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Download the free Touch Android app on Google Play
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In an exclusive interview for BBC Radio 4, David Attenborough talks to Chris Watson about his life in sound.
Monday 16 December
11.00-11.30am
BBC Radio 4
You can now hear this episode on iPlayer
One of Sir David’s first jobs in natural history filmmaking was as a wildlife sound recordist. Recorded in Qatar, Sir David is with Chris Watson (a current wildlife sound recordist), and is there to make a film about a group of birds he is passionate about, The Bird of Paradise. It is in Qatar where the world’s largest captive breeding population is and it is in this setting Chris takes Sir David back to the 1950s and his early recording escapades, right through to today where Sir David narrates a series of Tweet Of The Days on Radio 4 across the Christmas and New Year period.
Presenter: Chris Watson
Producer: Julian Hector for the BBC
Further information: www.bbc.co.uk
Inside the world of a wildlife audio expert
Chris Watson, who has worked on Attenborough’s Frozen Planet and Life in the Undergrowth, shares a remarkable insight into sound recording, some exclusive clips – and his feelings about music in wildlife shows.
Many congratulations to Chris Watson for winning the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers for 2013
We are proud to reflect that this is the second Touch-related award winner. Chris Watson follows Philip Jeck in collecting this highly prestigious award.
UPDATE – Sohrab has been refused entry into the UK.
New line-ups for London dates:
BJNilsen and John Chantler added to Touch presents… line up at Café Oto on Friday 8th November 2013, and BJNilsen will also perform at Pelican on Saturday 9th November 2013. NB: Sohrab will still be performing at the Berlin date.
In November Touch presents a short series of concerts in London and Berlin, featuring performances by Sohrab, Achim Mohné and Jiyeon Kim – a triple bill of exploratory music with three artists each defining their own sonic territory. German artist Achim Mohné works across different media formats, blurring the edges between them and exploring unexpected uses of modern and outmoded technology. Sohrab is a Tehran born musician whose ambient works are both a product of his environment and a reaction against it. Korean sound artist Jiyeon Kim’s experiments in resonance have led to an unconventional approach to field recording.
8th November 2013 | Touch presents… at Café Oto, London
Achim Mohné, BJNilsen, John Chantler Sohrab & Jiyeon Kim
Café Oto, 8pm
www.cafeoto.co.uk
Buy tickets
9th November 2013 | Touch presents… Hidden Narratives of Empty Spaces at The Peckham Pelican, London
BJNilsen, Sohrab Jiyeon Kim & Mike Harding
The Peckham Pelican, 7pm
www.thepeckhampelican.co.uk
Buy tickets
12th November 2013 | Touch presents… at Ausland, Berlin
Achim Mohné, Sohrab & Jiyeon Kim
Ausland, 8.30pm
www.ausland-berlin.de
Two World Premieres from Chris Watson + Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Anna von Hausswolff
19th October 2013, 7:30 – 9:30pm, Lincoln Cathedral
Touch is delighted to be invited back to play live in Lincoln Cathedral by Frequency, after the hugely successful 13th edition of Spire, which took place in the same space, in October 2011.
Chris Watson (field recordings) and Hildur Guðnadóttir (cello) will be collaborating on a brand new collaborative multi-channel sound work, titled “Sönghellir (The Cave of Song)” – a sound journey from under the waters of Faxafloi, Iceland, alongside some of the largest animals on the planet. Up, onto the lava beach, across the lava fields and reindeer moss to the foot of the snow mountain, Snaefellsnes. The journey continues up and then into the mountain, ending inside Sönghellir, the song cave…
On a clear day in Reykjavik, one can gaze northwest and see the shining Snaefellsjokull glacier, 60 miles away. Though the glacier is nowhere near in size to some of Iceland’s others, it is by far the most mysterious and popular. It rests near lands end on one of Iceland’s most beloved landscapes – the Snaefellsnes Peninsula – and its bright, mysterious beauty seems to embody the entire region. One of the reasons why Icelander’s love the Snaefellsnes Peninsula so much (aside from its enchanting landscape brimming with lava caves, waterfalls, and mineral hot springs) is that it is a veritable heartland of history. Some of the best and most important sagas took place here, and it is said that Christopher Columbus once spent a winter in Ingjaldsholl, where he heard stories of lands to the west.
Anna von Hausswolff, a Swedish singer, pianist and songwriter, will be performing a new score for the organ, titled “Källan”.
The Eternal Chord, an improvisational work from some of the artists present, will close the evening.
Further details at frequency.org.uk
Book tickets for Touch presents… Live in Lincoln Cathedral
Today is the great Phill Niblock‘s 80th birthday. We wish him all the very best. Its a huge honour to work with him. Happy birthday, Phill!!!
Limited edition 2x45rpm vinyl version
Cut by Jason at Transition
Sticker design & photography: Jon Wozencroft
Track list:
1. Alloy Ceremony 11.02
2. Live at the Chrome Cathedral 07.06
3. Midas in Reverse 05.32
4. Irkutsk 03.54
5. Praseodymium 08.32
6. Promethium 05.31
7. In Sheltering Sanctus of Minerals 09.05
Mika Vainio – Electric Guitar, Processing, Metallic Percussion.
