The Way You Are

Art and culture has been a powerhouse of the UK economy for decades. In the last 14 years this has all changed, evidently because it is not a good thing to have people inspired by ideas and feelings that might be against the grain of the neoconservative lust for homogeneity and their flat earth crusade for cultural control. This has been years in gestation – never again can there be Sex Pistols, nor Nirvana, just the odd unexpected release that struggles to break through the firewall of PR, privilege and money – but most seriously, the impact of all eras of music being EVERYWHERE and therefore no longer an agent of the making of vital difference. Music has suffered because the cocktail of conditions between internet ‘freedom’, corporate fear, Covid, cost of living conspire with the policy that “there is nothing new under the sun”, so why not sell the sun on ‘exclusive’ pink vinyl for £40 a shot.

“Music is for the things that cannot be discussed” – Sinéad O’Connor

Travis Kelce stepped out on stage at the Taylor Swift concert at Wembley last Sunday June 23rd. OMG – amidst a setlist largely devoted to break-up songs. Paul McCartney was in the audience with his wife, dancing with Swifties. In this world of extremes – Taylor’s now extravagant wealth and stratospheric influence – it’s important to note how amazing this is for young people, especially young women and girls, who can say “FUCK, I love this and it’s changed my life!”

(Please, Taylor, speak now about Trump, you will be protected by the great and the good).

+++

Can we agree that music is a crucial form of nourishment, and of course there is often sugar involved – but in the best of cases, music can “carry a candle” and shine a light into the corners that art, theatre, even film and writing are slower to affect. If “You are what you eat”, it follows that “You are what you listen to”.

“The Observable Universe”, Heather McCalden, Fitzcarraldo Editions 2024.

With thanks to Corinne Noble.

Tickets & info

Available on Bandcamp to order now
Release date: 26th July 2024

Track Listing: [CD – 1 track – 52:38]
1. Natur – you can listen to an extract here

All tracks written, mixed and produced by KMRU
Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS
Photography & Design: Jon Wozencroft

When KMRU relocated to Berlin from Nairobi, he was immediately fascinated by the German capital’s relative silence. Back home, he was surrounded by sound: the omnipresent churr of birds and insects, the chatter of passers-by, and the electrical smog belched out by criss-crossing power lines and roaring transformers. In Berlin, this noise was muzzled; pedestrians wandered the streets with headphones in, barely communicating, while electrical cables were hidden away underground, and wildlife retreated from the imposing, concrete jungle. KMRU compares this observation with his visual experiences. Acclimatizing to life in Western Europe, he realized that night, a dusky blue-black lit up by streetlights and shops, offered little contrast with day. Nighttime in Kenya felt more tangible, somehow. After 6PM, when the sun sets, even the dim glow of a screen can dazzle the eyes, which must quickly adapt to the conditions. And as anyone who’s closed their eyes while listening to music will know, the ears also adjust when visibility is impaired, enhancing even the tiniest sounds. So KMRU used this phenomenon to inform ‘Natur’, a billowing long-form narrative that blurs the audible spectrum with an imperceptible sonic universe, contrasting cacophonous electromagnetic soundscapes with more familiar and grounding natural sounds.

The piece was composed in 2022, and since then KMRU has made it a live staple, tweaking and reshaping it as he performed on tour with Fennesz, and with the London Contemporary Orchestra at Southbank Centre. “I became it,” he says. “I merged with it on a performance level.” The experience allowed KMRU to sculpt not only the album’s crucial dynamics, but its philosophy. Following up records like 2020’s acclaimed, field recording-rooted ‘Peel’ and last year’s synthetic, ethereal ‘Dissolution Grip’, KMRU makes a decisive step forward. ‘Natur’ is KMRU’s most uncompromising work to date, crackling to life from dense clouds of static and intimidating, dissonant drones. Using electromagnetic microphones, he uncloaks the commotion hidden by the digital era’s ambiguous stillness, juxtaposing roaring, mechanical growls with microscopic glitches and tranquil, electrical wails. When environmental recordings do appear, they’re used as transitions between the thickets of harsh noise; sometimes hard to identify, they subconsciously remind the listener that behind the wall of sound there’s a natural world in constant communication, continually adapting to the fluctuating ecosystem.

