Gruenrekorder » Gruenrekorder

Peu de musiciens du milieu ont atteint la maîtrise et l’équilibre que montre à chacune de ses (trop rares) publications Slavek Kwi alias Artificial Memory Trace. D’un trait de pensée, on arrive aux œuvres modèles de Francisco López ou de Cédric Peyronnet, sans que celles-ci se ressemblent pour autant, pas plus qu’à celle de Slavek Kwi. Comme thème un lieu ou encore un être, un groupe d’êtres, une activité, enfin quelque chose qui peut se donner pour image non sonore avant même de commencer d’en dévoiler le chant. […]

New Release:
Exclusive download edition

Sebastiane Hegarty: “Southerlies” (GrDl 118/12)
Field Recordings
8 Tracks (55′02″)
MP3/FLAC

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

In this release for Gruenrekorder, Rodolphe Alexis, a Parisian experimental sound artist and designer, accustomed to the manipulation of field recordings and meticulous editing, has created stereo sequences using parabolic quadraphonic microphones. These recordings were captured mainly in parks , forests and natural reserves in Costa Rica and surrounding Central American countries. They are sometimes left in their original state and sometimes processed. Besides being used for this album, other versions have been used to enrich multichannel sound installations or spatialized real time emissions. […]

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory

The Mekong river is among the longest in Asia. It starts in Tibet and runs through Thailand, China’s Yunnan province, Burma, Laos, Vietnam and finally Cambodia. Both in Lao and Thai languages the name Maè Nam Khong refers etymologically to the ancestral „mother“, the origin of every feeling and thing. Eva Pöpplein and Janko Hanushevsky undertook an adventurous pilgrimage along the river, developing field recordings before reworking the sounds in post-production. […]

Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural

The reasons why a sound-artist might specifically limit the locations where sound is captured are numerous. In this case Ernst Karel has chosen the many transport systems typical of a mountain as the subject of a meticulous investigation. Ski lifts, chair lifts and cable cars, chosen for their particular and varied characteristics (age of construction and design etc) have been carefully researched, with all locations limited to within Switzerland. […]

Review | By Héctor Cabrero / Le son du grisli

Enregistrer dans un abattoir de l’Alabama rurale, c’est l’idée qu’a eue David Michael. L’Amérique des rednecks comme si vous y étiez ? Pas aussi simple…
Il faut d’abord à Michael arriver jusqu’à l’abattoir. Sur le chemin des oiseaux sifflent, des insectes bourdonnent, on entend le trafic routier au loin, un transformateur, deux hommes qui parlent fort. Le micro de Michael ne lâchera plus sa proie : l’abatteur à l’ancienne, c’est-à-dire à la dure (qui confiera un peu plus loin, je traduis : « C’est pas un boulot pour les peureux ou les lâches. »). L’Amérique rurale au micro de l’Amérique… éclairée ? […]

Review | By Pierre Cécile / Le son du grisli

Russie, Mongolie, Chine, Corée du Sud et Japon : voilà où nous emmène ce TransMongolian, une oeuvre de field recordings que l’Allemand Roland Etzin a écrite pour la manifestation « Via Mongolia » en 2010. Dans l’ordre des pays cités, la musique du réel recompose le voyage au point de brouiller les cartes. En effet : le réseau ferroviaire russe sort-il vraiment du grand hangar dans lequel, au début du CD, résonnent des voix et de la ferraille ? Qu’importe ! En train, en marche, en route ! […]

Review | By Wonderful Wooden Reasons
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

Gruenrekorder have been kindly passing their wonderful array of field recordings my way for a little while now. They have for the most part been exceptional. This one continues that run with a set recorded in the national parks, wildlife refuges and private reserves of Costa Rica. The recordings are, and I quote the sleeve here, ‘a series of ‘sequence shots’ where the quadraphonic microphone setup records all that passes by’. The soundworld captured is one of dizzying complexity and exotic mystery. […]

framework radio | #398
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity presented by patrick mcginley
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems

Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon | les écoutis le caire

Review | By maeror3 / livejournal

Roland Etzin | TransMongolian
Все-таки некоторые «экспириенсы» лучше доверить другим людям. Лично я, стоит мне только оказаться в поезде дальнего следования, начинаю грезить о романтичной профессии проводника – правда, уже спустя сутки я дико жалею, что оказался на этих жестких полках возле металлического стола на одной ножке, на котором дребезжат вечные стаканы в подстаканниках. […]

Review | By Cheryl Tipp / The Field Reporter

Roland Etzin | TransMongolian
Roland Etzin’s ‘TransMongolian’ is a series of acoustic portraits recorded during a three month journey across Russia, China, Mongolia, South Korea and Japan. Given the sheer distance covered by Etzin during the summer-autumn of 2010 and his encounters with such a diverse range of cultures and associated ways of life, I imagine he would have ended his travels with a recorder brimming with field recordings. For ‘TransMongolian’ however, Etzin decided to bring together just six recordings that, to his ear, represented the countries through which he had travelled and, most importantly, listened to. […]

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop

Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, David Michael is a sound recordist who works in the fields of biology and technology.
In 2005, he earned a Master in evolutionary and adaptive systems from the University of Sussex, and later began working with simulated bioacoustics and field recordings.
Outside of Alabama, about an hour from Birmingham there is a slaughterhouse. It is a family business where the meat is processed on a small scale, one animal at a time. They are custom jobs. A man and his son managed the place. […]

KLANG – DAS ETHNOLOGSICHE ECHO | 28.November.2012, 7 PM – 10 PM
The Sounding Museum: Listening to Culture
Speaker | Hein Schoer (Fontys School of the Arts | Maastricht University

Gruenrekorder @ Vernissage Labor Opelvillen
Claudia Wolf – Roland Etzin | „Ein anderer Weg“ – „TransMongolian“
Sunday 2.December.2012, 5 PM, Stiftung Opelvillen, Zentrum für Kunst
Ludwig-Dörfler-Allee 9, 65428 Rüsselsheim

Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear

Why do so many albums of field recordings come attached to books of writing about their creation? What is it about this area of music that seems to attract long texts to accompany the audio? Perhaps the current trend for aligning field recording with the pointless descriptor “sound art” leads to such developments. In my experience however, the more lavish the book, the longer the texts, the less interesting the music seems to be. However one release I have been playing quite a bit over the past few weeks on the Gruenrekorder label seems to defy such a rule. Angus Carlyle and Rupert Cox’s new collection of recordings from rural Japan, entitled Air Pressure comes with a sixty-two page booklet of notes, blogpost transcriptions and photographs on the recordings. […]

Review | By Martin P / Musique Machine
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence

Pietro Riparbelli spent three days recording in the remote Sanctuary of La Verna, a monastery on a mountaintop in Tuscany. With a simple mic and field recorder set-up, he documented the sounds of the Sanctuary, inside and out; as well as the life that goes on within its boundaries. He took these sounds and constructed the six tracks found on this album – whilst also making the original recordings available from the label website. These original recordings are often beautiful, which does lead to the obvious question: why not leave them to stand as they are? […]

Gruenrekorder @ Mobile Radio BSP – live from the 30th São Paulo Bienal

Fr, 30. November, 9 PM – Sa, 1. December, 11 AM

Mobile Radio BSP is a temporary radio art station transmitting 24 hours a day from the 3rd Sept – 9th Dec 2012 at the 30th São Paulo Bienal (read more).

Review | By maeror3 / livejournal

www.quietmusicensemble.com
www.theguesthouse.ie
www.gruenrekorder.de

Нужно обратиться к Истории, чтобы понять задачи, поставленные перед авторами «Air Pressure», Ангусом Карлайлом и Рупертом Коксом. История эта произошла в Японии, но, ее особенность такова, что случится она могла (и с большой вероятностью случалась не раз) в любой стране мира, мне даже сдается, что в нашей родной России ее бы и за Историю с большой буквы не приняли. […]

The Guesthouse presents :: SONIC VIGIL 7

Curated by Mick O’Shea and Danny McCarthy
In association with Quiet Music Ensemble and St. Anne’s Church

24 November 2012, 3pm – 9pm

St. Anne’s Church, Shandon, Cork | Admission €5

For the seventh year running, The Guesthouse presents SONIC VIGIL, a marathon of new and improvised music, sound art, live electronics, installations and more.
SONIC VIGIL is curated by Cork-based artists Danny McCarthy and Mick O’Shea, who are internationally renowned both for their visual work and their ground-breaking sonic explorations as duo the Quiet Club. Their invited guests include prominent solos and collectives from the Republic, including Harry Moore, Katie O’Looney, Karen Power, Jesse Ronneau, Tony Langlois, Paul Hegarty and Anthony Kelly plus Gruenrekorder artist Tobias Schmitt (Frankfurt).

The Vigil features Ireland’s unique Experimental Music group, Quiet Music Ensemble, which will be giving world premieres of 8 new pieces by up and coming composers from Ireland, Scotland and the USA: Andrea Bonino, Francis Heery, Alexander Hunter, Donal Mac Erlaine, Rachel Ni Chuinn, Robin Parmar, Conal Ryan, Charlie Sdraulig.

Hosting the Vigil this year is St. Anne’s Church, Shandon, which is renowned as home of the ‘Shandon Bells’, the trademark sound of the city. The Vigil includes a brand new piece for the bells by composer/improviser David Stalling.

Cork City has one of Europe’s hottest improvisation scenes, and the Sonic Vigil is the climax of the year’s events. This is an event of extraordinary sounds, incredible diversity and cutting-edge creativity. There’s nothing else like it in Ireland!

Quiet Music Ensemble appears courtesy of funding from the Arts Council of Ireland. Tobias Schmitt is funded by the Goethe Institute.

Phonophon | 22 November 2012 | 8:30 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* Franck VIGROUX (F)

www.franckvigroux.com

* Martin Fuhs (D)

www.martinfuhs.com

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

Ephemeral Sustainability Conference / Pictures
A conference about presenting, documenting, collecting and archiving sound based contemporary art. Lectures and panel talks with leading conveyers, artists, curators and thinkers within the field.

Gruenrekorder @ Field Recording by Alexandre Galand
L’usage sonore du monde en 100 albums
ISBN : 978-2-36054-070-9 | 312 pages

Gruenrekorder @ shut up and listen! 2012
Interdisciplinary Festival for Music and Sound Art

Far Out – Listening Room | Nov. 30th – Dec 1st, 2012

Works by: Andreas Bick (D), Mark Lorenz Kysela (D), Danny Mc Carthy (IR) und Craig Vear (GB)

Review | By Jack Chuter / ATTN:Magazine

Farmland and airport collide in a record that delves into political conflict and sound’s psychological effects.

