01.09.21 – Patrick Francke – Iceland Miniatures for Inga Martel – 32:49 – 320 kbps

During my travels to and in Iceland, I was repeatedly reminded of the film “Despair” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. My desire to immerse myself in a peaceful environment for some time and also my naïve projections, unexpectedly and drastically caught up with reality.

Hundreds of thousands of people visit Iceland every year for comparatively short trips. Many escape their ecologically and aesthetically depleted places of origin to seek the salvation of unspoiltness on the island. One could get the impression they are driven by the belief that they are entitled to it – as if someone else were cheating them out of this salvation at home, that there is no connection between them and the cause of the condition of the ecosystems there.

From this desire, the natural history and ecology of Iceland, but also the lifeworlds of the inhabitants are often ignored. All irritations are suppressed in order to be able to hold on to the sentimental image of the magical, untouched island. To this end, some of these holidaymakers may even expect the islanders to kindly maintain it in a state that does not stand in the way of their projections – a strange, structurally colonial habitus.

Oscillating between the ecosystem of Iceland, the Iceland of its inhabitants and the Iceland of my expectations, I tried to focus entirely on the sounds themselves, during the recording and organisational processes for this piece.

I didn’t want to give much room to my preconceptions about how sonographic sketches of the island should sound. I simply wanted to forget them.

Therefore, the Iceland Miniatures can be understood as reconstructed subjective, sonic impressions. They are based on long listening sessions which preceded the actual sound recordings as well as my notes of the respective places.

Ambisonic mix

26.06.21 – Adie Mueller & Armin Lorenz Gerold – Another Goodbye – 51:54 – 320 kbps

When artist Adie Muller’s mum decided it was time to stop intensive medical treatment, Adie promised herself that she would get to Germany and visit her regularly. Then the pandemic happened.

This is the story of a letting go, a passing on, another goodbye. A story told to see if we can find a way to talk about death and grief and about coming to terms.

Another Goodbye is an audio performance for an audience of one in your own home, combining spoken word and soundscapes.

Created by
Adie Mueller: Writing and Performance
Peader Kirk: Direction and Dramaturgy
Armin Lorenz Gerold: Composition and Soundscape

This version is the outcome of the first project phase from April to June 2021 funded
by Arts Council England and supported by The Place Theatre, Bedford and Cambridge Junction.

29.07.20 – Jez Wells – Traces of Sound and Light – 13:06 – 320 kbps

Buildings, and the spaces and atmospheres that they enclose, are primarily experienced through seeing them and hearing them. Visions of them are the trajectories and alterations of light that travel within them to the observer. Audition of them is via the patterns of reflected and diffracted sound that repeatedly pass the observer as their energy decays and spreads. Just as buildings have a visual signature (what they look like) so they have an aural one. Each is dynamic: changing how a room is lit will change how it looks, making different kinds of noise within it will reveal different aspects of its sound. However, exploration is bounded by the laws of physics and perception and the fixed nature of the buildings themselves. Useful techniques and modes of expression such as feature exaggeration, time manipulation, rapidly changing or impossible perspectives and micro/macro-scoption require augmentation of reality, but enable boundaries to be exceeded. It becomes possible to experience not just what a building is, but how it is in our perception; how, for example, the different elements of its geometry and fabric relate to each other and the individual contributions they make to the whole.

The fixed nature of buildings is one of their defining characteristics. They often stand immutable amongst the peoples, their cultures and technologies, that create them and use them. They are perhaps the person made things that change most slowly over time and reach furthest into our present from their past. The National Centre for Early Music is housed within the Medieval church of St Margaret in the Walmgate area of York. Traces of Sound and Light was site-specific fixed-media installation created by this author and the visual artist Annabeth Robinson. Based on data obtained from light detecting and ranging (LIDAR) and acoustic impulse response measurement (AIR) it used technological augmentation of the both the observer and the space to literally enable the audience to see and hear the space which they are within in new ways that would otherwise be impossible. A 3D animation derived from the point cloud obtained from the LIDAR process was delivered to head-mounted smartphones worn by the audience, and audio created solely from the AIR measurements and readings of text fragments inscribed within the space was diffused via multiple loudspeakers.

