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/
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…
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
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…
Ipek Gorgun
Oren Ambarchi & crys Cole
Youmna Saba
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.
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
28th September
IRL, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Zachary Paul & Tristan Kasten Krause – Journeys into the Bright World
Explorations of inner space and outer resonance. Zachary Paul (violin) and Tristan Kasten Krause (double bass) will engage in instrumental dialogue & improvisation, probing the geography of the mind, and the potentialities of the cybernetic stringed instrument. Eye masks will be provided.
7PM – Doors
7:30PM – Zachary Paul (solo)
8PM – Tristan Kasten-Krause (solo)
8:30PM – Paul / Kasten-Krause duo
♦
30th September
Iklectik, London
Unfortunately this show has been postponed
Philip Jeck
+ Avsluta
8PM Doors
8:30PM Showtime
IKLECTIK presents,
Jon Wozencroft Sound Seminar: Pause Button
Thursday 16 September 2021 | 7:30pm (7 doors)
Notes:
The pause button first appeared on reel-to-reel tape recorders in the early 1960s, on Ampex machines. Thanks to financial help from Bing Crosby, Ampex had developed reel-to-reel magnetic tape and tape recorders in the late 1940s, so Bing could play golf and not have to do live radio broadcasts on a Saturday. Reel-to-reel tape technology had been invented by BASF in Germany during WW2, eventually discovered by U.S. Army Signal Corps in a studio at Radio Frankfurt at the end of the war.
Compact cassette recorders were developed by the Dutch company Philips not in the Netherlands but in Hasselt, Belgium, by Lou Ottens and his team in 1963, but the format took a few years to hit the home recording market. Seven-inch singles, jukeboxes and portable radios ruled at the time.
VCRs had developed in parallel but VHS did not become a big thing until the 1970s. One could argue that pause buttons had been there years earlier, in the form of stop frame film cameras like the Bolex (1935) or even the on/off switch of a wireless.
No-one thought to pause a vinyl record until turntables and slip-mats let DJ’s reinvent their functionality. In digital/electronic contexts, the pause button is an essential feature, from soundcloud sites to washing machines. Pause for thought, or a vital tool to offset frequent interruptions?
The button itself – “In musical notation, caesura is the term used for a pause of decent size. The same word is used for the part of a poem when you take a breath.” A caesura is indicated in poetry by the symbol || and in music by the symbol //.”
The root meaning of the word is specific, it comes from the Greek ‘pausis’, to halt, or to stop. Could a pause be an opportunity to take stock, to think twice and maybe change your mind – or simply a delaying tactic, a respite from the endless now?
Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft
11 tracks – 51:56
Now available on vinyl for the first time, to be released 15th October 2021
Pre-order from Kudos Records (UK) or Forced Exposure (North America) – link to follow, or check in here. The digital edition is still available here.
This release features a duet between Christian Fennesz [guitar/lapop] and Ryuichi Sakamoto [piano/laptop] – a continuing collaboration between two highly regarded composers. Their first, ‘Sala Santa Cecilia’, was a 19 minute overture from their live performance in Rome in November 2004 [Touch # Tone 22, 2005]. Bill Meyer in Magnet (US) wrote: “Cross-generational encounters are never a sure thing, but this one strikes sparks” and Max Scaefer in Cyclic Defrost (USA): ” a moment of much beauty, not to mention anticipation for the promised full-length effort to come.” Tom Sekowski adds in Gaz-eta (USA): “We can only hope this astonishing collaboration will turn into something more tangible, more permanent.”
So then followed we have ‘Cendre’… Cendre was recorded between 2004 and 2006 in New York City by Ryuichi Sakamoto and in Vienna by Christian Fennesz. They came together for the mix in New York City in February of that year. Fennesz would send Sakamoto a guitar or electronic track and Sakamoto would compose his piano piece. This process was also reversed – Sakamoto initiating the track with a piano composition and Fennesz responding. Meanwhile they met for live shows, or communicated via digital means to compare notes, swop ideas and develop themes… And the cyclical process continued right up until the final mix.
Ryuichi Sakamoto and Christian Fennesz blend the unstructured and imaginative qualities of improvisation with the satisfying sculpture of composition. Sakamoto’s piano, his style reminiscent of Debussy and Satie, perfectly complements Fennesz with his powerful blend of shimmering guitar and passionate electronics.
Together they have combined to create 11 tracks of satisfying and challenging possibilities…
Track list:
1. oto
2. aware
3. haru
4. trace
5. kuni
6. mono
7. kokoro
8. cendre
9. amorph
10. glow
11. abyss
CD – 3 tracks – 54:51
Release date: Friday 13th August 2021
Track listing:
1. PharLoKora 19:00
2. Anadu 10:43
3. Annapurna 10:33
4. Sagarmatha (Chomolungma) 14:35
Now available to pre-order on Bandcamp
Photography by CMvH
Design by Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Travelogue [Nepal] is the first in a series of collected international audio diaries. The premise is quite simple: the two galavant the globe with field-, EVP- and phone recorders and other devices where they record the essence of everything from the tiniest microcosms of nature on up to the polluted, diesel–fuelled roars of postmodern globalization. What surfaced are soundtracks that act as sonic documentaries of their travels.
