Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft

CD – 1 track – 30:37

Release date: Friday 2nd December 2022

Available to order now

Track listing:

1. CSound & Saz

Anthony Moore (b. August 1948) is a composer/musician, now based in the UK, formerly professor in Cologne for sound art and music working on the social and technical history of sound. He operates across many genres; ambient drone, musique concrète, electroacoustic, songwriting and immersive, multi-channel sound installations. He continues to compose, perform and release work on various labels such as Touch, Drag City (Chicago), P-Vine (Tokyo) and others.

Anthony Moore recently conducted a lengthy interview with Julian Cowley for The Wire, which appeared in their October ’22 edition in the form of a 6 page feature length article.

“Touch.40 live at Iklectik. I received an invitation to perform at the 40th anniversary gathering, June 2022. Previous works for the label, “Arithmetic in the Dark” and “Isoladrone2020” illuminated the landing strip for a new work. It should be continuous – a further play on moving and remaining. I wanted to balance the digital output of a CSound orchestra with an analogue instrument and chose the Turkish saz, a sound I’ve loved and lived with for the last 6 decades. I prepared the ground for the live performance with a graphical interface for CSound and an e-bow for the Saz (along with some short pre-recordings of picking and strumming). Then, a few days before the concert, I got Covid. On the suggestion of Jon and Mike I recorded a live performance-for-one, (myself at home) which was played back at Iklectik. Unedited, unchanged, here it is.” (amoore st leonards 220807)

Three pairs of thin, wire strings on the Turkish saz are struck, and the resulting sound is harmonised, filtered and then sustained in an infinite but gradually shifting chord of harmonics. In addition, an ebow is used to excite the strings in realtime. This sound is natural, untreated, and adds layers to the sustained chord. Subsequently, two Csound programs running in parallel are ‘fed’ the natural sound of the saz and the output is heavily effected with filters, resonators, vocoders etc. These sonic gestures are allowed to take over as the original chord fades to leave the more transparent sounds of the Csound outputs. The organum returns with much more warm, low end. The saz transformations thin out to leave a keening call. And finally the last minutes are filled with a deep chord which fades to silence.

DL – 2 tracks – 1:02:50

Mary Prestidge writes: “I’m recalling the joy Philip had in spinning 70’s disco dance music for my 70th birthday bash in 2018.

Philip’s experiments with turntable and vinyl began over 40 years ago using these 12″ singles. It marked a moment of belief that he could take these sounds further…

Play on…”

Philip Jeck’s birthday 70 years ago today, 15th November 1952

Release date 15th November 2022
Now available

Track listing:

1. Philip Jeck – Live in Torino 35:33
2. Philip Jeck & Jonathan Raisin – The Long Wave, Live at Liverpool Philharmonic 27:27

Photography & design by Jon Wozencroft

DL – 4 tracks – 41:56

We are now taking pre-orders for Patrick Shiroishi’s first solo album for Touch, Evergreen, having previously collaborated with Zachary Paul on the exquisite Longitude: Live at Roughage (2018.)

Release date 1st November 2022
Now available

Track listing:

1. a place where sunflowers grow 11:10
2. there is no moment in which they are not with me 9:32
3. a trickle led to a quiet pool, where still, black water reflected the night sky 9:06
4. here comes a candle to light you to bed 12:18

All tracks composed, performed and recorded at Orange Door in September 2022. Field recordings taken at Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles in 2021.

Patrick Shiroishi – synths, clarinet, field recordings, voice & tenor saxophone

Photography & design by Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Simon Scott @ SPS Mastering

Story told by Yukio Kawaratani

Patrick writes: “I can’t recall the first time I was introduced to Touch but it might have been around 2017, right before a duo recording with Zachary Paul in the spring of the following year. I do, however, remember the winter when i dove into their catalogue and discovered artist upon artist of tremendous weight and vision who created worlds in their recordings… it was inspiring and something that I have kept with me through the years.

