Touch Newsletter #230
Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #230. A further two new tracks, from Anthony Moore and Daniel Menche, are now available to subscribers of Touch: Isolation – the project evolves further…
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.
Hampstead Heath (Tuesday 21st) today was busy. Went there to make a few new photographs to expand the ones made previously. In this short time, noticing the difference between nonchalance, semi-panic and then WTF, it does seems that the warm weather, a blessing in many ways, is now revealing another angle, in that people seem to be going through the phase of being in a personal Ibiza.
These two photos are about “situations in plain sight”. “Isoladrone2020” shows the salve to a sting, the dock leaf next to the nettles… as we rush for a vaccine, it is worth thinking about! “Proverbs 18:1” shows the main location of the Touch: Isolation banner image from the reverse side of the pond, which is the anchor point in the visual narrative.
Many Touch-affiliated artists are responding to the current situation in creative ways – some initiatives are listed further down this newsletter…
“Touch: Isolation”
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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 Anthony Moore and Daniel Menche. Daniel was one of the first of our artists to respond to the project and the photo was taken on the first day of the lockdown. Anthony’s track articulates an artist’s sense of process/degradation (see his notes, below).
Anthony Moore
“Isoladrone2020”
“Given the theme of the project, the idea of the piece is to evoke absence. At the very outset the sound of the piano is divorced from the instrument itself by recording not with microphones but through Gibson Firebird pick-ups. With its strings free to vibrate and tuned to the key of the piano chords, the guitar is strapped to the back of an upright piano. All sound of the room it’s in, the ambient space, is effectively eradicated.
A further distancing is achieved through drastic filtering of the recording. Middle and high frequencies, known to introduce ‘presence’ (in sound engineering jargon), are entirely missing.
The absence of presence becomes the presence of absence and produces a sense of deafness, of being isolated from the world.”
Daniel Menche
“Proverbs 18:1”
“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.”
Subscribe to “Touch: Isolation” on Bandcamp
Further isolation-related projects…
In addition to our Touch: Isolation project, other artists we work with have further isolation-related projects you can access:
The Dead Mauriacs have contributed to Discrepant’s “Corona Loop” project – “random loops from quarantine…” – watch here.
In a new podcast for King’s Place, composer and sound recordist Chris Watson follows the overgrown railway path between Aldeburgh and Saxmundham, a favourite haunt of composer Benjamin Britten, recording an array of elemental, animal and bird sounds, including the outpouring of a nightingale. Listen here.
Howlround’s Robin the Fog has launched a new series of broadcasts titled “FogCast”. They are a new series of ambient, deep listening soundtracks for our current age of isolation, which will hopefully act as a kind of aural balm for friends and comrades stuck at home in troubled times. Designed for solitary listening on headphones, each episode will be broadcast 11pm Wednesdays on Resonance 104.4FM, then available online via the station’s Mixcloud page.
Geneva Skeen has contributed to The Broad’s “Infinite Drone” series which presents a new, contemplative way of experiencing their most popular artwork, by Yayoi Kusama.
Although Claire M Singer’s Organ Reframed has been postponed to the Autumn, you can now preview a work by Claire M Singer and Chris Watson here and here.
Recordist and musician Ian Wellman discusses approaches to field recording, including practical and creative techniques for capturing real-world sounds in a video on Perfect Circuit’s YouTube channel.
Jana Winderen is featured on the Primavera Sound podcast and is the subject of an in-depth primer on the Tusk Is Better Than Rumours newsletter.
IKLECTIK presents, in response to the current cultural crisis, a new platform to support the arts community. Their aim is to make more visible the work of artists, musicians, researchers and makers. IKLECTIK want to engage with their community by offering new learning and interactive resources. More info: iklectikoffsite.org
Tears|Ov participate in IKLECTIK’s live stream this Friday, 24 April, contributing “Pluto Returns” – a “live” performance taking the form of a documentary-style video of the group’s COVID-19 isolation experience to a new improv track by the band. Lori E Allen from Tears|Ov has made available her soundtrack to the recent Whitechapel Gallery installation, “Plates”. She is also the technical producer of “Transmissions”, an online platform which will commission artists to share their work within a classic DIY TV show format. Tears|Ov’s album was selected as one of Wolfgang Tillmans’ choices on a recent ICA Daily mailout.
A mix by Anthony Moore for RVNG Intl.’s monthly “Friends & Fiends” show is archived on nts.live.
Heitor Alvelos has contributed a piece to the Art in Quarantine project.
A new video of Marta de Pascalis’s performance at Volumens 2019 is now online. She has also created a Spotify playlist for Country to Country Festival and is this week’s Artist of the Week on SHAPE’s Instagram feed.
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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