunder, or rain on the water, or other natural impacts that enhance the recordings rather than spoil them. It is impressive to hear this hidden world in all its glory, to share in the insectual conversations (are they conversations?) that are usually out of the reach of the human ear. For those that have not heard anything in this particular area before, but have an interest in field recording this CD will probably be a real ear-opener, as I remember how I felt when I was first made aware of the rich catalogue of sounds to be found under the water’s surface. […]
Review | By maeror3 / REGENERATOR
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Для кого-то – просто болото, а для кого-то – уникальная экосистема. Поллардстоуновское известковое болото раскинулось на 220 гектарах по территории Ирландского графства Килдэр и зарекомендовало себя в глазах ученых как место обитания множества уникальных насекомых и растений. И пока ботаники и энтомологи изучают образцы в лабораториях, Том Лоуренс решил запечатлеть для потомков (ибо экосистема экосистемой, но бурный рост промышленности со всеми вытекающими последствиями никто не отменял) «голоса» основных обитателей болота в их естественной среде обитания – водных жуков, коих насчитывается множество видов, и каждый из них имеет свой «голос». […]
Review | By Dan Warburton / PARIS Transatlantic Magazine
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
Well, the title says it all, really. Merely reading the word Auschwitz, let alone Treblinka, Birkenau etc. has already conditioned your response to this album of field recordings made in the abovementioned places. As an example of how titles can affect one’s judgement of a work of art prior to experiencing it, this is even better than Penderecki’s celebrated Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. If Stéphane Garin (the sound recordist) and Sylvestre Gobart (of whose photographs more later) had called their collaboration something like „Our European Holiday“, I doubt anyone would have paid any attention to it all. I know I certainly wouldn’t have spent as much time with as I have. […]
Phonophon | 30.06.2011 | 20:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
* Gregor Knüppel (D)
* phase~in (D)
Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
Review | By Stephen Fruitman / sonomu
Hein Schoer | Two Weeks in Alert Bay
A sprawling landscape of the world in one small town, where the curiosity of the artist and the reflexive objectivity of the ethnologist combine to express our common need to tell and retell stories. Hein Schoer´s two weeks collecting sounds have been arranged into an impressionistic narrative based upon versions of the local legend of the raven who stole the sun. Alert Bay is a tiny island community off the southern coast of British Columbia, its five hundred-odd inhabitants equally divided between Caucasian and First Nations Canadians. […]
Review | By Petr Ferenc / Český rozhlas
[…] Okolní svět lze nahrávat a později zpracovávat všelijak. Někdo vytváří čistě dokumentární záznamy, jiný exotické zvukové pohlednice. Francisco López osvobozuje zvuk od veškerého kontextu a vydává snímky bez názvů a obrázků na obalech, takže posluchači nezbývá než opravdu pouze naslouchat. Christina Kubisch zase po městech provádí skupinky zájemců vybavených sluchátky zachycujícími elektromagnetické impulzy bezdrátových sítí, detektorů v nákupních centrech a podobně. Dán Jakob Kierkegaard nahrává subbasové podzemní dunění islandských gejzírů, Američan David Dunn snímá pouhým uchem neslyšnou činnost kůrovců. […]
New Release:
Exclusive download edition
Martin Clarke: “Caucasus Tapes” (GrDl 090/11)
Field Recordings
14 Tracks (39′50″)
Gruen Digital
Review | By Odile Faure / SudOuest
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
De Gurs à Treblinka
Le percussionniste Stéphane Garin livre des cartes postales sonores des camps
On le remarque peu à l’Orchestre de Pau, caché au milieu de ses percussions, mais sa participation est essentielle. Le disque coffret qu’il vient de coproduire ne se remarque pas non plus mais il est utile pour la démarche de mémoire. Stéphane Garin a arpenté neuf camps d’internement, de déportation et d’extermination, avec son micro, accompagné d’un photographe bruxellois, Sylvestre Gobart. […]
Review | By Andreas Fellinger / freiStil
Bettina Wenzel | Mumbai Diary
„Mumbai ist wie zwei Pole eines Magneten: anziehend und abstoßend zugleich“, erinnert sich die Kölner Vokalistin Bettina Wenzel an ihr halbes Jahr in der indischen 18-Millionen-Einwohner-Stadt, genauer in deren Stadtviertel Bandra. Die Kunststiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen und das Goethe-Institut hatten ihr dieses Arbeitsstipendium ermöglicht. Wenzel revanchiert sich für die Einladung mit einem akustischen Tagebuch. Einem Tagebuch, das allerdings nicht linear erzählt, sondern punktuelle Impressionen festhält, sie mit Fantasie dokumentiert, interpretiert und für vokale Assoziationen verwendet. […]
Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
[…] Glimpses of a background with exotic music and citations that emerge alienated from their original context reassemble during atonal passages into extended audio emergencies that include metallic sounds, squeaks, gloomy lullabies and sighs. In „Mumbai Diary“ Bettina Wenzel shares with us an intimate universe, a deliberately fragmented and „gibberish“ narration, characterized by a precise geographical connotation, yet still very personal in the eccentricity of musical forms, intentionally ever-changing and sharpened by the possibility of intrusive meanings that always lurk in the delicate interweaving of stylistic connections. […]
New Release:
Exclusive download edition
Mirko Uhlig: “Tupelo” (GrDl 084/11)
Soundscapes
6 Tracks (39′57″)
Gruen Digital
Gruenrekorder on Radio Gagarin / Playlist
Radio Gagarin is a two-weekly radioshow on fsk 93.00 mhz (www.fsk-hh.org). It is hosted by asmus tietchens, jetzmann and tbc.