Since that time five years ago, correspondence with Touch became little by little, more and more frequent. In early September 2022, Mike contacted me about putting something together for the label with a deadline of a few weeks. I first thought of a collaboration with Bana Haffar, someone for whom I have huge respect on many different levels and was lucky enough to travel with and play some shows for the label’s 40th anniversary celebration in the Bay Area earlier this year… unfortunately the timing didn’t work out. I pondered about other potential partners, ultimately deciding on the idea of presenting a solo work.

Familiarising myself with the Touch back catalogue, I wanted to create a work that was unique in its own world. Someone reading this may or may not know that I have been diving into my family history and processing that through music. Last year, I took a couple of trips to Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles, where several generations of Shiroishis are buried and a place often visited when growing up. Sitting there with my Zoom recorder on, at what seemed like the peak of the violence towards Asian Americans, i felt at peace being close to them.

The foundations of this album are from those recordings. The first half is built upon one I made during daytime and the second half from a recording in the evening. The music took on many forms and was worked on daily in the mornings, which is something that was very different from my usual practice. As the album was getting close to being finished, I sent it over to Mike and Jon and with their guidance helped to shape the music towards its final form.

Hoping that you listen to this music in one sitting and think about your ancestors as you do – we all come from somewhere, and there is not a moment when they are not with you.”

Patrick Shiroishi is a Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist & composer based in Los Angeles. He is perhaps best known for his extensive and intense work with the saxophone. Over the last decade he has established himself as one of the premier improvising musicians in Los Angeles, recording and playing solo and in numerous collaborative projects. Shiroishi may well be considered a foundational player in the city’s vast musical expanse. [Chris Lowenthal]

To survive for 40 years as an independent music project is the ability to bear witness to the massive changes in cultural production – and to hold a candle for artistic freedom and sonic invention. Touch.40 Café Oto is a home-based lighthouse in Dalston, London, and likewise AB in Brussels (in September), where longstanding friends and supporters have asked us back. We invite you to these celebrations of past, present and future. As everything gets more atomised in terms of inner and outer worlds, we intend this as a beacon of our collective commitment to joy, pleasure, life, the challenge of being human in these uncertain times.

[We are sorry to inform you that owing to unforeseen circumstances, Jana Winderen & Budhaditya Chattopadhyay will not be able to perform. But we are delighted that Jacaszek can headline at such short notice]

Saturday October 1st 2022
Café Oto, 18–22 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL [map]
Tickets and info

Jacaszek
Simon Scott
Howlround
Claire M Singer

+ A Short Film by People Like Us

www.cafeoto.co.uk
www.touch40.net

Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft

CD – 6 tracks – 72:21

Release date: Friday 23rd September 2022

Track listing:

1. First Sleep
2. Of Endless Light
3. Dawn
4. Pulse
5. Blue Drift
6. Walking Field

Photography & design by Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Recorded by Jeremy Lemos

CLEARED is the longstanding project of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera, based in Chicago, Illinois. Of Endless Light was recorded by Jeremy Lemos at Electrical Audio in Chicago and mastered by Denis Blackham. The six tracks complete the longest release to date by the duo, who were resolute in utilizing the maximum time available on the compact disc format. CLEARED has produced a series of critically recognized recordings since its self-titled debut in 2011. Working with the Touch label on The Key (recorded in spring 2019, released in October 2020) was a leap forward, prompting remixed tracks by Philp Jeck, Fennesz, Bethan Kellough, and Olivia Block.

Of Endless Light is noctambulant, a walk through formal sonic spaces and colors beginning with the cascading, bell-like tones of the opening track, “First Sleep.” The husks of a city’s industrial past are summoned: warehouses hollowed out for condominiums, dust-covered factory floors, a distant grind of machining, clouds of metallic particles, and the persistent background hum of traffic. These remnants contrast with hints of the sterile present of a city no less cruel than its industrial past. “Dawn” opens with a grey drone and scattered electronic rhythms as wiring, and extended guitar lines suggest the opening of another cycle of the day into evening. “Pulse” offers a hypnotic pattern that suggests the movement of people through the city’s core, slowly overlain with cymbals evoking the shimmer of sunlight cleaving off the windows of distant buildings. The album appropriately concludes with “Walking Field,” methodically moving forward via a cloud of meditative clicks and looping melodies.

