BJNilsen, Mika Vainio, Jacob Kirkegaard & Hild-Sophie Tafjord are all taking part in the Hertz Festival in Athens this week.

Curated by Novi_sad, who is also performing.

More information can be found at www.hertzfestival.com

The Art of Listening – a blog from Touch’s residency in Brussels, January 17-21 2011.

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The Art of Listening

Mike Harding & BJNilsen, with a sound seminar by Jon Wozencroft. (see above for our daily blog)

Transmedia in association with Hogeschool Sint-Lukas Brussel, as part of The City of Sounds’ Research Project by Joost Fonteyne, Boris Debackere and Steven Devleminck.
Workshops, talks & field trips with a performance at Recyclart on Thursday 20th January.
Although the teaching element of the week is not open to the public, all are welcome to the performance night. For further information please visit the Recyclart website.
BJNilsen & Touch live

Thursday 20th January 2011 21h00
Recyclart
Station Brussel-Kapellekerk/Gare Bruxelles-Chapelle
Ursulinenstraat/25/Rue des Ursulines
1000 Brussel/Bruxelles

Lend Me Your Ears have named Touch as their “pioneering label of the year” for 2010.

They write: “Touch – LMYE’s pioneering label of the year: shepherding magnificent new releases by Philip Jeck & BJNilsen that were among the year’s best anywhere is qualification enough for recognition. But Touch went further, bringing Sohrab’s unmissable A Hidden Place, Daniel Menche’s extraordinary Hover, early Hildur Gudnadottir goodness in the form of the Mount A re-release & further enhancing its Touch Radio series with 12 new instalments – including this Phill Niblock.”

earslend.blogspot.com

The Bee Symphony

Celebrating the bee in science and art
Friday 17 December 2010 at 7.30pm
Rymer Auditorium

The Bee Symphony, consisting of recordings of bees by Chris Watson (‘Autumn Watch’, ‘The Life of Birds’, ‘The Life of Mammals’, ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ and ‘Life in Cold Blood’), Mike Harding (Touch) and a vocal score by Marcus Davidson (Spire) will be performed live by Chris Watson and five singers from the University of York, conducted by Marcus Davidson. The Symphony was originally commissioned as part of Pestival and performed in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

“The theme of the evening is really for people to become immersed in the sounds and rhythms of the insects.” Chris Watson

In addition to The Bee Symphony the programme will feature other sound performances and talks by scientists on current research on bees and the current perils that they face, including:

Irene Moon – My Queen and I: An introduction to the bees and their closest relatives, also a special episode for TouchRadio

Buy tickets at www.yorkconcerts.co.uk
The Bee Symphony microsite
www.marcusdavidson.net
www.chriswatson.net

Photo © Thomas Adank

The latest issue of The Wire features a four page article on EVP and Ash 9.4/PARC 4 – CM von Hausswolff’s and Michael Esposito’s “The Ghosts of Effingham”.

The Wire writes: “Revisiting his family farm with Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Michael Esposito captured the sounds of his ancestors for their wax cylinder project, “The Ghosts of Effingham”. Ken Hollings spools back to the days of Thomas Edison to investigate how obsolete recording devices and the dead voices captured on them have changed our perceptions of the material world.”

Buy “The Ghosts of Effingham” in the TouchShop
www.ashinternational.com
www.ashinternational.com/parc
www.thewire.co.uk

Announcing a special evening of performances at London’s Café Oto in December…
Buy tickets for The Tapeworm – Unleashed in the East – Café Oto 09.12.10

London Town’s finest tape-only label, The Tapeworm, presents its second night at Dalston’s Café Oto. Fine performances are to be expected from a splendid line-up of the label’s favourites.

Taking the train from Liverpool, just for you, the one and only Mr Philip Jeck. Flying red-eye from Brooklyn, Randy Gibson. Stretching their Oyster cards to the limits, London’s Zerocrop and Cathi Unsworth. From the other side of the planet we welcome New Zealand’s Adam Hayward. And playing the piano, Mr Andrew Poppy.

Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. Philip Jeck makes geniunely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art not the gimmick. Most of Jeck’s audio work is released on Touch. Tonight for The Tapeworm, Jeck plays the Bass. Expect a performance of wall-destroying stature. www.philipjeck.com

Andrew Poppy is a London based composer who makes acoustic and electronic music and has recordings on a number of labels including Touch, Crépuscule and Zang Tuum Tumb. Minimal classical patterns collide with the textures of experimental pop music in an unusual body of work that actively seeks different contexts. There are collaborations with Impact Theatre co-op, Psychic TV, Liverpool Philharmonic, Erasure, Nitzer Ebb, the Royal Opera House, Claudia Brücken and Bernardo Devlin. Since 1989 he has developed a collaborative partnership with visual and theatre artist Julia Bardsley. Andrew performs solo or with his ensemble, which recently completed UK tour dates with ‘…and the Shuffle of Things’. Last month Philip Marshall asked Andrew to make two short piano pieces for a sound installation in Utrecht, each based on only four notes. The first live performance of Number Crunch 1 and 2 will be at Café Oto. “Bewitching, beautifully crafted and highly addictive.” – The Wire. www.myspace.com/andrewpoppy

Cathi Unsworth is a writer and editor who lives and works in London. She is the author of three pop-cultural crime novels, Bad Penny Blues, The Singer and The Not Knowing, and the editor of the short story collection London Noir, all published by Serpent’s Tail. Cathi has written on music, film, art, fashion and culture for Sounds, Bizarre, BFI Flipside, Mojo and Nude, amongst many others. Her collaborator on this release is Pete Woodhead, an electronic composer who cut his musical teeth as part of O Yuki Conjugate and The Sons of Silence and is now best known for his soundtrack contribution to the hit British zombie movie Shaun of the Dead. Pete and Cathi previously collaborated on the Transmissions Series that are available for free download on www.cathiunsworth.co.uk and continue to conspire on new projects. Tonight, Cathi will be doing a special reading for you all: www.cathiunsworth.co.uk

Zerocrop is the pseudonym of London based musician Parker, an independent artist who has been releasing albums through the website www.zerocrop.com since 2000. The music is hypnotic mix of complex vocal melodies and spoken word sequences on unsettling themes, set against a rich backwash of pedal steel, guitars and electronics. Zerocrop has remixed, written songs for and performed with the incomparable Billie Ray Martin and regularly creates the show music for award winning milliner Justin Smith. Zerocrop’s top pop performance for The Tapeworm – Unleashed in the East will see him and his band bring to life these songs with an affectionate punch. www.zerocrop.com

Randy Gibson is a Brooklyn-based composer and a student of seminal minimalist La Monte Young. He works with structure, evolutionary compositional models, and improvisation to create enveloping and ritualistic works in just intonation. His tape for The Tapeworm is titled Analog Apparitions – a pair of 30-minute compositions designed specifically to be recorded and released on cassette tape. Gibson follows in the tradition of prime harmonic just intonation pioneered by Young in the 60’s. Apparitions of The Four Pillars, the underlying composition on this tape, explores the depth of the harmonic series through standard just intonation methods and the use of higher prime harmonic relationships. In the 18 hours of recordings layered onto the two sides of the cassette you can hear the mechanism of the tape itself, the evolution of improvisations over seven recording sessions, and the purity of sine waves in complex prime-harmonic relationships. Tonight Randy will recreate his tape using a just intonation toy organ and boomboxes. This work was funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the American Music Center. www.randy-gibson.com

On 4 September 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck off New Zealand’s South Island. The epicentre was 55km (35 miles) north-west of Christchurch, at a depth of 12 km (7.5 miles). There was widespread damage to buildings and roads as well as power cuts. A state of emergency was later declared in Christchurch, New Zealand’s second largest city with a 386,000 population. Adam Hayward is director at South Island Dance Network and at The Body Festival of Dance and Physical Theatre. On 4 September 2010, Adam watched the earthquake destroy his home. Tonight at The Tapeworm – Unleashed in the East, Adam will talk about the event and its aftershocks…

www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz
news.bbc.co.uk
www.tapeworm.org.uk
The Tapeworm on Facebook
www.cafeoto.co.uk

Thu, 11 November, 15:00 – 16:00

Designer and writer Adrian Shaughnessy’s weekly programme discussing issues surrounding design.

