Tone 45.7 – Achim Mohné “Accelerated Standstill”

Limited edition vinyl + free bonus download track
Cut by Jason at Transition, this release is dedicated to Paul Virilio

An assembling for locked grooves. Collected and performed since 1997, recorded live in 2013 as part of “Touch presents…” at Café Oto, London; Ausland, Berlin; the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, and the Centre for Arts and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe.

This record can be played at all speeds, but the recommended speed is 33 rpm.
Accelerated Standstill is an assembling of locked grooves found on customary vinyl records. The records have been collected and performed live between 1997 and 2013. Locked grooves normally functioning as a ‘barrier’, avoiding the needle coming into contact with the label at the centre of the record. All grooves sound different, depending on how dust has effected and transformed the soft surface of the vinyl.

By using a triple vinyl deck set-up this (analytic auditory observations of) ending grooves are mixed live thus composing a “music that lies hidden in the medium itself”. The tiny dust particles inside the vinyl groove convert into a ‘sound sculpture’ – an important syntactical parameter (of the apparatus) is formed by the turntables themselves. The speed of their rotation is not limited to 33 or 45 rpm, but expanded between 1 and 150 rounds per minute thus determining the loops and the rhythm.

Achim Mohné started working with record players, cassette recorders and other sound-media-apparatus in the mid 1990s. He experiments with the space and time intervals of sound-media and is especially interested in the “music that lies hidden in the medium itself”. His method is to subject the support material to a forensic autopsy. His most recent project analyses the transfer data of a Wi-Fi router called Fritz Box/Fritz Kiste (cf TouchRadio). His further work features sound tracks for film and theatre performances (with Yoshie Shibahara) as well as collaboration with classical musicians (such as violinist Ayumi Paul).

www.achimmohne.de


Reviews:

Sly Vinyl:

Here’s another conversation piece to put in to your collection, readers. This record revolves around the recordings of multiple records’ locked grooves, which as you all know, serve as a barrier between the label and the needle. Achim Mohné is a sound artist (an artist in general, I suppose) from Cologne, Germany. These locked groove recordings you hear on the preview of this record come from a record collection spanning over sixteen years. As the record synopsis states, and as you can infer, each record’s locked groove is going to sound unique due to a wide array of factors – age, number of plays, dust, scratches, and so on. This could possibly be considered ambient to my ears, but again with something such as this, whether you can call this music or not is entirely up to you. These “non-music” records tend to fetch a prettier penny as time goes on in case you want to sell, but as I wrote, this, if nothing else, could be a great conversation piece. Another interesting aspect: you can play this at any speed you like. Check out the preview of Accelerated Standstill by going through the Buy Now link below and see what you think of it. Cheers!