Of Endless Light is a patient listen, distilled into a sonic environment specific to Hess and Vallera’s lens. Cleared created its crepuscular moods using the core methodology of their previous records while expanding their music’s range, artistry, and subtlety. Deploying careful instrumentation, sampling, and mixing to experiment with tone and atmosphere, Of Endless Light breathes and drifts through layers of sound that veil, reveal, and intrigue. The result gives a listener much to discover, examine, experience, and consider – as well as the incentive to return again and again. [Bruce Adams, 2022]

Fennesz
Simon Scott
Razen
Valery Vermeulen

Tickets & info: www.abconcerts.be/en/agenda/touch40

Photo: Jon Wozencroft

Now available on all streaming platforms for the first time… Youmna Saba‘s first two albums, Njoum & Arb’een (40)

Youmna Saba (Beirut, 1984) is a musician and musicologist whose current research focuses on the musical dimension(s) of the Arabic language, as a tool to generate new methods of working with electronics.

She released 4 albums to this day and collaborated with musicians of different backgrounds, like Kamilya Jubran (PL), Mike Cooper (GB), Jean Marc Montera (FR), Floy Krouchi (FR), Kyungso Park (SK), among others.

She took part in international programs and residencies (Hwaeom Residency, South Korea 2017, Sound Development City, 2016, Gyeonggi Creation Center, South Korea 2013…) and is a 3-time laureate of the music residency program at La Cité Internationale des Arts, in Paris (2020-2021).

Youmna holds a master’s degree in Musicology, focusing mainly on the parallels between classical Arabic music and Arabic visual art.

To survive for 40 years as an independent music project is the ability to bear witness to the massive changes in cultural production – and to hold a candle for artistic freedom and sonic invention. 

Touch.40 Iklectik is a home-based lighthouse in the centre of London and we invite you to this celebration of past present and future.

As everything gets more atomised in terms of inner and outer worlds, we intend this as a beacon of our collective commitment to joy, pleasure, life, the challenge of being human in these uncertain times.

Full programme

Tickets: £18.50 day / £30.50 whole event

Friday doors open 6.30pm

Gavin Bryars – a tribute to Philip Jeck
katt newlon & Franz Kirmann
Anthony Moore
Jay Glass Dubs
Fennesz

Saturday doors open 5pm

Simon Fisher Turner
Fennesz
Clara
Bethan Kellough
Bruce Gilbert
Claire M Singer
Carl Michael von Hausswolff

On Saturday there is due to be a train strike. Iklectik isn’t far from Waterloo (also Lambeth North is half a kilometre away), on the underground and can be easily reached by bus. It’s then a 10-15 minute walk to the venue… we suggest you allow extra time for travelling. There’s a good app called Transit which has live local transport times and options.

Photo: Jon Wozencroft

buytickets.at/iklectik/693011
iklectikartlab.com/jon-wozencroft-sound-seminar-after-the-wheel/
facebook.com/events/697650168146348/

After the Wheel

“You can’t reinvent the wheel” – So goes the saying to describe a futile attempt to improve upon what has gone before. Nevertheless, the last ten years has seen a relentless abstraction of this – in the UK, a deceitful attempt to return to “past glories” alongside a series of fiscal measures that punish the poor for the crime of being poor.

From its genesis during the times of the horse and cart to today’s driverless cars, the wheel keeps on turning, creating massive fortunes for the fortunate few, but the energy needed to drive it is another matter entirely.