KMRU sees ‘Natur’ as a way to reconsider what technology actually is and how it changes our perception of reality. This can be abstract, or more basic – like wearing rubber soled shoes to walk on asphalt, or using a leaf to drink water in a swamp. “Nature is connected with technology, and we’re so connected with nature that we adapt,” he says. “It’s like being blind, but still seeing.” On ‘Natur’, KMRU allows us to visualize a concealed landscape, one that’s teeming with life and in dialog with mechanization.

Number 10

Ten is a significant number: 10 marks the full stop at the end of one cycle and the pause before the beginning of the next. It represents both the start and the end of things. 

Change is difficult, the human condition generally resists anything that upsets the stability of everyday life. 

Homeostasis, from the Greek words for ‘same’ and ‘steady’.

Ten is also a metaphor and a target for life as a competitive activity, ‘the perfect 10’, the number of achievement. 

By the time we celebrate Iklectika10, there will be a new order in Number 10 Downing Street, a turning point.

This seminar is about 10 things that have been significant these last 10 years, not only in music but the way we have been changed, and how we currently relate to the past, present and future.

Tickets & info available here

LP + DL – 9 tracks – 48:29

Available on Bandcamp
Release date: 7th June 2024

***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL

Track listing:

1. Waterhole 05:50
2. Mmabolela 06:19
3. Riverbed 03:20
4. Red Dust 04:30
5. Dawn 06:14
6. Bones 05:23
7. Nidus 05:55
8. Nebula 05:35
9. Ruins 05:23

GARDENIA is an existing land located at the Limpopo province of South Africa, right at the border with Botswana. The place’s real name is Mmabolela and it’s a private nature reserve covering 6500ha of subtropical savanna and part of Limpopo River.

In November 2019 I had a chance to visit the location and participate in an annual residency for composers and sound artists called ‘Sonic Mmabolela’, initiated and curated by Francisco López.

We lived in an isolated property in the middle of savanna having a unique opportunity to exist in undisturbed touch with the African wilderness.

All the natural sounds later used to create Gardenia were captured there – during longtime recording sessions over the virgin interior of Mmabolela Reserve.

The album’s field recording content was selected from several hours of birdsong, calls of frogs, insect noises, sounds of trees, bushes, grass as well as non-living natural elements like stones or shells.

These field recordings were later digitally processed and used as part of 9 musical arrangements.

However the recording sources and the location of Gardenia is defined, it was not my intention to document a South African natural soundscape nor create any other kind of strict concept album.

All I do in my work is an affirmation of beauty hidden in various aspects of the Creation. (MJ)

Recorded, composed and produced by Michał Jacaszek
Photography + Design: Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Francisco López

Special thanks: F. López, Ch. Kubisch, B. Ellison, and all Sonic Mmabolela 2019 team and staff

Artist: Richard Chartier
Title: On Leaving
Formats: CD & Digital Download
Catalogue Number: TO:124
Street date: 24th May 2024

You can order this CD album here

Track Listing:

1. variance.1
2. variance.2
3. variance.3
4. variance.4
5. variance.a

Mastered by Denis Blackham
Photography & design: Jon Wozencroft

About Richard Chartier

Richard Chartier is a Los Angeles-based artist/composer considered one of the key figures in minimalist sound art. Chartier’s works explore the inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception, and the act of listening itself.

Since 1998 Chartier’s critically acclaimed sound works have been published on labels including Room40, Editions Mego, Important Records, Touch/Ash International, mAtter, Raster-Noton, 901 Editions, his own imprint LINE.

He has collaborated with William Basinski, ELEH, France Jobin, Robert Curgenven, Taylor Deupree, AGF, CoH, Yann Novak, Asmus Tietchens. As Pinkcourtesyphone he has collaborated with Cosey Fanni Tutti, Kid Congo Powers, harpist Gwyneth Wentink, AGF, and Evelina Domnitch.

Chartier’s sound works/installations have been presented in museums and galleries internationally. His performances have occurred live across Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and North America. Chartier’s compositions have accompanied dance works by noted choreographers Ohad Naharin, Cristina Caprioli, Dustin Klein, and Marco Blazquez).

Since 2000, Chartier has curated his influential label LINE, publishing over 150 editions documenting the compositional and installation work of international sound artists and composers who explore the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism.

the tree in a breeze
too much movement to focus
on a single leaf

dedicated to Steve Roden (1964-2023)

For over a quarter of a century, sound artist and composer Richard Chartier has interrogated an ever deepening thread of minimalist sound that meshes questions of stasis, pulse and timbre. The results of this work is some of the most quietly intense compositions of this century. His is a music of subtle variation, unwavering concentration, and also patience. This five part work created between 2020 and 2022 is dedicated to his friend and fellow sound artist Steve Roden.

