Touch Newsletter #308
Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #308. We open the new year with a new release on Ash International. Releasing on 2 February 2024, “The Night the Stars Fell” by Ian Wellman is now available to pre-order. Read on for more details…
Ian Wellman
“The Night the Stars Fell”
Ash 15.0
CD and digital – 11 tracks. Releases 2 February 2024. Buy “The Night the Stars Fell” on Bandcamp. Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space. Photography by Ian Wellman and Benny Nilsen. Design: Philip Marshall.
1. Forest of Tragedy
2. The Night the Stars Fell
3. Relief
4. Chorus of a Derailed Railcar
5. Blinding Light
6. Hill of Swords
7. Decaying House
8. Slow Rage
9. Requiem of the Wind
10. Demise of a Dream
11. The Road Home
“‘The Night the Stars Fell’ is a journey that begins in a fire-scarred forest. The trees croak as each new gust of wind passes. Along the way, the remnants of a discovered past emerge; the crashes and bangs of the decaying home and the chorus of a derailed railcar; shortwave radios blaring messages baked in static. Crickets sing their final songs as the world continues to boil. I look for signs of hope, only to find darkness.”
The fourth album by Ian Wellman, and his Ash International debut, “The Night the Stars Fell” is built from field recordings from the forests and deserts of Southern California, shortwave radio static, and cassette tape loops layered in distortion. The eleven tracks across the album are carried by the physicality of wind which drove the fires that burned the forests where the sounds were recorded. “The Night the Stars Fell” explores a time of rebuilding, of searching for a new path.
Ian Wellman is a sound artist currently residing in Los Angeles. His recordings have been published by Room40, Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Luminous Drift, and Industrial Coast. Ian is an IATSE Y-1 journeyman, and a member of the LA-based sound collective VOLUME.
Buy on Bandcamp
strom|morts
“Malville Superphénix:
The Most Dangerous Machine in the World”
Ash 14.8
CD and digital – 12 tracks. Buy “Malville Superphénix: The Most Dangerous Machine in the World” on Bandcamp. Mixed by Randall Dunn at Circular Ruins Studio, Brooklyn NYC. Mastered by Greg Obis at Chicago Mastering Service, Chicago. Illustrations: Helge Reumann. Design: Philip Marshall.
1. Discovering Site
2. General Store
3. Assembly Shop
4. Boilers Sodium
5. Demineralisation Plant
6. Station Transformers
7. Control Room
8. Steam Generators
9. Reactor Dome
10. Turbine Hall
11. Unchartered Basement
12. Leaving Site
Superphénix is an industrial prototype for high-power sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors. It is located on the Creys-Malville site in France, close to the Swiss border. It is the largest fast neutron reactor in the world. It is also the world's largest reactor currently being dismantled. Commissioned in 1985 and definitively shut down in 1998, the plant operated for just 53 months. Numerous incidents, lengthy technical shutdowns, costs, protests and the dangerous nature of the facility led to the nuclear power station being decomissioned. What was presented at the time as the flagship of French nuclear power turned out to be the most dangerous machine in the world.
Using modular synthesizers, field recordings and some guitar, strom|morts take you on an aural tour of the plant in full operation. Discover the nuclear site room by room. From the control room to the reactor, the 12 drone pieces that make up the tour will give you an intense experience.
Buy on Bandcamp
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 203…
Guerrilla Audio
Long Wave
“Suspending time and immersing the listener in a widescreen of sound.”
Long Wave has now moved to the second Tuesday of the month from 8am-10pm PST.
You can catch up with the dublab archive on dublab.com, and for the entire Long Wave history (14 series so far for dublab and resonancefm) visit mscharding.net
Threads, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
Threads - @touchactivities |
@the.tapeworm
Instagram - @toucharchive |
@the.tapeworm
Twitter - @touchmusic | @ash10_3 |
@the_tapeworm
Touch on Facebook |
The Tapeworm on Facebook
Click here to unsubscribe
The previous Touch NewsLetter can be found here
