CD – 1 track
Track list:
1. Live at Konzerthaus, Vienna
Catalogue
Tone 20 – Spire: Organ Music Past, Present & Future
DCD – 17 tracks
1st fruits of collaboration between Fennesz and Sparklehorse – recorded in Geneva by Christian Fennesz and Scott Minor * Touch regulars Biosphere, Philip Jeck, Benny Nilsen [Hazard], Chris Watson… * Newcomers include US free music composer and designer Tom Recchion, UK’s Scott Taylor, Icelandic artists Finnbogi Petursson and Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, and one of Sweden’s premier performance artists Leif Elggren [The Sons of God, Firework Edition Records etc.], and one of the Kings of Elgaland-Vargaland * UK finest organist Charles Matthews and classical composer Marcus Davidson * Highly regarded Japanese field recordist Toshiya Tsunoda
The story:
The thought of producing a compilation where the tracks were all either inspired by or more directly influenced by the organ had been frequently aired over the years. The conversations were always animated and expansive. The organ works of Arvo Pärt, those performed by Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, a pupil of Richard Rodney Bennett at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and others, have reached a wider non-classical audience. Eventually Benny Nilsen arranged to visit St. Mary’s Church, Warwick and work with one of England’s finest, Charles Matthews. Crawling around inside the instrument, positioning microphones most appropriately in the Church, or ‘capturing’ the psalms composed by Marcus Davidson, Nilsen explored the possibilities with all the familiar lust of the avant-garde. As the brief widened, so did the responses… some contributors referred to earlier versions of the organ and its often highly political usage, others explored aged instruments themselves. Some studied the effects of the sounds produced on the physique and the psyche, others conceptualised the brief and either built their own or recorded natural or man-made phenomena which utilised the same basic process, wind through pipes. The organ represents the marriage between acoustic complexity and ritualised space. It is impossible not to be drawn upward, towards the spire of the church or cathedral, or to the huge and daunting forest of pipes themselves. The organ dwarfs all comers, and unlike other instruments, it is this non-musical element which makes the organ stand apart.
Track list:
CDOne
12 tracks – 52:10.21
1. Leif Elggren – Royal Organ
2. Z’EV – if only that love lets letting happen (organ music for organs)
3. Philip Jeck – Stops
4. Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson – Details of a New Discovery
5. Zephyr
6. Marcus Davidson – Organ Psalm V
7. Scott Minor/Fennesz – dwan
8. Finnbogi Pétursson – Diabolus
9. Biosphere – Visible Invisible
10. Toshiya Tsunoda – Layered
11. Tom Recchion – Shut-Eye Train
13. Lary Seven & Jeff Petersen – Disorganised
CDTwo
5 tracks – 53:55.54
1. BJNilsen – Breathe
2. Scott Taylor – Droner
3. Jacob Kirkegaard- Epiludio Patetico: a tribute to Rued Langgaard
4. Ambarchi/Recchion – Triste Remake
5. Chris Watson – Askam Wind Cluster
TO:54 – Mika Vainio “In the Land of the Blind One-Eyed is King”
Track list:
1. Revi Täällä, Merimies (Sunder Here, Sailor)
2. Se On Olemassa (It Is Existing)
3. Ahriman (Ahriman)
4. Hän Oli Ääni Joskus (He Was A Sound Sometimes)
5. Kasvien Väri (Colour Of Plants)
6. Kadut (Streets)
7. Motelli (Motel)
8. Lumisokea (Snowblind)
9. Kauemmas, Ylemmäs! (Further, Higher!)
TO:60 – Ryoji Ikeda “op.”
CD – 10 tracks – 51:04
op.1 was originally commissioned by “experience de vol #3”. One notable aspect fans of his previous work will highlight upon, is his declaration that “no electronic sounds have been used on this recording”. This is not to say that Ikeda has in any way renounced the world of electronic music that he has done so much to shape over the past seven years. op. 1 is a brave and deliberate step that also lends a new dimension to his previous output, with the acoustic space created by his string arrangements being subject to the same forensic attention to detail as before.
Track list:
op. 1 [for 9 strings] (2000-01)
01. I
02. II
03. III
04. IV
05. op. 2 [for string quartet] (2001-02)
06. op. 3 [for string quartet] (2002)
op. 1 [prototype] (2000-01)
07. I
08. II
09. III
10. IV
TO:59 – Phill Niblock “Touch Food”
DCD – 8 tracks
Track list:
CDOne
1. Sea Jelly Yellow
2. Sweet Potato
3. Yam Almost May
CDTwo
1. Pan Fried 70, Part 1
2. Pan Fried 70, Part 2
3. Pan Fried 70, Part 3
4. Pan Fried 70, Part 4
5. Pan Fried 70, Part 5
TO:47 – Chris Watson “Weather Report”
CD – 3 Tracks – 54:02
The weather has created and shaped all our habitats. Clearly it also has a profound and dynamic effect upon our lives and that of other animals. The three locations featured here all have moods and characters which are made tangible by the elements, and these periodic events are represented within by a form of time compression.