Review | By Axel Ganz / Jahrgangsgeräusche
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] Dabei rekonstruiert und restrukturiert er das Ausgangsmaterial der Feldaufnahmen auf eine ebenso behutsame wie durch und durch musikalische Art und Weise mit den Mitteln der Konfrontation, Staffelung und Überlagerung. Eine von Anfang bis Ende brilliante Arbeit, die in ihren Ergebnissen an manchen Stellen überraschenderweise gar nicht so weit entfernt zu sein scheint von den zumindest teilsynthetischen Welten eines Asmus Tietchens.
Review | By maeror3 / maeror3.livejournal
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
На протяжении двух лет Стефан Гарин (запись) и Сильвестр Гобарт (фотографии) объездили всю Европу, посещая печально известные концентрационные лагеря, оставшиеся после Второй Мировой Войны, и подготавливая свой амбициозный аудиовизуальный проект, вылившийся в данное двухдисковое издание лейбла «Gruenrekorder». Нетрудно догадаться, что нас ждет на этих дисках – около двух часов «полевых записей», призванных передать современную атмосферу мест, в которых одни люди в промышленных масштабах лишали жизни других людей. […]
Gruenrekorder & Phonophon @ Nacht der Museen | 07.05.2011
21:00 – 01:30
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
[…] So, more than just a couple of CDs of field recordings, more than just music, more than just something to listen to. I found spending time with these pieces, the stunning photos and the accompanying essay to be a thoughtful, if thoroughly sobering experience. This is a very well thought through and very well executed project that deserves to be engaged with by as many people as possible.
RADIO ŠTUDENT / FM 89,3
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
Review | By Axel Ganz / Jahrgangsgeräusche
Das entlegenste Naturereignis findet seine akustische Beobachtung. Das Plätschern des eisigen Meerwassers, die zentimeternah beobachteten Wellen. Dann die Eisformationen, das Knirschen der Schollen, der Schnee und das schier unendliche Rauschen des Windes. Schließlich, der Auftritt der Pinguine. Im Winter 2003/2004 schiffte sich der britische Musiker Craig Vear, unter anderem bekannt als ehemaliger Drummer und Percussionist der Gruppe Cousteau, mit Unterstützung eines Stipendiums des Art Council England in Richtung Antarkis ein, um in den Weiten dortiger Naturlandschaften Fieldrecordings zu erstellen. […]
Review | By Massimo Ricci / TOUCHING EXTREMES
Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire
This release is part of a label series devoted to field recordings, though the latter only constitute the groundwork of something more comparable to a minimalist opus than a collection of acoustic landscapes. Indeed the way in which Gilles Aubry processed and seamed voices and urban noises from Cairo – taped in 2007 during a residency – tends to exploit the canorous properties of the local activities, disposed according to criteria of rhythmical reiteration and mind-cuddling resonance with just a slight addition of electronic frequencies. […]
Phonophon | 29.04.2011 | 20:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
* PIRX (D)
www.satelita.de
* mspiano (D)
Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de
Gruenrekorder / The Sound Projector Radio Show 4th March 2011
Review | By maeror3 / maeror3.livejournal
Slavek Kwi / Artificial Memory Trace | Collection 5
«Воспринимайте. Не старайтесь распознать. Слушайте». Так призывает небезызвестный любителям экспериментальной музыки Славек Кви отнестись к его новому альбому, который он подготовил специально для серии «Collection» немецкого лейбла «Gruenrekorder», ориентированной на издание полевых записей и «конкретной» музыки. Собрав множество разнообразных звуков природы и человеческой деятельности, музыкант не просто свел их воедино – его больше занимала частичная или полная трансформация исходного материала. Фиксирование определенного места-момента совершенно не интересует музыканта, «звуковой фотографии» он предпочел создание полностью индивидуального пространства со своими уникальными характеристиками. Стоит сразу отметить, что это ему удалось. […]
New Release:
Exclusive download edition
Craig Vear: “Antarctica” (GrDl 089/11)
Field Recordings
5 Tracks (56′54″)
Gruen Digital
Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] Both works are structured to begin with the loudest sonic element in his hard drive (the volcanic eruption wins hands down for the Fire piece), and then proceed to direct the listener through an astonishing journey, where we experience these wild and raw forms of nature from a comparatively safe and privileged vantage point. The listening experience still conveys some sense of danger even so, and also tells us how little we still understand or really know about the planet.
