Author: muse

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Los Angeles – 06.26.2010 – PRESENCE at the Torrance Art Museum

VOLUME is pleased to present Presence,  an afternoon of immersive sound, video, and durational performance work at the Torrance Art Museum on June 26, 12-5pm. Presence plays with the multiple meanings of the title to contextualize divergent practices by a unique selection of artists all working across a spectrum of time based media, whether it is video, sound, durational performance, or installation.

Artists include Jen Boyd (audio performance), Frank Bretschneider (screening), Jeff Cain & Mark Steger (collaborative video performance/installation), Heather Cassils & Kadet Kuhne (sound and durational performance), Richard Chartier (sound element), i8u & Cédrick Eymenier (audio/visual performance), Monique Jenkinson (video screening), Mem1 (audio/visual performance), A.B. Miner (film screening), Yann Novak (audio performance), Adam Overton (durational performance), Taisha Paggett (durational performance), Semiconductor (video screening), Sublamp (audio/visual performance).

The Torrance Art Museum is located at 3320 Civic Center Drive, Torrance, CA 90503. Call 310.618.6340 for more information.
Outdoors

Noon-5pm

The Hop-Frog Kollectiv
audio performance
Front Entrance

Noon-5pm
Monique Jenkinson
video sceening
Noon-5pm

A.B. Miner
film screening
Gallery One

Noon-5:00
Taisha Paggett
durational performance
Noon-12:45
Richard Chartier
sound dispersion
12:45-1:00
Semiconductor
video screening
1:00-1:20
Sublamp
audio/visual performance
1:30-1:50
Marc Manning
audio/visual performance
2:00-2:20
Jen Boyd
audio performance
2:30-2:50
Mem1
audio/visual performance
3:00-3:20
Yann Novak
audio performance
3:30-3:50
i8u & Cédrick Eymenier
audio/visual performance
4:00-4:20
Frank Bretschneider
video screening
4:30-4:40

Heather Cassils & Kadet Kuhne
collaborartive performance
Gallery Two

Noon-5pm

Jeff Cain & Mark Steger
video/performance installation
Roaming

Noon-5pm
Adam Overton
durational performance
Presence plays with its multiple meanings to contextualize divergent practices by a unique selection of artists all working across a spectrum of time based media, whether it is video, sound, durational performance, or installation. There will be a collection of gestures, words spoken, interplay of light and sound, moments of silence, focus, transgressions, layered meanings and experiences, noises, the sound of breathing and bodies performing tasks, a deeper awareness of the passage of time.

Presence is supported in part by the Canada Council for the Arts.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jen Boyd is a sound artist living in Northern CA. She spends time recording her environment and arranges it into layered soundscapes. In these pieces, some sounds unfold naturally while others are processed. For several years Jen has used contact microphones to explore the textures and timbres in trees and her compositions give depth to these delicate sounds. Although her work mostly relies on ‘natural’ sounds she uses a wide variety of sources to paint sonic pictures for the listener. In future projects, Jen will explore the depths of natural sound and its presentation as art through live performance and installation. Jen strives to spark the interest in people of all ages to listen more closely to the environment they live in everyday.

Frank Bretschneider works as a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin. His work is known for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures and its minimal, flowing approach. Described as “abstract analogue pointillism”, “ambience for spaceports” or “hypnotic echochamber pulsebeat”, Bretschneider‘s subtle and detailed music is echoed by his visuals: perfect translated realizations of the qualities found in music within visual phenomena.

Jeff Cain is an artist who investigates cultural, technological, and natural phenomenon and creates interdisciplinary projects that intervene, remodel, and connects these systems. His work has been presented at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Musee D’art Modern de Ville de Paris, Track 16, LA Freewaves, and many other Southern California venues. He is also the founder and inventor of RHZ Radio, which was nominated for the Prix Ars Electronica in 2005.

Heather Cassils is an artist, stunt person and a body builder who uses an exaggerated physique to intervene in various contexts in order to interrogate systems of power, control and gender. Often employing many of the same strategies used by FLUXUS and guerrilla theater, her method is multidisciplinary and crosses a spectrum of performance, film, drawing, video, photography and event planning. Cassils is a founding member of the Los Angeles based performance group the Toxic Titties.