This is binaurally captured (and therefore ideally suited to headphone listening) audio from the version of the installation presented in St Margaret’s at the 2019 Audio Engineering Society International Conference on Immersive and Interactive Audio.

Image: Annabeth Robinson

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16.11.19 – Aino Tytti – Slicing the Troposphere – 18:36

i) Binaural surround mix for headphones
ii) Stereo mix for speakers
iii) Ambisonic B-format for decoding to a multi-speaker array (download)

1. Stereo mix for speakers
2. Binaural surround mix for headphones
3. Ambisonic B-format for decoding to a multi-speaker array

Equipment:
Sonosax SX R4+
Ambeo / DPA 4060 / MK-416 / Telinga Mk2
JRF contact mics matrixed to 5ch / JRF prototype geophone

Thanks to Jez Riley French for the geophone loan, Rudi at Helix Branch and Emily Mary Barnett for her photography/patience.

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1.10.19 – Simon Fisher Turner – The Youth Choir – 24:21

If the mainstream media (MSM) won’t broadcast this, then we will.

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1.05.19 – Machinefabriek – Moving Noises 2015 – 22:34 – 320 kbps

Sifting through his archive of live recordings, Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) chose this performance from 2015 (in a very cold church in Bochum, Germany) as a favourite. As with most of his gigs, the concert was improvised, using an analogue tone generator as the main sound source, a radio, a contact mic, and a selection of pedals. Always a hit-and-miss venture, but always exciting (though at times nerve-wracking for the artist).

Photo by Constantly Consuming

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10.04.19 – Stuart Bowditch – Noon bells in Sicily – 1:00:00 – 320 kbps

Whilst on holiday in Sicily Stuart wanted to capture the sound of the local church bells. Choosing to record at 12 noon every day seemed a reasonable way to record more elaborate bell combinations whilst also fitting in other holiday plans with his travelling companion.

An edit of ten minutes from each location is included here, with 12 o’clock being positioned in the middle at five minutes to afford some context of the local area. Sicilian dialect has been used to indicate each day. Church names have been used to indicate location rather than street names, and bells from nearby churches can also be heard as the timing on each church is slightly different. Some churches ring twice, and one church not at all. The bird sounds were made by an old man hiding behind the tree that I was recording under.

Recorded using a Sound Devices Mix-Pre 6, and a stereo pair of LOM Uši omni-directional mics attached to a coat hanger.

Màrtiri – San Francesco di Paola, Palermo
Mèrcuri – Cattedrale di Palermo and Parrocchia Ss Maria Assunta
Iòviri – Parrochia San Girolamo, Mondello
Vènniri – Chiesa di San Domenico, Palermo
Sàbatu – Cattedrale di Monreale
Dumìnica – Chiesa del Gesù, Palermo

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1.03.19 – Ian Wellman – Between the City and the Forest – 12:31 – 320 kbps

“Between the City and the Forest” collects field recordings made between 2015-2018 in areas around Los Angeles, Mojave, and the Sierra Nevada. The piece features a millipede walking on a tent, many species of birds, treefrogs, electromagnetic and other urban city textures, as well as some websdr recordings.

Special thanks to Bill, Laurel, Greg, Russ, and all those I met on the Sound Recording and Analysis Workshop in June 2018.

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13.01.19 – Michèle Peron & Peter Caeldries – 24 Hour Estonian Spring – 1:13:32 – 320 kbps

Estonia has a rich and powerful nature orchestra, and this might be because two thirds of the country is covered with forests and bogs which are often almost untouched. Estonian nature sound is sometimes discrete and quiet, sometimes powerful, but it is always magical.