Joachim Nordwall – Electronics, Electric Bass Guitar, Metal Objects, Hammond Organ, Vibraphone.
Recorded in Berlin at Studio Schwedenstrasse one day in June 2010. Recording Engineer: Marco Paschke. Mixed and Mastered by Daniel Karlsson in Stockholm at Elektronmusikstudion.
Mika Vainio was a member of the legendary minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic. Emerging from the Finnish industrial and rave music scene in the early 90’s, they became one of the most important electronic music acts. Vainio’s solo works goes from abstract drone to minimal and experimental techno, under his own name or as Ø for labels like Touch, Raster Noton, Sähkö and Editions Mego. He has worked with Alan Vega, Keiji Haino and many others. His music is always extremely physical and present. Mika Vainio lives and works in Berlin.
Joachim Nordwall runs the iDEAL Recordings label since 1998, releasing intense electronic music of various kinds and organizing club nights and festivals around the globe. He started making electronic music as a teenager in the late 80’s in the psychedelic drone duo Alvars Orkester (Ash International), drifted off to sweaty avant garde punk rock with Kid Commando in the late 90s and formed the ritual rock and electronic drone group The Skull Defekts in 2005. He is also recording solo works under his own name and works with Mats Gustafsson, The Gagmen (with Aaron Dilloway and Nate Young), Mark Wastell and The Sons of God. Nordwall is based in Stockholm.
“Monstrance” is their first album together and is released June 2013 and consist of drone works and pulsating electronic minimalism but also guitar, acoustic elements, organs and metal percussion. It was recorded in Einstürzende Neubauten’s Berlin studio during an intense session in early summer of 2010. “Monstrance” is a place where Vainio’s and Nordwall’s backgrounds as musicians and composers meet, and something new and extremely powerful is born. Something deep, raw and direct…
Brainwashed wrote: “Monstrance is an intense, rumbling piece of jagged metal that, even in its lighter moments is unsettling and uncomfortable. But despite its iron trappings and serrated surges of noise, it is indisputably organic, a sensibility that is rarely associated with Vainio’s output. It comes across as natural though, and results in this bleak, moody recording that excels in its darkness.”
Buy Mika Vainio & Joachim Nordwall “Monstrance” [2 x 45rpm Vinyl + MP3 download] in the TouchShop
Phill Niblock’s 80th birthday is to be celebrated at the end of September with screenings of his film works at New York’s Anthology Film Archives. Details of his upcoming Touch release to follow soon…
28th September – 30th September 2013, Anthology Film Archives, NY
It is mindboggling that a man with the tireless energy and ceaseless touring schedule of Phill Niblock is about to turn 80. An internationally recognized artist with a wide body of music, film, photography, video, and computer works, Niblock has specialized in making intermedia performance since the mid-1960s. As a composer, he creates thick clouds of drones that are filled with surprisingly active microtones and timbres that generate many other tones in the performance space. During concerts of his music, Niblock simultaneously presents films/videos focused on the movement of people working, or computer-driven black-and-white abstract images floating through time. While Niblock is best known today as a minimalist composer, he actually started his artistic practice with film (and photography) – in fact, his first compositions were created to accompany his films.
Born in Indiana in 1933, he has been an artist/member of the vital Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York since 1968, and its Director since 1985. Over the years he has produced more than 1,000 performances at the EI loft in Soho, acted as curator of the innovative XI Records label, and launched a second EI space in Ghent, Belgium. Recordings of his music are available on the XI, Moikai, Mode, and Touch labels, and DVDs containing his films and music have been released on the Extreme and Die Schachtel labels.
This program provides a glimpse into the broad range of Niblock’s cinematic explorations, from rarely-presented early works to a selection of films from his well-known “Movement of People Working” series, which he usually shows at his concerts.
This 80th birthday tribute has been curated by Katherine Liberovskaya.
Screening details can be read at www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
BBC Radio 4’s “Saturday Live” this morning featured a package by John McCarthy, who travelled to Durham to see the Lindisfarne Gospels, on loan from the British Library for 3 months and on display as the centre piece of a major exhibition at Durham University’s Palace Green Library.
Chris Watson is featured in the piece, discussing his part in this project, which resulted in his latest CD, “In St Cuthbert’s Time”.
Listen again on the BBC iPlayer – the section featuring Chris commences 32m56s into the broadcast.
Celebrating the launch of the album (CD, Touch # TO:87)
Bruce Gilbert and BAW – “Diluvial”
6pm 13 September 2013,
Beaconsfield, 22 Newport Street, London SE11 6AY
As the rain returns to London, join us for the launch of a collaboration between Bruce Gilbert, David Crawforth and Naomi Siderfin.