“I first became friends with Steve Roden (and later his wife, Sari) back in 1998 when my first album ‘direct.incidental.consequential’ was released. He was one of the first group of artists to whom I sent the album. Almost instantly he had been there on the other side of the phone (or email) and ever since.

His way of listening and attention to details (no matter how small) was inspirational — the clarity and complexity of his understated and only seemingly simple compositions, engaging. Underneath it all, ‘the less’ truly opened your ears to ‘the more.’ Steve saw and heard everything between the noise, no matter how faint.

Some of the last times I was able to see Steve were right before the pandemic. The effects of his advancing Alzheimers were present, still somewhat subtle, but increasing. I am still regretful that we were unable to spend more time together prior to his succumbing to his condition’s cruel effects. Another regret is not engaging in the collaboration we had both talked about for YEARS. ‘We should really start on that sometime soon’ Steve and I would say with each passing year.

I worked on the compositions included on this album as Steve gradually slipped away from communication. He was not in my life like he had been before. During this time it became apparent that these pieces were for Steve. A reflection of his ability to find beauty in the most minute details. Even when finally reviewing the final masters after his passing, I tried to think about how Steve would listen.

What would Steve hear in the details? His effect on this album is strong… the accumulation of influence and inspiration. This album feels organic and warm and was developed during a time when his absence in my life increased. That warmth is reflective of the nature of who Steve was himself, his friendship, and his visual & sound work.

on listening… on loss… on leaving…

As Steve and I mutually suggested… for quiet amplification or headphone listening.”

Artist: Fennesz
Title: Sognato di Domani
Label: Touch
Format: DL only
Catalogue Number: TO:5320S
Barcode: 5050580826403
Street date: 10th May 2024

Fennesz releases a new digital single, “Sognato di Domani”, on 10th May. It is available to pre-order now from Bandcamp. Further details below.

Track Listing:
1. Sognato di Domani (6:38)

“Sognato di Domani” is a new recording made by Christian Fennesz, completed in the context of his upcoming album due for release later this year. In parallel with making new work, we are planning to present a 20th anniversary release of “Venice”, which will be ready very soon in its remastered splendour. “Sognato di Domani” fitted the complexion of this earlier 2004 classic quite exactly, and in many ways revitalises it. The track you will hear on the “Venice 20” CD is an edited version of the digital release we present now: the full version. The photography is an out-take from the footage captured for “Liquid Music”, made in 2001 and planned for the technically impossible DVD release in 2005.

The Power of Limits

Sound Seminar by Jon Wozencroft, 9 May 2024
Theme, Arlington House, 220 Arlington Road, London NW1 7HE

“Freedom of speech is freedom of music”. Sun Ra

“You can teach the craft; the poetry, you can’t teach. You can live in a virtual world if you want to, and perhaps that’s where most people are going to finish up – in a world of pictures”. David Hockney

Theme Studio is an intimate space with a great sound system, Tannoy speakers, and an upstairs area which doubles as a bar and a social space. It looks out onto a block of Victorian-era railway flats. Whilst resident in one of them in 1943, fatigued by the war, George Orwell started writing “1984” before moving to Jura and completing the work. 40 years later in 2024, “1984” seems less of a fictional warning and more like a documentary, concerning the abandonment of any limits to the relationship between war and peace, truth and lies. Psychological and linguistic abuse is the new normal.

Much less is known about György Doczi, a Hungarian architect who practiced in his home country before moving to Sweden, Iran and the United States. He settled in Seattle, and in 1981 published a major study “The Power of Limits – Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art and Architecture” which uses sacred geometry and the measurement of the golden section to map out the relationships between the natural world and human form; presenting a holistic vision made by “a dynamic union of opposites, as demonstrated by spiral forms” which might extend to psychological and social realms. He noted that these could form a model for the need for ‘sharing’ as a way of life. Opposites, in the natural world, achieve balance and proportion; processed by technological/political dogmas, the new oppositional matrices create a maelstrom where sharing is seen as a sign of weakness.