Richard Chartier, sound and installation artist, is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist electronic sound art which has been termed both “microsound” and Neo-Modernist. Chartier’s minimalist digital work explores the inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception and the act of listening itself. Chartier’s sound works/installations have been presented in galleries and museums internationally including the 2002’s Whitney Biennial and he has performed his work live across Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America at digital art/electronic music festivals and exhibits.

The Hop-Frog Kollectiv is a Los Angeles/Long Beach based collective focused on experimental arts, political dissent and fever dream realization and are the curators of Thee Dung Mummy, experimental arts gatherings. The Kollectiv formed in 2003 as a medium for experimental artists and musicians to share, create and exhibit their work and has since become a hub of activity for Los Angeles, national and international emerging artists.  HFK has realized performances and exhibits across the US and Europe.  Their newest incarnation of Thee Dung Mummy (Dung Mummy’s Nomadic Transmissions) focuses on outdoor installations and live shows based in the Mojave Desert.   HFK is also known for their intensive drone rituals.

i8u (France Jobin) is a sound/installation/web artist residing in Montreal, Canada. i8u has created solo recordings for nvo (AT), ROOM40 (Australia), bake/staalplaat(Netherlands),as well as many collaborations notably with Goem, Martin Tétreault, David Kristian and recently the album ligne with Tomas Phillips, on the Japanese label, ATAK. i8u’s web work/installations have been shown at Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Toronto’s Images independent film festival at MIVEAM 06. The AIR Artist-In-\ Residence program in Krems Austria enabled her to create und transit, a sound\ installation set in the cloister of MinoritenKirche in Stein, Austria.

Monique Jenkinson is a multifaceted performing artist whose work places itself in the gaps between dance, theater, drag and performance art. She has created and performed locally and internationally at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the de Young Museum, and Trannyshack in San Francisco; the New Museum, Danspace Project, Howl Festival and the Stonewall in New York; the Met Theatre in Los Angeles; the Coachella Festival; Gay Pride in Reykjavik; Supperclub in Amsterdam; and Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Horsemeat Disco and SoHo Revue Bar in London.

Kadet Kuhne is a media artist whose work spans the audiovisual spectrum. With the goal of forming somatic experiences which can prompt visceral responses to sound and movement, Kadet openly exposes the use of technology in her practice by employing fragmented, jump-cut edits and amplifying evidence of sonic detritus. This glitch aesthetic, contrasted with layered ambient reflection, is intended to heighten tensions between motion and stasis: a balanced yet heightened “nervous system” to reflect our own. Trained in jazz guitar in her youth, Kadet became attached to the instinctive nature of improvisation, which led her to the California Institute of the Arts where she studied Composition and Integrated Media. Select exhibitions and performances include the Museum of Art Lucerne, LACMA, Musees de Strasbourg, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, REDCAT, Museum of Contemporary Art-LA, Not Still Art Festival, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, The LAB, Highways Performance Gallery and the New York Underground Film Festival.

Marc Manning is a artist and musician living and working in San Francisco. He has released music under the monikers legend of boggy creek, everything is fine, red weather tigers, and heavy lids. He has performed extensively on the east and west coasts over the past 10 years. Manning is a veteran of several Philadelphia atmospheric bands, the shoe gazer art rock of “the legend of boggy creek” and cave core rock of “everything is fine.” Likewise his visual art has been well exhibited on both coasts.

Mem1 seamlessly blends the sounds of cello and electronics to create a limitless palette of sonic possibilities. In their improvisation-based performances, Mark and Laura Cetilia’s use of custom hardware and software, in conjunction with a uniquely subtle approach to extended cello technique and realtime modular synthesis patching, results in the creation of a single voice rather than a duet between two individuals. Their music moves beyond melody, lyricism and traditional structural confines, revealing an organic evolution of sound that has been called “a perfect blend of harmony and cacophony” (Forced Exposure).