Nikola Tesla proposed the principal of free energy a hundred years ago. It could come from wireless networks for nothing, but that was not allowed to happen. Tesla died in his New York hotel in 1943 in relative poverty and apparently with a mere $100 to his name. This may be exaggerated, but clearly Tesla never achieved great wealth despite his numerous inventions, most of all the feat in having developed the means of electrical current distribution.

Elon Musk, meanwhile, is currently the richest man in the world. Notably, his key company appropriated the name Tesla – whose electric cars provide a platform to numerous means of wealth accumulation. Musk made $171bn during the first year of the Covid pandemic and increased Tesla’s market capitalisation 13-fold since the end of 2019*. Next up – Twitter. Musk has bid $44bn to acquire the company. The sum is roughly equivalent to the total budget President Biden’s administration has dedicated to combatting climate change.

Musk has plans for brain implants that connect to the internet, AI initiatives in addition, and if it all goes haywire, there’s always Life on Mars.

Might he be aware of one of Nikola Tesla’s unresolved inventions, “The Thought Machine”, that intended to be able to project an individual’s retinal images onto a screen? Does he take Twitter to be an improvement on this?

After the wheel, the spiked wheel of fortune. After the car, 20th Century symbol of forward freedom , the automated vehicle – 21st Century symbol of living in reverse, bonded behind a screen of algorithmic passivity.

If we can’t reinvent the wheel, we had better reinvent the superhighway, and drive in a different direction.

*Source: “Elon Musk, Twitter and the internet economy”, Will Dunn, The New Statesman,
29 April 2022

Empty Bottle Presents
40 Years of Touch

Saturday May 21, 2022
6:30 PM Doors

The Hall of Mortals, International Museum of Surgical Sciences

Cleared with Olivia Block (Collaborative Performance)
Jonathan Thomas Miller
Touch

Tickets

The Chicago Reader

Jon and Mike are deeply saddened to tell you that Philip Jeck died peacefully on Friday after a short illness. A remarkable man and a wonderful artist, he has been one of the kingpins of our work for 30 years. But with Philip it was never just the work, more the love, the spirit and the dedication. He touched so many with his wit, his zest for life and his wisdom. We will miss him terribly and our love goes out to Mary and Louis.

To give your full attention to someone or something is an act of generosity and love that is at the heart of dynamic communication. The attention economy, however, is an engine of distraction.
Can it be resisted?

iklectikartlab.com/jon-wozencroft-sound-seminar-the-attention-economy/

buytickets.at/iklectik/653627

Today, 11th March, is the official 40th 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…

Weekend Pass
https://link.dice.fm/yd4dc65ad5af
https://www.facebook.com/events/589731958974238

Friday 11th March
CM von Hausswolff, IHVH, SPS, Dr. Katja Seltmann (Irene Moon) & Touch

https://link.dice.fm/K0c09aa4b650
https://www.facebook.com/events/1529596814106537

Saturday 12th March
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Travelogue, Rotary ECT, Robert Crouch, Jim Haynes, Geneva Skeen, Jasmin Blasco, Yann Novak, Pauline Lay, Gabie Strong + Peter Kolovos

Cage+Cunningham performance – “Instances of Silence/Trails” featuring dancers Jmy James Kidd + Jillian Stein
Sound Installation: Charlie Campagna & Ian Wellman
+ Special world premiere of Philip Jeck’s film “Waiting Rooms”

https://link.dice.fm/P19674b6baad
https://www.facebook.com/events/425950525991280

Sunday 13th March
Faith Coloccia, Byron Westbrook, Bana Haffar, Ian Wellman, Mark Van Hoen, Bethan Kellough, Zachary Paul, Dr. Yewande Pearse, Chandra Shukla and Richard Chartier

Music for Film panel conversation with Allison Anders, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Jonathan Thomas Miller, + Brooke Wentz
Sound Installation: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe
+ Special film screenings

https://link.dice.fm/p25214d41009
https://www.facebook.com/events/680863459938462

More info – https://linktr.ee/touchactivities

Festival timetable

Artists:

