Monthly Archives: April 2005

Tone 24 – KK.NULL/Watson/z’ev “Number One”

CD – 5 tracks – 48:15

Z’EV writes: “In March of 2003 seeing my friends Stephen & Josephine in Los Angeles they suggested that i get in touch with japanese composer/performer KK.NULL. There followed a string of weird email occurrences which delayed our communicating until, as it turned out, we eventually met in Paris on 18 November.After his performance we were talking about a possible collaboration and during his set a possibility had occurred to me. I ran the idea by him and we agreed to proceed with it. The idea had 3 elements: 1 – to use the structure of the NOH THEATRE cycle as the basis for the composition. 2 – to consider the initial sound development in terms of developing ‘characters’ which would then interact with one another through the specific “scene” [which is a fairly non-traditional way to work with sound elements] and 3 – to place the ‘character interactions’ as the ‘figure’ inside of particular sound-scapes as the ‘ground’.

So in January 2004 I returned to London and began to work on my initial character developments. Coincidentally at this time I received a copy of a CD compilation i had a piece on which was released by TOUCH, which also had a piece by Chris Watson. So i got on the phone to TOUCH who put me in touch with Chris who has joined in on the project.

Sometime after I had completed mixing the 5 pieces, I sent a copy to my friend Boyd Rice. He emailed me back: “This is the first avant-garde piece I have heard in years that is truly avant-garde.”

In the production process, Z’EV framed his and KK.NULL’s electro-acoustic musics inside Chris Watson’s field recordings from East Africa. A dynamic dialogue and inside-outside mirroring of natural and synthetic sound is the result: where the click and rhythm of an insect merges with KK.NULL’s drumming; where the calls of the elephants combine with the electronic bass frequencies; where bird and frog song and Z’EV’s harmonic structures produces surprising counterpoints.

Track list:

1. Invocation
2. Introduction
3. Development
4. Climax
5. Conclusion

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TO:66LP – Biosphere “Dropsonde”

Track list:

A1 Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wing
A2 Fall In, Fall Out
A3 Daphnis 26
B1 Altostratus
B2 Sherbrooke
B3 In The Shape Of A Flute

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Tone 22 – Fennesz Sakamoto “Sala Santa Cecilia”

Track list:

1. Sala Santa Cecilia

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Tone 21 – Spire Live at Geneva Cathedral

St. Pierre Cathedral, Geneva, was the crucible of the Reformation in 1534…

The second release in the Spire series [cf Spire, organ works past, present & future, Touch # Tone 20, 2004] is more than a document of ‘Spire Live’, which took place as part of La Batie 2004, at St. Pierre Cathedral, Geneva, on 5th September 2004. Curated by Eric Linder, from La Batie, and Mike Harding, the dynamism of the event, where the audience rotated between 3 separate venues within the Cathedral precinct, is reflected in the individual recordings: Philip Jeck goes heavy metal in the crypt: BJNilsen comes over all moody in the side chapel, and Fennesz soothes and seduces in the same place.

All this is set up by Charles Matthews and Marcus Davidson on the main organ [4 manifolds, computer operated] which dominates the time and place. Davidson plays Gorécki’s extraordinary Kantata for organ, [full stops on max employed here] which segués into BJNilsen’s ultra-heavy live organ and electronics next door. This follows Charles Matthews’s excellent renditions of pieces by Jolivet and Alexandra which, as the text by Thierry Charollais says: “The event seemed provoking and iconoclastic in contrast to the severe and austere atmosphere of the cathedral. Though some of the musical pieces were audacious, the music focused mainly on spirituality. It generated a different perception of the organ pieces, thus modifying our perception of the cathedral and making the event truly exceptional.”

And to finish, Fennesz soothed us with sound. His set evoked the rolling centuries in all their pain and beauty, leaving us at once becalmed and energised, but never oppressed under the weight of time.