A.B. Miner is an artist, curator, and curatorial assistant at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. For the Hirshhorn he curated projects with Yoko Ono and Dan Graham and has worked with Smithsonian Artist Research Fellows Runa Islam and Henrique Oliveira. In March of 2010 Miner presented his solo painting show Naked at which Fly 08 was first shown. In spring 2009 he curated Domesticated: Men and the Domestic Interior at Transformer Gallery. In fall 2009 he was awarded a German travel fellowship from the Goethe Institut to spend one month in Berlin in 2010. As an artist he has exhibited extensively and received awards including the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Young Artist Program Grant and two Artist’s Fellowship Awards. Miner holds an M.F.A. in painting and mixed media from Queens College, CUNY (2000) and a post-graduate certificate in museum studies from the George Washington University (2006).

Yann Novak is a sound artist, composer and designer based in Los Angeles. His compositions have been published by Dragon’s Eye Recordings, The Henry Art Gallery, Infrequency, smlEditions and White_Line Editions. His work utilizes different forms of digital documentation as a point of departure. Through the digital manipulation of these sound and image files, his works serve as a translation from documents of personal experiences into new compositions fueled by the original experience.

Adam Overton is a living composer of experimental music, performance artist, teacher of performance, sound art & multimedia, and a massage therapist based in Los Angeles.

Taisha Paggett is a Los Angeles based choreographer, dancer, teacher, and co-founder of the dance journal project, itch. Her work is inspired by various discourses on the body as an expressive tool and is interested in bridging the sensibility and discourses of both the visual and performing arts.

Semiconductor make moving images which reveal our physical world in flux: cities in motion, shifting landscapes, and systems in chaos. Since 1999, UK artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt have worked with digital animation in an attempt to transcend the constraints of time, scale, and natural forces and explore the world beyond everyday experience. Central to these works is the role of sound, as it creates, controls, and deciphers images, exploring resonance through the natural order of things.

Mark Steger is the co-founder and director of osseus labyrint, the preeminent experimental arts entity based in Los Angeles and has performed live in over 100 cities, conducted public workshops, made presentations and attended symposia and broadcast throughout the USA, Canada, Mexico, England, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and over the World Wide Web. Steger’s live performances are experiments that explore the history of the body and its relationship to what it creates. Mark has received numerous awards and grants including a Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production Grant, a California Arts Council Fellowship, the Durfee Artists Award and 1997 and 2001 Los Angeles Times year end “10 Best” performances lists.

Sublamp is Los Angeles based sound and video artist Ryan Connor. Raised by scientist parents living outside of various national parks in New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado, Ryan developed an early fascination with nature and science that influenced his later work as an artist. Primarily interested in pre-language experience, he uses textural sound and images to explore an intuitive and emotional response to sensory data. His work has been published by Serac (USA), Pehr (USA), SEM (France), Dragon’s Eye Recordings (USA), Friendly Virus (Portugal), Ahora Eterno (Argentina), and soon TRDMRK (USA) and Hibernate Recordings (UK).

ABOUT VOLUME

VOLUME functions as a catalyst for interdisciplinary new media work through exhibitions, performances, events, lectures, and publications. Concentrating on the nexus of music and visual arts practices ranging from the avant-garde to popular culture, VOLUME offers unique opportunities for artists to create and present hybrid works.

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London UK 06.06.2010 – framework

This sunday on framework  resonance.fm :“these are few of my favorite things”  by i8u

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

*framework*/ broadcasts:
sunday,06.06.10, 10pm, london, uk on resonance 104.4fm (http://www.resonancefm.com)
tuesday,06.08.10,  2pm, london, uk on resonance 104.4fm (http://www.resonancefm.com)
wednesday, 06.09.10, 12am, thessaloniki, gr on cooradio (http://www.cooradio.com)
wednesday, 06.09.10, 3am, lisbon, pt on radio zero (http://www.radiozero.pt)
thursday, 06.10.10, 7pm, lisbon, pt on radio zero (http://www.radiozero.pt)
friday, 06.011.10, 1am, brussels, be on radio campus 92.1fm (http://www.radiocampusbruxelles.org)
saturday, 06.12.10, 5pm, south devon, uk on soundartradio 102.5fm (http://www.soundartradio.org.uk)

Framework – i8u – my favorite things (Installment #5)

As mentioned in earlier installments, my interpretation of field recording based works, is very broad however, the thread I like to follow is to find artists who have mastered their unique identity through the music of sound.