This sound piece features the magnificent performance of the orchestra over a period of 24 hours in the spring. The recording opens with a dawn chorus in the Alam Pedja nature reserve. It then travels to the primeval forest of Järvselja and the wetlands south of the Ahja jõgi, close to Lake Peipsi and the Russian border. The latter is a boreonemoral, drained peatland and swamp forest area.

Chirping birds, croaking frogs, a barking deer and a rumbling thunderstorm make up the choir. The star performers, howling wolves, end this nature symphony just before the sun rises over the forest.

Great care has been taken to make the sound piece time and rhythm coherent as well as biogeographically consistent. Man-made noise such as wood-working has been kept as it is, an integral part of the soundscape. The intention is to render the reality as is, not to change it: quiet sounds have remained quiet and might require more concentrated listening on the part of the listener.

The music of nature moves slowly. The recorded piece invites the listener to an immersive experience. Take the time to listen through the full length and hopefully be transported.

Our thanks go to Robert Oetjen and Triin Libe of the Palupõhja nature school, to Andrus Kannel as well as to Mariell Jüssi and Rene Valner who have helped make these recordings possible.

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13.10.18 – Ken Hollings – Ekphrasis – 12:54 – 320 kbps

This recording was made at the Block Gallery in New Cross on May 27th 2018 to mark the closing of the ‘Maquettes’ exhibition. The full text of the reading is available in issue 3 of Satori magazine. Richard Bevan supplied the recording. The photograph is by Rachel Hollings.

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Ken Hollings
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08.09.18 – Stephanie John – Through the Night, Glenshee, 09/06/18 – 43:10 – 320 kbps

Through the Night was recorded on June 10th 2018 at Glenshee, Scotland during ‘Murmurations’.

Mixed with Rob Aitken, with thanks to Chris Watson + Jez Riley French

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Stephanie John
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28.07.18 – Zachary Paul – Under the Skin – 37:28 – 320 kbps

An extract from Zachary Paul’s live scoring to the 2013 movie “Under the Skin” (dir. Jonathan Glazer, original score by Mica Levi). Recorded live at PLUM, Stories Books and Café, Los Angeles, on Monday 16th July 2018.

With thanks to Lena Pozdnyakova and Eldar Tagi at The 2vvo.

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Zachary Paul
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25.05.18 – Stephan Moore – Moira, Dusk – 18:18 – 320 kbps

This recording is made off the back balcony of the Cube Gallery in the village of Moira, Goa at around 8:15pm on March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day), 2018.

The balcony looked out onto an area of open land, with a Hindu temple on one side and an old Portuguese-style cathedral on the other. I am struck by the merging of layers of sound in this scene — birds and insects, but also sometimes traffic (though the road is distant), voices, power tools and non-power tools, dogs, and various unknown activities. In the middle of the recording, an unseen train passes and somehow overtakes everything for a moment. There are sounds I cannot identify no matter how hard I listen to them.

This piece is composed by all the forces that had assembled themselves in that place at that time, on the edge of night.

Many thanks to Satinder Singh and Eric Patrick for making this recording possible.

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Stephan Moore
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23.04.18 – Adam Laschinger – The Frogs of Little River, Beaverdam, VA – 14:58 – 320 kbps

“You really should hear the frogs,” suggested our hosts. They had taken us to their country house on a warm evening in May 2017, situated beside Little River, Beaverdam, Virginia.

Late that evening, we were led down the lawn, through the darkness towards the river nearby, a few hundred yards from the house. As we neared the water, we began to hear calls from a large scattered array of frogs, littering the shallows of the near and far banks of the river. Two main species were present; the Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans) was the most common, its twangy call sometimes compared to a loose banjo string. This call is often repeated a few times, each decreasing in volume. The other call, a more sporadic, slightly comedic deep tenor is from the American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus).

Naturally, I wanted to get a recording. Problematically, my sound equipment had been left in Durham, North Carolina, two hundred miles away. I was over from the UK working on a documentary in NC and I only had a phone without additional mics, so had to make do.