Review | By Ian Holloway / WONDERFUL WOODEN REASONS
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] In terms of vision and execution Bick’s work puts me most in mind of the later period works of Japanese sound ‘designer’ (his term) Akifumi Nakajima (Aube) who’s single sound-source compositions tread similar ground to Bick. The discordant sound sources melding to provide an anomalously restful and multi-hued whole.
Bick’s choice of sources is an inspired choice. Adapting them from a range of sources from both the sciences and the arts he has created an alchemical fusion of the two into something new and rather special.
Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
Anyone contemplating creating an artwork that invokes WWII and the Nazi regime’s ‘Final Solution’ (more specifically the attempt to exterminate the entire populations of Jews, homosexuals, etc.) knows that delicate, emotionally charged ground will be trod upon and that whatever’s done will have to be done with circumspection. In broaching the subject, phonographer Stéphane Garin and photographer Sylvestre Gobart first considered the memories being kept alive today in light of the ceremonies and monuments that currently engender memorialization of a particular kind and then decided to create new associations by producing visual and sound portraits of internment, deportation, and extermination facilities from Gurs, France to Poland […].
Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
Slavek Kwi / Artificial Memory Trace | Collection 5
Collection 5 is a rather enigmatic recording, even by Gruenrekorder standards. It’s the latest in an ongoing series of field recordings-based releases from the label, each one of which arrives in a silver case accompanied by a modicum of information. This particular one is the brainchild of sound artist Slavek Kwi, who was born in Czechoslovakia (as it was then known) and since 2000 has been based in Ireland, and has operated under the name Artificial Memory Trace since the early ‘90s and issued a dozen albums. […]
Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Slavek Kwi / Artificial Memory Trace | Collection 5
[…] Maybe the most negative review I’ve ever written then. I’d be very interested to hear from anyone that has heard this release and found it enjoyable, as clearly, given the number of CDs that Slavek Kwi has made over the past thirty years he must have a considerable audience, so it would be good to understand better what I am missing.
Reviews | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Slavek Kwi / Artificial Memory Trace | Collection 5
[…] Majority I’d say, as there is an occasional instrument to be heard here and there. I found it hard to say wether these pieces belonged together, say track 1-18, or track 20-31. When you assume there is a logical stop in a track, it may be half way through and not right at the end. Maybe the whole idea is to shuffle these tracks. As said, lots of field recordings here with interesting forms of transformation. „Perception. No Cognition. Listen.“ it says on the cover and that’s perhaps indeed all there is.
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
[…] We should never ever forget the holocaust, visit concentration camps, read books about it, but this double CD seems very wrong to me. I conducted a small experiment in which I played some of this to various people, sometimes letting them what it was and sometimes not. Those who didn’t know, thought it was indeed just outdoor recordings, and those who did know did agree that it hardly makes a difference and it all still sounds like field recordings which could have been made anywhere. I do think however that the package is a strong reminder – never again – and a such of course its pretty well made.
Review | By Hannis Brown / tokafi
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] Throughout, Fire and Frost Pattern is a fascinating work that magnifies and illuminates the intricacies of sonic events largely unexamined by human ears. At moments the pieces truly transcend the concept of “field recordings” and “sound art” to make a truly unique sensory experience.