The next 2 issues of my favorite things will focus on a festival that has taken place in Winnipeg, Canada for the last 10 years. Winnipeg, is basically in the middle of the Canada, a region commonly referred to as the prairies, it is vast and flat. Don’t be fooled, a Winnipeg audience   is knowledgeable and discerning. I had the privilege to play twice at this festival and it remains at the top of my list! This is directly linked to the people I came in contact with while i was there. They are, Steve Bates, Jake Moore, Deanna Radford, Don Bargenda, and the festival is Send and Receive.

In the fall of 2009, S+R issued a dvd of the last 10 years, there is almost 11 hours of audio on it, what follows are excerpts of those live performances.

Playlist + additional info below

Performance Dates,  Artists & Websites

1. fools summons train 1998 – David Grubb
2. 1999 – Lee Ranaldo + Dean Roberts
3. 2000 –  Martin Tétreault – actuellecd.com/en/bio/tetreault_ma
4. 2000 – Oval
5. 2001 – Cindy – actuellecd.com/en/bio/stonge_al
6. 2002 – Tomas Jirku
7. 2002- Michael Dumontier
8. 2003 – Tim Hecker – sunblind.net
9. 2003 – my kingdom for a lullaby
10.2004 – Taylor Deupree – 12k.com

Additional info:

send and receive

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Review – unter den linden – und transit (NVO) 2010 – by TJ Norris, Toneshift

CHRISTOPHE CHARLES / Unter den Linden
I8U / Und Transit
Nonvisualobjects

This is one of nonvisualobjects’ three new releases, all of which are collaborations, or split eps, by two artists. Here we have the latest by both Marseille’s Christophe Charles and Canadian sound sculptor i8u respectively. Starting with Charles’ Unter den Linden, a wonderfully atmospheric 30-minute composition which was performed in concert at SND Studios (UK) in early 2009. By using the sounds of wind — and of flying things like planes and birds — the skies are heralded. The above and beyond sounds pay homage to his recently deceased father, Daniel Charles. There’s something of a spirited rumble, though this is quite low-flying and vibratory. A transitional piece that lulls and suspends throughout, like a haunting reminder, or a flickering light at the end of a dark cavernous space that you gravitate towards curiously. Once through you are out on a bustling street, walking through the din of the city. Worlds slowly collide, politely shifting as an ascending craft swallows the scene, leaving behind a semblance of trickling water and whisper.

On Und Transit i8u (France Jobin) paints a restrained world with sine waves by bending elegant sounds, paired with the echoey hollows of a passageway in Lower Austria. During an art residency she found a certain inspiration in the Minoritenplatz, a long corridor towards her studio. Within these sounds of emptiness Jobin recorded a certain reverberation here, a path that shuttles you in secret. The five pieces that comprise the recording are a collection of manipulated field recordings in and around the city of Krems known for its eye-popping riverscapes and historical architecture. Unlike most North American cities contemporary art is integral to the social structure of daily life here. i8u helps draw from daily walks through the city in what may be better described as a micro-encoded mapping of her meanderings. It is on Donnerstag that this becomes most evident on this very elusive work. It lifts gently, opens with an airy drone, rises and glides away.

TJ Norris
toneshift

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Review – unter den linden – und transit (NVO) 2010 – by Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

unter den linden – Christophe Charles | und transit – i8u on NVO

The second new release is also a split one, this time between I8U and Christophe Charles. He opens up with a piece called ‘Unter Den Linden’ and it uses various sounds of airplanes, telephone bells, a silo and a Spanish garbage truck. It lasts thirty minutes and it takes a while before it unfolds. The processing seems to be minimal here, but you’re never sure then about these sort of things. Its an alright piece of music based on field recordings, but also the best I ever heard in this field. Canada’s I8U has five pieces, which she recorded while doing a 3 months artist residency in Krems, Austria. While walking to the studio, she noticed some particular passageway at the Minoritenplatz, which seemed ‘lonely’, ignored by those who used it. She collected field recordings around the small city of Krems and did a four channel installation based on the emptiness of the passageway. These five pieces are typical of the current interests of I8U: high pitched sine waves, but not high involume, and down on the ground there are bits of low end sound. Field recordings are hard to recognize here, if at all. Here too I have the idea that I am listening to something that is actually quite good, but also not very surprising. It might be due to the fact that I8U uses a too similar approach to treating her sounds. The outcome, in both cases is however nice enough.