Adrian Shaughnessy talks to Jon Wozencroft who runs the multimedia publishing company Touch, which he describes as a “an alternative vision of audio-visual publishing.” Artists who Wozencroft works with at Touch include: Oren Ambarchi, Biosphere, Fennesz and Phil Niblock. After attending the London College of Printing, Wozencroft worked as a freelance writer, designer, editor and programme-maker. In 1986 he was invited by Neville Brody to be the author the book The Graphic Language of Neville Brody. It was published in April 1988, and a major exhibition of the same name was held at The Victoria and Albert Museum which Wozencroft co-curated with Brody. In 1990, they started the FUSE project, of which Wozencroft is the editor. He is currently Senior Tutor in the Communication Art and Design Department at the Royal College of Art.

www.graphicdesignontheradio.com

For the first time in Germany, Touch presents, as part of Berghain’s Elektroakustischer Salon series…

Fennesz
Hildur Guðnadóttir
Achim Mohné
Kaj Aune
Sohrab

Doors: 8pm. Please check Berghain’s website for venue details, or visit www.koka36.de to purchase tickets.

Berghain
Am Wriezener Bahnhof
10243 Berlin – Friedrichshain
Purchase tickets online at www.koka36.de
www.berghain.de

Timed to coincide and in partnership with the London Design Festival, the Anti-Design Festival is an initiative of Neville Brody, designer, Director of Research Studios and incoming Head of Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art, London.

Londonewcastle Project Space
28 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DP
18-26 September 2010
Exhibitions: 11am – 7pm
Performances: 7 – 10pm
FREE entry

The Anti-Design Festival’s Performance Programme presents a panoply of experimental music, sound, moving image, spoken word, performance and digital practice by some of the most exciting artists working in the UK.

During each night of the festival, specially curated evenings will range from Mark Moore (S’Express) on Saturday 18 September, a daring sub cosplay event with sounds and performance curated by Emily Owusu (Grand Cos Play Ball) on Saturday 25 September and Resonance FM guest curating an event exploring negative space and anti-matter on Tuesday 21 September. On Monday 20 September, Cecilia Wee presents an evening of exploring electro-magnetism, data and ownership, Thursday 23 September sees Jon Wozencroft curating new work by Touch artist Philip Jeck and on Friday 24 September the Obsessive Classification Disorder (masterminded by Yomi Ayeni) takes over the Salon to re-order expectations and understandings of narrative and semiotics in a tableaux of story-telling and music. Other nights will feature a lecture about what art will look like in 50 years time by visual artist Tom Badley, new performance by the ever-provocative Mark McGowan, subliminal music by Jennifer Walshe, Rorschach flags made by Peter Lewis and Makiko Nagaya (Redux Projects), stroboscopic noise machines from Ryan Jordan, and new interactive work testing belief by Steven Ounanian

Performances will take place on a specially commissioned stage/interactive audio-visual installation by artists Charlesworth, Lewandowski & Mann, in collaboration with BBC R&D.

www.antidesignfestival.com
You can read a review at mapsadaisical
You can see photos from the night here

It is with sadness we read of the death of Robert Sandall. Robert presented Mixing It on BBC3 with Mark Russell until it was axed in 2007 and transferred to ResonanceFM.
Robert interviewed all the members of Spire for the special broadcast of Spire: Live at Leeds in May 2006.

He will be remembered for his enthusiasm, obvious love for the work and his professionalism. You can read more about him here on the BBC Radio 3 website.
On 2nd August 2010, the Guardian printed a full obituary, which can be read here.

All Time Low presents:

Oren Ambarchi / Philip Jeck / Elite Barbarian
Plus DJs Graham Erickson and Alex Jako
July 1st 2010. Doors 7.30pm
Corsica Studios,
4/5 Elephant Road
London SE17 1LB

Tickets £8 in advance from www.wegottickets.com
or £10 on the door.
www.corsicastudios.com
www.alltimelowproductions.com

On the 10th August 2010, as part of Chris Watson’s Whispering in the Leaves project, Watson and Sir David Attenborough will be appearing together, in conversation, at The Royal Institution, London at an event entitled “Calls of the Wild”.

Chris Watson’s wildlife sound recordings are perhaps best known through his work with Sir David Attenborough on BBC television series including The Life of Birds, The Life of Mammals, Life in the Undergrowth and Life in Cold Blood.

In this discussion, illustrated with tropical rainforest recordings used in Watson’s Whispering in the Leaves installation at Kew Gardens, Chris Watson and Sir David Attenborough talk about the animals heard in the piece, their experiences of filming and recording them, and the changing environment of the rainforest through the day.

