DVD – Region 2 only

Commissioned exclusive work from Fennesz ● Chris Watson ● Oren Ambarchi ● BJNilsen ● Hildur Gudnadottir ● Sarah Nicolls ● Jana Winderen ● Michael Esposito ● Leif Elggren ● Maia Urstad ● Achim Mohné ● Tom Haines & Chris Branch (members of The London Snorkelling Team) ● Pascal Wyse ● Marcus Davidson ● Joachim Nordwall & Henrik Rylander ● Philip Jeck ● Sohrab and others
also with free extras not on the DVD from Jacob Kirkegaard:

&
Pascal Wyse:

Once upon a time, during the belle epoque in turn-of-the-century Paris, a short-lived film form called scenes de feeries, or fairy films, was becoming popular thanks to the Pathe Frerer company. In jewel-like colours the films, made to appeal to young and old alike, recreated the theatrical spectacles of the age with their fantastical settings, dancing girls, mythical beasts, supernatural beings and a plethora of stage tricks enhanced by the techniques of the new medium of film.

Presented here with original hand-colouring, each film is accompanied with a newly commissioned soundtrack by recording artists from the leading experimental music label Touch.

Film notes written by Bryony Dixon. Extra films notes written by Michael Brooke. Music notes written by Mike Harding.

Photography & design: Jon Wozencroft

The Whitstable Symphony, with audio by BJNilsen and images by Jon Wozencroft, was commissioned by The Whitstable Biennale and will be screened on September 1st-16th 2012 at Whitstable Museum and Gallery.

DLP – 5 tracks – Limited edition of 1000
Artwork & photography: Jon Wozencroft
Cut by Jason at Transition
Originally mastered by Francois Tetaz at Moose, Melbourne

Track listing:

A: Salt
B: Knots pt. 1
C: Knots pt. 2
D1: Passage
D2: Fractured Mirror

[Knots has been edited by the artist for vinyl into two parts]

On “Audience of One”, Oren Ambarchi presents a four-part suite which moves from throbbing minimalism to expansive song-craft to ecstatic free-rock. His previous solo albums for Touch exhibited a clear progression towards augmenting and embellishing his signature bass-heavy guitar tones with fragile acoustic instrumentation. Audience of One, while also existing in clear continuity with these recordings, opens the next chapter.
Remarkable in its confidence and breadth, but also in the sensuous immediacy of its details, this is the first time a single record has come close to encapsulating Ambarchi’s musical personality in its full range and singularity. The techniques and strategies developed in his refined improvisational work with Keith Rowe and his explorations of the outer limits of rock with Sunn O))) and Keiji Haino are both in evidence, alongside the meticulous attention to detail and composition of his solo works. And on the cover of Ace Frehley’s ‘Fractured Mirror’ which closes the record, Ambarchi even points to his roots as a classic rock fanatic, in an epic yet faithful version which extends the shimmering guitar patters of the original into a rich field of phase patters reminiscent of the classic American minimalism of Reich and Riley.

The album features a multitude of collaborators, who, far from appearing in incidental roles, are integral to the pieces on which they perform: on ‘Salt’, Ambarchi paints a hypnotic, chiming backdrop for Paul Duncan’s (Warm Ghost) vocals, and Joe Talia’s virtuoso drumming and driving cymbals are at the core of the epic ‘Knots’, in which Ambarchi, alongside a chamber arrangement by Eyvind Kang, weaves a net of frequencies and textures with the organic push and pull of a 70s psych jam, the bass response of a doom metal ritual and the psycho-acoustic precision of an Alvin Lucier composition.

On his previous records, Ambarchi’s signature guitar tone was the ever-present bedrock over which other elements sounded. At moments on Audience of One, this disappears entirely, as on the beautiful ‘Passage’, which, recalling the 70’s Italian non-academic minimalism of Roberto Cacciapaglia and Giusto Pio, is composed of overlapping tones from Hammond organ and wine glasses, Jessika Kenney’s voice, various acoustic instruments, and the delicate amplified textures of Canadian sound-artist Crys Cole.