(FdW) Vital Weekly

nonvisualobjects

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Review – physical, absent, tangible (Contour Editions) 2010 – by Adrian Dziewanski, scrapyardforecast


Physical, Absent, Tangible, i8u, Christopher Delaurenti, Gil Sansón and Brian Mackern & Gabriel Galli

18.5.10
Various Artists ‘Physical, Absent, Tangible’ cd-r (Contour Editions, 2010)

It’s shaping up to be a pretty damn good year for the compilation, which has sadly always sort of let me down. For what few I do actually own–label comps, musical collectives, various artists comps–I rarely go back too. Please indulge me in a very winged hypothesis that maybe the ‘compilation’ as an art form/object is just now finally coming into its own. Or, a far more likely scenario: I just haven’t been looking hard enough for the good ones. The ones that really dig their hooks into the listener.

With this said there are some giant exceptions, Elevator Bath’s A Cleansing Ascension from a couple years back was and still is very enjoyable. Recent personal discoveries like the highly anticipated and grossly delayed release of Paper & Plastic on suitcase/petri supply/incubator (March 2010), and the Patrick Mckinley (aka Murmer) curated Framework 250 (Much more info on that soon, check back at the end of the month) discs have re-sparked my faith in the potential potency of the compilation. If some of you remember or can refer back to the Not Alone 5 disc set compiled by Mark Logan of Jnana Records and Current 93’s David Tibet from 2006 then you might understand where my criticism of comps stems from.

Before you start sending me negative vibes and waving your arms around in rage… stop, and hear me out. Almost every artist on that compilation was a favourite of mine at some moment in time, and actually, I was exposed to some bands that I ended up really liking as a direct result of it. Furthermore, as a Doctors Without Borders fundraiser, you couldn’t really argue that it wasn’t for a good cause. But! those discs did lack something. Because of how eclectic all the musicians were it there lacked a fluidity and cohesiveness that other compilations have been able to achieve. I don’t blame Logan either, as it must have been hell trying to lump all those acts together. I don’t actually think it could of turned out better than it did with so much variance in musical style. So what’s my point? let’s just say that there is something to be said about the selection and attention to the congruity of musical styles when assembling such delicate documents.

Various Artists
‘Physical, Absent, Tangible’
cd-r (Contour Editions, 2010)

Physical, Absent, Tangible is kept simple, which plays out very much to its favour. The four artists found within fill their respective musical roles with a unified understanding of what those roles represent. The whole thing works very well. Canadian based i8u kicks things off with an eleven and a half minute analog synth work that juxtaposes high and low frequencies resulting in a pleasant sonic parallel. The experience is a lot like standing on a small patch of land in between two rivers. Christorpher Delauenti’s two pieces are absolutely sublime, the first, “sigil” is a short but impressive arrangement of feedback squall and tonal noise. Where as “nictating” begins as a looped low-end rumble that eventually dismantles as a simmering drone; the album’s high point. Gil Sansón provides eight short pieces that seem to represent fragments of a whole. In consideration of their brevity–and that usually this kind of off-the-grid minimalism is best represented in the long form–Sansón’s section remains very strong. The final contribution, a collaborative work by Brian Mackern and Gabriel Galli (both new to me) is a static soaked excursion into subdued tactility. What sounds like morse code thrown into the mix gives this piece a real Tracer era Omit feel–definitely a good thing. Impressive stuff. Kudos to a very tasteful ice breaker for the label Mr. Garet.