The current climate of binary divisions between rich/poor, young/old, overheated/frozen, North/South etc., destroys harmony and creates chaos. What happened? The 60s/social vision that everything is possible lost its light and is being replaced by a dark shadow – AI promises a frictionless future, biomedicine will bring us increased longevity, and as Warhol promised, “we can stay younger longer”. Digital media and the internet drowns the everyday in material choices – what to click, what to follow, have a makeover. Clothing is crucial. On a political level our choices are compressed between ‘more of the same’ neoliberalism and aging leaders – the other options, Social Democracy, Labour, the Green Parties, fail to conjoin anything truly oppositional for fear of precipitating an economic collapse.

Last week Forbes published their latest rich list recording that there are now 2781 billionaires in the world, up 141 on the previous year, sharing a combined fortune of $14.2 trillion – (bravo that Taylor Swift is now amongst them?) – a sum greater than the GDP of any country in the world except the U.S.A. and China. The world’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, purveyor of luxury goods, was worth a mere $86 billion in 2020 – by 2024, his nest egg had risen to $223 billion. Fashion accessories are today just as profitable as computers.

“Eins zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht. One two”. Kraftwerk, ‘Numbers’

In his book Doczi didn’t refer to the relationship between honey bees and humans. If they die out, we die out. There’s a fantastic sculpture talking about this at Kew Gardens, “The Hive” by Wolfgang Buttress and his collaborators.

David Hockney/Martin Gayford, ‘Spring Cannot be Cancelled’, Thames & Hudson 2021
György Doczi, ‘The Power of Limits’, Shambhala Publications 1981
Kraftwerk, Computer World, EMI Records 1981

‘The Hive’ – kew.org

Tickets can be purchased here

Liquid Music ll features a full-length video by Jon Wozencroft, an extract of which you can view above. The download bundle also includes audio of the soundtrack, by Fennesz. This is a Bandcamp exclusive release.

This release is now available here

The film was made for Fennesz’s live performances on the Touch 2001 tour (with Hazard/Heitor Alvelos and Biosphere/Jony Easterby) and the first version eventually released on a Touch 30 USB stick in 2012, from an incendiary performance at Brighton Gardner Arts Centre which centred on material from the Endless Summer release, amplified to the max. A DVD release was scheduled in 2005 but this proved impossible to master due to the fast–moving nature of the footage… once compressed for the demands of the format at that time, it looked like a pixelated jigsaw.

The DVD was to be partnered with this quite different set by Fennesz at the 2004 Norberg Festival in Sweden, shortly after the release of Venice, but totally improvised, including few traces of that release. Liquid Music II is now available for the first time and is “the extended version” to take account of the longer set times and the continued synergy that it gave to Fennesz’s live performances. Christian’s performance was trance-like in comparison to the Brighton gig three years earlier and is in itself an essential document of his developing sound.

The footage was filmed on Hi-8 and mini-DV between 1995 and 2001 and is intended as an analogue to the fast moving developments of digital media and its distribution at that time. With this in mind, none of the footage benefits from any post-production nor processing, it is as seen through the lens of the camera which often involved dangerous positioning, close to the edge of rivers and rocks to get a forensic capture of the movement. A tripod was impossible; at times the camera is almost touching the water.

I call it a film and not a video because the inspiration was from classic avant-garde interventions by such luminaries as Stan Brakage, Peter Kubelka, Guy Sherwin and others, who always shot on celluloid. I did it on camcorders because there was no budget to use a Bolex and it was simply a question of what was practical, portable and a kind of guerrilla action when the weather was favourable. In addition, it was becoming a big thing at the time for ‘electronic’ musicians to use digital video projections to frame their naked-laptop performance situations, but I felt Fennesz did not fall into this perceptual grid, his music having a romanticism and a harmonic force that was more timeless and would be neutered by the latest software aesthetic.

The film challenges the notion of sync between sound and image, so that every time it was projected, and every time Fennesz played, the connection would be different and the chemistry personal to each member of the audience. In that way it becomes a live conversation and not simply a ‘show’ nor wallpaper for the music.
[Jon Wozencroft, March 2024]

A rare live performance by Travelogue [Carl Michael von Hausswolff & Chandra Shukla] in Italy this May.

