You can visit the Touch Conference micro-site, updated daily with photographs and recordings, here

A series of conferences featuring Touch artists on the west coast of America presenting and demonstrating their work to a discerning audience:

Touch (est. 1982) is one of the last surviving labels from the turbulent new wave period in London, which uniquely fused art, design and music. Hear artists from the label roster present and demonstrate their work to a discerning audience.

Philip Jeck uses turntables and sampler to create a unique sonic improvisation, both emotionally captivating and technically involving.

Mark Van Hoen, with modular synth and software pushed the analogue/digital envelope to create damaged melodies, drones and dense claustrophobia.

Simon Scott explores the creative process of actively listening, the implications of recording the natural world using technology and the manipulation of natural sounds used for musical composition.

Daniel Menche – In a genre known for its randomness and chaotic structure, Daniel Menche has established himself as a musician with an uncharacteristic sense of focus and determination. Rather than creating “noise,” he strives for order and cohesiveness. Aural intensity is not a representation of confusion or the chaotic, but a concerted effort to provoke and stimulate the listener’s imagination by generating intensely powerful sounds and music.

Bethan Parkes – Her work spans across field recording, sound design, ambisonic composition and multichannel sound installation practices, drawing a focus on sonic spatial experience. Her works are designed to open out spaces with sound, exploring spatial aesthetics and the interactions between sonic and visually articulated spaces.

April 29th, Aeterna Gallery, Los Angeles
Philip Jeck
Jon Wozencroft (photography exhibition, part of Touch Retrospective April 9th on…)
Touch
Jon Wozencroft will not be present
Further details on Facebook and in Artillery Magazine

April 30th, Volume, Los Angeles
Philip Jeck
Mark Van Hoen
Bethan Parkes
Touch
Location: 5240 Alhambra Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90032
Tickets

May 1st, Aquarius, San Francisco
Philip Jeck
Mark Van Hoen
Simon Scott
Touch

May 2nd, The Gray Area, San Francisco
Philip Jeck
Mark Van Hoen
Simon Scott
Touch
Tickets

May 3rd, private location (invitation only), San Francisco
Philip Jeck
Mark Van Hoen
Touch

May 4th, Holocene, Portland
Philip Jeck
Mark Van Hoen
Simon Scott
Daniel Menche
Touch

May 7th, Chapel Space, Seattle
Philip Jeck
Mark Van Hoen
Daniel Menche
Touch

May 10th Dublab, Los Angeles (Radio)
Philip Jeck
Touch

www.philipjeck.com
www.markvanhoen.com
www.simonscott.org
danielmenche.blogspot.com
www.bethankellough.com

You can read a feature in Adventures in Sight and Sound here

Exhibition with limited edition prints of Jon Wozencroft ‘s album art. Show opens 9th April 6-10pm until 21st May (click on the image above to see a brief video)

Aeterna Gallery
949 Chung King Road
Los Angeles CA 90012
Tel: 213 457 3404

If you wish to purchase any of the prints, please contact the gallery directly – aeternalosangeles.com @AeternaGallery

Cover photos include:

Oren Ambarchi – Insulation | Fennesz – Black Sea | Hildur Gudnadottir – Without Sinking [see above] | Philip Jeck – Stoke | New Order – Video 5-8-6 | BJNilsen – Invisible City | Scala – Beauty Nowhere | Spire Live – Fundamentalis | Mika Vainio – Behind the Radiators | Various Artists – Touch 25 | Various Artists – Touch Sampler 3 | Chris Watson – Stepping into the Dark | Jon Wozencroft – Touch & Fuse

Digital Download – track – 39′ 57″ [24bit/48kHz wav]

Track listing and notes:

1. Källan (Prototype) 39′ 57″

Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft

Organ: Anna von Hausswolff. Recorded live at Lincoln Cathedral, 19th October 2013.
Performed at Frequency 13 Lincoln Digital Culture Festival as part of Touch presents…, (which also featured Chris Watson & Hildur Gudnadottir). Recorded live by Mike Harding using 2 x dpa 4060s onto a Nagra Ares Pll digital recorder. This recording is unedited from the original raw file.

Though she now lives in Stockholm, Anna von Hausswolff grew up in the once vibrant, bohemian neighbourhood of Haga in Gothenburg, Sweden, in a family who counted amongst their ancestors Bernhard Reynold von Hausswolff, an 18th Century governor of Falun, Sweden, who helped bring an end to the burning of witches. Although Anna has achieved acclaim with her song-based albums ‘Ceremony’, ‘Singing from the Grave’ (both first released on Kning Disk in Sweden) and the latest ‘The Miraculous’ (released on her own label, Pomperipossa Records), she has always had an ear for the radical approach, and this is the first step in a long-term collaboration with Touch.