According to this initial review from the Pinkflag site: “I purchased it from Touch as I like physical product, but also enjoyed being able to immediately download it. Remarkably different from what I was expecting. Not so harsh with considerable environmental field recordings thrown into the mix. While no rhythms are present, it is musical and sounds like what it is supposed to be: an allusion to the seven days of creation… a concept album. On my second listen and am finding it be perhaps Gilbert’s most intelligent release ever. Remarkable, full, long (9-13 minute) soundscapes and nothing like any of his previous works. It is a collaboration and I gather the field recording aspects of it are attributable to BAW (Beaconsfield ArtWorks) while Gilbert scored it. In that regard, it reminds me of his soundtrack work for Downriver, only better. In fact this is so good, it is probably his best work to date. I really like the logic of it… each immense track evolves into the next (although there are distinct track separations). Quoting from the liner notes: “Taking rising sea levels as its them, Diluvial imagines the world before, during and after the next great flood, referring to an ancient, ex nihilo interpretation of global warming.” [specotron]
touch33.net has a new incarnation – touch33.net
Amoeba Records
6400 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
8-10pm 16th August
Mike Harding (Touch) presents a selection of tracks from the extensive Touch archive… including tracks from Biosphere, Fennesz, Bruce Gilbert, Hildur Gudnadottir, Rosy Parlane, Sohrab, Mika Vainio, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen and others…
Since its first release in 1982, Touch has created sonic and visual productions that combine innovation with a level of care and attention that has made it the most enduring of any independent company of its time.
You can view the playlists for the evening here
CREATE A SENSE OF PLACE
Geosonics is a colloboration between legendary field recordist Chris Watson and Soniccouture and Touch.
Hundreds of hours of recordings, from some of the worlds most extreme and inhopsitable enviroments, combine to form a library of rare sonic artefacts that cannot be found anywhere else.
Using this unique collection as a starting point, we created a wealth of sound design material – waves and textures which, when layered and combined with Watson’s original recordings, create the most fluid, organic soundscapes ever heard.
Today, 11th March, is the official 31st anniversary of the founding of Touch in 1982…
First contact with New Order after their concert at the Newcastle Mayfair on 11th March 1982…
Track listing:
Track 1: Scuttling Around in the Shallows 11:25
Track 2: Drying Out in the Sun 16:01
The fourth in the series of limited edition vinyl (now deleted) in the Tone 45 series is now available as a high quality FLAC download, only available from the TouchShop.
“Scuttling Around in the Shallows” is from the quadrophonic installation of the same name showed at Galerie B-312, Montreal, Canada 8th January – 5th February 2011.
“Drying Out in the Sun” is from a four-speaker outdoor public installation at “Starfield Simulation #36”, Scaniaparken in Malmö, Sweden, 4th September – 2nd October 2011.
What they said about the vinyl release:
Norman Records: “What a beautiful unnerving organic cacophony this is, the rugged brutality of the oceans and uncharted icy crevices are captured in blistering fashion here, the enhanced low-end capabilities of the 12” vinyl format further exposing the sheer terrifying natural wonder of it all. Heartily recommended for fans of pure dark ambience and Chris Watson’s absorbing harnessing of the sound of nature.”
The Field Reporter: “The horizontal timeline narrative in ’Debris’ is strongly engaging and that is probably because it sounds very natural and organic but also reveals an intentionality behind it. To me ‘Debris’ works like some sort of cinematographic piece where the artist explores different sounds in a quest that seems more emotional and narrative than conceptual. We can hear recognizable sounds such as voices, bells and birds, that when combined with other sounds – whose causality is not so clear- build altogether a very effective composition.” [David Vélez]
Boomkat: “This piece reminds us strongly of works by Thomas Köner and Jim Haynes, juxtaposing bleak, perilous subaquatic ambient pressure with crystallising surface textures.”
Forced Exposure: “The two sides of Debris were both extracted from a couple of her sound installations, the longer of which is entitled “Drying Out In The Sun”, based on recordings made at / near / beneath the surface of the ocean, which plunge into the nether regions of the deep-sea trenches and alluvial plains, amassed into pressurized low-frequency drones. “Scuttling Around The Shallows” returns to her fascination with shrimp which she first displayed on her Tapeworm cassette The Noisiest Guys On The Planet, with erratic snaps, clicks, and crunches made by those small crustaceans amidst deep-ocean ambience.”
Plenty of Touch-associated artists are taking part in this festival, which runs from February 8th to 9th in Athens.
Biosphere
Ryoji Ikeda
Jacob Kirkegaard
Thomas Köner
Mika Vainio
and of course, the man who put it all together, Novi_sad
with Mike Harding, Sandra Jasper & BJNilsen
Transmedia presents: The Art of Listening 3, Touch’s residency in Brussels, January 21-25 2013. This residency is part of the Masters Degree course at Sint Lucas College
Mats Almegård presents a two hour Touch special on Sunday 20th January
“On Sunday at 8 pm local swedish time (7pm GMT) we will broadcast our 2 hour Touch special.”
Fiona Talkington has been playing extracts from “Thirty years and counting”, the Touch.30 CD and double vinyl release for Touch’s 30th year.
You can catch up with Late Junction here and buy the product in the TouchShop. Hurry while stocks last… both formats are limited editions…
Congratulations to Late Junction in their 10th year…