Monthly Archives: March 2013

Dave Knapik’s The Alcapion

45ml rye
22.5ml Lillet blanc
22.5ml pineapple juice

Shake over ice.

Double the recipe for whole numbers and more inebriation.

NB. Traditionally, dry vermouth is what is used, but I didn’t have any and Lillet has far more character.

Tone 47 – Jacob Kirkegaard “Conversion”

Vinyl & download only
Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft
Cut by Jason at Transition

In collaboration with Danish ensemble Scenatet, Jacob Kirkegaard’s two pieces Labyrinthitis and Church are here interpreted by classical instruments. The intention of this transformation into an instrumental score is to explore the musical dimension and potential of the sounds that were used in creating the original works.

Church (from “4 Rooms”, Touch, 2006) originally consists of ambient recordings of an abandoned church inside the radioactive zone in Chernobyl. Laybrinthitis (Touch, 2008) is a canon of oto-acoustic tones generated by the artist’s own ears. Like most of Kirkegaard’s sound works, both pieces are characterised by a strong focus on methodology, and by the artist’s wish to omit any deliberate emotional or “musical” intention.

Jacob Kirkegaard is a Danish artist focusing on scientific & aesthetic aspects of resonance, time, sound & hearing. His installations, compositions & performances deal with acoustic spaces or phenomena that usually remain imperceptible. Using unorthodox methods for recording, Kirkegaard captures and contextualizes hitherto unheard sounds from within a variety of environments: a geyser, a sand dune, a nuclear power plant, an empty room, a TV tower, and even sounds from the human inner ear itself.

Based in Berlin, Kirkegaard is a graduate of the Academy for Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. Since 1995, Kirkegaard has presented his works at exhibitions and at festivals and conferences throughout the world. He has released five albums (mostly on the British label Touch) and is a member of the sound art collective freq_out.
JACOB KIRKEGAARD : CONVERSION
Composed by Jacob Kirkegaard
Ensemble: SCENATET
Clarinet: Vicky Wright; Percussion: Mads Bendsen; Trombone: Andras Olsen; Violin: Kirsten Riis-Jensen; Viola: Mina Fred; Cello: Sofia Olsson

Scenatet was founded in 2008 by Anna Berit Asp Christensen and Niels Rønsholdt as an ensemble of soloists and artists for contemporary art and music.

Recorded by Scenatet at Studio 3 at The Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, Denmark June 2012
Mixed in Berlin by Jacob Kirkegaard
Executive Producer: Anna Berit Asp Christensen
Instrumental Supervisor: Niels Rønsholdt
Recording Producer & Sound Engineer: Peter Barnow

Thanks to SCENATET, Danish Arts Council and Danish Composers’ Society for their support.

Track list:

Side One: Labyrinthitis ll 17:24 – you can here an edit of this track here
Side Two: Church ll 16:22

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Touch is 31 today

Today, 11th March, is the official 31st anniversary of the founding of Touch in 1982…

First contact with New Order after their concert at the Newcastle Mayfair on 11th March 1982…

You can follow our progress year by year here…

Tone 45.4F – Jana Winderen “Debris”

Track listing:

Track 1: Scuttling Around in the Shallows 11:25
Track 2: Drying Out in the Sun 16:01

The fourth in the series of limited edition vinyl (now deleted) in the Tone 45 series is now available as a high quality FLAC download, only available from the TouchShop.

“Scuttling Around in the Shallows” is from the quadrophonic installation of the same name showed at Galerie B-312, Montreal, Canada 8th January – 5th February 2011.

“Drying Out in the Sun” is from a four-speaker outdoor public installation at “Starfield Simulation #36”, Scaniaparken in Malmö, Sweden, 4th September – 2nd October 2011.

What they said about the vinyl release:

Norman Records: “What a beautiful unnerving organic cacophony this is, the rugged brutality of the oceans and uncharted icy crevices are captured in blistering fashion here, the enhanced low-end capabilities of the 12” vinyl format further exposing the sheer terrifying natural wonder of it all. Heartily recommended for fans of pure dark ambience and Chris Watson’s absorbing harnessing of the sound of nature.”

The Field Reporter: “The horizontal timeline narrative in ’Debris’ is strongly engaging and that is probably because it sounds very natural and organic but also reveals an intentionality behind it. To me ‘Debris’ works like some sort of cinematographic piece where the artist explores different sounds in a quest that seems more emotional and narrative than conceptual. We can hear recognizable sounds such as voices, bells and birds, that when combined with other sounds – whose causality is not so clear- build altogether a very effective composition.” [David Vélez]

Boomkat: “This piece reminds us strongly of works by Thomas Köner and Jim Haynes, juxtaposing bleak, perilous subaquatic ambient pressure with crystallising surface textures.”

Forced Exposure: “The two sides of Debris were both extracted from a couple of her sound installations, the longer of which is entitled “Drying Out In The Sun”, based on recordings made at / near / beneath the surface of the ocean, which plunge into the nether regions of the deep-sea trenches and alluvial plains, amassed into pressurized low-frequency drones. “Scuttling Around The Shallows” returns to her fascination with shrimp which she first displayed on her Tapeworm cassette The Noisiest Guys On The Planet, with erratic snaps, clicks, and crunches made by those small crustaceans amidst deep-ocean ambience.”