Track list:

CDOne 76:04
On the main organ in the cathedral: Charles Matthews plays tracks 1-4:
1. Marcus Davidson – Opposites Attract [10:05]
2. Marcus Davidson – Psalm for Organ 3 [1:24]
3. André Jolivet – Hymne à l’Universe [11:58]
4. Liana Alexandra – Consonances lll [6:52]
Marcus Davidson plays track 5:
5. Henryk Gorécki – Kantata for organ op. 26 [15:42]
In the side chapel: 6. BJNilsen – Live in La Petite Chapelle [29:59]

CDTwo 69:06
In the crypt: Philip Jeck – Live in the Crypt [44:14]
In the side chapel: Fennesz – Live in La Petite Chapelle [24:49]

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T33.20 – Jacob Kirkegaard “Eldfjall”

This CD consists of geothermal recordings of vibrations in the ground around the area of Krisuvik, Geysir and Myvatn in Iceland. The recordings have been carried out using accelerometers inserted into the earth at various places around the geysers, mapping the sonic aspects of volcanic activity at the surface of the earth.

Recorded during January and August and mixed in winter 2004.
Thanks to Thor Magnusson & family, Kristin Gunnarsdottir, Alberto de Campo and Anthony Moore.

Track list:

1. Ala
2. Gaea
3. Nerthus
4. Coatlicue
5. Al-Lat
6. Aramaiti
7. Izanami
8. Kali
9. Gerd

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TO:65 – BJ Nilsen “Fade to White”

CD – 6 tracks – 45:29

Track list:

1. Purple Phase
2. Dead Reckoning
3. Let Me Know When It’s Over
4. Impossibilidad
5. Grappa Polar
6. Nine Ways Till Sunday

Benny Nilsen writes: “‘Fade To White’ contains material from the making of 3 pieces which were created within a different season and then edited, re-arranged and re-mixed in the summer of 2004. 6 pieces contain outdoor field recordings from travels in mainly central europe in 2003 [Gdansk/Poland, Narva/Estonia, Sarajevo/Serbia Herzegovina, Arad/Romania, Trieste/Italy], and static indoor recordings from 2004 Stockholm/Sweden, Brussels/Belgium, Amsterdam/Netherlands, Vienna/Austria, Geneva/Switzerland. I used acoustic and electrical instruments recorded in open spaces picking up the natural ambience, blending those with environmental sounds of nature and then arranged it in the computer, creating dynamic layers of sound that feed from one another.” This is BJNilsen’s 3rd album for Touch, after “Land” and “Live at the Konzerthaus, Vienna” . He also recorded 3 Hazard albums for Ash International.

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Touch Live at Domino, Brussels | April 6th-14th 2005

Installation:
Title: The Golden Well
Visuals: Jon Wozencroft
Audio: Rosy Parlane – Iris [Touch # TO:58, 2004]

Display Cabinets:
Touch CDs/LPs/Books designed by Jon Wozencroft
Framed Photographs by Jon Wozencroft reflecting the best of his photography for Touch releases over the years

The Listening Eye

Domino can be found at AB, Anspachlaan 110, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Pictures from the exhibition:




The Stockholm Effect No. 1 is now available for free download

The Stockholm Effect No. 1
Live at Fylkingen, Stockholm, 26th August 2004
[Fennesz/BJNilsen/z’ev]

Fennesz – computer, piano & guitar
BJNilsen – computer
z’ev – bass drums

The recording has been divided into seven pieces for download.
They were mastered for easy reconstruction back to the original
uninterrupted performance.

Each track will be deleted at the end of each month and will not
reappear, so check back at the beginning of each month for the
new track to download. The files are compressed and will appear
as .sit files. You will need a suitable utility to decompress them
[eg Stuffit Expander]

Track 1 [4:26] – October 2004
Track 2 [2:51] – November 2004
Track 3 [4:04] – December 2004
Track 4 [3:39] – January 2005
Track 5 [2:39] – February 2005
Track 6 [3:08] – March 2005
Track 7 [2:55] – April 2005

Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering