Touch Newsletter #287
This week we are shipping the new album “Of Endless Light” from Chicago-based duo, CLEARED; Steven Hess and Michael Vallera have created a “dramatic, exquisitely layered, and hugely absorbing” album (Mat Smith, Electronic Sound) - you can order here from Bandcamp.
On Saturday, Touch.40 picks up its series of live events to celebrate 40 years of activity on mainland Europe for the first time with Fennesz, Simon Scott, Valery Vermeulen and special guests Razen at Ancienne Belgique, Brussels. Tickets are available at abconcerts.be (We return to Cafe Oto on 1st October…)
CLEARED
“Of Endless Light”
TO:119
CD – 6 tracks – 72:21. Buy “Of Endless Light” on Bandcamp. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Recorded by Jeremy Lemos. Mastered by Denis Blackham.
1: First Sleep
2: Of Endless Light
3: Dawn
4: Pulse
5: Blue Drift
6: Walking Field 11:28
CLEARED is the longstanding project of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera, based in Chicago, Illinois. “Of Endless Light” was recorded by Jeremy Lemos at Electrical Audio in Chicago and mastered by Denis Blackham. The six tracks complete the longest release to date by the duo, who were resolute in utilizing the maximum time available on the compact disc format. CLEARED has produced a series of critically recognized recordings since its self-titled debut in 2011. Working with the Touch label on The Key (recorded in spring 2019, released in October 2020) was a leap forward, prompting remixed tracks by Philp Jeck, Fennesz, Bethan Kellough, and Olivia Block.
“Of Endless Light” is noctambulant, a walk through formal sonic spaces and colors beginning with the cascading, bell-like tones of the opening track, “First Sleep.” The husks of a city’s industrial past are summoned: warehouses hollowed out for condominiums, dust-covered factory floors, a distant grind of machining, clouds of metallic particles, and the persistent background hum of traffic. These remnants contrast with hints of the sterile present of a city no less cruel than its industrial past. “Dawn” opens with a grey drone and scattered electronic rhythms as wiring, and extended guitar lines suggest the opening of another cycle of the day into evening. “Pulse” offers a hypnotic pattern that suggests the movement of people through the city’s core, slowly overlain with cymbals evoking the shimmer of sunlight cleaving off the windows of distant buildings. The album appropriately concludes with “Walking Field,” methodically moving forward via a cloud of meditative clicks and looping melodies.
“Of Endless Light” is a patient listen, distilled into a sonic environment specific to Hess and Vallera’s lens. Cleared created its crepuscular moods using the core methodology of their previous records while expanding their music’s range, artistry, and subtlety. Deploying careful instrumentation, sampling, and mixing to experiment with tone and atmosphere, Of Endless Light breathes and drifts through layers of sound that veil, reveal, and intrigue. The result gives a listener much to discover, examine, experience, and consider – as well as the incentive to return again and again. [Bruce Adams, 2022]
Buy “Of Endless Light” on Bandcamp
Touch.40
Ancienne Belgique, Brussels
24 September 2022
Artists: Fennesz, Simon Scott, Valery Vermeulen and special guests Razen (and an interview with Mike Harding by Katrien Schuermans). Further info and tickets: abconcerts.be
"Touch and AB have already had a long love affair, one perpetuated in recent years with a number of superb events around this fantastic label: there was the expo with the artwork of co-founder Jon Wozencroft, we celebrated their 30 year existence at the Feeërieën, there were several label nights in the AB Salon, we organised together with Touch the Jóhann Jóhannsson tribute in 2018 involving the second live performance ever of “Virðulegu Forsetar”, there was the legendary evening with Mika Vainio, Thomas Ankersmit and Hildur Gudnadóttir at Domino ‘11, Chris Watson performed his “El Tren Fantasma” live in Train World, Bana Haffar recorded her debut album in AB…
And of course there were Fennesz, BJ Nilsen, Philip Jeck, Biosphere, Jana Winderen, Zachary Paul, Ipek Gorgun, Yann Novak, Simon Scott,… all unique artists that the label has given opportunities early in their careers, have established long-lasting relationships with, and who we have been able to present in AB at just the right moments in time.”
Further info and tickets: abconcerts.be
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 172…
Guerrilla Audio
Long Wave
“Suspending time and immersing the listener in a widescreen of sound.”
Each month on the second Friday, Mike Harding and Bana Haffar present two hours of audio for dublab, Los Angeles.
You can catch up with the dublab archive on dublab.com, and for the entire Long Wave history (12 series so far for dublab and resonancefm) visit mscharding.net
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