Tickets & info

530PM on resonancefm [Repeats Wednesday 1am]

A showcase for records of contemporary experimental and underground music, hosted by Ed Pinsent. Tonight, some recent music from the Touch label. Anthony Moore, Cleared, Carl Michael Von Hausswolff & Chandra Shukla, Philip Jeck & Chris Watson, Bana Haffar, drøne, Eleh, Itchy Spots, and Phill Niblock. For more about the label, please visit the Touch Bandcamp page. Visit thesoundprojector.com/radio-show/ for more information.

The show has been archived here

Today, 11th March 2024, is our official 42nd anniversary…

Since its founding in 1982, Touch (based in London) has created audio-visual productions and live events that combine innovation with a level of care and attention that has made it the most enduring of any independent company of its time.

First contact with New Order after their concert at the Newcastle Mayfair on 11th March 1982… ‘Video 5-8-6’ appeared on our very first release, Feature Mist, released in December of that year.

You can follow our progress year by year here…

Tickets & info

As Yet Untitled, 7 March 2024

JW writes: Usually, I don’t decide on the title of a seminar until as near as possible before the event, having gathered a long list of the recordings I’d like to play. And in this instance, after nearly 5 years of doing the nights at Iklectik Art Lab, the invitation to present one at a new venue, Theme Studios in Camden Town, is of course a special challenge and a leap into the unknown.

Experimental artists and musicians often use the get-out title, “Untitled”, to keep the meaning of a work open to interpretation. Understood, but I have always viewed this tactic as something of a missed opportunity, like a plain white sleeve or a room without a window.

However, the present need for new directions and the desire for some respite from the same-old/same-old needs a breathing space from our urge to name a phenomenon before it has had a chance to find its direction of travel. In other words, it is clear that “The next big thing” cannot and should not follow a formula that may have worked in the past. Discovery is often about difficulty. 

Here the title comes with the prefix “As Yet…”.

Please read this for more:

What Is (Not) to Be Done

Phill Niblock RIP
“Master of Minimalism”

Phill was one of those it is hard to imagine the world without. Always working, moving, chatting, asking, (“Hey! – What’s happening!”… a declaration not a question), his extraordinary energy belied his slowly evolving work. He lived a long life doing what he loved, releasing records for over 7 decades (who else can claim that? Not many…), Phill holds a unique place in the history of recorded music, and it was an honour to work with him for a good chunk of that time. He was a superb film-maker and photographer. Ask for a photo for his new album, he would submit a full folio (here are some unused ones below). Ask for 20 minutes of sound and he’d send 3 hours. Deeply rooted in an analogue sensibility and its acoustic, digital formats were a godsend to Phill. Our last collaboration “Working Touch” came on a USB stick with 22GB of material – Phill considered this to be his valediction. Of his generation, perhaps only Morton Subotnik (90), LaMonte Young (88), & Alvin Curran (at a sprightly 85) are around to hold the candle and show that the way things used to be done are increasingly, not less valid. Rest in peace, Phill – and thank you. We’ll be listening for the sounds as they come through the clouds. [Mike & Jon, 9th January 2024]

You can read an obituary by Lawrence English in The Quietus here

Phill Niblock was interviewed by Mike Harding for his very first edition of Long Wave, 8th October 2013. You can listen to the full broadcast here.

Ruptured Records, Montreal, have released a vinyl edition of Youmna Saba’s “Wishah وِشاح”, which we released on CD recently.

You can order the record, with artwork by Jon Wozencroft, here

OPENING PARTY TONIGHT! Free with live performances from Yves de Mey and others

Our address is: Athens, Kipselis 49 and we are stocking Touch, Ash International & The Tapeworm

Opening hours:
Tuesday: 12:00——20:00
Wednesday: 12:00——16:00
Thursday—Saturday: 12:00——20:00
Sunday—Monday: Closed

Tickets & info here – all proceeds go towards the Iklectik fighting fund

“IKLECTIK will be facing eviction from its current location by the end of this year, and we’re calling upon you to stand with us during this challenging moment.

This decision came quickly after the Save Waterloo Paradise campaign mobilised nearly 50,000 supporters and persuaded Michael Gove to halt the development project, something we have been campaigning for over this last year. Our public stance against the controversial plans has resulted in this punitive action against both IKLECTIK and the other 20 small businesses here at Old Paradise Yard. Currently, despite not yet having permission for the full redevelopment, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation are refusing to extend Eat Work Art’s [site leaseholder] lease.