This is Chris’s first foray into composition using his location recordings of wildlife and habitats – previously he has been concerned with describing and revealing the special atmosphere of a place by site specific, untreated location recordings. For the first time here he constructs collages of sounds, which evolve from a series of recordings made at the specific locations over varying periods of time.
Ol-Olool-O -18′ 00″
A fourteen hour drama in Kenya’s Masai Mara from 0500h – 1900h on Thursday 17th Oct. 2002
The Lapaich -18′ 00″
The music of a Scottish highland glen through autumn and into winter during the four months of September to December
Vatnajökull -18′ 00″
The 10,000 year climatic journey of ice formed deep within this Icelandic glacier and it’s lingering flow into the Norwegian Sea.
Chris has released two previous solo albums for Touch, Outside the Circle of Fire [1998] and Stepping into the Dark [1996], as well as contributions for samplers and compilations for Ash International. His work was also used as source material for the compilation Star Switch On [2002], with contributions from AER, Biosphere, Fennesz, Hazard, Philip Jeck & Mika Vainio, as well as two tracks from Chris himself.
Chris is possibly best known for his sound recordings for BBC TV, particularly the “Life of…” series written and hosted by Sir David Attenborough. But his preferred media are cds and the radio. He has presented several programmes; “A Small Slice of Tranquillity”, “NightTime is the Right Time”, “Sound Advice” and “Tyneside Dawn”, all broadcast on BBC Radio 4. His work has been described as “the freakiest all natural techno disc ever” by City Newspaper [USA].
Chris was previously a member of the popular beat trio Cabaret Voltaire.
As Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in Time Out, New York, in 1999: “Listen to your world. It may be more interesting than all the things you buy to escape from it.”
Track list:
1. Ol-Oolo-lo
2. The Lapaich
3. Vatnajökull
T33.19 – Ken Ikeda “Merge”
CD – 11 tracks
Track list:
1. Merge
2. Lightdark
3. Cityscape
4. No Beginning Nor End
5. Gate
6. Usual Path
7. Yume (Dream)
8. Old Moon In The Arm Of The New Moon
9. Ambiguity
10. Equinoctial Week
11. Merged Into A Circle
TO:57 – Philip Jeck “7”
CD – 7 tracks
Track list:
1. Wholesome
2. Museum
3. Wipe
4. Bush Hum
5. Now You Can Let Go
6. Some Pennies
7. Veil
“Johnny Mathis advances the art of remembering” (Mort Goode 1972)
… points of origin slip into areas of acceptance then long listening eliminates any worries about that acceptance and parts the normally tightly bound, throwing seldom acknowledged emotions through newly opened doors…
British musician Philip Jeck’s life work is with sounds, and how they may be transformed in random and unexpected ways. For instance, a needle stuck in a record’s groove is a source of consternation for most people. Jeck, on the other hand, is eager to let the diamond ride a while because the repeated passage becomes an object for study and transmutation. His artform is an otherworldly sound world of pops, clicks, and crackles, mostly built up from dusty vinyl dug up from junk shops and outdated phonographic equipment no one would cast a second glance at in this day and age. Transcendent and mysterious, 7 is a set of pieces created with a sample keyboard, and a trove of his beloved old vinyl. “Bush Hum” extends the enquiry further by looping the harmonic buzz of an old Bush record player into a polychromatic, shifting swarm. The music is enveloped in a patina of dread and beauty, something that’s remarkable considering how immiscible these two qualities normally are. But Jeck plumbs it with masterful verve. “Now You Can Let Go” references the echo of dub, “Museum” blends a brass fanfare with a mordant groan; “Wholesome” is anything but, considering its skeletal, arpeggio-tinted construct.
Tone 18 – Star Switch On
CD – 8 tracks – 33:34
Every two years or so, Touch has produced a sampler giving an overview of our current activities and affiliations. Following Touch 00 (2000), and even prefiguring its release, we wanted to make something that reflected the increasing reliance on the already recorded, whilst suggesting a more lateral approach to the use of source material. This first tendency is manifest everywhere, from tribute bands, to remixes, to updates or clones of earlier sound successes (Oasis and Blur vs. The Beatles and The Kinks, and so on). Another syndrome has developed whereby sounds are transformed by various software programmes, and what seems to be an innovation soon reveals itself to be generic.
