1 A Torn Element (6:45)
2 Within The Clearest Stem (2:47)
3 The Quiet Mist Drones (2:36)
4 Raw Star Calm (2:27)
5 Water Messiah (5:16)
6 Shoe Steam Drowns (5:32)
7 Soon Has He (2:58)
8 The Alm Die (2:21)
9 A Hidden Hour (2:05)
10 With Calmer Word (7:15)
11 Drawn Low Material (10:09)
12 Wood Hiss (5:10)
Steve Roden et Brandon LaBelle assemblent des field recordings domestiques aux limites du silence....
Everything you need to know about this record is contained within the title. ID Battery member Labelle's courteous "take only memories; leave only footprints" approach to field recording nuzzles gently against the resourceful Roden's scavenger-hunt sound discoveries. Labelle stakes out the yard, flat on his stomach, discerning ear to the ground, sampling the bouquets of natural statics the way a vintner tastes for the perfect marriage of earth, wood, flower and fruit. Roden (in between noise) pads about the house, rubbing, prodding, tapping and flicking mantlepiece bric-a-brac and other manufactured miscellania like an appraiser testing leaded crystal for the correctly pitched 'ping.' They're both the fussiest of collectors, searching high and low (but mostly low) for sounds to add to their archives of little noises. When they pool their very well recorded collections - Labelle's antenna-twitches, hairy- wing scritches, rustling reeds and sighing stems with Roden's brushed bowls, bowed splints, prepared wheels, souvenir gongs, thumb-pianos and makeshift string-things - they gently bring together the unheard worlds within the walls and without; to the point where sounds become untraceable. The clicking on "the quiet mist drones" may be that of an ant washing its mandibles with feathery feelers. Or it could just be Roden playing with a retractable pen. Too many of the so-called sound archivists are quick to go for the gusto, funneling the grandest of natural phenomena and showiest of domestic and artificial events into their pocket tape-recorders. Labelle and Roden think small - Roden even refers to such work as "lowercase music." One imagines the artists piecing together their perceptive collage with a jewellers' loupe and steady fingers. Even without clamor and din, their art reveals wonderful secrets, about the place of things in this world and about the hidden worlds within commonplace things. Maybe the volume and contrast have been turned down, but Labelle and Roden's work could hardly be more populated. The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm is filled with sounds so easily overlooked (or, even more embarrassingly, mistaken for silence,) - a fastidious spider swinging between radii on her web; water-bugs excreting and hugging their dear, tiny air-bubbles before the splash and descent; the inner hum of wood, metal, plastic and glass coaxed forth with strokings, thumpings and bowings; the shallow reverberations of a dusty gong; a leaf's annoyed response to sudden changes in wind-direction. If you dismiss these riches of quietude as "minimalism," you've missed the point entirely. Toned down? Yes. Stripped? Hardly. Between what is audible and what has been left to inference, ten minutes of "dawn low material" - or the tensile whine of "wood hiss" - vibrate with drama, color, texture, emotion, tension - all the seeds of music in its most exhibitionistic, string-drenched and opulent state. So, go ahead. Turn up the volume, if you need to, and you'll find that it's all there. Remarkable.
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