You can boost our campaign on social media, always using the following tags: #saveiklectik #savewaterlooparadise #shameonGSTTfoundation @iklectikartlab @save_waterloo_paradise @gsttfoundation

Further information about the development can be found here

We remain hopeful that with the right amount of voices from venues, institutions, press, universities, business associates and our collaborators and community, we can safeguard the space.

Over the last 9 years we have cultivated a unique and cherished space for our community here in Waterloo, we are unwavering in our commitment to preserving it. We hope to see you at one of our upcoming events and thank you for being a part of our journey at IKLECTIK.

Your support is invaluable and highly appreciated.

Warm regards,
IKLECTIK Team”

Released 30th November 2023
You can buy from Bandcamp here

Following a suspended project with Iklectik in 2021, ELEH presents a 22 minute recording “KICKTILE” in support of the venue’s current struggle for survival. Touch releases the track as a digital download on bandcamp to coincide with the benefit concert on 6th December 2023, “To Have and to Hold”, with all proceeds going to Iklectik. “KICKTILE” was previewed at the Jon Wozencroft/Bruce Gilbert sound seminar on 29th November.

IKLECTIK (the venue in London, England) will be facing eviction from its current location by the end of this year, and we’re calling upon you to stand with us during this challenging moment.

This decision came quickly after the Save Waterloo Paradise campaign mobilised nearly 50,000 supporters and persuaded Michael Gove to halt the development project, something we have been campaigning for over this last year. Our public stance against the controversial plans has resulted in this punitive action against both IKLECTIK and the other 20 small businesses here at Old Paradise Yard. Currently, despite not yet having permission for the full redevelopment, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation are refusing to extend Eat Work Art’s [site leaseholder] lease.

Live performance: Bruce Gilbert

Tickets & info: Dice | Facebook | Resident Advisor

“If speaking is silver, then listening is gold”.  Turkish proverb

In a financial context, gold is synonymous with reliability and security. Culturally, gold is the standard of fame and success. The latter is not the same as the former. Number 1 records are not iconic as they once were, and PR/TV/streaming and social media promotion is rarely matched by physical sales and attention to the music.  

In the UK, Gold is one of the nation’s biggest exports; a contradictory situation considering Britain has no gold-mining industry and scant gold reserves remain – (the main holdings in South Africa were sacrificed in 1940 at the front of World War 2 in order to pay for much-needed weaponry and the Lend Lease Act with the USA¹). Britain prevailed nonetheless. The 2008 banking crash depleted matters further. More recently, Brexit brazenly traded 1940-style rhetoric and was said to be key to maintaining Britain as a financial centre. Current analysis suggests this is not going to plan.

Gold isn’t merely about manufacturing nor having and holding, it’s about shadow trading and occluded communication between those who keep no loose change in their pockets, and the ones who move the argent. Electronic. Oblique. Offshore. Gold prices and currency transactions move faster than the blink of an eye.

Just as well, given that political Net Zero climate ambitions and international ‘commitments’ are achieving next to nothing. To be mined, gold needs cyanide, lead and mercury. For a standard gold bar (400 troy ounces), 5000 tonnes of earth need to be extracted and to create a wedding ring, between 4 and 20 tonnes of rock need to be processed. The ore is left by the roadside, simply collateral pollution². Gold is essential to the jewellery business, but more significantly to telephony and electronics. No gold, no phones. 

Gold is still glamour. How many cultural and musical moments celebrate the glory of gold, from antiquity to Spandau Ballet? Glamour, ‘gramerye’ in middle English, means an excellence in grammar and a talent for communication. 

This is perhaps a way of understanding gold in its context of alchemy – the process of turning base metals into gold by using the ‘philosopher’s stone’: transforming blackness into shining metal and its lustrous energy. In mediaeval times, artists who would not call themselves artists and adepts who were in defiance of the church, set out a template and an intention which we can now view as more of a metaphor and beacon of hope, yet we know little of the details of their process, their ingredients and their instruments³. We can only imagine. 

1. 1940, Clive Ponting, Hamish Hamilton 1990

2. Material World, Ed Conway, WH Allen 2023

3. The Golden Game, Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, Thames and Hudson 1988  

Bruce Gilbert is best known as a founding member of Wire. Since Wire, he has made solo interventions in spoken word; as co-creator of the Dome project; production and instrumentation for AC Marias; to soundtracks for Michael Clark. His collaborations one couldn’t begin to list. He has released solo material on Mute, Editions Mego, and Touch amongst many others.