Download Anna von Hausswolff “Kallan (Prototype) [Digital Download] in the TouchShop
www.annavonhausswolff.com

Today, 11th March, is the official 34th anniversary of the founding of Touch in 1982…

First contact with New Order after their concert at the Newcastle Mayfair on 11th March 1982…

You can follow our progress year by year here…

TOUCHLINE is a new online audio-visual resource for “emerging” artists. You can read more on the website here and you can buy these resources in the TouchShop

Releases now available:

December 2016
Ipek Gorgun – Aphelion

October 2016
Gravitas – a frequency crescendo in 11 movements

March 2016
Jez Riley French – Portable Music

Previous releases still available:

February 2016
Iain Chambers – Bascule Chamber Concert

November 2015
Aino Tytti – Millennium Mills

October 2015
Mark Van Hoen – Artefacts l

April 2015
Yann Novak – Scalar Field (9a00ff, ff6600, ff0066, fe0000)

March 2015
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay – Decomposing Landscape
Simon Scott – Below Sea Level

Digital download available from janawinderen.bandcamp.com.
Stereo version of multi-channel installation: 31m21s.

Zooplankton and Phytoplankton are organisms which drift in the oceans, seas and bodies of fresh water. The word ‘zooplankton’ is derived from the Greek zoon (ζῴον), meaning ‘animal’, phyto is derived from the Greek words φυτόν (phyton), meaning plant and planktos (πλαγκτός), meaning wanderer or drifter.

Mammals, fish and crustaceans feed on zooplankton and they in turn feed on phytoplankton. Phytoplankton need two things for photosynthesis and thus their survival: energy from the sun and nutrients from the water. In the process of photosynthesis, phytoplankton release oxygen into the water. Half of the world’s oxygen is produced by phytoplankton photosynthesis.

Local abundance varies horizontally in the water column, vertically with ocean drifts and seasonally with the light.

The Wanderer is a sound composition created from hydrophone recordings from the realm of these creatures in the Atlantic Ocean, made by Jana on her travels from the North Pole to the Equator.

The Wanderer was produced for the Lorch Schive Art Prize, Trondheim Kunstmuseum in 2015. Originally released on a USB Stick in an edition of 50.

Download from janawinderen.bandcamp.com
www.ashinternational.com
www.janawinderen.com

Recordings now available on Bandcamp

5-9pm
5 Emmanuel Road
Cambridge
CB1 1JW

Directions

Performers:

John Beaumont
Marcus Davidson
Philip Jeck
Charles Matthews
Simon Scott
Claire M Singer
The Eternal Chord

This concert will be recorded and a donation towards entry guarantees you a free copy of the recording which will be made there [wav file].

More info and tickets and for a full programme read here

“Give me somewhere to stand and I will move the earth” ARCHIMEDES

Design & photography: Jon Wozencroft

This postcard, on 400 gsm heavyweight card and printed in Bulgaria by Iasen Georgiev,
ships free with all orders in the TouchShop

This is the 3rd in the series:

Café Oto Sunday 31st January 2016

featuring LA-based artist Mark Van Hoen, an interview with Tony Myatt by Jon Wozencroft, plus sound ecologist and Slowdive drummer, Simon Scott, following on from new album, Insomni.

Mark Van Hoen
Simon Scott
Tony Myatt with Jon Wozencroft

www.cafeoto.co.uk

angels i:8

A 4 hour octophonic sound projection with multi-channel audio works from the roster of Touch sound artists, including Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Bethan Parkes, Hildur Gudnadottir, The Eternal Chord, Philip Jeck, Simon Scott, BNilsen & drøne

Octophonic Sound Projection: Mark Van Hoen

Executive Production: Mike Harding

11:30pm-3am – Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Grand Ave, Los Angeles

Double Vinyl + Download – 4 tracks
Photography and artwork by Jon Wozencroft
Cut by Jason at Transition

Track listing:

1. Mahler Remix 1
2. Mahler Remix 2
3. Mahler Remix 3
4. Mahler Remix 4

‘Mahler Remix’ was recorded live at Radiokulturhaus, Vienna by Christoph Amann, in May 2011. This recording is mostly based on samples taken from Gustav Mahler’s symphonies. The performance also includes an early version of ‘liminality’ from the ‘bécs’ album, released in 2014 on Editions Mego. ‘Mahler Remixed’ was a commissioned work performed together with the visual artist Lillevan.

Buy Fennesz “Mahler Remix” [2xLP] in the TouchShop
www.fennesz.com

Vinyl LP + Download + bonus track, “Čuoika”. All downloads are 24 bit recordings by Chris Watson.