For further information and ticket sales click here
www.davidattenborough.co.uk
www.chriswatson.net

Touch’s Jon Wozencroft talks about record collecting and his own record collection in an interview with Record Collector magazine, out now. Wozencroft discusses his first ever record, his favourite and rarest vinyls, why he is a collector and what it means to him.

www.recordcollectormag.com

It’s not often we highlight a feature and review, but this one is spot on and worth bringing to your attention. Jana Winderen‘s extraordinary album, ‘Energy Field’, received this review… she has just been in Istanbul with The Morning Line and is now working on her ten-year installation for the Hamsun Centre in northern Norway…

Tokafi (Germany):

Icy audio sculptures: Plunges you into the depths of Arctic waters.
For her new album Energy Field, sound artist Jana Winderen crafted icy audio sculptures from field recordings taken in Greenland, Norway, and the Barents Sea north of Greenland and Russia. Using a portable recording setup, the Norwegian artist and curator collected glacier, fjord, and ocean sounds ranging from ambient wind textures to cracking ice, lulling rhythms of lapping waves, and the low-end frequencies of ominous thunder. She then layered and edited those sounds into three compositions that collectively constitute nearly an hour of surprisingly musical sound art. Constantly churning textures, hypnotic long-tone oscillations, and a powerful sense of compositional arc make Energy Field a captivating and highly listenable experience that plunges you into the haunting depths of Arctic waters.

In her artist statement, Winderen writes that “in the depths of the oceans there are invisible but audible soundscapes, about which we are largely ignorant, even though oceans cover 70% of our planet.” This certainly is apparent on Energy Field, which documents an alien world of sounds that could as easily be generated from dated synthesizers as from the natural sounds of the ocean. It’s amazing just how evocative some of these sounds are. In the final minutes of the album, the high-pitched mating calls of fish weave over sustained dissonances constructed from a combination of wind and underwater hum. The result is a spine-chilling amalgamation at least as strange as anything conjurable by modern electronic music. In “Isolation Measurement,” creaking and cracking glaciers create a fizzing stereo effect from which one seemingly perceives moments of rhythmic regularity. As underlying bass currents seep beneath the texture and the sounds of birds and crashing waves become increasingly apparent, the composition hints at a climax before disintegrating into quiet gurgling.

A compositional arc of tension and relief pervades the entire album. And while it’s difficult (and perhaps unimportant) to discern how much of it is intentional versus circumstantial, it makes for a highly musical result that’s far more engaging than your typical “field-recordings as sound art” gallery installations. Sustained oceanic chords with an endless array of overtones ebb and swell over ominous low-end rumblings to generate harmonic movement and stasis. Polyrhythms emerge from the juxtaposition of churning waves and trickling water. And despite constantly changing textures, environmental consistencies of sounds, chords, and rhythms establish thematic unity to create cohesive compositions as opposed to collage-like layerings of field recordings.

‘Energy Field’ is as powerful musically as it is impressive conceptually. Winderen’s unique sonic space of naturally alien sounds and juxtapositions draws you into the depths of an unknown underwater world and holds you there. [Hannis Brown]

You can read an interview with Jana Winderen in Tokafi here (in English). For further information, her website is www.janawinderen.com and you can buy “Energy Field” in the TouchShop.

Chris Watson’s Whispering in the Leaves is an extraordinary sound installation, using recordings and natural history broadcast to transport us to the far-flung, dense rainforests of South and Central America. Throughout the summer festival, Kew Garden’s Palm House will be diffused with the dawn and dusk choruses of the myriad of creatures native to these lush tropical landscapes. A highly sensory experience, Whispering in the Leaves is a remarkable demonstration of the power of sound to evoke inaccessible and captivating locations.

Whispering in the Leaves is a powerful sound work derived from Watson’s extensive archive of wildlife and on location recordings in Central and South America – habitats that host over half of the planet’s wildlife. Diffused through the tropical foliage of Kew Gardens’ iconic building the Palm House, the surround soundtrack of wildlife dawn and dusk choruses will be transmitted at hourly intervals throughout the day for 15-20 minute durations – the approximate time taken in the rainforest for the transitions from darkness into light, and from daylight to dark. The sound pieces feature the calls and voices of thousands of species, including the howls and shrieks of black howler and spider monkeys, the musicality of diverse birdsong and the shimmering and hissing of tree frogs and cicadas.