Artist: Claire M Singer
Title: Saor
Formats: CD & Digital Download
Catalogue Number: TO:121
Street date: 3rd November, 2023

You can order this CD album from 6th October 2023, here

Track Listing:

1. Cairn Toul
2. Pressure
3. Càrn
4. Outside
5. Forrig
6. Stops
7. Braeriach
8. Above and Below
9. Saor

Written and performed by Claire M Singer

Mastered by Denis Blackham
Artwork by Jon Wozencroft
Photography by Ash Todd (front and inside) and Seàn Antleys (back)
Published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music (UK) Ltd.

Claire M Singer has announced details of the first release in a triptych of albums. Saor [pronounced Sieur: meaning “free” in Scottish Gaelic] perfectly encapsulates Claire’s experimental approach to the pipe organ, exploring rich harmonic textures and complex overtones which create ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns, conjuring visions of the Scottish dramatic landscapes which inspire her. It’s her 3rd album for Touch, after ‘Fairge’ [2019] and ‘Solas’ [2016].

“Saor follows two narratives: my trekking across the Cairngorm mountains in Aberdeenshire through the granite plateaux, corries, glens and straths, and my exploration of the 1872 organ built by Peter Conacher & Coy, Huddersfield in Forgue Kirk, Aberdeenshire where many of my ancestors lie.”

Tracks that are directly influenced by the Munros of Scotland, such as ‘Cairn Toul’ and ‘Braeriach’, are both majestic and sublime in their scope, sitting alongside interludes that more generally allude to the instrument: ‘Stops’, ‘Pressure’, ‘Above and Below’.

When writing her first organ commission in 2006 Claire approached the instrument as a sound source rather than how it is conventionally played. She has never had a lesson in her life and developed her own way of playing, including using straws or chopsticks to hold down the keys so she can manipulate the wind through the stops. About 90% of her sound, she says, involves her having one hand or two on the stops – having a full physical relationship with the instrument, continuously tweaking and exploring the mechanical stop action as she progresses her melodies.

Much of the album was written or recorded in Claire’s home county, at Forgue Kirk in Aberdeenshire. A church she hadn’t discovered before, in a remote spot, up a slight hill near a small cluster of houses. A friend recommended the organ to her and she later found out from her mother that many of her ancestors were buried there. “I had this weird stars aligning moment – during my residency at Forgue I spotted a gravestone propped up in the pews which was being restored, and it was Peter Forsyth, one of my relatives.”

Across the album, tracks flutter, pulse and build into and imposing mass. Some suggest texture and weather, using electronic processing and distortion. Others rely on the organ itself for heady atmospheres, while Saor’s title track goes even further; recorded at Orgelpark, Amsterdam, an international concert hall for organists, it uses five instruments in layers that span four centuries. Claire also plays cello, mellotron and harmonium on the album, and there are contributions from strings (Patsy Reid), trumpet (Brian Shook), clarinets (Yann Ghiro) and French horn (Andy Saunders).

Saor is an adventure bringing the same sense of elation as the journeys Claire made on foot to the summit. “When I’m alone at the top of a Munro, I feel completely free. It’s the most exhilarating feeling to be up there with nature looking at this vast landscape. I hope Saor conveys how that feels, and carries people with those feelings.”

Saor is generously supported by Arts Council England, PRS Foundation’s Composers’ Fund in partnership with Jerwood Arts, the Friends of Forgue Kirk, the Richard Thomas Foundation and Orgelpark, Amsterdam.

Saturday 16 September 2023 | Doors: 7pm
THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT

7PM Doors

730PM Speakers: Mary Prestidge & Mike Harding

Chris Watson presents ‘Oxmardyke’, his recent collaboration with Jeck

830PM Liverpool Improvisation Collective
[Andrea Buckley, Paula Hampson, Mary Prestidge and Kate Brown]
‘Echoes of Philip’ an ensemble performance with dancers from Liverpool and London.

John Beaumont [Tenor] – Gregorian chant

Storyteller: Bryan O’Connell

9PM Jonathan Raisin
Piano solo. ‘in the absence…’ an improvisation, a memory… half a duet. Jonathan is a composer and improvising musician, based in Liverpool, who played with Philip several times over the last few years.

John Beaumont [Tenor] – Gregorian chant

Storyteller: Doug Gill 

945PM Claire M Singer

Timings are approximate