Touch Newsletter #263

Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #263. Another four files have been added to The Digital Archive of Tapeworm, a repository for audio from out-of-print cassettes on The Tapeworm. The Pathfinders, Ray Gallon, Fennesz and Daniel Menche are now available to download. The series will continue to grow at random intervals over the next months…

The Pathfinders - Malcolm Garrett and Roger Cleghorn – are reissuing their cassette, “Imagine Something Yesterday”, in an artists' edition of 53 copies only. Hand-signed and numbered, it is available directly from them. Visit the-pathfinders.bandcamp for further information on this exclusive edition.

The Digital Archive of Tapeworm

A repository for audio from out-of-print cassettes on The Tapeworm, available from datworm.bandcamp.com

DAT#09 – The Pathfinders – “Imagine Something Yesterday”. Originally released on 3 April 2020 by The Tapeworm as TTW#127 in a cassette-only edition of 127 copies. Recorded by The Pathfinders – Roger Cleghorn and Malcolm Garrett – “Imagine Something Yesterday” is a compendium of playful explorations with analogue synthesisers and distorted found sounds, made without an actual release in mind. These experiments from the 15th floor of a tower block in the Isle of Dogs, London were captured directly on a reel-to-reel tape recorder over a period of a few months at the tail end of 1980 and the beginning of 1981. Further embellishments were made at Chelsea School of Art. The equipment used included Yamaha CS-10, ARP Axxe, EMS VCS3, TEAC A-3340, Bang & Olufsen Beogram 1202 and Beolab 1700.

DAT#10 – Ray Gallon – “Nam June Paik – A Work for Radio”. Originally released on 4 April 2013 by The Tapeworm as TTW#53 in a cassette-only edition of 250 copies. This hour-long compositional documentary was produced for the CBC Radio Series “Signature,” and was originally broadcast on April 28, 1979. It was nominated for an ACTRA award for best radio documentary of the year. It is the result of a remarkable creative collaboration by artists such as John Cage, Charlotte Moorman, Philip Corner, and Nam June Paik himself with the author. Interspersed throughout the portrait are audio realisations by Ray Gallon of conceptual works by Nam June Paik. Thanks also to Lorne Tulk for remarkable engineering and creative contributions, and to Digby Peers for the courage to broadcast it.

DAT#11 – Fennesz – “Szampler”. Originally released on 25 March 2010 by The Tapeworm as TTW#16 in a cassette-only edition of 500 copies. Fennesz writes: “I was surprised how emotional it was to revisit these audio samples, originally a collection of short sounds I made for my Ensoniq EPS-16+ and ASR-10 samplers – a sound library I used for these instruments from 1990 until 2000. The EPS-16+ was an innovative early sampler. 16-bit, variable sampling rates from 11.2kHz to 44.6kHz – with a slim 1Mb of memory it had just about 11.5 seconds of sampling time in mono at 44.6kHz. The ASR-10 was a major upgrade with 16MB of RAM, which gave me much more sampling time, and also had a built-in effects processor and a sequencer. It was a sampling workstation that allowed me to produce full albums. (I should also mention I used an Atari at around this time…) My first EP “Instrument” (Mego, 1995) and debut album “Hotel Paral.lel” (Mego, 1997) were made with the ASR-10 and the Atari. Many of these sounds appeared on later albums and some are still in use today, especially during live performances, where I play them in a Max/MSP patch. This patch was designed by Klaus Filip, who introduced me to Ensoniq samplers back in the late 80s/early 90s… I had first compiled “Szampler” for The Tapeworm in 2010. However it wasn’t until 2021, while reassembling the original samples for digital remastering, that its emotional connections began to reveal themselves; it’s perplexing how involving it was this time around… Releasing them digitally somehow feels more exposing. The process has taken me on a retrospective journey which which I am still undertaking. I hope you find this version of “Szampler” as involving as I do. The sounds have accompanied me throughout my musical working life, and as such carry a weight of memories in themselves.” – Fennesz, Vienna, 4 April 2021.

DAT#12 – Daniel Menche – “Raw Fall”. Originally released on 2 June 2010 by The Tapeworm as TTW#19 in a cassette-only edition of 250 copies. Track 1: Raw waterfall recording of Tunnel Falls at the Eagle Creek trail in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, USA. Track 2: Raw waterfall recording of the South Falls in Silver Falls State Park located in the Oregon Cascade Mountains, USA. “There is a reason for this madness and that is the waterfall” – Roger Steen

Explore The Digital Archive of Tapeworm on Bandcamp

“Touch: Displacing”
V33:50

Touch: Displacing is a new subscription project where the focus falls on longer-form compositions, to be released on a monthly basis over the coming year and featuring artists for whom duration is a key feature of their work. It follows on from Touch: Isolation which covered the first lockdown period in the UK.

Twelve new and exclusive tracks recorded by Touch or Touch-affiliated artists for one year’s subscription, with contributions from Sohrab, Olivia Block, Bana Haffar, Chris Watson, Richard Chartier, Robert Crouch, Geneva Skeen and others – all mastered by Denis Blackham, to whom once again grateful thanks are due. Receipts will, as with Touch: Isolation [the collection is still available], be shared amongst the artists. A time to support independent music while it still exists!

Each of the releases will be mirrored by a cover/counterpoint by Jon Wozencroft – not fixed to one location, as they were with Touch: Isolation.

The subscription costs £33 for twelve tracks – please support the artists by investing in the Touch: Displacing project, and expect surprises – good ones for a change.

Subscribe at touchdisplacing.bandcamp.com

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 fifth year and have just posted episode 137…

Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com

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