Monthly Archives: January 2009

Fennesz Interview in The Wall Street Journal

Click here to read Paul Sharma’s interview with Fennesz in The Wall Street Journal.

Tone 36 – Jana Winderen “Heated: Live in Japan”

2 tracks – CD – 27:54

Track list:

1. Tetsuro Yasunaga 1:25
2. Jana Winderen 26:29

Live performance at Super Deluxe, Tokyo, 24th October 2008. Source material recorded with 2 x 8011 DPA hydrophones, 2 x DolphinEAR/PRO hydrophones and 2 x 4060 DPA microphones on a Sound Devices 744T recorder in Greenland, Iceland and Norway.

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Tone 29 – Philip Jeck “Suite: Live in Liverpool”

LP – 5 tracks – 31:49
[vinyl only through Autofact, USA]

Track list:

Side A
1. Press
2. Intro Roll

Side B
1. Live With Errors
2. All That’s Allowed
3. Chime, Chime

Recorded at Hive, FACT, Liverpool on 25th October 2006 as part of Touch 25, live to a M-Audio Mictrotrack 24/96
Edited by Philip Jeck April 2007
Cut by Jason at Transition 14th May 2007 on a Neumann VSM 70
Released on Autofact 14th January 2009
Design and photography by Jon Wozencroft

“Suite: Live in Liverpool” follows Philip Jeck’s acclaimed collaboration with Gavin Bryars and Alter Ego on a new version of ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’ (Touch Tone 34). It is the companion release to his latest solo album, ‘Sand’; a set of five new compositions that highlight Jeck’s mastery of vinyl manipulation, personal and collective memories.
During the past year Jeck has refined and consolidated his unique sound, playing superb sets at last summer’s Faster than Sound festival and at York Minster for Spire. He has recently released ‘Amoroso’ [Touch # TS01, 7″ vinyl only with Fennesz] where he responds to Charles Matthews’s homage to Arvo Pärt.

‘Suite’ is at once elegiac, celebrational, mournful and uplifting. Those who have followed Jeck’s development since his first release, “Loopholes” (Touch TO:26) will observe his return to the industrial textures that coloured that collection, though here they are fused with his symphonic grace and continued development as a composer and live performer.
Philip Jeck studied visual art at Dartington College of Arts. He started working with record players and electronics in the early ’80’s and has made soundtracks and toured with many dance and theatre companies as we as well as his solo concert work. His best kown work “Vinyl Requiem” (with Lol Sargent): a performance for 180 ’50’s/’60’s record players won Time Out Performance Award for 1993. He has also over the last few years returned to visual art making installations using from 6 to 80 record players including “Off The Record” for Sonic Boom at The Hayward Gallery, London [2000].

Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. Jeck makes geniunely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art not the gimmick.

This is Philip Jeck’s 6th solo album for Touch after ‘Loopholes’ [Touch # TO:27, 1995], Surf [TO:36, 1998], Stoke [TO:56, 2002], ‘7’ [TO:57, 2004] and ‘Sand’ [Touch # TO:67, 2008].
He recently performed on “The Sinking of the Titanic” with Gavin Bryars in Rome, about which Boomkat (UK) said: “The most noticeable addition is Jeck, whose expertise and unique style seems to fit like the final piece of the puzzle as his crackles and motifs melt into the architecture of the recording as if they had always been there. This additional layer of nostalgia brought forth by these found sounds adds a significant sense of history, forcing the mind back into hazy film footage and decomposed photos, a perfect match for the subject matter.”

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An Epiphany Unearthed

Jon Wozencroft writes: “Came across this text whilst we were preparing a display of adverts made for The Wire. It was commissioned by Rob Young/Chris Bohn for the magazine’s Epiphanies column (at the back of the magazine) in March 2001. The text was a tiny bit too long so an important section got chopped.

Amazingly, I eventually met the man who had been sitting next to me, Duncan Haysom. We met up in Waterloo in the August of 2007 following an internet quest of dedicated JD fans. The master recording of Joy Division’s ULU concert became the bonus disc for the reissue of Closer by Warner Bros in November that year. There is thus a strange intertwining between this account and the outcomes of the two films, Control and Joy Division, six and seven years later, ie. 29 years after the fact.”

Text: Jon Wozencroft.

Couverture: J-F JAMOUL

2009

2009 sees the debut albums from Jana Winderen and Hildur Gudnadóttir. Amidst great changes in the industry, Touch starts to offer bespoke A3 prints and downloads as a product. London shows at the QEH and The Roundhouse take place in April and May.