While it’s been 32 years since the Japanese government played their “checkmate” in a 12-year struggle against the farmers of Sanrizuka and Toho – conquering countless protests and demonstrations to open a new airport over a large portion of their farming land – the tension and opposition between the two sides has continued to exist in the resultant soundscape. Air Pressure comprises entirely of two sessions of recordings from the farms in question (once during harvest 2010 and then during the sowing season of 2011). […]

Review | By Eric Serva / radio france

Roland Etzin | TransMongolian
„Roland Etzin est un artiste allemand qui, comme de nombreux musiciens, écrivains, poètes, cinéastes et grands voyageurs devant l’Éternel se sont embarqués sur le légendaire Transibérien. Plus précisément, en ce qui concerne Roland Etzin, sur le Transmongolien. Car si le Transibérien, qui traverse l’ancien union soviétique de Moscou à Vladivostock, est un train de légende, deux autres lignes ferronnières empruntent une partie son parcours mais bifurquent après le lac Baïkal pour rejoindre Pékin, l’une traverse la Manchourie (Le Transmanchourien), l’autre la Mongolie. […]

Gruenrekorder @ Arterritory.com
Arterritory.com is an art and culture website in Latvian, Russian, and English, which focuses on Baltic, Scandinavian, and Russian art and its manifestations elsewhere in the world.

Gruenrekorder @ textura / TEN FAVOURITE LABELS 2012
Every November since 2005, textura has selected ten labels whose output dazzled us during the year. And every time out, we’ve opted to select ten new labels rather than choose one or more that have already been so honoured. This year, however, we decided to wipe the slate clean and once again open up the playing field to all contenders. To that end, we posed a simple question as a way of making the selections: „Which labels‘ material excited us most during 2012?“ Naturally, there are many labels in addition to the ten below whose releases had that effect on us, but these ten sprang to mind right away:

GIZEH • GRUENREKORDER • HUBRO • INFINE • INNOVA • KITCHEN. • KRANKY • MACRO • NEW AMSTERDAM RECORDS • SCHOLE

Review | By textura

Air Pressure, a collaboration between anthropologist Rupert Cox and sound artist Angus Carlyle, is as much a book- as sound-based project, given the elaborate textual dimension that accompanies the CD (the project has also been publicly presented as a gallery-installed sound installation and film). Replete with photos, conversation excerpts, blog extracts, and in-depth track details, the booklet is a full-fledged project unto itself that holds up as a stand-alone sans the sound component. The release as a whole testifies to the integrity Gruenrekorder demonstrates in treating its projects with so much attention and care. […]

Review | By textura

[…] By comparison, Roland Etzin’s TransMongolian is rather straightforward in its presentation of six acoustic portraits of Russia, Mongolia, China, South Korea, and Japan. Little textual detail accompanies the release, making it one to experience almost solely on sonic grounds alone. Also issued as part of Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series, the fifty-three-minute release, which originally was broadcast on Deutschlandradio Kultur in March of 2012, comes with a lovely little booklet that displays illustrative renderings of landscapes by Katrin Hoedemacker. Etzin, an audio artist and Gruenrekorder co-founder, collected unprocessed field recordings for the project as he made his way through Russia, along Lake Baikal, through Mongolia, China, and South Korea to Japan. […]

Review | By textura

Let’s be honest: it was only a matter of time before a field recordings-based set materialized based on what goes on inside a slaughterhouse. To his credit, Tarrytown, New York-based David Michael adopts a documentarian’s MO and resists exploiting the material in any overly macabre manner. And certainly there’s no reason why a field recordings release must always be something on the order of species‘ sounds captured along the Amazon River or from deep within a South American forest. Having said that, The Slaughterhouse’s material in its presented form can’t help but disturb, given the subject matter involved. […]

Westentaschenlabor #3 | 27 October 2012 | 3:30 PM

Circuitnoise – soundcloud.com/circuitnoise

Autumn Appreciation Society – label.acrylnimbus.de/album/octember

Position: googel/maps
Event: facebook.com/events

Interview with Heike Vester / By Beat Hebeisen | YouTube
Heike Vester | Marine Mammals and Fish of Lofoten and Vesterålen

Review | By Jack Chuter / ATTN:Magazine

www.heartchamberorchestra.org

I’ve not been to any of the places that feature on Roland Etzin’s TransMongolian. Nonetheless, hearing or reading the words “China”, “Russia” or “Japan” instantly conjures a wealth of mental visual, derived largely from photographs and documentaries seen in magazines, on the Internet or on television – all of these amount to what I’d consider to be rather generic (perhaps stereotypical) depictions of these places, momentarily diluting China into swooping, intricate architecture and the tottering stone ribbon of The Great Wall. […]

Phonophon | 02 November 2012 | 8 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* Prszr (AT)

www.pure.test.at

www.youtube.com

* Guido Braun (D)

www.facebook.com

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

The Field Reporter Radio #13 | By Alan Smithee

Review | By Tina Manske / CULTurMAG
Various Artists | SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE – Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012
Ein Hörstück von Inke Arns und Dieter Daniels widmet sich dem bekanntesten Werk von John Cage – seinem silent piece „4‘33‘‘“, einer Komposition in drei Sätzen mit kompletter Stille. Es feiert in diesem Jahr ebenfalls einen runden Geburtstag. Bei der Uraufführung im August 1952 markierte der Pianist David Tudor die Anfänge und Endpunkte der Sätze mit dem Anheben und Schließen die Klavierdeckels. Seitdem haben unzählige Musiker und Orchester ihre eigene Interpretation des Stückes vorgelegt. Aber Cage war nicht der erste, der sich mit Stille als Sound beschäftigte. […]

Review | By maeror3 / livejournal
Various Artists | SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE – Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012
Если «Черный квадрат» Малевича можно назвать абсолютной границей живописи в частности и всего современного искусства в целом, за которой ничего нет, кроме пустоты и дзена, то пьеса «4’33’’» Джона Кейджа выполняет подобную роль в музыке, открывая новые возможности восприятия и подводя категорический итог всему тому, что было до этого. […]

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop

Slavek Kwi is a sound artist, composer and researcher whose main focus is on the phenomenon of perception as a determinant of the relationship with reality. „Ultrealith“ explores the sounds that exist on the periphery of human perception, such as underwater recordings (eg, fish songs, crustaceans, etc.), ultrasound (sonar of bats, dolphins and insects), electromagnetic signals among others. These recordings are from the Amazonian rainforest, Africa, Canadian Newfoundland, northern Australia and in various parts of Europe. […]

Review | By Zipo / aufabwegen

Various Artists | Playing with Words: an audio compilation

Stimme ist momentan das große Thema. Von James Blake bis hin zu den Untiefen der Avantgarde stellt man sich die Frage, wie der Zentralperspektive der Popularmusik mit Kniffen und Tricks zu Leibe gerückt werden kann. Die von Cathy Lane herausgegebene Doppel-CD (die eine Art Gegenstück zu einem Buch von Lane formt) befasst sich mit der künstlerischen Forschung zum Thema Stimme, mit jenen Acts und Projekten, die Sound Poetry, Stimm-Manipulation und ähnliches als Hauptaufgabe bewältigen. […]

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY

[…] The first time I arrived in Japan, I flew into Narita airport and looking out of the window of the airplane, I thought about hills, farms and how it perhaps would look a bit like Austria. I may not have realized there might be people living there, but I guess you never do when you arrive after a 11 hour journey. Below there at Narita Airport is the farm of the family Shimamura and that’s part of the extensive project ‘Air Pressure’ of which this CD and very extended booklet with stories about a farm below the runway of Narita airport. […]

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY

[…] On ‘TransMongolian’ we follow the journey of Etzin through Russia, China, Lake Baikal, Mongolia, South Korea and Japan. He was accompanied by Katrin Hoedemacker who did the drawings in the booklet. As the title suggest, all of these pieces seem to be dealing with the sound of transport, the means thereof. Trains mostly, but also a boat in Lake Baikal. Long pieces here, always around seven to twelve minutes of what seems to me a single sound event lifted from the journey, and also quite an abstract one. […]

Interview with David Michael / By Chris Whitehead | The Field Reporter

‘The slaughter house’ is a controversial phonographic release composed by sound artist David Michael and published by german label Gruenrekorder. On this work the artist captured sounds on a slaughterhouse in Alabama which on an initial sight could be a rather difficult subject to address in terms of the ethical and moral aspects involved. Intrigued by this release, our editor Chris Whitehead interviewed the artist about this work and here we have the answers. [Read more]

Review | By Tina Manske / CULTurMAG

Vogelzwitschern und Bolzenschuss
(TM) Diese Feldaufnahmen gehören zu denjenigen, die ich, ein bekennender Fan von Feldaufnahmen, mir nicht anhören kann. Denn zu hören ist genau das, was der Titel ‘verspricht’: ein Tag im Schlachthof. Allerdings nicht in einem der berüchtigten industriellen Großkomplexe, sondern in einem idyllisch gelegenen, familiär betriebenen Hof in Alabama. David Michael hat dort einen Tag verbracht und rigoros hingehört – vom friedlichen Vogelzwitschern am Morgen bis hin zum Rindertod durch Bolzenschuss, dem Abziehen der Haut, dem Abschneiden der Vorderläufe etc. pp. ist alles dabei. […]

Review | By Idwal Fisher / IDWAL FISHER
Various Artists | SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE – Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012

‘Sounds Like Silence’ is a straight lift from a radio program broadcast via Deutschlandradio Kultur on the 24th of August this year. In case you were unaware 2012 sees the hundredth anniversary of John Cage’s birth and there’s been various performances, exhibitions and radio programs to help celebrate this fact [I spent last Saturday night catching up with the various Radio 3 broadcasts devoted to Cage and enjoyed pretty much all of it but discovered only after the fact that Nyoukis and Constance were part of the Proms tribute to the man – bugger]. […]

Review | By Idwal Fisher / IDWAL FISHER

[…] My only regret [and I think I’ve voiced this before with Gruenrekorder releases] is that I don’t have the reproduction equipment to match the quality of these recordings. These are some of the most vibrant, exotic and delightful sounds I’ve come across in many a year. I sincerely hope that one day I come across one of Kwi’s installations. I shall walk and listen in open wonder at his fine achievements.

Review | By Idwal Fisher / IDWAL FISHER

Those of you expecting to be traumatized by David Michael’s ‘The Slaughter House’ will be relieved to hear that this was and never will be PETA fodder or a campaigning hammer for animal activists. Mainly because for the most part, this is two people going about their job as hired slaughtermen, in a very matter of fact way, with very little in the way of histrionics or uneasiness. […]

Review | By maeror3 / livejournal

«Ultrealith» – сборник композиций, подготовленные для различных инсталляций, а также сольные работы «Artificial Memory Trace», созданные практически на «подножном» материале, который каждый из нас может найти, увидеть и услышать в любой момент, но вот почему-то масса этих звуков так и остается незамеченной, пока внимание на них не обратят такие исследователи, как Славек Кви. […]

Review | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside

In this case, the recordings (as near as I can tell–I could be wrong) are untreated. They’re not travelog-ish, no train engines or whooshing winds, more moments that happened along and/or were chosen afterwards by Etzin (though the one from Lake Baikal is…watery). So you’re more than usually cognizant of the choice factor: why this and not that. And, by and large, Etzin’s choices are reasonably engaging, often obscurely sourced, bearing textures that are sharply drawn, the sonic equivalent of a silver gel print form the Adams (Ansel) school). […]

Review | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside

Quite recently, I was having a conversation with a musician of some renown. We were discussing field recordings, the plethora thereof, many of which find there way to my abode. “If I were running things”, he said, “there would be certain sounds you’d simply not be allowed to use: water, birds, traffic sounds, church bells, airplane engines, wind. I’d make it really, really hard to be able to construct a good recording from the field.” I couldn’t help but take his point. […]

Review | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside
Various Artists | SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE – Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012

A quite crowded and noisy compilation of many performances of 4’33″.

It’s an odd melange, incorporating many announcements (from the radio, for the most part, I think), in German and English, about the piece. The first of the six tracks, indeed, consists of virtually nothing but these announcements, including contributions from Cage himself (once between 103rd and 104th Sts. at 3rd Avenue, an intersection I know pretty well) and a sarcastic news reporter at Harvard Square. […]

Gruenrekorder @ Ephemeral Sustainability
31. October – 03. November 2012 | Bergen/Norway
A conference about presenting, documenting, collecting and archiving sound art.
With Christina Kubisch, David Toop, Christoph Cox, etc…

www.oestre.no

New Release:

Angus Carlyle & Rupert Cox: “AIR PRESSURE” (Gruen 094/12)
Field Recordings
10 Tracks (61′55″)
CD (+Book) (1000 copies)

New Release:

Roland Etzin: “TransMongolian” (Gruen 103/12)
Field Recordings
6 Tracks (52′54″)
CD (500 copies)

Review | By Jack Chuter / ATTN:Magazine

Ross Adams – The Compass Series | Nord Rute

The Slaughterhouse isn’t the tirade of rattling cages and screaming animals that I anticipated it to be. Of course, David Michael could have chosen to have focused solely on the gorier, more blatantly harrowing processes that occur in a working slaughterhouse (admittedly, I came into the work expecting an hour of torturous machinery and severed flesh), but his decision to patiently document the happenings of an entire day arguably renders the experience even more disturbing. […]

Review | By Dave X / Musique Machine

Well-respected field recording and sound art publisher Gruenrekorder adds another fine release to their already-essential Compass Series catalog with sound recordist and designer Ross Adams – „Nord Rute“.
Combining interviews with Sámi herding families in Northern Norway with field recordings and music, Adams creates a mesmerizing portrait of the Sámi people, their land, and oral history. Particularly fascinating are poet Ánde Somby’s haunting reflections on Sámi mythology, reminding the listener of the harsh natural environment that had a hand in fashioning such ideas. Perhaps best about „Nord Rute“ is the total absorption and realization of field recordings as a musical form, […]

Phonophon | 29 September 2012 | 8 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* CONTAGIOUS ORGASM (JP)

full discography:
www.discogs.com/artist/contagious+orgasm

contagious orgasm websites:
www.myspace.com/contagiousorgasm06
www.geocities.jp/coolanatomy
www.facebook.com/pages/contagious-orgasm/108077802553390

* Tzii (F)

www.tzii.tk

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

Review | By Jochen Meißner / FUNKKORRESPONDENZ

Various Artists | SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE – Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012

Subversiv, kritisch und aufregend
Dieser Tage jähren sich gleich drei Jubiläen: der 100. Geburtstag von John Cage am 5. September, sein 20. Todestag am 12. August und der 60. Jahrestag der Uraufführung seiner berühmtesten Komposition: der dreisätzigen Generalpause „4’33““, die am 29. August 1952 ihre Premiere hatte. Mit ihrem Feature „Sounds like Silence“ haben die Kuratorin Inke Arns und der Medientheoretiker und Kunsthistoriker Dieter Daniels die von ihnen konzipierte gleichnamige Ausstellung im Hartware MedienKunstVerein Dortmund (HMKV) eröffnet. Wohl auch deshalb ist ihre Sendung Stück in insgesamt sechs „Räume“ unterteilt. […]

Lasse-Marc Riek / Gruenrekorder @ MOOZAK FESTIVAL

September 21st/22nd, 2012 – Media Opera (AT)

Live audio stream (128 kbps MP3, 8pm-4am):

Campusradio St. Pölten 94.4 Livestream

www.moozak.org

Lasse-Marc Riek | Helgoland @ The Wire Tapper 30
CD out on Gruenrekorder in November 2012

Phonophon | 22 September 2012 | 8 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* JIKUUUUUUUUUUU時空 (JP)
mariajiku.info

* Thomas Tilly (F)
thomas.tilly.free.fr

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

Review | By Russell Cuzner / Musique Machine
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems

Well, as the saying goes, you wait around for ages for public transport field recordings and three turn up at the same time: first there was the Psychogeographical Commission’s “Widdershins”, a disorientating trip on the Glasgow Subway system, followed a few months later by Chris Watson’s glorious “El Tren Fantasma”, providing compressed sonic highlights of a Mexican railway journey, and now Chicago-based composer Ernst Karel brings us a generous selection of sounds from Switzerland’s mountainous vehicles. […]

Review | By Chris Whitehead / The Field Reporter

Let’s deconstruct a rainforest and rebuild it as a sound object. Let’s walk into it, experience it and find a point where fragments of the modern world bleed in.
A bell-like tone repeats and tethers ‘Meadow’, the first track of Slavek Kwi’s ‘Ultrealith’ CD, firmly to the substrata of field-recording based composition. Gentle flutters or sudden bursts of unidentified noise invade the space, but natural sounds also drift in and remain in the background in various configurations, often before vanishing back forever into the ether. […]

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY

[…] Now a CD by Slawek Kwi’s Artificial Memory Trace you can always stick on as a piece of music. Build from field recordings but always ‘treated’ in some way. If I understand correctly, this new CD’s main work are the five parts of the title piece, lasting forty-four minutes. Its bookended with two pieces before that and one after that, making a total of almost eighty minutes. The title piece was originally a four channel composition, mixed down to stereo. Lots of field recordings and as is usual with releases by Artificial Memory Trace, its all detailed on the cover. […]

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY

Soundwalking | By Hildegard Westerkamp

‘The Slaughterhouse’ is not the name of gruesome venue for harsh noise festivals, but, in fact, a slaughterhouse, in rural Alabama, just outside of Birmingham. Its run by a man and his son, processing meat of one animal at a time. David Micheal went there one day to record the day’s proceedings, and this is what is documented on ‘The Slaughterhouse’. From the early morning outside waiting, the actual shot, skin separation, cutting off various body parts of the buffalo and all such like, until the next animal comes in and gets shot. […]

New Release:

Slavek Kwi (Artificial Memory Trace): “Ultrealith” (Gruen 110/12)
Soundscapes
8 Tracks (77′58″)
CD (500 copies)

New Release:

David Michael: “The Slaughterhouse” (Gruen 104/12)
Field Recordings
12 Tracks (58′15″)

CD (500 copies)

Listen to Your City–Listening To Art :
A Tower Full of Sounds Etc.
@ Knippelsbro and around
Copenhagen Art Festival & Wundergrund Festival, Denmark
24.8.– 4.11.2012
dedicated to John Cage (1912–1992)

www.gw.tonspur.at

With Tyler Adams, Sam Ashley, Uwe Bressnik, John Cage, Angélica Castelló, Teun de Lange, Diether de la Motte, Matthias Deumlich, Franz Graf, Peter Graham, Sabine Groschup, Gary Hill, Robert Jacobsen, Hilary Jeffery, Jacob Kirkegaard, Christoph Korn/Lasse-Marc Riek, Daisuke Kosugi, Via Lewandowsky, Benoît Maubrey, Gordon Monahan, Ben Patterson, Lee Ranaldo, Reiner Ruthenbeck (with Henning Christiansen), Tomas Schmit, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Timm Ulrichs, Maurice van Tellingen, Kris Vleeschouwer, Gerlinde Wurth; curated by Georg Weckwerth.

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY

Various Artists | SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE – Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012

[…] ‚Sounds Like Silence‘ is the first of these tributes and is dedicated to perhaps Cage’s most (in-)famous piece ‚4’33‘. Do I need to explain what that is about? I should hope not, even when there are a couple of interesting points to be made about it. I’d like to refer to Kyle Gann’s excellent book on this piece ‚No Such Thing As Silence‘. On this CD ‚Sounds Like Silence‘ we have a whole bunch of pieces that deal with the notion of silence, and was broadcasted as a radio program. Its also an exhibition and a book (hopefully one to review!) and on the CD we find pieces that deal with silence, mainly from previous releases. […]

New Release:

V.A.: “SOUNDS LIKE SILENCE – Cage/4’33″/Stille – 1912–1952–2012” (Gruen 116/12)
Sound Art
6 Tracks (48′50″)
CD (500 copies)

Sounds Like Silence | Opening
Dortmunder U | 6. Etage | 08/24/2012, 20:30 h

Gruenrekorder soundwalk | Frankfurt am Main – 23 August 2012
Thanks to all participants from „art kaleidoscope„.

Autumn Leaves | Sound and Environment in Artistic Practice

Roland Etzin | TransMongolian @ The Wire Tapper 29
CD out on Gruenrekorder in October 2012

Review | By Stephen Fruitman / Avant Music News
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory
The Mekong is one of the world´s mighty rivers, 4,000 km long, descending more than five thousand meters as it passes through seven Southeast Asian countries. Unfortunately, it has been historically burdened with memories of an ugly war. “Mekong Morning Glory” is a heart of lightness to counterbalance the dark impression left in equal measure by that war and by Francis Ford Coppola´s “Apocalypse Now”. German husband and wife soundscapers Janko Hanushevsky and Eva Pöpplein travelled through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, waving a microphone in the air to capture sound from the river and its banks. […]

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / LOOP
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

Rodolphe Alexis in a sound recordist, sound artist and designer form France who lives and works in Paris. His work is based on field recording, electroacoustic composition, radio pieces and site-specific installations or performances. In 2003, along with Valérie Vivancos formed OttoannA with several sound works and performances in different parts of Europe. Their debut album ‚l’Arlesienne!‘ comprises 7 years of works. Alexis spent two months in the protected areas of Costa Rica making multichannel field recordings in different forest ecosystems of Central America. […]

Review | By Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector

Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes

[…] Eisuke Yanagisawa (film-maker, researcher and field recordist) has used one to make the record Ultrasonic Scapes (GRUENREKORDER Gr081). He started off with bats right enough, but soon applied it to cicadas, and thence to all sorts of electrical devices found in the street – including automatic gates, street lights, TV sets…in fine, just about anything that emits ultrasonic frequencies. Some of these sounds he blurts back at us are really intense and surprising, like particularly harsh forms of digital noise music, and even when not so intense they have a very compelling presence. […]