Jasmin Blasco, Charlie Campagna + Ian Wellman, Richard Chartier, Faith Coloccia, Robert Takahashi Crouch, Robert R. Gaines, Bana Haffar, Jim Haynes, Bethan Kellough, Jmy James Kidd + Jillian Stein, Pauline Lay, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Yann Novak, Zachary Paul, Dr. Yewande Pearse, Rotary ECT, SPS, Dr. Katja Seltmann/Irene Moon, Chandra Shukla, Geneva Skeen, Gabie Strong + Peter Kolovos, Travelogue, Mark Van Hoen, CM von Hausswolff, Byron Westbrook + demos, presentations, keynotes, panel, talks…

Day Tickets, Festival Passes now posted

Touch.40 website

linktr.ee/touchactivities

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay

Ipek Gorgun

Oren Ambarchi & crys Cole

Youmna Saba

More photos courtesy of CTM

The Uncertainty Principle

Uncertainty has become a dominant emotion in these Covid–Brexit times, to an extent that it can be paralysing – nothing seems to change, everybody (well, everybody with an instinct to take care of themselves and their surroundings) is on their guard, and there is a thin line between uncertainty and basic fear. And fear, as venal politicians exploit on a daily basis, is a tried and tested recipe for suffocating change.

However, seen through the prism of sound and music, uncertainty is an essential element for growth and development, the catalyst of the unexpected. Obviously, improvised music could not exist without such a precondition, but in more general terms the life of every artist and musician who seeks to create something new, has to walk the line between the familiar and the unforeseen.

Werner Heisenberg established ‘The Uncertainty Principle’ in Copenhagen in the 1920s, in essence, proving that it is impossible to determine accurately both the position and the speed of a particle at the same instant. The discovery was significant because it proved that uncertainty was a fundamental property of quantum mechanics, thereby superseding the so-called ‘observer effect’ which had previously explained why measurements could not be made without affecting and changing the system that was under scientific observation.

“There are some things in nature that we can’t know”

The distance between a composition, its recording and its distribution… The perils of the manufacturing process… How will the audience react? Will the music hold up over time? Such things can never be known for sure and it can work both ways. Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook both hated Joy Division’s debut LP “Unknown Pleasures” when they first heard it, but four decades later it’s a different story.

So the first sound seminar of 2022 is not about science, but the ways and means by which this scientific paradigm, developed 100 years ago by Heisenberg, has come to characterise everyday communications and perception, and how we can embrace it as a vital element of a brighter future, by learning better how to take risks.

Tickets

The photograph shows Eve, one of the two Longstones at Beckhampton, near the Avebury complex in Wiltshire. Dated to 2500-2700 B.C. the Avebury stones predate Stonehenge. Adam sits in the same field, out of the picture, a taller, thinner stone. Adam in fact fell in 1911 and had to be levered back into an upright position.

‘Society and its Sculpture’ is an inquiry into the concept and ecology of permanence. Monuments, statues, icons are said to be “set in stone”. However, recent events and protests have shown that nothing is immutable. Authoritarian power and past injustices need to be challenged – the removal of the sculptures that celebrate such hegemony is part of this process.

At the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in London, Ron Mueck is currently showing ‘25 Years of Sculpture’ which includes a recent work (2013/2015) “Couple Under an Umbrella”. At twice life-size, it shows an elderly couple in repose under a beach umbrella, their expressions quite ambiguous, the message of the piece oblique. The sculpture, described by the artist as ‘mixed media’, is close to photography and has been described as “hyperreal”.

The act of sculpting is not restricted to the use of materials like marble and stone. Many forms of composition and their documentation can be seen in this light, notably the act of recording music. Sculpture is a slow process. Not only does it take time, it needs time, making it an uncertain undertaking in the fast moving digital world we inhabit.

This sound seminar will explore how the act of sculpture relates to the sculpting of sound, in shaping the space around us – what it shows, what it leaves out, and the gap between reality and unknowable futures.

Iklectik, 11th November 2021 730PM
Tickets