“Star Switch On” is not an answer to such questions, but it is a reflection of the current obsession with ‘mapping’, ‘storing’ and ‘modulating’. We were interested in what would happen when artists were given a ‘carte-blanche’ to work with recordings that had a definite and undeniable subject, location and atmosphere – the wildlife sound recordings of Chris Watson published on “Stepping Into the Dark” (TO:27) and “Outside the Circle of Fire” (TO:37) – imagining a perverse take on library music, sampling, remix, all inadequate in denoting the soundscapes we hoped such a brief would encourage.
“Star Switch On” features two new recordings by Chris Watson, alongside Biosphere, Fennesz, Hazard, Mika Vainio, Philip Jeck and AER. Chris Watson, former member of Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio, has many credits to his name, not least the series of wildlife programmes made by David Attenborough to which he contributed. In 2000, “Outside the Circle of Fire” won a distinction for ‘Digital Music’ at Ars Electronica. Currently, he is on location in Kenya working on a new series of the BBC’s “Big Cat Diary”.
Track list:
1. Mika Vainio: Outside the Circle of Fire
2. Philip Jeck: Capriole
3. Hazard: Debugged
4. Chris Watson: Cassarina
5. Fennesz: Pannonique
6. AER: Goat Behaviour no.3
7. Biosphere: Night & Dawn
8. Chris Watson: Wolves
Tone 17 – Hazard “Land”
CD – 7 tracks
Track list:
1. Substation (11:18)
2. Church (5:33)
3. Old Lead Mine (4:37)
4. Lock (1:26)
5. Windmill (8:04)
6. Stile (0:59)
7. Kissing Gate (7:34)
Tone 16 – Fennesz “Field Recordings 1995:2002”
CD – 13 tracks
Track list:
1. Good Man
2. Instrument 1
3. Instrument 2
4. Instrument 3
5. Instrument 4
6. Betrieb (Remix)
7. Menthol
8. Surf
9. Stairs
10. Ivend00
11. Namewithnohorse
12. Odessa
13. Codeine
TO:52 – Jóhann Jóhannsson “Englaborn”
CD – 16 tracks
Track list:
1. Odi Et Amo (3:10)
2. Englabörn (1:34)
3. Jói & Karen (3:24)
4. Þetta Gerist Á Bestu Bæjum (1:02)
5. Sálfræðingur (3:49)
6. “Ég Sleppi Þér Aldrei” (2:57)
7. Sálfræðingur Deyr (3:40)
8. Bað (3:07)
9. “Ég Heyrði Allt Án Þess Að Hlusta” (2:05)
10. Karen Býr Til Engil (3:45)
11. Englabörn – Tilbrigði (1:24)
12. “Ég Átti Erfiða Æsku” (3:41)
13. Krókódíll (2:45)
14. “Ef Ég Hefði Aldrei…” (3:42)
15. …eins og venjulegt fólk (3:51)
16. Odi Et Amo – Bis (4:00)
Tone 15 – Philip Jeck & Jacob Kirkegaard “Soaked”
CD – 7 tracks – 35:24
This recording is taken from their live performance at the Moers Jazz Festival, Germany, in May 2002
“There are grains of truth in the suggestion that, in moving, you may find yourself in or out of some one’s favour. But, listen to the slow, delicate, even introspective background: some breeze, some chimes, some distant thunder as each focal point remains a lament.”
This blistering work was recorded live at the Moers Jazz Festival, Germany, in May 2002 and follows hot on the heels of Philip Jeck’s highly acclaimed “Stoke” [Touch # TO:56, 2002], about which The Wire said “Philip Jeck has always been good, but Stoke makes him great” and Side-Line wrote: “an essential record for the lovers of meaningful experimental and ambient stuff!”.
Jacob Kirkegaard is a member of Danish combo Aeter who work in a mixed media context. He was born in Denmark, 1975 and is currently studying at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne. Germany. He has taken part in numerous festivals throughout Europe, playing live, improvising with samplers and other electronics, as he does on this recording.
Philip Jeck, meanwhile, sticks to his turntables. He started experimenting with record players back at school in the 1960s, later won the Time Out Performance Award for “Vinyl Requiem” [1993] and has released 3 solo albums for Touch – “Loopholes” [TO:26], “Surf” [TO:36] and the abovementioned “Stoke”. He lives and works in Liverpool.