The next day, listening back to the functional recording I’d made on my phone was deeply underwhelming. I decided that I really needed to drive back to Durham, get my sound kit and return to Little River and have another go the following night.

This recording was made with a spaced pair of DPA 4018s into a Zaxcom Nomad.

Photography: Siemon Allen.

Many thanks to Siemon Allen, Kendall Buster, Noah Angell, Kay Dickinson Pascal Wyse and The Virginian Herpetological Society.

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Adam Laschinger
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16.03.18 – Orphax – Live at De Ruimte 15.03.2018 – 23:19 – 320 kbps

Recorded live as part of “Touch presents…” with Philip Jeck & Yann Novak in Amsterdam on 15th March 2018. Play loud!

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Orphax
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28.02.18 – Richard Chartier – Noize [Montreal, Canada] June 10, 2000 – 23:25 – 320 kbps

A free in-store performance at Noize after the 1st Mutek Festival. Heavy on sounds from his ‘pop’ album “PostFabricated”, it was accidentally recorded in mono at the event.

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Richard Chartier
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31.01.18 – Charlie Campagna – Fog – 6:29 – 320 kbps

“It was 1995; a cold fall day with heavy fog just north of the San Francisco Bay between the Bay Bridge and Jenner in Northern California. I had a spaced pair of B&K 4003 omni-directional microphones with me to capture bay backgrounds. Due to the fog I was able to capture a variety of horns throughout the day.

The piece is a collage of these horn backgrounds along with a freight container ship horn from the Port of Los Angeles. The discovery of hearing these together was a happenstance while previewing the files in unison and hearing a suspended chord automatically I perceived it as a composition.

I also added an underwater sound recorded with a B&K 8011 hydrophone of jet streams from a pool filter.”

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Charlie Campagna
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31.12.17 – Heitor Alvelos – Year of the Abyss (Goodbye 2017) – 10:09 – 320 kbps

Edited 31st December 6-8AM GMT

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Heitor Alvelos
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30.11.17 – Pascal Savy – Live at Iklectik – 30:00 – 320 kbps

Performance recorded from the desk, live at Iklectik Art Lab, London, on 21st May 2016.

With thanks to Eduard Solaz, who took the photo.

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pascalsavy.bandcamp.com
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18.09.17 – Pascal Wyse – tic-tac-toe – 9:26 – 320 kbps

“tic-tac-toe” was written for Gilbert Ratcliffe, who in 2017 was a final-year dance student at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire. For this performance, called “You Watching Me?”, choreographed for a small group of dancers, Gil wrote:

“My research was centred on the physical and mental manifestation of my journey with Tourette’s Syndrome. I explored it through the collaborative process between choreographer and dancers to see if we could create a non-narrative, abstract dance work that was able to elicit an emotional, performative response.”

Gil knew what the broad structure needed to be, and the dancers had ideas about sounds that would resonate well with the subject – but there was lots of freedom between those staging posts. I loved how the dancers only needed occassional markers, between which they related to the sounds but weren’t bound by them. No need for anything as prosaic as counting out beats.

Gil’s research involved talking to lots of people with TS, and reading through it I got keen on the simple idea of the electrical impulses that run through the body as it moves – whether voluntarily or involuntarily. In the end, it’s all a synaptic dance.

I recorded the feet of the dancers as they rehearsed, so that the piece could conjour up unseen dancers around the stage. Elsewhere metal spins against metal, balls bounce to a stop, there is a visit to the sea shore and a recording I made of the old editor of the Guardian being “banged out”, in the tradition of old Fleet Street.

The painting is courtesy of Gil’s mum Melanie – an artist and painter who has often worked with dancers.

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pascalwyse.com
melanieyoungart
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21.08.17 – The Man with the Glasses – Through a Lens, Darkly – 5:25 – 320 kbps

Recorded from 10:00 to 10:25 on the day of the partial eclipse (approx 65%) at UCLA Court of Sciences, California. Photo sequence by Lizzie Mickery.

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