Review | By Scott W / Musique Machine

Harald Guenter Kainer | adolar

Adolar, an album-length audio component of the ‘Luftblicke’ in October 2011 in Graz (Austria), marks the entrance of Austrian Harald Guenter Kainer onto the contemporary academic drone scene. Structured around data specifying distances between Earth and various stars, Adolar is an experiment in contrasting sonic representations of distance. At the exhibition, loops of varying length colluded in various combinations to assist the listener’s attention toward contemplation of these vast spans of emptiness which lie between heavenly bodies. […]

Field Notes #3: Traces | August 2012

Articles:
1. Tom Lawrence:

The Waterbeetles of Pollardstown Fen
2. Scott Sherk:

Phonography: Art or Documentation?
3. Jim Cummings:

My Ears will Never be the Same
4. Marcus Kürten et al.:

‘Something Which Lasts Passes By’ – A Collection of Hearing Memories
5. Hein Schoer:

The Sounding Museum – Between Art and Science: Cultural Soundscapes in Museum Pedagogy
6. Budhaditya Chattopadhyay:

Soundhunting in a City – Chronicles of an Urban Field Recording Expedition

Download

Review | By Jean Dezert / Les maîtres fous
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

La richesse sonore de la forêt tropicale a fasciné les artistes et les audio-naturalistes au point de susciter nombre d’enregistrements. Dans une histoire qui laisserait de côté les disques purement opportunistes, il faudrait citer les incontournables Sounds of a Tropical Rain Forest in America (édité en 1952 chez Folkways), Ambiances de Papouasie de Jean C. Roché (1993), Viva La Selva! de Natasha Barrett (1999), La Selva de Francisco López (1999) ou encore les Rainforest Soundwalks de Steven Feld (2002). A cette liste non exhaustive où se côtoient compositions à la limite de l’abstraction et restitutions d’ambiances, on peut désormais ajouter le tout récent Sempervirent du Français Rodolphe Alexis, paru chez Gruenrekorder. […]

Review | By textura
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

Born in France in 1975, Rodolphe Alexis brings a pronounced environmental focus to his work, specifically with respect to how the environment is affected by human activity. He’s a man of many projects: not only does his own work encompass field recordings, electro-acoustic composition, radio pieces, and site-specific installations, he’s also one-half of OttoannA, a sound performance duo with Valérie Vivancos (whose debut album is set for imminent release), and a co-founder (with Vivancos) of Double-Entendre, a non-profit organization that has to date published the work of forty-two international sound artists. […]

The Wire On Air | Adventures In Sound And Music 5 July 2012
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

Listen to ‚Adventures In Sound And Music 5 July 2012‘ (Stream)

Review | By maeror3 / livejournal
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

Конечно, этот альбом – не музыкальное произведение, это фиксация звуков окружающего нас мира, призванная, в данном случае, показать нам неописуемое количество форм жизни, населяющих территорию Коста-Рики, и, в то же время, привлечь наше внимание к проблемам вырубки тропических лесов, завоеванию человеком места у природы, в результате чего гибнут многие виды растений, животных и насекомых. […]

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop

Ross Adams – The Compass Series | Nord Rute

‚Nord Rute‘ has as a central isue the Sámi indigenous people who live in Lapland, a region stretching across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula, northwest Russia. In the Compass Series production for The Soundscape Series by Gruenrekorder collaborate sound artist Ross Adams alongwith composer of electronic music Ed Handley, Sámi poets Synnøve Persen and Ande Somby with Joiking and drums by Ingor Antte Ailu Gaup. ‚Nord Rute‘ is one of the four sound environments projects based on literary works, drawings and soundscapes of Sámi multi-instrumentalist Nils Aslak Valkeapää. […]

Review | By Ron Schepper / textura

Peter Caeldries | Jhirna Jali

Some sound artists use field recordings as raw material in the service of some further musical concept, whereas others approach the field recordings genre with a more documentary-like mindset, believing that the material should be left in its purest, unadulterated form. Jhirna Jali, a collection of field recordings gathered from the Northern India jungles, suggests that Peter Caeldries is a member of the latter group. The Brussels, Belgium-based sound artist brings his background in anthropology and sound engineering training, among other areas of interest, to this hour-long collection, which he recorded during a field trip to the Corbett Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand, Garhwal and Nainital Districts, Northern India during the spring of 2009. […]

Der Garten ruft! / The Garden is Calling! – Open Call Datscha-Radio

A garden is more than a metaphor: Bridging architecture to nature, it is a living space for visions and encounters, for work and leisure. The garden has been a companion to mankind in all cultures since the beginning of civilization. With the onslaught of technologies of daily life, the topic of gardening has continually gained attention in terms of aesthetics, history and ecology. The true potential of the garden, though, lies within its rich multitudes. A garden is not just one place, it is many places; not just one system, but many systems. To create a garden for listening and international cooperation which appeals to all of the senses – this is the aim of Datscha-Radio. For 7 days, 24 hours, from 24th to 31st of August, we will be broadcasting directly from a typical Berlin garden patch. Rain or shine!

Deadline: Please submit until the 10th of August 2012
www.datscharadio.de

Review | By Leandro Pisano / Blow Up
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
Il lavoro condotto da qualche anno dal filosofo e sound artist Pietro Riparbelli, rivela una serie di elementi particolarmente significativi nell’indagine dei fenomeni della percezione spaziale e della dicotomia tra visibile ed invisibile all’interno del paesaggio sonoro. E‘ una ricerca che, passata attraverso una serie di lavori concettualmente molto forti – come l’indagine condotta con una videocamera attraverso dei segnali ad onde corte di un manicomio e dell’opera di un suo paziente – si arricchisce di ulteriori elementi nell’album in oggetto. […]

Review | By Héctor Cabrero / Le son du grisli
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

Au dos de la carte postale sonore, je lis le nom du pays d’où elle m’arrive, le Costa Rica, et le nom de son expéditeur, Rodolphe Alexis. Lui a passé deux mois là-bas à enregistrer et photographier la faune et la flore (à chaque bruit de Sempervirent, le livret permet d’associer une forme et un nom). Moi qui ignore tout de la nature qui m’entoure, me voici plongé dans celle qui vit à plusieurs milliers de kilomètres (le site de Gruenrekorder en offre en aperçu en noms et en images, en plus d’extraits de l’enregistrement). […]

Review | By Dan Warburton / Paris Transatlantic Magazine
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

Listening to field recordings is like looking at someone else’s holiday photographs; they may be very pretty but they’ll never mean as much to you as they do to the person who took them. If acoustic ecology is your thing, though, you’ll probably like these dispatches from the dry, wet and evergreen forests of Costa Rica. Personally, while in the past I’ve enjoyed hydrophone recordings of beasties lurking under Antarctic icebergs and bugs bubbling in Irish bogs, I wonder what grunting, farting mantled howler monkeys (alouatta palliata, in case you’re interested – I’m not) and a tree full of peeping frogs are doing here in the middle of Paris. […]

Gruenrekorder @ hör!spiel!art.mix: Ferne I-IV / Bayern 2

Ferne I: Weltraum – Fr, 03.08.2012 / 21:03
Ferne II: Fremde – Fr, 10.08.2012 / 21:03
Ferne III: Vergangenheit – Fr, 17.08.2012 / 21:03
Ferne IV: Nähe – Fr, 24.08.2012 / 21:03

Review | By Darby Mullins / DARBY’S CHRONICS
Peter Caeldries | Jhirna Jali

A short time ago I discovered the Japanese concept mono-no-aware, expression that Takeshi Umehara had attempted to translate by : feeling of the affecting melancholic beauty of things or aesthetic melancholy in view of the things ¹. I was very touched by this idea, and this reading left me think about a lot of things but idea-sounds are never so far…. Listened field recordings with this idea it’s just fairly obvious. Moving space, winds and leafs noises, birds and bugs songs, dropes and waters games. […]

Review | By PvdG / PROGRESS REPORT

Heike Vester | Marine Mammals and Fish of Lofoten and Vesterålen
Lofoten is a remote group of islands located at Norway’s northern coast and besides of a lot of fish, they also seem to attract musicians and scientists to register impressions of nature. Remember Stapleton & Potter spending some time at the islands resulting in multiple hours of an enigmatic mixture of field recordings, manipulated sounds and other sonic debris, creating mental pictures of this tiny spot on the globe. Gruenrekorder’s take is somewhat different. […]

Review | By Stephen Fruitman / Igloo Magazine

Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka

One of the many things that made Claude Lanzmann’s nine-hour “Shoah” (1985), so memorable was the fact that for the first time in a documentary about the Holocaust, no historical footage was used to illustrate the gruesome tale. Instead, Lanzmann talked to victims, bystanders and perpetrators in their homes, places of business, or returned with them to the killing grounds in the present day. […]

Review | By Roger Batty / Musique Machine
Pacho Apostolo | Wallmapu

Have you ever been on one of those history rides?. You known the type that you find at historic places of interest such as Rome or York. You climb on board a open carriage to stand, or sit down in a leisurely rolla-coaster type car, then you go on a trip back in time via recreated smells, sounds & displays of posed dummies dressed up in costumes of the past .. well “Wallmapu” is sort of a sonic historic ride for the Mapuche nation- a group of indigenous inhabitants that have lived for a thousands years in south-central Chile and south-western Argentina. […]

Gruenrekorder @ The Global Composition

World Soundscape Conference 2012, Hochschule Darmstadt, July 25 – 28, 2012

Program: link | pdf

Registration: link

Eric Leonardson @ Phonophon

Solo Springboard performance for the Association for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music at the Institute for New Media. Recorded live on July 21, 2012 in Frankfurt, Germany.

Listen: www.soundcloud.com

www.ericleonardson.org

www.phonographie.org

Review | By Idwal Fisher / IDWAL FISHER

Various Artists | Autumn Leaves

[…] There’s a ten minute interview with Chris Watson and some amazing sounds from Finland where pebbles are thrown across a frozen lake. John Wynne’s track ‘Someone Else Has Died’ contains reminiscences of drug addicts matched to floating like synth sounds, a short work [an edit] that sounds remarkably similar in structure to the Delia Derbyshire/Barry Bermagne’s ‘Dream’ project for the BBC. Ethnography and field recordings sit comfortably over of aural entertainment and its all free. A perfect gateway to Gruenrekorder land. […]

Review | By Idwal Fisher / IDWAL FISHER
Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

[…] Cicadas are all over Rodolphe Alexis’s ‘Sempervirent’, at least they sound like cicadas. After spending what must have been two uncomfortable months with a quadraphonic parabolic recorder in the heart of the Costa Rican jungle Rodolphie returned to appear with 55 minutes worth here and an installation called ‘Dry, Wet, Evergreen’ which I think showed in France earlier this year. Consisting of a series of ‘sequence shots’, where Alexis edits his quad recordings down to stereo [and on track five mixes in some amphibian sounds with the aid of a hydrophone] Sempervirent proves to be an extraordinary listen. […]

framework radio | #382
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity presented by patrick mcginley
Jez riley French | Estonian Strings

Netlabels and democratization of the recording industry| By Patryk Galuszka
First Monday, Volume 17, Number 7 – 2 July 2012
This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

SoundFjord | Sunday 15 July 2012 | Performances (Special Event)

Softday and Gruenrekorder Label Showcase… Michael Trommer [AV]; Rodolphe Alexis, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Angus Carlyle + Lasse-Marc Riek; Softday (Sean Taylor and Mikael Fernström)

4-6pm (Film) | Cinema Space + 6-10pm (Performances) | F2 Hall | £7/5conc | Tkts

Tonight performance will be a jam-packed showcase of the length and breadth of Gruenrekorder’s musical spirit from artists that span the globe. Expect performances from Rodolphe Alexis, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Angus Carlyle and Lasse-Marc Riek. Joining them this evening will be Softday, the art-science collaboration of artist Sean Taylor and computer scientist Mikael Fernström. N.B. Events will start early and head on into the evening!

www.soundfjord.org

Phonophon | 21 July 2012 | 8 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* Eric Leonardson (US)
www.ericleonardson.org

* Belma Bešlić-Gál (AT) & Bernhard Gál (AT) & Goran Stevanovic (D)
www.belmabeslic.com
www.bernhardgal.com

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

Gruenrekorder @ Journal Frankfurt | Nr. 13 | 2012

Möglichst weit weg vom Mainstream: Das Frankfurter Label kümmert sich seit neun Jahren um Experimentelle Musik, Sound Art und Phonographie. […pdf]

Review | By Cheryl Tipp / The Field Reporter

Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

[…] As a lover of natural field recordings in their purest form, it’s just wonderful for me to see this publication added to Gruenrekorder’s growing catalogue. As with the recent Peter Caeldries offering, ‘Jhirna Jali’ (Gruenrekorder GrDI 107), ‘Sempervirent’ uses sound to celebrate some of our planet’s remaining “wild places”. Here the ever-invading presence of the 21st century can be left behind, giving us as listeners the opportunity to experience soundscapes that have been in existence long before the dawn of humankind.

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY

Rodolphe ALEXIS | Sempervirent

[…] Collections with field recordings like this, of countries I haven’t visited, are things I can hear with interest, but hardly think of as great music – and yes, perhaps that doesn’t make me another John Cage, assuming each sound is interesting. I am sure each sound is interesting, but even more interesting if you do something with it. With releases like this, I like to take those sounds and do something with that, perhaps try and create some nice music out of it. I can hear that its all well recorded, and perhaps from a biologist view interesting, but I am not a biologist either.

Review | By Emiliano Grigis / Sodapop
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
I lavori di Pietro Riparbelli/K11 mi hanno sempre colpito anche per le forti capacità evocative degli ambienti in cui vengono registrati i suoni poi elaborati nei dischi: dopo avere ascoltato registrazioni della cattedrale di Assisi, dell’abbazia di Telema e del parco dei mostri di Bomarzo, in questo Three Days Of Silence il luogo prescelto è stato il santuario della Verna, tra le colline della toscana. […]

Review | By Denis Boyer / FEARDROP
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory
Loin de nous d’abord, le fleuve Mekong, tel que l’ont réinventé Eva Pöpplein et Janko Hanushevsky du duo allemand Merzouga. L’album Mekong Morning Glory4 est, selon les propres termes des musiciens, une métamor- phose, celle des sons des lieux traversés, et celle d’un instrument de prédilection, la basse. L’un comme l’autre matériau sont tels « une argile », que les musiciens ont modelée. Il est donc tout à fait hors de question de rappor- ter des fragments du fleuve, des instantanés, mais bien de refaire le paysage en l’interpré- tant. […]

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop

Peter Caeldries | Jhirna Jali

Peter Caeldries is sound and recording artist who works out of Brussels, Belgium and focuses on field recordings, with an artistic, ecological and documental purposes. With a Master in sociology and anthropology also has a background in music production and sound engineering. ‘Jhirna Jali’ is a sound project that Peter Caeldries made during a trip to the Reserve Corbett Tigers, in the districts of Uttarakhand, Garhwal and Nainital, North India, between March and April 2009. […]

New Release:

Rodolphe ALEXIS: “Sempervirent” (Gruen 111/12)
Field Recordings
10 Tracks (55′20″)
CD (500 copies)

New Release:
Exclusive download edition

Ross Adams – The Compass Series: “Nord Rute” (GrDl 101/12)
Soundscapes
3 Tracks (64′41″)
MP3/FLAC

Phonophon | 15 June 2012 | 8 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* 3 Banditos (S / D)
www.reverbnation.com/jairrohmparkerwells

www.acrylnimbus.de

www.buc-precious.com

* CIRCUITNOISE (D)
www.circuitnoise.de

* LDX$40 (EU)

www.kunstscheisse.net/ldx40

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

Review | By -Flavien Gillié, translation by LAAG / The Field Reporter
Jez riley French | Estonian Strings
While in Estonia on a residency , Jez Riley French discovered an untouched space subject to the elements. He spent some time just listening and then putting up his home-made microphones close to wires, railways and anything with an industrial mark, left away to attrition and rust. His practice of field-recording takes on a less naturalist turn here. The fields explored are those of ritual industrial music and, synth-based experiments such as Coil’s ‘Time machines’ (one of Coil’s numerous side-projects) come to mind first. […]

Phantom Circuit | Phantom Circuit #57
Strange and Wonderful Sound Waves
Featuring a spooky live performance of radiophonic music by The Octopus Collective.

Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham | The Clearing

Review | By Tina Manske / CULTurMAG
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
Klosterleben, weltlich erfahrbar
(TM) Im Mai 2011 verbrachte der Soundkünstler Pietro Riparbelli drei Tage im Kloster von La Verna in der Toskana, gelegen auf einem Hügel, der sich ‘Berg der Stigmata’ nennt (der heilige Franz von Assisi soll hier seine Stigmata erhalten haben). Mit seinem Mikrofon machte Riparbelli Feldaufnahmen des Klosterlebens und der es umgebenden Natur. “Three Days Of Silence” ist, wie Riparbelli selbst sagt, eine “phänomenologische Hörerfahrung”. […]

KUSF IN EXILE / San Francisco Community Radio Archives
05.16.12 / 9-Midnight / Mein 20th Century / DJ Scott Hewicker

Various Artists | Somewhere on the edge

Mein Twentieth Century explores the far corners of composed sound from its early classical history to its modern experimental antecedents. Antique music, Serialism, Musique Concrete, Early Electronics, Minimalism, Sound Art, New Music, Drone, Independent as well as Non-Western and Outsider sensibilities are brought together in an enriching audio experience.

Deutschlandradio Kultur
Slouch Hat Comeback 1
Sam Auinger/Bruce Odland, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Peter Cusack, Chantal Dumas, Stella Luncke/Josef Maria Schäfers, Hannes Strobl
HÖRSPIEL UND FEATURE: KLANGKUNST | 18.05.2012 | 00:05

Deutschlandradio Kultur
Kurzstrecke 2 / Terra Subfónica | By Daniel Blinkhorn
HÖRSPIEL UND FEATURE: KLANGKUNST | 28.05.2012 | 00:05

Review | By Héctor Cabrero / Le son du grisli
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
J’ai eu la chance de passer quelques heures au sanctuaire de la Verna, en Toscane. Les nuages étaient noirs et semblaient contenus par la forêt et la roche qui donnent son caractère au lieu. Pietro Riparbelli y a passé trois jours, lui, partageant la vie des moines, enregistrant les respirations de cette bâtisse fondée par Saint-François d’Assise pour en faire ce CD, Three Days of Silence. […]

Review | By Ross Baker / Musique Machine
Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai | Vertikale Skift

Within experimental music, collaborative releases are common, and the results are often an intriguing chance to try and work out exactly where one artist’s input ends and the other begins; split releases, on the other hand, allow for a broad listening experience of two halves. For this release on Gruenrekorder, however, Terje Paulsen and Ákos Garai have provided individual pieces which highlight the differences and contrasts between their own approaches, while retaining the track sequencing of a single album. […]

Review | By Nausika / The Sound Projector

Rebecca Joy Sharp & Simon Whetham | The Clearing
The Clearing: gentle, meditative music that can be uplifting and joyful
A very pleasant and relaxing recording of Rebecca Joy Sharp playing her Celtic harp in Sefton Park in Liverpool – that’s Liverpool in the UK, not Liverpool in Sydney, Australia, which happens to be a few train-station stops from Sefton! – surrounded by a chorus of birds that engage in a call-and-response conversation with the musician. Sharp’s approach is to be very minimal and spontaneous and to allow the birds and other creatures in the park plenty of opportunity to respond to and comment on her disarmingly simple, almost koto-like plucking. […]

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen

Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence

The monastic life remains inscrutable to those outside the conclaves. No matter how many films or books cover the subject, the internal, contemplative path can only be experienced through participation. In an effort to understand the isolated, yet strangely communal lifestyle of La Verna’s monks, Pietro Riparbelli spent three days at Tuscany’s “mountain of the Stigmata” listening and recording. As readers of this site know, the art of listening includes not only listening to apparent sounds, but suggested sounds, and not only to sound but to the profound nature of silence. And where better to encounter silence than a monastery? […]

Review | By Cheryl Tipp / Wildlife Sounds Curator at the British Library
Jez riley French | Estonian Strings
Jez riley French is well known for his work exploring sounds that are normally hidden from the general listener. His recordings bring forth new life into environments that are not actively forthcoming when it comes to sharing their acoustic qualities, thereby opening up new sound environments to explore. „Estonian Strings“ is the latest offering from French and takes the form of a 42 minute composition based on recordings made during his first trip to Estonia in the spring of 2009. With his constant desire to investigate new sonic sources, French applied his contact microphones to a variety of „found strings“. […]

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen
Various Artists | Somewhere on the edge
47 tracks, 531 minutes and 34 seconds: nearly nine hours of field recordings and soundscapes fill every corner of Gruenrekorder’s 100th release, a testament not only to the strength and diversity of the label, but to the number of friends it has made. Not only that – it’s free. The level of excess displayed by such a project is so over-the-top, so ridiculous, that it induces a sense of awe. Where are the sponsors? Where’s the profit? For once, it doesn’t matter. Somewhere on the edge is the telephone book of field recordings; few people will play it from cover to cover, but many will refer to it again and again. […] Hats off to Gruenrekorder for releasing such a bold effort. Over the course of nearly a decade, the label has helped to guide and shape the field recording industry and to bring it to its current level of popularity. We wish the label and its many artists every continued success.

