Yuko Araki - IV

A note from Yuko Araki This might sound a little antithetical, but I am interested in making noise music that is free from unnecessary noise. I do realise how this sounds, but it is absolutely at the core of my new recording. I want to create maximum impact and dynamics in the music through using only the essential elements and materials. I am a huge fan of noise music, and in many cases I enjoy the excessive nature of that music. For my own work though I am interested in reducing this, boiling it down, to the very critical parts that can allow the music to profoundly affect those who choose to listen to it. I want to use what I have at my disposal with intent and with force. I also wanted to deepen my connection to, and place in, this music. To this end I have started to explore how it is I fit into the work. I explored how is my body part of this project beyond being a gestural interface between the various machines I use to make it. I’ve started to think about voice a lot and this has come into the process of the recording. I’m not so much interested in the way voice can speak to stories or singing for that matter. I’m more interested in how voice might haunt the music. I invited another artist, Taichi Nagura from the band Endon, to contribute some voice to this album too. He is featured on Sloshing and his voice absolutely captures this quality I am interested in exploring. It’s as if he is trapped in that piece, fight for and against the other materials in the sound. This tension captures, for me at least, the relationships I think are so powerful about making, and also listening to music.  Design by T.Pakioufakis

Rafael Anton Irisarri – The Unintentional Sea. 2013 : Room40.

! acquire the album ★ attach a coffee !

Natalie Beridze - Salt from: Natalie Beridze - In Front of You (Room40, 2022)

(via ▶︎ Chimæra I | Colin Stetson)

Natalie Beridze - Of Which One Knows

Room40

2022

Coastal Trapped Disturbance by Rafael Anton Irisarri from the album Solastalgia - A film by Sean Curtis Patrick

Special Michael Rother show with Hans Lampe (La Duesseldorf, drums), Franz Bargmann (ex-CAMERA, guitar) and Vittoria Maccabruni (electronics & vocals) at the beautiful City Recital Hall (Sydney) on Thursday 22 February.

Organised by Lawrence English / Room40

Supported by The Goethe-Institut Australien

Tickets: https://tickets.cityrecitalhall.com/events/6890

Throw back to 2021. A mix that everyone missed. Ambient, drifting melodies.

Phauss — Audiodrome/Nya Sverige-Nothing But the Truth — (Room40)

Audiodrome by Phauss

Two well-presented reissues offer a welcome opportunity to revisit the mid-1990s work by the Swedish experimental duo Phauss. Carl Michael Von Hausswolff and Erik Pauser began their collaboration in the early 1980s after both relocated to Götenborg. After beginning by opening a gallery for art installations and performances, they soon took inspiration from the artists around them such as Leif Elggren and began their own sound experiments. These two albums explore the effects of time and place through field recordings and clever approaches to sound assemblage.

The first of these CDs, Audiodrome, is two separate but similar pieces, each about half an hour long, created using recordings from two journeys that Phauss took in 1983 and 1986. During both trips, the duo recorded audio and/or video at a random time every few days, no matter where they were or what was happening at the time. The recordings were then edited using the same approach, resulting in the audio presented here. It’s unclear why, but they’re offered in reverse order, with the later trip coming first. 

“Zürich – Zürich 1986” contains recordings from a trip starting and ending in Zürich via countries including Lebanon, Syria, India, Thailand and the U.S. The voices, street sounds, vehicles, distant announcements and coincidentally-spliced sounds blend into a new hallucinatory journey in which your brain creates connections and imagined places, floating through carnivals, markets and streets. This piece was also used as the soundtrack for a multi-display video installation, the Phauss Videodrome. 

The second piece, “Alger – Lagos 1983”, was constructed from recordings during an earlier trip from Algeria to Nigeria. This one contains more diverse and strident sounds, and by halfway through there’s an increased intensity, with some singing and instrumental strumming competing with background whistles, vehicles and other sounds demanding attention. It’s a stressful atmosphere, albeit offset by the joy communicated by the singing. There’s a period two-thirds in when everything’s overwhelmed by what may be an airplane engine revving up, an unwelcome intrusion by a symbol of industry. 

These are at root field recordings, of course, though edited and overlaid via a chance mechanism. The flow of sound creates audio portraits of places that don’t really exist, as if one could take several locations and place them atop one another to make a composite place. The interview in the book accompanying Nya Sverige mentions the duo’s connection with and debt to Gysin and Burroughs, properly situating these works with their literary and visual cut-up forebears. 