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und transit on NVO 022 (2010)

NVO 022 christophe charles / i8u
unter den linden / und transit
on nonvisuelobjects

unter den linden

The “Grundton” of this 30-minute composition is the recording of the concert given at SND STUDIOS SHEFFIELD (UK) in March 2009, entitled “Why is there something rather than nothing?” by Mark Fell and powered with d&b speakers by Tony Myatt (MRC, University of York). The sounds of planes have been recorded in Mallorca (Spain) in 1987, and in Pilat (France) in 2009. This music comes after HCDC, composed in November 2008 after the death of Daniel Charles – his last days were darkened by breathing difficulties, hence the overall presence of the “wind”. The last five minutes were composed in 1987 with telephone bells, a silo and a Spanish garbage truck, under the name “unter den linden”. The piece is not related with Berlin, but with Jules Massenet’s “Sous les tilleuls” (from “Scenes alsaciennes” where bells are heard in a distance and thus modified by the wind), and evokes a peaceful atmosphere just before the bombs begin to fall.

Christophe Charles, September 2009

—
This world of ours is one relative world. Any number of other possible or actual worlds are conceivable. Each such world is able to reflect all the others without ceasing
to be the real world that it is of itself.

Nishitani Keiji

und transit

The conceptual framework of “und transit” was conceived while taking part in a 3 months artist residency in Krems, Austria (2008/09). While in transit (daily walks) to my studio, I was inspired by a particular passageway in Minoritenplatz.
Like most passageways, which are a means to an end – and are rarely treated as an end in itself – I was immediately struck by the loneliness and practicality of this space as well as the capacity of the users to ignore it on a daily basis. During the course of my residency I collected a number of field recordings in and around Krems, in order to create a series of soundscapes based on Minoritenplatz’s sound of emptiness through the means of a quadraphonic installation.
These compositions represent some of the pieces composed for “und transit”.

i8u (France Jobin)

—
Follow your bliss.

Joseph Campell

+

NVO 021
Tim Blechmann / Seijiro Murayama
347
NVO 023
asher / fourm
selected passages / set.grey
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Review – physical, absent, tangible (Contour Editions) 2010 – by Sietse van Erve, EARLabs

Physical, Absent, Tangible, i8u, Christopher Delaurenti, Gil Sansón and Brian Mackern & Gabriel Galli –
RATED: 8 / 10

A compilation of tracks with the theme of past spaces, memories and time. 4 acts showcase their own take on this subject. There were sound-art and music meet. It doesn’t happen very often that we receive compilations here at EARLabs. This is easy to explain because in most cases compilations are not really are not really a cohesion of tracks, though on the other hand if done well they can say a lot about the label and the involved musicians. In the last category is the collection of 12 tracks that are brought together on Physical, Absent, Tangible on the label run by Richard Garet: Contour Editions. The four acts involved are i8u, Christopher Delaurenti, Gil Sansón and collaboration between Brian Mackern & Gabriel Galli.

Physical, Absent, Tangible gives a clear idea about what Contour Editions stands for. The musical pieces we find here are in the musical outsiders field of sound-art. The artists all approached the sound world here with an inspiration of gone spaces. Gaps in space and time.

The first piece is Rarefraction by i8u. A minimal piece with low sine drones and high pitched beeps. At least that’s how it starts. Gradually the piece transfers into some sort of big emptiness, while the high pitched sounds re-occur through out the whole piece the main part seems to be more ambient drone based. Soft soundscapes set a scenery of a huge empty space, while the high pitches seem more like a proof of organic happenings. As if something is trying to find its way. While at points the high pitches can sound a bit annoying still overall this is a strong piece. It is one with a lot to discover.
The next artist up is Christopher Delaurenti. His approach is from another angle. He presents two different pieces. The first, Sigil, is one based on distorted and clipping low-end noise and feedback. In the piece there are returning cycles. The soundstructures are suitable for a live setting where a surround system is used to let the music spin through the room. The different pulses could blow the audience away. For cd, though, it is a less interesting piece. It stays a bit on the same side of things.