Review | By Zipo / aufabwegen
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
Klangkunst die sich mit Naturphänomenen befasst hat oft die gleiche Wirkung auf uns wie seinerzeit frühe Tierfilme im TV. Man taucht ein in unbekannte Welten, erhält plötzlich Zugang zu bisher verschlossenem Terrain. Wenn dieses “Aufdecken” und “Hineinführen” mit einer eigenen ästhetischen Qualität, die über das bloße Entdeckertum hinausreicht, vollzogen wird, dann entsteht tolle akustische Kunst. Andreas Bick ist dies mit seinen beiden für das DeutschlandRadio Kultur produzierten Stücken Fire Pattern und Frost Pattern bestens gelungen. […]
Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
No metaphor – even in the art world, with its more experimental and avant-garde latitudes – exceeds the immediate fascination that the hot-cold dualism manages to evoke. The extremes – as Eastern philosophy teaches us – are to some extent complementary; they transform into each other, are interdependent and have a mutual origin. Especially in the field of acoustics, the auditory phenomena associated with fire and ice exhibit strange behaviors and very similar frequency dynamics: the field recordings that stem from them are almost indistinguishable. […]
Review | By David Grundy / EARTRIP magazine
d’incise | Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel
A solo project from D’Incise (of Geneva-based improvising duo Diatribes), ‘Sécheresse Plantée En Plein Ciel’ shares something, perhaps, of that jittery, skittering, scrabbling electronics and percussion set-up, but only as an element on the periphery of its overall musical vision. This music is more about atmosphere than moment-to-moment interaction and change, though that’s not to say it skimps on detail: however, it draws one into its flow through the repetitive quality of its 11 tracks, which are structured around beats or droning synthesizer loops. […]
Review | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka
[…] Even so, when one hears the gravelly, regular crunch of tourists boots as they „see the sights“, it’s difficult to not recall other kinds of boots. Water dripping in some interior space conjures up a dark foreboding of its own. Trucks, dogs, conversation–all take on an added patina. And when, at the beginning of the second disc, one hears an amateur orchestra working its way through „Eine Kleine Nachtmusik“, well…
A very strong document, then, not so much as a music/image release but for what the sounds and photos evoke in the consciousness of any thinking individual.
Review | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside
Slavek Kwi / Artificial Memory Trace | Collection 5
You know, when you inscribe a release with the admonition: „Perception. No cognition. Listen.“, you better deliver. Instead, Kwi presents a lengthy (80 minute), meandering set involving electronics and field recordings that’s woozy throughout, sometimes sounding like a not particularly rigorous Sun Ra episode, other times recalling some of Reich’s experiments with taped sounds („Different Trains“, say), still other occasions just spinning his wheels. […]
New Release:
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart: “Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka” (Gruen 085/11)
Field Recordings
20 Tracks (111′40″)
Double CD (500 copies)
New Release:
Slavek Kwi (Artificial Memory Trace): “Collection 5” (Gr 080/11)
Soundscapes
32 Tracks (79′54″)
Gruen CD-R | Silver (50 copies)
Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Cédric Peyronnet | kdi dctb 146 [e]
[…] There is nothing fundamentally wrong with kdi dctb 146[e] whatsoever, it is in itself really quite beautiful, and Peyronnet’s intentions for his music probably bear no resemblance to my expectations, but I have to say that I would choose the carefully constructed drama and explosion of the LaCasa release over this one. Perhaps a decade ago, when quality portable digital recording was harder to come by, and this kind of CD didn’t seem to appear so often then I would be appreciating it far more. Perhaps these days we are just spoilt for choice.
Review | By Oliver Laing / Cyclic Defrost
Cédric Peyronnet | kdi dctb 146 [e]
This one-track environmental recording by sound artist Cédric Peyronnet (otherwise known as Toy.bizzare) documents a long running ‘sound mapping’ project. Somewhere in the vicinity of the town of Limoges in South-west France, the Taurion Valley carries on existing in reality, but now resides in Cédric Peyronnet’s extensive oeuvre of phonography, soundscapes and related environmental recordings. Further information about this project can be found here. […]
Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
Home very late tonight, midnight in fact after spending the evening eating a rather nice meal cooked by my better half. I have committed to writing a review every day for a little while though, so I will do just that. I spent the day listening at various times to Fire and Frost pattern, a CD by Andreas Bick released quite recently on the Gruenrekorder label. This is one of those CDs which I don’t get my hopes up too high for before listening, for probably quite irrational reasons. […]
Interview Bettina Wenzel | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
German vocal artist, composer and improviser sound artist Bettina Wenzel works in different fields like performances combining voice, video and objects. Furthermore vocal compositions only and as improviser and performer she has been through out Europe, USA, and India. On “Mumbai Diary”, her most recent audio work she has recorded a wide range of sounds that the city give: car engines, people talking and screaming, birds, religious chants, objects and of top of this Wenzel added her vocals works expressed by the different emotions she felt in relation with the sounds. A very deep work indeed. […]
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Various Artists | Playing with Words: an audio compilation
These works reveal how language and sound unfold different structures and shapes as narrative, songs, abstract dialogues, speeches, wide range of field recordings, music, poetry, etc.