In September 2019, CM von Hausswolff and Chandra Shukla met in Kathmandu, Nepal, over the course of 7 days. Recordings were made at the Bagh Bhairav Temple and Chilancho Stupa (Kirtipur), Durbar Square, Boudhanath Stupa, Swayambhunath Stupa and Shri Pashupatinath Temple (Kathmandu) and at The World Peace Pagoda, The Shiva Cave, Devi Falls and Phewa Tal Lake (Pokhara).
We are faced with countless challenges and threats to what it is to be human and how to retain our humanity is perhaps the biggest of them all, if we survive the threat of climate change presently unfolding.
To have known an eccentric, an outlier such as Peter Rehberg, who died last week at 53, who said and did extreme things with wit and curiosity, reaffirms and strengthens our sense of what is possible. His approach to life created its own unique energy and all who knew him were caught up in the maelstrom. He was funny (“The parthenon – it’s not finished yet!” Also the fabulous marmite story told by his school friend John Eden in The Quietus). The sound of his laughter will be especially missed! He could be fearful (he once endured a sleepless flight to New York, worried he had left the gas on the oven back in Vienna). Peter was certainly a worrier, but he was never dull. He was super smart and the labels he set up were focussed and successful.
Running the Mego label (later Editions Mego) as an artist himself certainly presented challenges (especially with touring), but it gave him a deep insight into what is important to artists and how best to respond to each individual’s needs.
He was hugely underrated as a ‘non-musician’ musician. We were due to reissue the 3 albums he did for Touch with Ramon Bauer on vinyl, but he hadn’t delivered the audio masters yet… what to do…
He touched so many lives. To navigate the many conjunctions between Touch and Mego, the hidden history of how we surfed the ups and downs… the many stories, the special artists we have worked with. We’ll remember him always.
Photograph by Jon Wozencroft taken at 4am, the final night of Sonar 2000
IKLECTIK presents:
We are thrilled to announce IKLECTIKA, the first edition of our Experimental Music & Book Fair.
To celebrate IKLECTIK’s 7th anniversary and the return of live music, we have invited pioneering experimental labels, publishers, and magazines to take part in a 2-day event full of talks, interviews, panel discussions, live acts and DJ sets.
Join us in celebrating the return of liveness in IKLECTIK’s beautiful outdoor space with craft beers and local food!
Tickets: 1 day £3 / 2 day pass £5
GUESTS:
Aloes books / CHAMPION VERSION / Chinabot / CLOT Magazine / Colliding Lines / Earshots / Editions AcquAvivA / Flaming Pines / Fractal Meat / Goldsmiths Press / isolarii / Linear Obsessional / NONCLASSICAL / Paradigm Discs / Phantom Limb / Psyché Tropes / Repeater Books / Salmon Universe / Sig’il Records / Studio C plus / The Wire / Touch
more TBA…
PROGRAMME:
DAY 1 – Saturday 17th of July
NONCLASSICAL – DJ Set
CLOTmag Talk – Hybrid Spaces (guests TBA)
Graham Dunning – DJ Set [Fractal Meat]
A’Bear – Live Performance
Jon Wozencroft – Timescale: Sound Seminar [Touch]
DAY 2 – Sunday 18th of July
Deep Learning: Richard Pike & Joe Quirke – DJ Set [Salmon Universe]
Psyché Tropes – Dj Set
The Future of Record Labels – Panel aDiscussion (guests TBA)
o.utlier – DJ Set
more TBA…
info@iklectikartlab.com
Full Programme: #iklectikafair
CD – 11 tracks – 59:46
Track listing:
1. Stardust
2. Archaea
3. Acquire the Air
4. Creosote
5. Seeds Planted in the Heart
6. Mycobiont
7. Usnea
8. I Feel As if the Grass Was Pleased
9. Speaking Stone
10. Mycorrhizae
11. Sun
Now available to order on Bandcamp
Using cassette recordings from 2015-2018
*Some songs (in different form) appear on the Mára recording “Here Behold Your Own”.
Remixed using dubplates of Faith’s mixes and additional recordings by Philip Jeck in Liverpool, UK, 2020.
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft
Faith Coloccia is an American artist and composer based in Vashon, WA. She was born and raised in Palm Springs, CA, and attended Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles (BFA). Her work is focused on time deconstruction, inherited memory, indexical archives and how sound affects the body in space.