Design by Philip Marshall
Photography by A K Dolven
Cut by Jason at Transition

Track listing:

A1. Gufihttar (underworld fairie)
A2. Gadni (spirit of the mountain)
A3. Neahkkameahttun (from the other side)
B. Wolf

Yoiking is the ancient chanting practise of the Sámi People – the indigenous peoples on the top of Europe. Yoiking originates from time immemorial – legend tells that it was the faires and elves of the arctic lands that gave yoiks to the Sámi People. Yoiking was an important element of the religious rituals in pre-christian times and has survived both christianity, imperialism and the fact that Sámi areas were confiscated by the states of the north; Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia.

Ánde Somby is deeply rooted into the yoik tradition. He comes from the eastern part of the north Sámi areas and in the tundra tradition of the reindeer herders and from the valley tradition of arctic farmers. His yoiking is both quite technical as well as melodic – Somby is at the same time an innovative yoiker. All the three pieces on side A are his compositions. His signature as a yoiker is an expressive style performed on the borders of the human voice.

The title of the work refers to the fact that the migratory birds that have made it to the arctic for their breeding season are an important part of the record. With the assistance of a local crow they break the arctic silence by singing and calling. The title also makes a more subtle reference to the sound flying from the echoing mountains.

The project itself has three inspirations; the yoiks were given to the humans from the fairies and elves. This gives an emphasis on that yoiks are of the earth. The second inspiration is that there is a war against fairies and elves going on; in Norway that war was waged by the national poet Henrik Wergeland in the song Nisser og Dverge and has continued with stripping the earth of its soul and giving free license to aggressive exploitation. The emphasis is asking the fairies and elves if they still are doing good. The third inspiration is the European myth about Narcissus and Echo; Echo does not find her love as Narcissus rejects her, but she is given an eternal voice. Yoik and Echo meet in this work as echo yoiks along together with the underground energies.

The recordings are made by Chris Watson, the world famous sound artist and leading field recorder. The recordings took place in Kvalnes, Lofoten mid June in 2014 in a moment while the arctic winds had a little rest. Chris Watson has also done the post production. A K Dolven took the photos for the project and has been instrumental in developing the concept. Thanks also to Tony Myatt.

Buy Ánde Somby “Yoiking With The Winged Ones” in the TouchShop
www.ashinternational.com
www.somban.com

On 14th January, 5pm, at the Royal College of Art’s Lecture Theatre 1, Jon Wozencroft and Paul Devereux present a Work in Progress show of their Landscape & Perception Project.

“Thinking of our senses as time machines. Two audio–visual presentations followed by Q&A and discussion. The first will introduce the idea of sensory archaeology and Archaeoacoustics, the study of sound at ancient sites, to provide the background for the second, which will overview the RCA’s ‘Landscape & Perception’ project.”

www.landscape-perception.com
www.rca.ac.uk

We are delighted to welcome two new participants in the mentorship programme:
Anna von Hausswolff (Sweden) – www.annavonhausswolff.org
Claire M Singer (Scotland) – www.clairemsinger.com

You can find out further information here

The Guardian open their Best Experimental Music of 2015 list with Philip Jeck’s “Cardinal” album. They write: “The electronic composer Philip Jeck returned with his first release in five years. His gothic and spacious Cardinal felt like a weighty career summation. Compacted tonalities bleed into each other – “a sleepy walk threading through familiar streets,” says Jeck – as vinyl sources and treated instrumental sounds drift through chimerical drones.”

Buy Philip Jeck “Cardinal” in the TouchShop
www.philipjeck.com
www.theguardian.com

Biosphere and Ánde Somby – whose album “Yoiking With The Winged Ones” will be released on vinyl and download by Ash International in January 2016 – are both featured in BBC Radio 3’s “Northern Lights: Tromso” programme.

As part of Radio 3’s Northern Lights season, Petroc Trelawny explores musical responses to the dark northern winters in Tromso, the Norwegian “capital of the Arctic”.
Petroc explores the region’s rich folk music heritage, with its traditions from northern Norway and from the Sami people, known for their yoik style of singing. He visits the folk music collection at the Tromsø Museum with curator Ola Graff, meets with Sami singers Ande Somby and Berit Alette Mienna, and sees children at one of the city’s primary schools continuing the yoiking tradition.

Tromsø is also well known for its cutting-edge electronic music scene. One of the genre’s pioneers is Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere, who uses the Arctic landscape both as inspiration for his electronic music, and literally, with field recordings including the sound of frozen lakes. He takes Petroc on a journey of sonic discovery around the fjords, tunnels and snow-capped peaks near his home on the island of Senja.

The North Norwegian Opera and Symphony Orchestra, and amateur choir Arctic Voices are also featured in this 45 minute broadcast and downloadable podcast.