Sound is Art
Listen to field recordings, instruments, performances and organized noise Curated by Margaret Noble
Autumn Appreciation Society

New Release:
Exclusive download edition

Peter Caeldries: “Jhirna Jali” (GrDl 107/12)
Field Recordings
9 Tracks (61′32″)
MP3/FLAC

Review | By Idwal Fisher / IDWAL FISHER
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
Three Days of Silence is described by its composer as being ‘a phenomenological experience’. ‘Phenomenological’ meaning: ‘the detailed description of conscious experience, without recourse to explanation, metaphysical assumptions, and traditional philosophical questions’. Pietro Ripabelli recorded his phenomenological experiences at the Sanctuary of La Verna, a remote church in Tuscany built on the site where St Francis of Assisi was reputed to have received the stigmata. […]

Review | By JULIAN (Lord Yatesbury) / Head Heritage
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
THREE DAYS OF SILENCE by Italy’s Piero Riparbelli is another highly successful Gnostic journey through real time interfaces with cranky technology. And am I talking cranky or what, brothers’n’sisters. However, like the late ‘50s Tokyo school of musique concrète, Riparbelli deploys his field recordings in such an exquisite manner that his new album makes for endless repeated listenings. […]

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop

Jez riley French | Estonian Strings
Jez riley French is an artist and composer who works with field recordings alongwith contact mics, hand madehydrophones, which has shown in his performances and sound installations. He has been in residence in Estonia, Belgium, France, Portugal, Latvia, Italy, Japan, Korea and Austria. ‘Estonian Strings’ is a composition that French created on his first trip to Estonia in April and May 2009, where he worked with unprocessed recordings of telephone wires, transmitter support cables, fence wires and different kinds of found strings. […]

Interview by KLANGDIEB / André Klar

Eckhard Kuchenbecker

Review | By RaF / kulturterrorismus
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence

[…] Aktuell gehört Pietro Riparbelli für mich zu bewegendsten Sounddesigener überhaupt, das einmal mehr “Three Days Of Silence” unterstreicht – ein weiteres Meisterwerk im Backkatalog des Italieners, der mit seiner phänomenalen Tonkunst zu berauschen wie überzeugen weiß – meine absolute Topempfehlung! PS: Es besteht Kaufpflicht und nicht nur für ausgewiesene Pietro Riparbelli Jünger, sondern auch für alle Freunde von anspruchsvollem Dark Ambient/ Ritual Industrial!

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
This edition is part of the Soundscape Series of the German label Gruenrekorder and in this ocassion presents Pietro Riparbelli’s work, who is a philosopher, composer and sound artist living in Livorno, Tuscany. Riparbelli has released in several European and U.S. labels where he has also done performances and installations. Riparbelli’s work focuses on the phenomenon of spatial perception and the contrast between the visible and the invisible that is linked to the concept of soundscape. […]

Review | By Ian | Wonderful Wooden Reasons
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Gruenrekorder continue their run of outstanding releases with this set of recordings made by Lawrence of the underwater denizens of Pollardstown Fen outside of Kildare in Ireland. The recordings are unadorned and, to a great extent, unprocessed with only sounds below the levels of human hearing brought up into our range. The array of sounds on display is simply astounding. At times it’s hard to credit that such a beautiful cacophony is natural. One forgets what is playing as dada-esque sound collages reminiscent of NWW or AMM tumble past. The complexity and the richness of the totality of the sounds lends it a compositional flavour that is then made all the stronger when one snaps back to reality and fully remembers what is playing. I’ve had this on repeat for the best part of two days now and am still finding depths and nuances I’d previously missed. Fantastic album on a fantastic label.

Review | By maeror3 / livejournal
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
В 1224 году на горе Ла Верна у Святого Франциска Ассизского проявились стигматы, сделав его еще ближе к переживанию всех страстей Христовых. В честь этого события на склоне горы (получившей название Гора Стигматов) была позднее организованна обитель, небольшой храм и монастырь, ставшие популярным местом паломничества у католиков всего мира. […]

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence
When buried with a lot of releases to review for Vital Weekly, I sometimes wish to retreat to a monastery and not be interrupted by such mundane things as e-mail, telephone, shopping and just blend in with the tranquility of monastery life. Pietro Riparbelli did visit a sanctuary, Sanctuary of La Verna on top of a mountain in Tuscany, where Saint Francis of Assisi supposed to have gotten his stigmata and recorded life over there during three days. Here he has six pieces, three of them I believe are pure field recordings and three are compositions he created out of these basic sounds. […]

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop

Harald Guenter Kainer | adolar
This is part of the German label Digital series which is dedicated to sound artists exploring field recordings and experimental electronics. Austrian Harald Günter Kainer studied composition and music theory and graduated in electroacoustic composition at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz. His publications include instrumental and electronic compositions, sound and video installations, soundtracks and poetry. ‚Adolar‘ is a sound installation inspired by the night view at the sky and formed part of the exhibition ‚Luftblicke‘ held in Graz in 2011. […]

Review | By Nausika / The Sound Projector
Hein Schoer | Two Weeks in Alert Bay

Two Weeks in Alert Bay: spotlight on a traditional First Nations society in western Canada. I never know quite what to make of sound recordings like this one as I always feel I’m only getting half of what soundscape musician Hein Schoer experienced: something like this document needs to be visual and to be seen along with the soundtrack. For me, this project would have been much better done as a combined DVD / CD package so that I can actually see the Alert Bay, Vancouver Island, environment where Schoer did his research. […]

Review | By Joshua Meggitt / Cyclic Defrost
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory
Mekong Morning Glory takes Francisco Lopez’s full-spectrum approach to field recording, editing sounds to extract their maximum sonic impact, while adding further processing and instrumental adornments to create a kind of personal audio postcard. Merzouga’s Eva Pöpplein & Janko Hanushevsky traveled through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam on the Mekong capturing sounds which were then tinkered with. “We examine field-recordings in regard to their musical qualities … and fuse them with electronically processed electric bass sounds.” […]

Review | By DB / PROGRESS REPORT

This is one of Gruenrekorder’s series of Field Recordings. Obviously from the title it’s of Swiss Mountain Transport Systems. The 9 tracks were recorded between July 2008 and November 2008 by Ernst Karel who, to quote his website, works with analog electronics and with location recordings, sometimes separately, sometimes in combination, to create audio pieces that move between the abstract and the documentary. The pieces on this Cd are pure location recordings, no processing or manipulation has been used. […]

Review | By MR / Paris Transatlantic Magazine

Somewhere on the edge | Various Artists

Those who think „Morning Glory“ is the third course of „Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast“ on Atom Heart Mother might like to know that’s it’s also a tropical vegetable (aka water spinach) native to South East Asia, which influenced Eva Pöpplein and Janko Hanushevsky (aka Merzouga) as they sailed down the Mekong river across Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in 2008. As for the musical outcome, the voyage represents an interesting stab at combining field recordings and processed instruments, with a prepared bass guitar the lone extra-environmental source. […]

Gruenrekorder @ Sounds of Europe

www.soundsofeurope.eu

New Release:
Free download edition

Various Artists: “Somewhere on the edge” (GrDl 100/12)
Field Recordings / Soundscapes
47 Tracks (531′34″)
MP3/FLAC

Phonophon | 05 May 2012 | 8 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* Die 7te Krawallerie (D)
www.youtube.com

* Andreas Glauser (CH)
www.brainhall.net

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

framework radio | #373
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity presented by patrick mcginley
Eisuke Yanagisawa | Ultrasonic Scapes

moers festival – Concerts in the dark
Saturday May 26th / Sunday May 27th / 5:30 pm

This year’s Concerts in the Dark are all about “hidden currents” – sounds which come out of some shadowy place, whose origin is unclear. In some cases they explore the sounds generated on the sidelines of music – noises generally viewed as interference or audio by-products: the hiss of tapes that are slowly disintegrating or the buzz of an amplifier before the first note of an instrument is heard. In others they attempt to make audible sounds that are usually difficult for the human ear to hear, like those produced by bats in echolocation.

John Duncan (us, it)
Ronnie Sundin (se)
K11/Pietro Riparbelli (it)
Lasse-Marc Riek (d)
Seth Nehil (us)

Curator of the concerts in the dark: Till Kniola/aufabwegen

Free Entry! | Venue: Studio des Schlosstheaters Moers, Kastell 6

www.moers-festival.de

Review | By Brian Olewnick / Just outside
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence

I admit to some degree of trepidation when Ripardelli, in the course of describing his work, derived from field recordings made at the Sanctuary of La Verna in Tuscany, says of the place that St. Francis of Assisi „is said to have received the stigmata here“. Could’ve used a tablespoon of skepticism, I guess. But the results are not bad of their type. Three pieces, the first a composition worked form the recordings, the next a pure field recordings and the last a „diary of the experience“, though I’m not sure exactly what that entailed. […]

WFMU 91.1 fm 90.1 fm / Playlist for John Allen
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence

Review | By Ron Schepper / textura
Pietro Riparbelli | Three days of silence

Issued as part of Gruenrekorder’s Soundscape Series, Pietro Riparbelli’s Three Days of Silence – The Mountain of the Stigmata revisits the approach used on the 4 Churches recording the Livorno, Tuscany-based sound artist released in 2011 as part of Touch’s Spire series. In both cases, Riparbelli attempts to capture the reverberant space within church and cathedral settings by coupling the expected sounds of organ playing and choir singing with the less typically documented sounds that arise naturally within the spaces themselves—the mundane and the transcendent rubbing shoulders, so to speak. […]

Gruenrekorder @ Sounds of Europe

Phonophon / 21 July 2012 / Belma Bešlić-Gál / Bernhard Gál / Eric Leonardson

www.soundsofeurope.eu

Gruenrekorder @ Sounds of Europe

The Global Composition – The Sounding Museum – Hein Schoer

www.soundsofeurope.eu

Gruenrekorder @ Sounds of Europe

Manfred Waffender / „The Logbook of the Senses“

‘Sounds of Europe’ is a project that acknowledges and follows the increase of field recording activity in music, art and sciences in recent years. By field recording activity we mean an artistic practice working with the accidental sounds of our environment. Our aim is to draw up an overall picture of the many different ways of using field recordings, and to explore their signification and effect.
www.soundsofeurope.eu

New Release:

Pietro Riparbelli: “Three Days of Silence” (Gruen 102/12)
Soundscapes
6 Tracks (47′13″)
CD (500 copies)

New Release:
Exclusive download edition

Jez riley French: “Estonian Strings” (GrDl 106/12)
Field Recordings
1 Track (42′40″)
MP3/FLAC

Phonophon | 13 April 2012 | 8 PM | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main

* ICH BIN DER WELT ABHANDEN GEKOMMEN – Karl May

Oliver Augst / John Birke / Marcel Daemgen

www.textxtnd.de

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.gruenrekorder.de

framework radio | #369
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity presented by patrick mcginley
Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai | Vertikale Skift

Acousmain #28: 8 Positions for sound
Thursday, 12.April.2012, 9 PM

A Gruenrekorder night with Field Recordings and Soundscapes.
Etzin und Riek will present a selection of their current catalogue.

With pieces by Tom Lawrence, Manfred Waffender, Lasse-Marc Riek, Andreas Bick, Andrea Polli, Mick O’Shea, Roland Etzin.