The influence behind these works come from poetry, music, song, typography and graphic art, philosophy, radio, performance art, linguistics, fine art, literature and the variety sorts of communications we are all exposed in every day life. […]
Review | By Massimiliano Busti / BLOW UP.
Hein Schoer | Two Weeks in Alert Bay
L’etichetta tedesca Gruenrekorder ha un catalogo assai ricco, centrato soprattutto su sound art e fields recordings. A questo stesso contesto appartiene il lavoro di Hein Schoer, derivante da oltre trentacinque ore di registrazioni effettuate nella più occidentale delle regioni canadesi, la British Columbia. […]
Review | By Massimiliano Busti / BLOW UP.
[…] Just relying on the different backgrounds of the members of the group (punk rock, electronic experimentation, improvisation), the trio creates a personal and inspired music, well balanced between very suggestive environmental drones (Sinful Business of a Hideous Mind) and an electroacoustic dust that enhances the spatial attribute of sound (Fashion Is Jealous), always able to emit a subtle magnetic force that attracts with unexpected force.
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
[…] The CD consist in two pieces: “Fire Pattern” and “Frost Pattern” recorded in 2006 and 2007, respectively and is accompanied by a booklet with Bick’s descriptions of the sound sources which are warm phenomenons like natural sounds from volcanoes, geysers and man-made sounds that can be listen on “Singing Flames” (gas flames into a glass tubes produce a specific notes) and “Ignition of Burning Alcohol in a Bottle” (sound produce when it ignites the alcohol into a glass of water which is similar to the one volcanic eruptions and geysers make). […]
Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Craig Vear | Aud Ralph Roas’le
Craig Vear is an English field-recordist. He made Aud Ralph Roas’le (GRUENREKORDER Gr 075) while an artist in residence at the University of Hull, and his purpose was partially to test new recording equipment for the Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences. Woods, rivers and the seashore are those triumphs of nature’s marvel that command most attention from Vear’s mics, but the impressive weather systems also make unforgettable appearances on the record. […]
Gruenrekorder in HEAR THE WORLD magazine (issue 17)
Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
This is the work of German vocal artist, composer and improviser sound artist Bettina Wenzel which consists in nine pieces created while she was attending as an artist-in-residence in Mumbai, India in 2009. She has studied vocal techniques, contemporary dance and dancetherapy in Europe and has performed her vocal works in Europe, USA and South Asia. […]
Este es el trabajo de la artista vocal, compositora, improvisadora alemana, Bettina Wenzel que consiste en nueve piezas creadas durante su estadía como artista residente en Mumbai, India en 2009. Ella estudió técnicas vocales, danza contemporánea y danza terapéutica en Europa y se ha presentado en Estados Unidos, Europa y Asia. […]
Review | By innerversitysound / Cyclic Defrost
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern
Andreas Bick is a German composer and sound recording artist for radio, theatre, film and television. Fire and Frost Pattern is released as a stereo recorded CD or as a surround sound download. It was awarded the Phonurgia-Nova-Prize in 2008 and a mention at the 35th International Competition of Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Art in Bourges 2008.
Fire and Frost Pattern negotiates the ground between environmental sound recording art and composition. It is never at any time either explicitly and compositions of recordings are directed at questions such as: how do you record falling snow? How do you make flames sing? […]
Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
Petrolio also seem intent on telling fractured stories on their End Of Vision (GRUENREKORDER Gr 076), which is structured in three parts with chapter headings and titles; these are used to describe the dissonant avant-garde scrapes of the percussionist Luca Roba, the bass player Michele Spanghero, and the pianist Ugo Boscain. Their minimal non-jazz playing is supplemented with electronics, sampling, laptop work, the spasmodic grunts of a contrabass clarinet and some field recordings too. […]
Review | By Massimiliano Busti / BLOW UP.
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