A highly sensory and captivating experience, Whispering in the Leaves is a remarkable demonstration of the power of sound recordings and natural history broadcast to transport us to far flung, inaccessible and often extraordinary locations.

Chris Watson will perform a live sound mix in which audio recording of a three or four-hour period across late afternoon, sunset and into the night will be compressed into around twenty minutes. Featuring recordings of a tropical thunderstorm and ending with the deep, lush sounds of the nocturnal insect chorus, the performance will create an intense auditory narrative for the audience.

Whispering in the Leaves is co-produced by Sound and Music & Forma. Originally commissioned by AV Festival 08.

www.whisperingintheleaves.org
www.chriswatson.net
www.soundandmusic.org
www.forma.org.uk
www.kew.org

This week sees live appearances from both Chris Watson and Philip Jeck in the capital.
On Tuesday 11th May, Philip Jeck is performing at The Luminaire in Kilburn. He is supporting Grails – an instrumental quartet from Portland, Oregon. For further information and tickets, click here.

At 7pm on Friday 14th at The National Gallery, Chris Watson will discuss the sounds of wildlife and weather in Constable’s “The Cornfield” and the changes in sound pollution since Constable’s time. He will end with a performance of the piece he has written in response to this painting for the new Sounds of the Gallery Tour. Admission free. For further information, visit www.nationalgallery.org.uk

SPOR is a festival in Aarhus, Denmark, for contemporary music and sound art. Its mission is to present national and international sound art and contemporary music of high quality. The festival should at the same time engage and stimulate debate by dealing with themes and issues that are crucial to our time.

This year’s festival sees performances by BJNilsen (The Invisible City live) and Jana Winderen (Energy Field live), a new work from Jacob Kirkegaard titled Bandera, and a Touch seminar.

The Touch afternoon seminar on 7th May 2010 sees speakers Mike Harding, Jana Winderen and BJNilsen discuss Touch, field recording, sound art and electronic music with moderators Rasmus Steffensen (Geiger) and Thomas Bjørnsten Kristensen (Aarhus University). Harding will give an historical introduction to the label and present the two artists through interviews and music. The seminar is initiated by SPOR and takes place in collaboration with Aarhus University, Geiger and SNYK

The evening of the 7th May features Touch Live – an “Electronic Night” featuring three of Touch’s Nordic artists. BJNilsen will present a special live version of his latest CD The Invisible City. Using recordings of tape recorders, computer, organ, acoustic guitar and field recordings from Japan, Portugal, Sweden… Jana Winderen will present “Energy Field Live”, a quadrophonic concert based on the recent Energy Field album. 
Jacob Kirkegaard is working with a scientific approach to real sounds, capturing unheard sounds from within a variety of environments. At SPOR he will perform a new piece Bandera (flag in Spanish) that consists of audio recordings of flagstaff masts, installed in front of the building ‘U. S. Interests Section’ in Havana, Cuba.

www.spor-festival.dk
www.bjnilsen.com
www.janawinderen.com
www.fonik.dk

Copenhagen’s CPH PIX is a feature film festival that aims to bring people together in Denmark’s capital to see good films from all over the world; original, thought-provoking, funny and controversial films that can’t be found in regular cinema programmes. This years festival, running from April 15-25th, features the involvement of three Touch-related artists.

BJNilsen will compose and perform an exclusive score for the newly restored Fritz Lang classic “Metropolis”. PIX will screen the film in Copenhagen’s and Scandinavia’s biggest cinema Imperial, in 7.1 surround sound. BJNilsen’s performance will include field recordings and improvisations. Click here for further info. Tickets for this performance are available online at www.kino.dk

Jacob Kirkegaard will perform together with Lydia Lunch the world premiere of their new piece “Forget to Breathe”. The concert will take place at the Marble Church in Copenhagen, as part of a double concert; second part being Diamanda Gálas’ performance of “Your Kisses are like Fire”. Click here for further info. Tickets for this performance are available online at www.cphpix.dk

Last but not least, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson is participating in a debate on film music and specifically the sound of horror. He has recently scored Fridrik Thors film “Mama Gogo”, and the horror “Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre” which we will screen. Jacob Kirkegaard will also participate in the debate; he has worked with sound effects for the Danish horror film “Kollegiet” (“The Dorm”). Click here for further info.

www.cphpix.dk
www.fonik.dk
www.bjnilsen.com