Free entrance
The Acousmainbar will be opened before and after the performance.
More information and teaser at: www.acousmain.de

MP3

Atelierfrankfurt
Vortragssaal 2. OG
Hohenstaufenstr. 13 – 25
60327 Frankfurt am Main

www.atelierfrankfurt.de

Reviews | By Darby Mullins / DARBY’S CHRONICS

Various Artists | Autumn Leaves
„In your land, there are no spirits. In mine, there are. That’s why it’s hard !“ Savelij Vasilev, Evenk shaman

This world grows farther from us, we are more and more insensible to manifestations of vital forces of Nature, those which animate living beings, as the natural elements such stones or wind, those that make a singing frog can still hear in a pool of Chernobyl, or something like that … […]

Various Artists | Playing with Words: an online compilation
To combine, arrange, and classify.//To split, Organize, and mix//To disperse, repeat and break//
Words, and flood of words, free and rid of their meaning, detach and emancipate of language. Noises, creaking and slapping of mouth, tongue, & teeth. Decomposition of the vocal cords in an identifiable set of simultaneous notes. „Playing with words“ is an agreement between language and musical, a selection of 360 ° at the limlits (borders) of sense and sound.

Review | By Cheryl Tipp / Wildlife Sounds Curator at the British Library

Lasse-Marc Riek | Harbour

‘Harbour’ is an absorbing collection of unprocessed field recordings made over an eight-year period at various locations around Finland and Germany. Rather than provide the listener with standard harbour atmospheres, Lasse Marc Riek focuses on the almost microscopic detail of harbour acoustics. We’re provided with a fascinating variety of sounds – the first track whet my aural appetite and I remained intrigued throughout. So many different sounds emerge over the course of the CD that the listener should never become bored. […]

Review | By Cheryl Tipp / Wildlife Sounds Curator at the British Library

Heike Vester | Marine Mammals and Fish of Lofoten and Vesterålen

‘Marine Mammals and Fish of Lofoten and Vesterålen’ is a collection that fits perfectly within the Gruenrekorder field recording series. The driving force behind this publication was Heike Vester, a marine biologist who in 2005 founded the organisation Ocean Sounds with the aim of encouraging a greater understanding and appreciation of marine animals. From 2005-2008, Vester recorded the sounds of species encountered by her team in Norwegian waters and presents a selection of these recordings here. […]

Review | By Caity Kerr / The Field Reporter

Craig Vear | Antarctica: Musical Images from the Frozen Continent

Antarctica: Musical Images from the Frozen Continent is a fine thing to have in your possession. This dvd/book/cd release by Craig Vear is jam-packed with goodies, from field recordings to radio works to still images to musical compositions and archival footage. Vear’s page at Gruenrekorder lists the contents in full.

In this review I’ve chosen to focus on the field recordings, presented on audio cd, though I’ll also offer reflection on the music of 5 Antarctic Solitudes. […]

New Release:
Exclusive download edition

Harald Guenter Kainer: “adolar” (GrDl 105/12)
Sound Art
1 Track (79′36″)
MP3/FLAC

Review | By Caity Kerr / The Field Reporter

Michael Trommer | Edgelands

[…] Trommer has crafted something approaching a signature sound across all the tracks of this album – a heavy duty low frequency presence and a contrasting high frequency hiss, both of which might have been electronically generated, though given the information in the sleeve notes, it’s more likely that he’s remove the midrange from various field recordings and used the results as a primary layer in his compositions. This simple technique, taking out the midrange, still strikes me as very much from the elektronische tradition. […]

Review | By Axel Ganz / Jahrgangsgeräusche

Michael Trommer | Edgelands

Die Welt wird zum Versuchslabor. Dabei scheinen die Randgebiete städtischer Agglomerationen alles zu bieten, was man für einen im besten Sinne offenen Experimentierbaukasten braucht. So, oder so ähnlich könnte sich die akustische Situation in den kulturellen Übergangszonen für den in Toronto lebenden Klangkünstler Michael Trommer dargestellt haben, als er begann die Außenbezirke städtischer Großräume auf ihre akustischen Eigenschaften hin zu untersuchen. […]

Radio m50 | etc 2012.02.24fr 22:00-02:30 @ WNUR, Evanston-Chicago
Stéphane Garin & Sylvestre Gobart | Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka

Listen to ‚etc 2012.02.24fr 22:00-02:30 @ WNUR, Evanston-Chicago‚ (Stream)

Review | By PvdG / PROGRESS REPORT

[…] Can you document as many as possible impressions from a landscape that stretches over nearly 4400 kilometers and some 7 different countries? I guess this is the wrong question to ask, meaning that this probably isn’t what was aimed for at all. The impressive 49 minute-piece is however able to capture both the beauty, the calmness and the greatness and also how the river sometimes shows its unforgiving character followed by moments of perfect stillness, with further beauty waiting to become unveiled, but stripped in its essence the grand finale turns out to be nothing more than a desire to finally drain into the south Chinese sea, leaving countless impressions for those who want to hear. An epic work of art.

Review | By Eric Lanzillotta / BIXOBAL

the duo of Eva Pöpplein and Janko Hanushevsky traveled through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam along the mighty Mekong River in autumn 2008. however, despite being in Gruenrekorder’s Soundscape Series, this is not a collection of straight field recordings. the river jungle sounds are re-edited, put through various effects and combined with other sound sources. the first addition is prepared bass guitar which does make for some nice experimental textures, but after this introduction the disc heads more in an ambient direction using solemn synth sounds with an increase in echo added to the voices of the Mekong. […]

Review | By Zipo / aufabwegen

Das Duo Merzouga (Eva Pöpplein & Janko Hanushevsky) ist den Spuren des Mekong gefolgt. Mekong Morning Glory intendiert dabei nicht in Nachfolge zu Annea Lockwood eine “Sound Map” des Flusses zu zeichnen, sondern der mächtige Strom fungiert als Inspirator und roter Erzählfaden für eine akustische Geschichte. Das Zitat aus Joseph Conrads großartiger Erzählung “Herz der Finsternis”, in der auch ein Fluß eine wichtige Rolle spielt, scheint diese These zu unterstreichen. […]

Review | By Stefan Drees / positionen. #90

Various Artists | PLAYING WITH WORDS – LIVE

[…] Auch Dirk Huelstrunk knüpft seinen Umgang mit der Stimme an die Situation des Nichtverstehens und erweitert die mit Mund, Nase, Kehle etc. erfolgende Lautformung durch den Einsatz von Elektronik. Sianed Jones wiederum vereint Violine und Stimme zu einem instrumental begleiteten, experimentellen Gesang, während Nye Parry ihre Auseinandersetzung mit Sprache im Dialog mit einem Ghettoblaster inszeniert. Jaab Blonk schließlich schafft eine imaginäre Sprache, die sich – trotz Anklänge an bestimmte, emotional geprägte Sprachtonfälle – als Vehikel ohne Inhalte erweist. […]

Deutschlandradio Kultur
TransMongolian | By Roland Etzin
HÖRSPIEL UND FEATURE: KLANGKUNST | 09.03.2012 | 00:05

Gruenrekorder / call for contributions

About: Free download release – Gruen 100
Theme: Somewhere on the edge
Relation: Political, cultural, ecological or scientific
Deadline: 5 April 2012

1. 1 Field Recording or Soundscape Track (15 minutes, FLAC and MP3/320kbps)
2. Description (+/- 6 Sentences).
3. Pictures (+/- 6 Pictures).
4. License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/

Please send a zip file via dropbox, mydrive or wetransfer to: info@gruenrekorder.de
Contacts: Lasse-Marc Riek and Roland Etzin

Phonophon | 03.03.2012 | 20:00-22:00 | 5 Euro
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

* Hi-fi/Lo-noise (U.S.)

www.piercewarnecke.com

Society for the Advancement of Phonography and Experimental Music (e.V.)
www.phonographie.org
www.inm.de
www.produck.tk
www.gruenrekorder.de

framework radio | #364
phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity presented by patrick mcginley
Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai | Vertikale Skift

Lasse-Marc Riek @ Elektrominibarklingelton | 01.03.2012 | 20:00
:gruener ton und soundscapes

stromraum/studio
König-Karl-Strasse 27
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt
Germany

NATURE: The Water Boatman’s Song

BBC Radio 4
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
Listen to ‘The Water Boatman’s Song′

Review | By Guillermo Escudero / Loop

This album belongs to the German label Gruenrekorder’s Soundscape Series we have reviewed before as with the Digital Series.
Eva Pöpplein (computer) and Janko Hanushevsky (bass) from Germany have been working together since 2002 in music improvisation and composing music for radio, theater and film.
Both in 2009 did a trip down the Mekong River through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in the Autumn of 2008 where they made field recordings of sounds of that subtropical place, its flora and fauna and the day to day life of the people living there. […]

framework radio | #363

phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity presented by patrick mcginley

another slow burn show this week with some amazing sounds from a few artists new to the show (vahram muradyan, mimosa | moize, kirill platonkin, des coulam), along with some long-time regulars (doug haire, sala, cedric anglaret). but first i feel i must pay homage to one of our new discoveries – it was several months ago that the great gruenrekorder label sent us this stunning album of underwater sounds recorded by the ireland-based artist and scholar, tom lawrence. we hadn’t encountered him before, which now seems surprising, having researched a bit his activities, and we’ve never been in direct contact with him. so it was only in the process of putting together this playlist, after the show containing tom’s sounds had aired, that we discovered the sad news that tom lawrence passed away unexpectedly in october 2011. it is clear that the recording community has lost an amazing artist, and from what we have read, a wonderful person. our thoughts are with his family and friends, and we are proud to be able to include his sounds in this edition of the show. link

New Release:
Exclusive download edition

Michael Trommer: “Edgelands” (GrDl 098/12)
Field Recordings
7 Tracks (67′32″)
MP3/FLAC

New Distribution:

Manfred Waffender: “PLACES_IN_TIME | lake > creek > ocean” (GrD 19/12)
Field Recordings
3 Tracks (126′00″)
Bluray

Manfred Waffender: “PLACES_IN_TIME | Tanzania/Zanzibar” (GrD 20/12)
Field Recordings
10 Tracks (125′00″)
DVD

Manfred Waffender: “PLACES_IN_TIME | norwayfjords” (GrD 21/12)
Field Recordings
5 Tracks (145′00″)
DVD

Manfred Waffender: “PLACES_IN_TIME | Montepulciano” (GrD 22/12)
Field Recordings
8 Tracks (85′00″)
DVD

Craig Vear: “Antarctica: Musical Images from the Frozen Continent” (GrD 23/12)
Soundscapes
10 Tracks (102′32″)
Book/CD/DVD (PAL)

Review | By Wyman Brantley / The Squid’s Ear

With this release, phonographer/musician Ernst Karel continues his series of magnificently detailed field recordings of fascinating subjects. With Heard Laboratories (and/OAR 2010) his subjects were part of Big Science, while this time the locales are more municipal (or, perhaps, recreational). Once again, the recordings are more than mere sound catalogs or curiosities. Karel’s ear for the aesthetic, the interesting, as well as matters compositional, is a crucial ingredient here. […]

Review | By Lee Gardner / City Paper

[…] There is a sense of building to “Point of Gibraltar,” from the first low, tectonic-sounding rumbles to a sort of sizzling static sound, punctuated by periodic oscillations, like an especially minimal pop hook. A new intermittent tone—almost like an electronic whoop or shriek, far in the distance—kicks the track into a higher key/gear, shadowed by a varying croaking sound. You can practically picture the synth operator turning a knob, or maybe pawing at a laptop touchpad lightly. At last a buzzy drone, like an old analog dial tone, ushers out the five-minute-plus cut. […]

Review | By Russell Cuzner / Musique Machine
Andreas Bick | Fire and Frost Pattern

When he’s not composing music for German film, TV and radio, Berlin-based artist Andreas Bick can be found out and about recording the natural environment. Fire and Frost Pattern collects together two distinctly related works of his field recordings first composed (in 2006 and 2007 respectively) for Klangkunst, a weekly show on Deutschlandradio Kultur dedicated to sound art. Fire Pattern works very much as an exhibition exploiting the sound-producing properties of flames of different sizes found in active volcanoes, on training grounds for airport fireworkers and in small glass tubes and bottles. […]

Sounds of Europe, a project that acknowledges and follows the increase of field recording activity in music, art and sciences, also continues in 2012.

