Touch Newsletter #255
Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #255. What a year. Hardly a case of 2020 vision, as the blinkered horses race towards their January finishing line. The vaccine offers hope that the global situation fails to provide. The past will have circled round and be directly in front of us.
It started well. Hildur Guðnadóttir won a wave of awards for her soundtracks to “Chernobyl” and “The Joker”: it was quite exceptional that 11 years separated her first Touch release “Without Sinking” with an Oscar for Best Soundtrack.
Chris Watson opened his residency at the Nature Unwrapped festival at Kings Place, London, with a showcase of his sound recordings alongside a fiery discussion with Guardian writer George Monbiot.
Our first release of the year was a reissue of Tone 65, Jana Winderen’s monumental work, “Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone” – a profound statement becoming more accurate and crucial as we reach the critical phase of climate change.
Strafe F.R.’s ”Santa Maria” was originally released on vinyl in 1986, and is now available digitally for the first time. A new film, “FRISS”, was uploaded in connection with their recent 2019 LP release “Shadow Position”.
Following his digital release at the end of 2019, “Emergency Exit”, Simon Scott’s LP “Migrations” was recorded in Moscow and The Fens near Cambridge, England – an “anthem to land that hasn’t been stepped on by the man.” (data.wave)
After numerous cuts and re-cuts, the gatefold vinyl edition of ELEH’s “Living Space” finally saw the light of day – TO:114V. “The 14-minute title track is an ephemeral wonder, sidestepping the typically abrasive tension of drone music and instead embracing a gentle quietude that is equal parts calming and disturbing.” (Electronic Sound)
During February and March, Touch curated live events at the AB Salon in Brussels, Café Oto and Iklectik in London, featuring Jana Winderen, Zachary Paul, UnicaZürn, Howlround, Bill Thompson, CM von Hausswolff and Tears|Ov. Just before the lockdown kicked in, Jon Wozencroft played his one and only Sound Seminar of the year at Iklectik and even the torrential rain failed to dampen our spirits.
As the restrictions took hold, on 3rd April we launched our first digital subscription project, “Touch: Isolation”, available now as an album. Erik Morse wrote about the project for the Times Literary Supplement. In October we followed it with a focus on longer-duration compositions, “Touch: Displacing”, still unfolding and evolving…
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay recorded his first release for Touch, “The Well-tempered City - Book I”, “conceived using transduction as the methodology to represent citizen-generated vibration contents at the architectural surfaces of contemporary cities.” Check also his session on Long Wave, Mike Harding’s L.A.-based radio show.
The Eternal Chord’s “Mutatis Mutandis” described the process of how audio edits inspire artists to create new works, having laid to rest any notions or categories of “remix”… a burning sequel, “Das Bit”, is planned for later in 2021, with BJNilsen, storm|morts, Rhodri Davies, Faith Coloccia, Dahra, Chris Duncan, Gabie Strong and more…
Alongside the launch of “Touch: Displacing”, which has so far featured Sohrab, Olivia Block and Bana Haffar, October saw the release of CLEARED’s “The Key” and Jacaszek’s “Gardenia”, both housed in a landscape DVD-CD digipak. CLEARED is Michael Vallera and Steven Hess, and “The Key”’s four tracks are mirrored by alternative versions by Fennesz, Philip Jeck, Bethan Kellough and Olivia Block. “Gardenia” is based on Michał Jacaszek’s time spent on location in Mmabolela, a private nature reserve covering 6500ha of subtropical savanna in South Africa. “At the risk of gushing: this is a work of deep and subtle magic, and I look forward to discovering and rediscovering it over years to come”. (Dogrando.net UK)
Early 2021 promises a new collaboration between Faith Coloccia & Philip Jeck, “Stardust”, and Chris Watson’s “The Cemetery”, with Carlos Casas & Tony Myatt, the soundtrack to Casas’s film of the same name which is already available on various online platforms. Chris also leads “Touch: Displacing” in January with “Station Chapelle”, a ghost station in Brussels, “displaced international passengers on empty platforms, voices searching for an urban fox or lost human soul”.
By which time we shall be hoping live performances will restart, come Spring. As for the “New Normal”, we expect nothing from those in office who have made it abundantly clear that they have no idea what might happen, from one day to the next.
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Ash International
Ash International kicked off late, as usual, with Bill Thompson’s “Blackout” described as “letting go, not only of the archive and the system that maintains it, but also of the self by way of the many personal associations”, hitting Bandcamp in July, closely followed by Kaj Aune’s “Superstring” - “I do have an aesthetic tendency towards the old and worn, corrosiveness and decay.” Both are available on the label’s Bandcamp: ashinternational.bandcamp.com.
The Tapeworm and The Wormhole
The Tapeworm released tapes by Iceman Junglist Cru, Watkins/Peacock, Jerome Noetinger and Liz Rácz, Bana Haffar and Nour Mobarak, Simon Fisher Turner, The Pathfinders, Candura, Jiyeon Kim, Not Now, Strom|morts, Gabie Strong, Os Senhores, Richard Francis and Frans de Waard, Apiary, Trinovantes, Jim Haynes and venoztks. The Wormhole released two albums – “ROMTYZ” by NYZ and “Clear Your Screens” by Biting Tongues – as well as “Mind Control”, an EP by Cristian Vogel. The Wormhole returns in 2021 with a series of collaborations: Stefan Goldmann and es.; Jay Glass Dubs and Laura Agnusdei; The Howling (Ken Hollings and Howlround).
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 129…
Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com
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