Visit bbc.co.uk to listen or download

Download – 1 track – 23:49

Recorded by Achim Mohné
Photography by Mike Harding
With thanks to Georg Dietzler
Performed by Claire M Singer & Mike Harding at Sankt-Peter, Köln 6th November 2015

Track listing:

1. Orga

You can buy “Orga” on Bandcamp here

1. CLAIRE M SINGER & THE ETERNAL CHORD LIVE IN COLOGNE, 6th November 2015
Kunststation St Peter, Jabachstr. 1, Köln 7pm
Orgel und Elektronik in der Reihe Raumklänge – Ortsbezogene Musik, eine Plattform für raumerforschende Musik, Hörstudien und erweiterte Aufführungspraxis.

Further info: www.gerngesehen.de
www.raumklaenge.de

Programme:

“The Molendinar” & “Wrangham”
Claire M Singer (Organ and Electronics)
The Eternal Chord
Claire M Singer & Mike Harding
Curator: Georg Dietzler

2. TOUCH LABEL NIGHT IN AMSTERDAM 9th November 2015
Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ 730pm

Further info: www.muziekgebouw.nl
Philip Jeck, Thomas Ankersmit, Claire M Singer
www.philipjeck.com
www.thomasankersmit.com
www.clairemsinger.com

Review in kindamuzik “Best thing since sliced bread” can be read here

Double Vinyl + Download – 13 tracks – 64mins
Photography and artwork by Jon Wozencroft
Cut by Jason at Transition

Track listing:

Side 1.
Fleeing
Saint Pancras
Barrow in Furness (open thy hand wide)
Reverse Jersey
Side 2.
… bend the knee 1
Called In
Brief
Side 3.
Broke Up
… bend the knee 5
Called Again
Side 4.
And Over Again
The Station View
Saint Pancras (the one that holds everything)

This album comes with a free download of Philip Jeck “Live in Caen”, recorded by Franck Dubois on 28th February 2015 at Impressions Multiples #4 (ésam Caen/Cherbourg) with thanks to Thierry Weyd.

“… and they sparkled like burnished brass”*

Out of the depths of our complaints, it could be all so simple. To be never fooled by the finesse of a long-yearned for solidity, but in the momentary aplomb of a sleepy walk threading through familiar streets we’d hum our way, alto, baritone and tenor toward some harmonious end. An effect like some wonderful recollection of one or other of those technicolour movies. Not real for sure, but if you are in the mood….

I would like to acknowledge the influence the writer Marilynne Robinson has had on this work. I would recommend reading any/all of her four novels and also “When I was a Child I Read Books” [Virago, 2012]. This collection of essays include “Austerity as Ideology”, which dissects prevailing economic thinking, and “Open Thy Hand Wide…” which continues with a celebration of liberal thinking as Generosity (and also turned over my received knowledge of Calvinism). Her ability to convey a love of humanity and sense of wonder about the great mystery of existence in her writing has, since I first read a book of hers, found a way into the way I think about my work – not illustrating but meditating upon.
“After all, it’s [humankind] debts are only to itself.” (Marilynne Robinson)

To make this record I used Fidelity record players, Casio Keyboards, Ibanez bass guitar, Sony minidisc players, Ibanez and Zoom effects pedals, assorted percussion, a Behringer mixer and it was edited at home with minidisc players and on a laptop computer.
I would like to thank Octopus Collective’s Full Of Noise Festival where “The Station View” and “Barrow in Furness” were first recorded. Guy Madden and InMute’14, Athens who commissioned me to play a live soundtrack to Guy’s film “Cowards Bend the Knee” [2003]. “… bend the knee 1” and “… bend the knee 5” are reworked sections from that performance.

The two Saint Pancras Tracks are remixes of part a performance at St Pancras Church, London; an earlier version was made for “Touch. 30 years and counting” [Touch, 2012]. Saint Pancras (Latin: Sanctus Pancratius; Greek: Ἅγιος Παγκράτιος) was a Roman citizen who converted to Christianity, and was beheaded for his faith at the age of just 14 around the year 304 AD. His name in Greek literally means “the one that holds everything”.
“Called in” is an edit of a live performance at Spire in Krems, Austria [Kontraste Festival, 2013]. “Reverse Jersey” is an edit of a live performance for WFMU in New Jersey as part of Touch.30 [2012].

“Fleeting”, “Brief”, “Broke Up”, “Called Again” and “Over Again” were made at home in Liverpool between 2012 and 2015.

Thanks to everyone who has invited me to play, to Daniel Blumin at WFMU, to Mike Harding for the original recordings of “Called in” and “Saint Pancras” and a belated thank you to Jacob Kirkegaard for playing the chimes on “Ark” from “An Ark for the Listener” [Touch, 2010].

“… weeping for the wrongs we cannot undo.”

Philip Jeck, April 2015

*from The Book of Ezekiel

Buy Philip Jeck “Cardinal” [DLP] in the TouchShop
www.philipjeck.com