The second piece by Delaurenti is from another level. This is much more for the home listening session. Nictating works with several layered loops. The background is filled with pulsating noise while more to the foreground clicks are slowly evolving through time. The continuous adding and removing of loops makes this an interesting piece. There is a slow transgression in the music that makes it surrounding throughout the complete room. While some of the loops keep on returning the music never becomes boring.
Next up is Gil Sansón, who delivered 8 pieces by the same name La Montaña S Ha Ido. The source for this pieces are field recordings and archived sounds which Sansón had made in the past but forgot where they came from. With these he tried to recreate situations that could have been the original setting. Throughout these pieces there doesn’t seem to be a line to connect them soundwise. Some of the pieces are more drone based, while others hang in the musique concrete side of music. Due to the way Sansón worked the pieces stay a lot on the sketch side, leaving a feeling that it could have been a bit more.

The last act is the duo Brian Mackern & Gabriel Galli. They present a 14 minutes long piece called 34S56W/Temporal De Santa Rosa. The piece is based on radiomagnetic interferences that were generated dring the De Santa Rosa storm in Urugruay. They made use of radio receivers, circuit-bended apparatus and much more. The piece knows a certain progression from pure radiostatics to a rich layered structure of drones, noise and hiss, but honest enough it also shows the most “musical” sides of all pieces presented here. The duo makes use of certain melodic elements which we do not find in any of the other tracks. Besides that the development shows a lot of exciting things with both gradual and abrupt changes taking place. Due to the used instrumentation the sound is quite lo-fi. But, in this case it really adds to the character of the music. It easily fits in with the tape sounds done by Norwegian duo Bjerga/Iversen. A great composition to finish this compilation with.

Physical, Absent, Tangible is a good compilation which promises more interesting things to come from Contour Editions. Though, it is more than just a sampler, it is a nice collection with a strict theme interpreted from different sides. Recommended to check out.

EARLabs

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PARIS 03.18.10 – 05.15.10 – EVENT HORIZON by Cédrick Eymenier | i8u

EVENT HORIZON is presented in the context of an exhibit of Cédrick Eymenier photographies and video works at Gallery Poggi | bertoux associés, 115, 117 rue La Fayette,  75010 Paris – 33 (0)95102 5188 Rez-de-chaussée, fond de cour/backyard.

[qt:/eh/event_horizon.m4v 480 240]

EVENT HORIZON Cédrick Eymenier | i8u

EVENT HORIZON is an experimental audio/visual work by i8u (audio) and
Cédrick Eymenier (visual) developed in the summer of 2009.The title of the piece was drawn from the physics term “event horizon” which is a bizarre boundary in space time which gives a black hole it’s name.  It is the proximity point in which no matter or radiation (ex.light) can escape and thereby affect an outside observer.  It is the black holes effects on its surroundings and the light that doesn’t pass the
event horizon that gives physicists their awareness that the black hole
exists.

This project involves the observation of a cityscape after nightfall. The minimal light observed over the city at night masks the flurry of activity that is obscured by
buildings and darkness.

EVENT HORIZON explores the solitary observations of events transmitted via
minimal stimuli and the understanding of the existence of incomprehensibly
massive amounts of activity that cannot affect the outside observer other
than the knowledge that it exists and it is obscured.

In short, it explores the interaction of the subject with the city and the
emotions that come with various sensory stimuli and the contemplation of
what the darkness obscures.

i8u | Cédrick Eyremier

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Review – Untitled 10, The black album – by Textura