In the meantime the blog of our website www.soundsofeurope.eu arrived in the UK after stops in Belgium and Spain. Next week the blog will travel to Italy. Each country´s particular context and practices with regards to field recording will be explored and presented in a personal way.

Sounds of Europe wants to create a platform for organisations and artists working in the domain of field recordings, feel free to sign up and join! If you organise specific field recording events, we would be happy to announce them on the website too.

The events we’re organising ourselves this year focus on workshops and lectures. One project in particular, The City Rings, is looking for new partners in Europe who are are interested in exchanging through sound, and sound pedagogy. More information on this call on: www.soundsofeurope.eu/event/workshops-the-city-rings

Sounds of Europe is a European project on phonography, initiated by Q-O2 (Brussels) in collaboration with CRiSAP (London), IRZU (Ljubljana) and MTG/Sons de Barcelona (Barcelona) with support of the Culture Programme of the European Commission.

www.soundsofeurope.eu | info@soundsofeurope.eu

Review | By Richard Allen / a closer listen

Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai | Vertikale Skift

An initial look at the digital download implies that the tracks are out of order: five “Skisse” tracks from Norway’s Terje Paulsen interspersed with four “Waterworks” tracks from Hungary’s Ákos Garai, founder of the 3leaves label. And yet to separate the two is the dim the light of the entire project. Paulsen and Garai were onto something with their game plan, because the album works best with the current track sequencing. Skisse is the Norwegian word for sketch or study, and Paulsen’s quieter contributions do at first seem like outlines: the impressionistic borders to Garai’s glistening sheets. […]

Review | By Ron Schepper / textura

Slavek Kwi / Artificial Memory Trace | Collection 5

Part of Gruenrekorder’s Soundscape Series, Merzouga’s Mekong Morning Glory presents a forty-nine-minute, single-track travelogue by computer musician Eva Pöpplein and electric bassist Janko Hanushevsky. Originating out of the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong River travels through seven countries (including Laos and Cambodia) and influences all manner of flora and fauna before ending up in South Vietnam. For this project, Merzouga followed the river during the fall of 2008 and recorded as they did so its wealth of life-forms so as to subsequently incorporate the material into a large-form composition. […]

Review | By Chris Whitehead / The Field Reporter

[…] A very interesting release, but probably not for the field recording purist. It certainly raises questions and plays with ideas. If it was necessary to categorize this Artificial Memory Trace release I would place it firmly in the abstract electronica enclave, because the fact that it was made from field recordings seems subservient. To truly make a pure piece of absolute sound recording the artist would have to remain unnamed. The piece would have to be untitled. No images would accompany it and no words would offer context. […]

Review | By Richard Pinnell / The Watchful Ear
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory

Well I am glad that week is over. Bit of a tiring one. Two days off now that I plan to spend driving about either in the company of, or off to visit nice people. Tonight though I have listened through three times to a new release on the Gruenrekorder label credited to a duo named Merzouga, who are Eva Pöpplein and Janko Hanushevsky. The album, titled Mekong Morning Glory is a blend of various field recordings made by the pair during a trip along the Mekong river in the countries of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in 2008 and electric bass parts played by Hanushevsky, with everything merged together at a later date. […]

Review | By maeror3 / livejournal
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory

Люблю релизы, которые способны не только доставить эстетическое удовольствие, но и заставляют обратить внимание на предмет или явление, ранее не попадавшие в поле зрения. Каюсь, но до этого дня Меконг был для меня «всего лишь рекой», текущей где-то в Азии. А тут буклет диска выдает информацию, что это одна из величайших рек мира, длина ее четыре с половиной тысячи километров, и несет свои воды она по территории четырех стран, впадая в Южно-Китайское море. […]

Review | By Julien Héraud / improv sphere
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory

Merzouga est un duo de musiciens/compositeurs/ingénieurs du son germano-autrichiens, composé par Eva Pöpplein et Janko Hanushevsky. Leur dernier projet, Mekong Morning Glory, est une suite de tableaux de field-recordings enregistrés sur le fleuve Mekong, du Laos au Vietnam, en passant par le Cambodge. En plus des field-recordings à proprement parler, Janko Hanushevsky utilise également quelques procédés électroniques basés sur une basse électrique préparée. […]

Workshop -BYO Instrument- Phonophon Session | 22.01.2012 | 15:00
Institut für neue Medien (INM)
Schmickstraße 18
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

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 Idwal Fisher / IDWAL FISHER

Mekong Morning Glory is a 49 minute journey in which the duo that is Merzouga transport the listener along the Mekong River taking in gentle wind chimes, screeching exotic birds and the sound of the Mekong itself emptying into the South China Sea. Its a delightful listen that is a relaxing as it is rewarding and made all the more so by the knowledge that the duo took their 2008 field recordings back to the studio in Cologne and mixed in prepared electronic bass [Jano Hanushevsky] and electronic sounds [Eva Pöppelin]. Pöppelin also takes on the producing duties and her results are a sonic adventurers delight. […]

Review | By Todd Robinson / Musique Machine
Mirko Uhlig | Tupelo
You know that feeling you get, when you are roused from a deep slumber quite suddenly and the realm of dreams bleeds through to your waking existence, resulting in a constant battle of wills to keep yourself from slipping back into that comfortable cocoon of blissful catharsis? That feeling could be used to sum up the effects of this digital release from German soundscape and drone artist Mirko Uhlig perfectly. […]

Radio Free FM | Schlecktronik

Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai | Vertikale Skift

Review | By Tina Manske / CULTurMAG
Merzouga | Mekong Morning Glory

Der Mekong ist einer der größten Flüsse der Erde. Auf mehr als 4.000 Kilometern Länge, ausgehend von seiner Quelle in den tibetischen Bergen bis hin zu seiner Mündung ins südchinesische Meer in Vietnam, fließt er durch sieben Länder und drei Klimazonen und beherbergt unzählige Arten von Pflanzen und Tieren. Das Duo Merzouga (Eva Pöpplein und Janko Hanushevsky) hat sich, ausgestattet mit Mikrofon und Aufnahmegerät, auf den langen Weg gemacht und den Fluss durch Laos, Kambodscha und Vietnam begleitet. […]

Review | By παράξενα παραμύθια / tileskopio.tumblr.com

το άλλο ταξίδι με πάει σε άλλες πιο τοπικές ή μη καταστάσεις. πραγματικά με τον κόσμο των field recordings αυτό που με εξιτάρει είναι ότι ώρες ώρες ανακαλυπτεις πράγματα για μέρη που δεν πήγαινει ο νούς σου ή μέρη που δε θα πήγαινε ποτέ το μυαλό σου να επισκεφτείς σε κάποιο ταξίδι. π.χ. η ελβετία που χάρη στον ernst karel έμαθα για τις gondolas και άλλα μέσα μεταφοράς που υπάρχουν στα βουνά, θα μου πείς οκ ρε μαλάκα δε φανταζόσουν ότι θα παιζε κάτι παρόμοιο με τελεφερίκ ή τοπικά ή μη τρένα όπως εδώ; βλέπε το τρένο για τα λιβερά (ξάνθη), κλπ, οκ άπαξ μαλάκας, εσαεί μαλάκας οπότε… […]

Gruenrekorder (Tom Lawrence, James Wyness, Terje Paulsen & Ákos Garai, Eisuke Yanagisawa, Ernst Karel) mentioned @ The Field Reporter / 2011 Final Report

A few words by The Field Reporter Editor Alan Smithee plus PART I of the lists with the most relevant works of 2011 made by our staff and other artists, curators and journalists.

The Wire | Stream a mix by the Gruenrekorder label
Listen to a selection of recordings and compositions by artists on the German field recording and sound art label.

Reviews | By Aquarius Records
Tom Lawrence | Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen

If you haven’t already decided to buy this just ’cause of the title (which is indeed indicative of what this is – field recordings of water beetles!!!), we suppose we should provide something of a review. Though, if you’re like us, there’s not much more you need to know besides that it’s WATER BEETLES – and a release on the great German sound-art label Gruenrekorder… […]

[…] Of course, as a sonic experience only, this “documentation” is as (deliberately?) mysterious as it is enlightening. The mechanical clanking, the whirring, the wind, the murmurs of passengers… these ambient sounds sometimes quietly soothing, sometimes noisy, certainly curious. Makes for a nice companion to Chris Watson’s El Tren Fantasma highlighted last list, for those into journeys through sound (of journeys) – though this one is raw audio verite, not a “fictionalized” construct like Watson’s disc. […]

Review | By Jesse Goin / crow with no mouth
Ernst Karel | Swiss Mountain Transport Systems

I was pretty effusive about Ernst Karel’s last location recording, Heard Laboratories, taking the opportunity to reprise Truman Capote’s pith observation I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil. This is Karel’s great knack, his intuitive selection of sounds, sound-shaping, and – I hasten to add as one who feels the onus of every new release that insists on 70-80 minutes of sound because the media allows it – concision, privileging the scissors as much as the pencil [the total time is 78 minutes, but spanning nine tracks offering an amazing variety of sounds and rhythms]. […]

Field Recordings | www.ardmediathek.de

Radio-Feature with Lasse-Marc Riek & Norbert Lang

World Forum for Acoustic Ecology | WFAE: RESOURCES

Review | By Frans de Waard / VITAL WEEKLY

The Mekong is the one of the world’s largest rivers, about 4350 kilometers long, from Tibet to South Vietnam. Along the river water spinach is grown, also known as Morning Glory. Recordings have been made by Eva Popplein and Jano Hanushevsky, also known as Merzouga. This is not a work of pure field recordings as Hanushevsky plays prepared bass guitar, I am not entirely sure how these two (Mekong river recordings and prepared bass guitar) are connected. […]

Review | By Cheryl Tipp / Wildlife Sound Recording Society