In truth, it’s a bit difficult to feel emotionally attached to these pieces. They’re too abstract, somehow, despite the clear origins in the real world. Listening, one feels like a detached observer, not like someone who’s personally involved in what’s happening. Perhaps that’s due to the way they’re constructed, to the nature of the sounds collected and used, or just from approaching the listening with certain expectations. It doesn’t take away from the intellectual appreciation, but listeners may find it challenging to develop a deeper connection. 

Nya Sverige - Nothing But The Truth by Phauss

The second release is Nya Sverige – Nothing But the Truth, a single hour-long piece both collected and created during Phauss’ 1990 tour of the U.S. Von Hausswolff and Pauser collected sounds in each city during the tour, adding them to the recordings from the previous cities. As a result, the audio became denser and more complex as the tour went on, but due to their processing the output was also increasingly abstract. This album is the final result after what the duo describe as being “messed up,” “re-generated,” and “finalised” in 1991. It’s nearly unrecognizable as something that started from field recordings. Having been fortunate enough to attend the San Francisco date of this tour, I really enjoyed the updated re-presentation here, both similar to yet different from my memories of the event. 

While Audiodrome left the original recordings untreated, though edited and mixed, Nya Sverige profoundly alters them, processing everything into a swirling cacophony of oceanic sound. It starts as a windy drone, building from near-silence to a noticeable gale over the first 13 minutes, at which point a sudden metallic clank breaks the drone. As the piece progresses, deep bass rumbles fade as everything goes nearly silent, then drones and noise return with voices dropping in and out, devolving into abstract crunching and scraping sounds. The listener can approach this as either a seemingly electronic music piece divorced from its origins, or as an intriguing puzzle, with elements of the recorded material tantalizingly offered here and there before being subsumed into the depths of sound. 

Both CDs are accompanied by small books that offer valuable background context and insights into the works. Audiodrome’s book is 42 pages of photographs from the journeys, providing a visual partner to the sound collages, while Nya Sverige contains a very informative interview with the band by Room 40 label head Lawrence English. Having both is recommended since the interview touches on both releases, as well as describing the artistic community in Götenborg that inspired and supported Phauss’ activities. As is typical of the label, the design and presentation are top-notch, and the attention to detail is especially appreciated for a project like this that’s bringing notable works from the past to today’s audiences. Those looking for adventurous listening will be rewarded. 

Mason Jones

David Toop & Lawrence English - The Shell That Speaks The Sea - "the affective realm that haunts, rather than describes, experience"

A note from Lawrence English I first met David Toop some 20 years ago. I think we were in touch shortly before that, but our first meeting took place when I invited him to Australia to perform and to speak as part of REV, a festival held at Brisbane Powerhouse. It was a memorable meeting, I vividly remember his solo performance and the edition A Picturesque View, Ignored, documents an improvised meeting during that time. Over the years, David and I have shared an interest in both the material and immaterial implications of sound (amongst other things). Moreover we’ve connected many times on matters which lie at the fringes of how we might choose to think about audition, our interests seeking in the affective realm that haunts, rather than describes, experience. The Shell That Speaks The Sea very much resonates from this shared fascination. I’m not exactly sure when we first mooted this duet, but I sense its initial trace is now more than a decade ago. I tend to live by the motto of ‘right place, right time’ and I believe David likely also subscribes to this methodology. A couple of years ago, David and I reignited the duet conversation and began exchanging materials. As a jumping off point, I explored a series of field recordings that, for me at least, captured something of this affective haunting that I mentioned previously. One such recording was of a Tawny Frogmouth at Nugum (White Rock) on the lands of the Yugarabul people. The frogmouth is an utterly elusive creature whose voice is like a modulating low frequency oscillator. They are a magical bird, and like the Potoo, have captivated David and I at various points in our lives. The recording seemed to suggest a whole way of approaching sound and, for me at least, it opened an entirely new range of sound worlds which are present in the final version of this recording. This edition is the product of spontaneous burst of exchanges, buffered by periods of tempered silence. A patient work, charged with unexpected dynamics. It’s with great pleasure we share this recording with you.  David Toop - Voice, digital electronics, Spanish, electric and lapsteel guitars, bowing, whistling, percussion, flutes. Lawrence English - Electronics, field recordings, shortwave radio, bass drum, ghost flute, bamboo, stones.

The periphery. The forgotten. The static in between.

Christina Giannone - Reality Opposition from: Christina Giannone - Reality Opposition (Room40, 2023)

releases July 14, 2023

Sticker pack from Lawrence English

buy it on Room40 Bandcamp

visit also: mundourbano.blogspot.com

Madeleine Cocolas - Spectral

Room40

2022