Track list:
1 – 7. Soaked
TO:56 – Philip Jeck “Stoke”
CD – 7 tracks – 53:32
Track list:
1. Above
2. Lambing
3. Vienna Faults
4. Pax
5. Below
6. Open
7. Close
TO:55 – Biosphere “Shenzhou”
CD – 56:38
12 tracks
Shenzhou draws more on Eastern and Asian influences. The album is loosely based on excerpts of various Debussy pieces [tracks 1-10]. Many long passages are minimalist and understated, still Jenssen manages to display a rich palette of sonic colours. It might be a cliché notion but perhaps Shenzhou’s understatement is a testament to a maturing performer who’s able to express more with less.
Track list:
1. Shenzhou
2. Spindrift
3. Ancient Campfire
4. Heat Leak
5. Houses on the Hill
6. Two Ocean Plateau
7. Thermal Motion
8. Path Leading to the High Grass
9. Fast Atoms Escape
10. Green Reflections
11. Bose-Einstein Condensation
12. Gravity Assist
Tone 14 – Touch: Ringtones
CD – 177 ringtones – 99 tracks – 44:58.17
The process of transferring made-to-measure ringtones to your mobile phone is, at present, a fixed casino… Chart hits, cod celebrity voices, action heroes, lame keyboard melodies… so the likelihood of hearing one of these on the 07.34 from the suburbs is, at present, remote, although new ranges of mobiles are on hand to promise better things. Anticipating this, each of the included has been composed with exactly this eventuality in mind. They are in one way or another intended to be experienced as isolated, personal interventions: low-res loops, creature calls, in low-res environments… In whichever form you find them here, do sample remodel and employ these humble suggestions… we assume you already agree that the cheap ‘cheep cheep’ tones of Nokia, Ericsson and the others leave a lot to be desired.
Track list:
1 John Hudak cellular research
2 Oren Ambarchi Skadooor
3 John Dexter Zetterquist Uggue
4 Johannes Bergmark Psst… shsh!
5 the birth of newsprint
6 security clearance code
7 Chris Watson Tawny Owl/African Fish Eagles/Atlantic Puffin/Corncrake/Curlew/Golden Plover/Spotted Crake/Spotted Hyenas/Wolves
