Touch Newsletter #229
Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #229. A further two new tracks, from farmersmanual and ELEH, are now available to subscribers of Touch: Isolation –
the project continues to evolve.
We upload new pieces twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays… Still to come are works by Oren Ambarchi, UnicaZürn, Philip Jeck, Claire M Singer and Strafe FR, amongst other gems. There is still time to support independent music and its fragile support systems. Click here to subscribe.
A photographic counterpoint from Hampstead Heath, addressing the distance between the micro and the macro – scenes that are familiar and universal – underlines the suspended nature of our time now. This week, we see two more examples of the longevity of wood, it’s a visual poem about presence and absence.
Chris Watson, Claire M Singer and Mike Harding were interviewed about the project for BBC Radio 4’s Sunday morning news magazine programme, Broadcasting House. The package begins approximately 40 minutes into the transmission, which is available on BBC Sounds.
In other news, The Tapeworm has pressed an extra 50 copies of Simon Fisher Turner’s “Life Recordings From Prospect Cottage And The Ness”. Available now.
“Touch: Isolation”
V33:40
Touch: Isolation – We present at least 20 new and exclusive tracks recorded by Touch artists.
Subscribe at any point. Ten tracks are now available including, as of today, two new tracks from farmersmanual and ELEH. Moving towards the halfway point in the project, these articulate a peculiar tension between digital and analogue waveforms, perhaps a reflection of our current and obvious dependency on online services and the pressing need for open environments and spaces to remain open.
For those of us not keyed-in to essential working activities that put our politicians to shame, suddenly we have time, but not necessarily its linkage to money and space. The 24/7 version of time acceleration is revealed for what it is, an anti-human measure, in the same light that binds hospital and care workers to superhuman modes of dedication. Birds are singing like they haven’t been heard in decades.
The large part of the Touch: Isolation tracks are instrumental, without words and lyrics. It is difficult to know what to say. It’s nevertheless more important than ever to read between the lines, as we move towards the next phase of the project (and the UK lockdown).
It is wonderful to work again with farmersmanual whose late 90s release “Explorers_We” remains a groundbreaking moment in electronic music. ELEH’s new piece follows hot on the heels of the recent 2019/20 LP/CD “Living Space” that channels the spirit of John Coltrane and Pauline Oliveros into a contemporary context.
farmersmanual
“Unfortunately, voluntary self-isolation strategies may inconvenience individuals, lead to economic losses or even contribute to moral conflicts (part 1).”
Written, performed and produced by farmersmanual
(Gaffney, Berthold, Gmachl).
ELEH
“Still, Not Waiting”
“It reminds me of what I’ve been up to here in the last few weeks…
Between working on music and glancing at work email, I’m engrossed in the topography of my local landscape and the restoration of my grandfather’s workbench, which he built around 1938.
We live about a half-mile from a large river taking water, about 2 miles down to the ocean. In one corner of our area we have a spot where water flows in from two directions and then down to the river.
Where the water flows is the only part of our yard that hasn't been filled in. They filled to build our house in 1850, then filled to build the barn, then our neighbour filled to build up their adjoining land. But where the water flows is much lower. Over the last year I’ve been obsessively filling this area with pachysandra and ferns (ground cover plants instead of wild weeds and tree choking vines); we recently re-routed one of the streams so it goes into the sandy pool created by the other stream. The pool contains trout and eel! Elevated about 7 feet uphill is a pool of water that flows over a dam and in the last few years this area has become a hotspot for frogs.
Lots of digging, damming, old wood, debris, artifacts and history. My grandfather’s workbench contains a lot of his tools and history so I’ve been engrossed in his life and feeling deep, sad feelings, whilst also somehow maintaining an optimism for the future – a kind of optimism that comes from planting something and watching it grow. I’ve also got about 50 evergreen trees I’ve transplanted in this patch so it's a joy to watch new life, year after year.
How are you doing? Are you able to get out for a walk?”
Subscribe to “Touch: Isolation” on Bandcamp
Simon Fisher Turner
“Life Recordings From Prospect Cottage And The Ness”
TTW#126
Cassette only – limited edition of 126 copies. Tape transfers by Philip Marshall. Tape transcriptions by Lisa Swarna Khanna. Mastered by Phil Julian. Artwork: Russell J.R. Harris. Available on Bandcamp.
The life recordings on this C40 cassette are raw, unedited transfers from Dungeness made with a Sony Walkman Professional WM-D6 by Simon Fisher Turner. With the voice of Derek Jarman recorded on 20 June 1992 in his cottage as he begins to write “Chroma”, and sounds from around the nuclear power station in the fifth corner at the end of the globe.
Buy “Life Recordings From Prospect Cottage And The Ness” on Bandcamp
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
Guerrilla Audio
Guerrilla Audio is a series of audio raids by Simon Fisher Turner.
guer·ril·la
ɡəˈrilə/
noun
noun: guerilla
a member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces.
Each audio edit will be posted for 14 days and then removed from the site, although the information about each guerrilla activity will be archived, but without the audio. There will be two postings per month with the first (also featuring Klara Lewis & Rainier Lericolais) on 1st August 2015, so please check in regularly to listen to the latest offering. We are well into the third year and have just posted episode 114…
Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com
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