VA: Untitled 10 (The Black Album)
Untitled & After
The material on Untitled & After’s tenth release is rooted in techno but spreads its wings far beyond a strict minimal template. The inclusion of field recordings, ambient-dub textures, and a generally expansive approach gives the compilation a wide-screen character that extends its sights beyond the confines of the club. Two focal points emerge in virtually every case: the first a rhythm dimension; the second colourful ambient-electronic scene-painting. Untitled 10 (The Black Album) lists some stellar names as contributors, with Morgan Packard, Andrew Duke, Bizz Circuits, and Leyland Kirby amongst the better-known. Repeated exposure to the album brings into clear focus an interesting trajectory, as the material gradually distances itself from a rhythm-based approach until beats vanish entirely during the recording’s second half.
The album opener “Apple Pie” suggests Morgan Packard’s been soaking up the music of Robert Henke in recent times, a suspicion bolstered when a number of Monolake-like signifiers surface during its five-minute time in the spotlight: sleek and polished surfaces, atmospheric bass rumble, and a forward-thrusting minimal techno pulse. “Hovercraft,” a collaboration between Andrew Duke and i8u, rolls along with a breezy, lighter-than-air techno bump that conveys the movement of its titular transport, while an accompanying Chaircrusher remix infuses the original with a heavier industrial quality and cloaks it in a multi-layered cloud of hazy melodies and noxious atmosphere. Some tracks opt for a more purely ambient textural approach that excludes beats, as confirmed by lovely meditations by sublamp (“andamurmur”) and Robert Crouch and Yann Novak (“Santa Fe”). And sometimes there is truth in advertising, as “Big Air (Ambient Mix),” a cloudy collaborative piece by Jondi & Spesh with Brian Stillwater illustrates. Leyland Kirby takes the project out on a characteristically distinctive note when the stately “Ready To Go Down Together” evokes a mutant processional where fuzz-toned guitars serenade angelic choirs amidst billowing synthetic flourishes.
April 2010

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Review – physical, absent, tangible (Contour Editions) 2010 – by Jim at Aquarius Records in SF

V/A Physical, Absent, Tangible (Contour Editions) cd-r 11.98


Contour Editions is a new label curated by New York based sound artist Richard Garet, whose tense grey drones had marked his very impressive Four Malleable 2cd set on And/OAR as well as an exceptional collaboration with Brendan Murray released back in 2009. The same technical rigor that Garet employs in his own compositions extends to this compilation of various artists working around the globe, including i8u (Canada), Christopher DeLaurenti (Seattle), Gil Sanson (Venezuela), and Brian Mackern & Gabriel Galli (Uruguay). Aside from DeLaurenti, whose phonography collection of orchestral intermissions has long been a favorite of ours, this compilation is an introduction to all of the artists present. Not a bad thing at all, considering how strong each contribution is. Garet had charged these sound artists to consider the “evocation of the in-between immaterial spaces” – not quite the existential pursuit into nothingness, silence, or the void; but rather, the faintest of sounds brought close to the event horizon, the ghosts that tickle at the edge of perception, etc. Fortunately, none of the artists employ the clicks and cuts techniques which emerged from the Max/MSP crowd from the nascent days of the millennium. Sure, things are quiet and undoubtedly processed and/or produced by digital means.

i8u is the work of Canadian composer France Jobin, who’s actually been around quite a while, producing all sorts of electronica-laced computer-driven compositions. Her track eschews all of the mid-range frequencies, instead splitting her attention between a deep rumbling low-end of a slightest pierced tones at the high-end. Despite the extremes of tonality, there’s something rather lulling and enveloping about this piece almost achieving the same generative stasis that Thomas Koner produces. Christopher DeLaurenti presents two tracks of stone-faced slabs of grey noises looped and snapped into a darkened ambience. Gil Sanson’s eight vignettes are open ended by design, with the composer encouraging the listener to hit shuffle on the cd player. These buzzes, drones, and smeared field recordings connect through a muted aesthetic of dreamy discomfort. The Mackern & Galli piece bristles with electrical static cracked upon a shortwave radio with Morse code blips streaming into the foreground and peculiar gestures of feedback sneaking throughout. Bits of radio transmission break through these disembodied elements, giving the piece the detached aesthetic which was endemic to The Conet Project and The Ghost Orchid, despite the very-hands on approach to this piece. All together, the album seamlessly flows from one track to the other, almost making it difficult to discern where one composition begins and another ends.

Hopefully, one of many good things to come from Mr. Garet’s label. Oh yes, it’s limited to 150 copies, too!


MPEG Stream: I8U “Rarefaction”
MPEG Stream: CHRISTOPHER DELAURENTI “Sigil”
MPEG Stream: GIL SANSON “La Montana Se Ha Ido 4”
MPEG Stream: BRIAN MACKERN & GABRIEL GALLI “Temporal De Santa Rosa”


http://www.aquariusrecords.org/cat/jim.html