Rather than being provided by any particular sound, the unified feel of Audience to One stems simply from the unique, patient sensibility Ambarchi has developed over the last twenty years; abstracting musical forms into their barest forms, while somehow always managing to leave their emotive power intact. [Francis Plagne]

Buy Oren Ambarchi “Audience of One” [DLP] in the TouchShop

also available:

Buy Oren Ambarchi “Audience of One” [CD] in the TouchShop
Buy Oren Ambarchi “Audience of One” [FLAC] in the TouchShop
Buy Oren Ambarchi “Audience of One” [Apple Lossless] in the TouchShop

www.orenambarchi.com

Continue reading →

Café Oto 17.07.12
Presentations, talks & performances

Maia Urstad (Bergen) – ‘Radio Field’

“As a sound installation artist I have always been intrigued by how we communicate. My fascination with the sending and receiving of messages, and how they may be converted on their way, has led to a series of artworks containing portable radio transmitters and receivers…”

Maia Urstad is an artist working at the intersection of audio and visual art. She was educated at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts and has also a background in rock music.

www.maia.no

Jiyeon Kim (Seoul)
Jiyeon Kim started her career as media art project producer, then she moved to the soundmaker/musician field. She mainly uses field recordings with sounds made with handmade analogue sound devices and acoustic objects as her source. Currently she experiments on resonating different materials in various methods with diy microphones, amplifiers, analogue oscillators, which leads her to develop unconventional ways of field recording. Jiyeon is also working as a sound educator, actively programming and running various sound workshops for young people. She aims to inspire participants to engage with their sonic environments in an artistic and social way. This summer, Jiyeon is invited to 3 weeks of a field recording residency near Verona and Naples in Italy, where she will explore sound environments of abandoned places in rural areas.

teum11.wordpress.com

Sandra Jasper (London/Berlin)

Sandra Jasper is a geographer currently completing her doctorate at the UCL Urban Laboratory. Her thesis “Cyborg Imaginations: Nature, Technology and Urban Space in West Berlin (1961-1989) draws from diverse fields, such as sound art, engineering and architecture. Sandra teaches on the UCL MSc Urban Studies and convenes “Stadtkolloquium” a postgraduate research network. Her recent publication “Phantom limbs: Encountering the hidden spaces of West Berlin” came out in “Urban Constellations” (Jovis, ed. by Matthew Gandy).

“The UCL Urban Laboratory, established in 2005, is a university-wide initiative to bring together the best urban teaching and research at UCL. Our activities build on the full spectrum of work at UCL across the arts and sciences ranging from civil engineering to film studies, from urban history to the latest developments in architectural design.”

www.sandrajasper.net
www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab

Dawn Scarfe (London)

Dawn Scarfe’s work ranges across a variety of media from site-specific installation and performance to field recording. It explores how listening might be directed to heighten our perceptions of particular environments. Multi-speaker installations (such as Tree Music) and resonating acoustic glass sculptures (Listening Glasses) ask us to re-think and re-negotiate our impressions of our surroundings. Individual parts of her works are encouraged to respond to each other or to enter into a dialogue with their environment.
Recent exhibitions include Klinkende Stad Kortrijk, ZKM Karlsruhe, Q-O2 Brussels, La Casa Encendida Madrid, TONSPUR Museumsquartier Vienna, Bios Athens, Space Studios and 176 Zabludowicz Collection, London. She completed a PhD in Sonic Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London in December 2011.

Dawn will present an introduction to her work with glass including Tuning to Spheres: an installation/performance which uses assorted wine glasses as acoustic resonators. A number of wine glasses sit on a turntable. A small loudspeaker plays sine tones tuned to the pitch of a particular glass, causing it to resonate as it passes underneath the speaker.

www.dawnscarfe.co.uk

The 13th Spire took place at St. Botolphs without Aldgate on Thursday 21st June 2012 as part of The Spitalfields Summer Festival

7.00pm-9.30pm (Installation by Marcus Davidson from 6.00pm)
Insight with Scott McMillan (The Liminal), Charles Matthews and Mike Harding

Performers:

Charles Matthews – organ & piano
John Beaumont – tenor
Marcus Davidson – organ, piano & tape
BJ Nilsen – electronics
Philip Jeck – turntables & samplers
and
The Eternal Chord

Programme to include:

Charles Camilleri – Sonata Semplice
JS Bach – Komm, Heiliger Geist
Ligeti – Harmonies
Diana Burrell – Lauds
Arvo Pärt – Pari Intervallo
Marcus Davidson – The Conscious Sky

You can book tickets here
Tickets: £12 unreserved/£5 Student tickets (further concessions available)
Series Tickets Offers: Discounts available when booking three or more concerts

From its earliest inception as the Hydraulis to the latest in organ technology, the organ has had incredible influence on the history of music and sound. Spire celebrates this ‘Emperor of Instruments’ with live performances for organ, electronics, piano and voice, contrasting digital and analogue to create a rich sonic journey unique to each performance location. See Spire in Spitalfields for the first time, visiting St Botolph without Aldgate and its newly restored Harris organ.