8 Thor McBurnie digi bird
9 Neophyte/hi-speed insect of the night
10 Doug Quin Arrowfrog/Baboon/Emperor Penguins/Hippopotamus/Hyrax/Oropendola
11 Touch 33 Cool in the North
12 Bigert & Bergstrom Four Seasons [composed by Antonio Vivaldi] Performed by the Tom Kling Orchestra
13 Radio Bulgaria
14 Cecilia Heisser Molar
15 Brandon LaBelle Eavesdrop
16 La Illaha… [There Is No God…]
17 AER Washing Machine
18 The World of Gilbert & George 1
19 Evan Parker mono
20 Ken Ikeda Yume
21 Raymond Cass Hello Everybody
22 Leif Elggren Help!/MansLaughter
23 Lily Otic Cowlick
24 Black Sabbath Riot Milwaukee 1980/The Japanese Imperial Army
25 Richard Bell Hell’s Bells
26 Regina Lund Come, Take Me
27 AER Arctic
28 Rosalind Waters Queen of the Night [composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]
29 The Conet Project V2 “Attençion”
30 Åke Hodell 1234/Law and Order
31 Forty Thirty
32 Atau Tanaka Therering
33 Tobias Frère–Jones Trip/Tenthprime/Lighthouse/Octave/Demand/Asymptote
34 Crosby Binge Whirleygig
35 Brendon Walls Ipcress
36 People Like Us I Know…
37 Gen Ken Montgomery enotgnir
38 Grime Shifty Slippy
39 The World of Gilbert & George 2
40 Marcus Davidson Grand Organ/Ringer’s Revenge/Samba
41 Paul Williams SQK_0003
42 Lary 7 Waveforms 1–8
43 Carl Michael von Hausswolff (ap. 7500 Hz)
44 New Order Video 5—8—6
45 VENOZ TKS “Carry On Sergeant. Right Oh, Sir!”
46 Homage to Rhythm & Sound
47 Serrata Horn ‡
48 Simon Fisher Turner Be Calm
49 Radio Bulgaria [continued]
50 Agniesz-+++ ++++-+ka Lewalski Sniff
51 alku 2000 el ringtones es el challenge
52 Andreas Karperyd Accelerate
53 Hazard Magnet
54 FEAR jimi burns the phone down
55 AER.7 Conduct endangering the safety of information
56 farmersannual jar: fnn/snull 2000: snull_cell
57 Disinformation Live
58 Carsten Nicolai sound mobile
59 DJ Guacamole A Concise History of Californian Rock Music in under 5 seconds
60 Bruce Gilbert Robbery/Air Raid
61 KREVmorse
62 D stereocellular
63 Edvard G Lewis FIAT/KANUANSER/KER–RING! [For use with the Nokia vibrating phone only]/DOOB
64 Edwin van der Heide touch.3
65 fennesz blau 1.7
66 Homage to Pan Sonic
67 Joel Stern it’s for me
68 The World of Gilbert & George 3
69 ikue mori trickling ô
70 Hecker HekRiTo
71 On the Beach
72 i.d :cdÅmltpl.dvsn
73 Heitor Alvelos Red Lights 74 kaffe matthews still striped
75 Main Where the Fuck Are You?/I’m a Few Minutes Late/I’m On the Train/Hold On, I’m Losing You!/The Battery’s Going!/I’m in the Pub/Ciao!
76 Rosy Parlane touchtone
77 Gilbert & George Twisted and Aggressive
78 Scala Naked
79 A Ringtone from Under the Floorboards
80 Mika Vainio Polar
Tele/Whale/Sounder
81 Mark Van Hoen Note/Oatmeal/Pencil/Stalker Bell/Bees
82 Monika Nyström Nos 1–4
83 S.E.T.I. Crab Nebula 3
84 Gilbert & George Twisted and Aggressive 2
85 AER Organ Loft
86 Phill Niblock & Guy de Bièvre tones for guy
87 Thomas Lehn Cellphone Sonata
88 Ryoji Ikeda ringtone_1/ringtone_2
89 The Portuguese Cleaner
90 Preacher talking backwards/Embassy voice
91 PITA ichiban
92 snd ..-.-..
93 ¡IT! ¡IT!
94 Zbigniew Karkowski úK·
95 MSCHarding The Becquerel
96 Francisco López untitled # 124
97 Joel Stern & Anthony Guerra Engaged Tone
98 Ryoji Ikeda Unobtainable
99 11.09 — 09.11
TO:51 – Locust “Wrong”
DCD – 39:47/39:54
The album, Mark Van Hoen’s second for Touch after “The Last Flowers from the Darkness” [TO:31, 1997], features Holli Ashton on lead vocals, and various backing vocalists including Lisa Millet, Tara Patterson (Autocreation), Sarah Peacock (Scala, Seefeel, January) and 4AD artist Vinny Miller. The instrumentation is purely electronic analog synthesizers, edited and manipulated in Digidesigns’ Protools. Mark Van Hoen, who programmed and produced the LP, wanted to invoke some of the spirit of late 70’s British electronic music, combining that sound with his now familiar brand of electronics for which he became known during the 90’s.
The fragility and unpredictability of vocalist Holli Ashton’s personality and vocals, combined with the decayed and warped quality of the sound offer a warmth rarely found in such pure electronic music. Imperfections are the source of that warmth and there are several connections here between the late 70’s (the period which first inspired Mark to make music) and the last few years. Electronic music in the late 70’s was forced to become more inventive because the limitations of the instruments of the time needed the musician to craft each sound by hand, and the instruments often went wrong; out of time and out of tune. These same instruments were used on this album; there are no samplers, guitars or anything else but analog synthesizers and vocals on this recording. More recently, artists such as Ryoji Ikeda, Pan Sonic, and Hazard have sought to bring out imperfections in digital music, and those influences are here, too. Even the second CD, to be played simultaneously with the first is a ‘misuse’ of technology, yet it makes a beautiful sound.
Sometimes things just don’t work out right…
In the Spring of 1998 Mark Van Hoen AKA Locust had just finished exhaustively promoting the critically acclaimed ‘Morning Light’ album. This hitherto much lauded, yet underground electronica artist was about to break into the mainstream. But then things went wrong. The usual story of falling out with an independent label which was eventually resolved with Mark’s liberation.
During this difficult time Mark recorded ‘Wrong’ – an album of songs with Holli Ashton, the dominant vocalist featured on Morning Light. Like so many artists before him, through his plight, Mark became all the more driven to produce a work that would meet his objective of being both commercial and also innovative. Summing up this frustrating period of enforced silence, the aptly titled Wrong, finally sees the light of day on Touch.
Track list:
CDOne
1. Heal
2. Make A Difference
3. Believe In The One
4. Sweet Sky
5. What Do You Care?
6. Separate
7. Wrong
8. Impossible Adventure
9. Haze
CDTwo
1. Presence And Gifts
2. Create, Dissolve And Recreate
3. Faith Grows From Trees
4. Distopian
5. Strings That Bind Or Drop
6. Playing With Time
7. Night Navigation
8. Candle Wishes
9. Conversations Beyond The End Of The Sky