Using voice, field recordings, visual scores and traditional instrumentation, she unites composition, spirituality and installation acoustics into a cohesive whole. She performs under the names of Mamiffer and Mára and has been commissioned by and performed at festivals such as Big Ears (US), Hopscotch (US) and Sacrum Profanum (PL). She has performed in Europe, North America and Japan, and has collaborated with artists such as Daniel Menche, Jon Mueller, Aaron Turner, Circle and Eyvind Kang. Her work has been released on SIGE Records, Karlrecords. Room40 and Touch.
Philip Jeck studied visual arts at Dartington College of Arts in the 1970’s and has been creating sound with record-players since the early 80’s. He has worked with many dance and theatre companies and played with musicians/composers such as Jah Wobble, Steve Lacy, Gavin Bryars, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, Sidsel Endresen and Bernhard Lang.
He has released 11 solo albums, the most recent “Cardinal”, a double vinyl release on Touch. “Suite”, another vinyl -only release, won a Distinction at The Prix Ars Electronica, and a cassette release on The Tapeworm, “Spool”, playing only bass guitar. His CD “Sand” (2008) was 2nd in The Wire’s top 50 of the year. His largest work made with Lol Sargent, “Vinyl Requiem” was for 180 record-players, 9 slide-projectors and 2 16mm movie-projectors. It received a Time Out Performance Award. Vinyl Coda I-III, a commission from Bavarian Radio in 1999 won the Karl Sczuka Foderpreis for Radio Art.
Philip also still works as a visual artist, usually incorporating sound and has shown installations at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, Hayward Gallery, London, The Hamburger Bahnhof Gallery, Berlin, ZKM in Karlsruhe and The Shanghai and Liverpool Bienalles.
Philip Jeck has won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers 2009. A presentation ceremony took place at The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, on 9th November 2009.
He has toured in an Opera North production playing live to the silent movie Pandora’s Box (composed by Hildur Gudnadottir and Johann Johannson).He has also worked again with Gavin Bryars on a composition “Pneuma” for a ballet choreographed by Carolyn Carlson for The Opera de Bordeaux and has recently made and performed the sound for “The Ballad of Ray & Julie” at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.
DL – 1 track – 44:53
Track listing:
1. Waterglass
Waterglass was originally conceived as a soundtrack for artist Sheila Stewart to paint seascapes at Studio One and a Quarter North London in 1984.
Originally released on cassette in 1984 as SAYNO PRODUCTIONS. Each cassette inlay card contained a colour photo from North Wales taken by Simon Tassano – a different one each time, from hundreds of gloss ‘snappy snaps’, cut in half at the printers.
Remastered by Simon Tassano, 18th February 2021 at Rumiville, Austin, Texas
Original recording mixed at Elephant Studios, July 1984
Design & photography by Jon Wozencroft
The story how this release came about in 1984 can be read here
Today, 11th March, is the official 39th anniversary of the founding of Touch in 1982…
First contact with New Order after their concert at the Newcastle Mayfair on 11th March 1982…
Video single – 1 track – 7:23
Track listing:
1. Breathing Ring
All sound by Steven Hess & Michael Vallera
Recorded by Greg Norman
Arranged and mixed by Michael Vallera
Mastered by Matthew Barnhart, December 2020
Published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd.
Recorded at Union Chapel, London 12th December 2020 on the organ built by Father Henry Willis 1877
Directed and filmed by Jay Richardson
Written and performed by Claire M Singer
Published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Available on Bandcamp to pre-order
Release date: 30th October 2020
CD + DL – 9 tracks – 48:29
Track listing:
1. Waterhole 05:50
2. Mmabolela 06:19
3. Riverbed 03:20
4. Red Dust 04:30
5. Dawn 06:14
6. Bones 05:23
7. Nidus 05:55
8. Nebula 05:35
9. Ruins 05:23
GARDENIA is an existing land located at the Limpopo province of South Africa, right at the border with Botswana. The place’s real name is Mmabolela and it’s a private nature reserve covering 6500ha of subtropical savanna and part of Limpopo River.
In November 2019 I had a chance to visit the location and participate in an annual residency for composers and sound artists called ‘Sonic Mmabolela’, initiated and curated by Francisco López.
We lived in an isolated property in the middle of savanna having a unique opportunity to exist in undisturbed touch with the African wilderness.
All the natural sounds later used to create Gardenia were captured there — during longtime recording sessions over the virgin interior of Mmabolela Reserve.
The album’s field recording content was selected from several hours of birdsong, calls of frogs, insect noises, sounds of trees, bushes, grass as well as non-living natural elements like stones or shells.
These field recordings were later digitally processed and used as part of 9 musical arrangements.
However the recording sources and the location of Gardenia is defined, it was not my intention to document a South African natural soundscape nor create any other kind of strict concept album.
All I do in my work is an affirmation of beauty hidden in various aspects of the Creation. (MJ)
Recorded, composed and produced by Michał Jacaszek
Photography + Design: Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Francisco López
special thanks: F. López, Ch. Kubisch, B. Ellison, and all Sonic Mmabolela 2019 team and staff