The 13th Spire will take place at St. Botolphs without Aldgate on Thursday 21st June 2012 as part of The Spitalfields Summer Festival

7.00pm-9.30pm (Installation by Marcus Davidson from 6.00pm)
Insight with Scott McMillan (The Liminal), Charles Matthews and Mike Harding

Performers:
Charles Matthews – organ & piano
John Beaumont – tenor
Marcus Davidson – organ, piano & tape
BJ Nilsen – electronics
Philip Jeck – turntables & samplers
and
The Eternal Chord

Programme to include:
Charles Camilleri – Sonata Semplice
JS Bach – Komm, Heiliger Geist
Ligeti – Harmonies
Diana Burrell – Lauds
Arvo Pärt – Pari Intervallo
Marcus Davidson – The Conscious Sky
You can book tickets here
Tickets: £12 unreserved/£5 Student tickets (further concessions available)
Series Tickets Offers: Discounts available when booking three or more concerts

From its earliest inception as the Hydraulis to the latest in organ technology, the organ has had incredible influence on the history of music and sound. Spire celebrates this ‘Emperor of Instruments’ with live performances for organ, electronics, piano and voice, contrasting digital and analogue to create a rich sonic journey unique to each performance location. See Spire in Spitalfields for the first time, visiting St Botolph without Aldgate and its newly restored Harris organ.

Click here for more info and tickets
Door: 8pm
Tickets : £8 adv / £10 on the door

Elliott Sharp is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer and central figure in the avant-garde music scene in New York City for over thirty years. He’s played OTO a few times before and this one promises something different but equally enchanting as he pairs up with Philip Jeck on record players and keyboards.

Elliott Sharp contributed “Black Rain” to “Ritual: Lands End” [Touch # T33.4, 1985]

Cover mounted CD, GO MAG Series_Mayo 2012 No. 90

Track listing:

Fennesz  -Rivers of Sand
Philip Jeck – all that’s allowed (remix)
Oren Ambarchi – The Strouhal Number
Chris Watson – Chihuahua
BJNilsen – Meter Reading
Mika Vainio – In A Frosted Lake
Jana Winderen – Survivors Of The Waterworld (GOMAG mix)
Hildur Guðnadóttir – In Gray
Sohrab – Himmel Über Tehran
Biosphere – Fujiko
ELEH – Linear To Circular / Vertical Axis

The source of the Stonehenge bluestones is widely accepted to be the Preseli Hills, in Pembrokeshire, SW Wales, a heritage site seldom studied but rich in sonic phenomena, notably the lithophones that litter Carn Menyn, the main rocky outcrop on the Preseli range.

A central premise of the Landscape & Perception project is to question the hierarchy between vision and sound in the building of prehistoric monuments, in particular the sacred sites of Avebury and Stonehenge, whose acoustic dimensions have never been properly assessed.

Supported by the Royal College of Art, Paul Devereux and Jon Wozencroft present this updated report on their findings. The website is designed by Rebels in Control and represents five year’s worth of research into these two “power spots”.

www.landscape-perception.com

Today, 11th March, is the official 30th 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…

One year after a triple disaster hit Japan, an internet-video platform entitled Sound of Sirens (SOS), created by the artists Edgar Honetschläger and Sylvia Eckermann, will go online. It calls on people worldwide to reflect onto the consequences of the catastrophe in cinematic form. All participants will take part in a contest which will result in a feature-length film and opera production.

Win a prize, share your story – make a film about how 11/03 changed your life. Use your cell/webcam/digicam – anything that captures running pictures and shoot up to 7 minutes. Upload at www.sound-of-sirens.net (click right top for English version.)
Start 11th March 2012 – End 11th July 2012

2012年3月11日に日本を襲った悲劇、アーティストのエドガーホネットシレーガーとシルビアエッカーマンで制作したSOS =サウンド・オブ・サイレンスのビデオ·プラットフォームがオンライン化されます。このプロジェクトに参加してくださった 方達には、コンテストの一参加者になっていただき、最終的に長編劇映画とオペラプロダクションに反映されます。

サウンド・オブ・サイレンスコンペテション。賞を勝ち取ってください。あなたの物語をシェアして ください。3月11日にあなたの生活がどのように変化したか。携帯、ウェブカメラ、デジタルカメラ、7分以内に撮影したもので、アップロードできる映像なら何でも大丈夫です。アップロードは www.sound-of-sirens.net でお願いします。

Sounding City: Public Sound, Kortrijk, Belgium, 28.04.12 – 13.05.12

Opening on the 28th with a presentation of the work of Chris Watson by Mike Harding and a live performance by Jana Winderen.

Chris Watson – installation inspired by “After the Deluge (Na de Zondvloed)” @ Broel Museum
Jana Winderen – installation & live performance

Unfortunately Chris Watson cannot be present for family reasons, so his work will be presented by Mike Harding from Touch.