1 Texture 3 8:38
2 Mobile 1 (CCITT) 3:52
3 Texture 2 (49-50-51 Hz) 10:10
4 Mobile 6 3:03
5 Texture 5 (75-100-150-200 Hz) 7:26
6 Mobile 3 (DTMF) 8:35
7 Texture 4a (Risset-Texture) 5:55
8 Texture 4b 8:02
9 Mobile 2b 2:26
Known as six years co-editor of Vital Magazine and as founder/owner of Earlabs.org, Jos Smolders is active in the underground electronic scene since early 80's. Founding member of the renowned Dutch electroacoustic ensemble THU20 (which also features Roel Meelkop and Peter Duimelinks, both of Kapotte Muziek and Goem), his music was released on cassette, LP and CD. He now works as a sound designer and composer in Tilburg (The Netherlands). "Textures and mobiles" is his latest work. Based enterely on pure sine waves and mobiles tones, the CDr has a really nice flow in the pieces and can easily meet as one of the best composed works of Jos Smolders. It has the Jos trademark all over it, despite the fact that he limits himself to just pure sine waves. One hour of introspection with minimals elements.
CONV
Jos Smolders might be more known these days as the driving force behind the Earlabs site, a true online goldmine for electronic music,both old and new, but many forget that he is also a composer in his own right and for a very long time. He earliest releases were released on cassettes on labels such as Midas Music (where are the
CDR re-issues, please?) and Korm Plastics. Then he produced two more than excellent LPs in the early nineties, and some more conceptual works for CDs on Staalplaat. Those are more 'create your own thing with this'. Jos Smolders is also part of the never really ceasing to exist group THU20 (who are preparing for a new project next year). Since some time Jos Smolders is back at composing music himself, and
for no other purpose than to create beautiful music. On 'textures And Mobiles', the first CDR release from Con-V, otherwise known as an online label, Smolders finds his inspiration in two visual artists. For the textures he is inspired by the paintings of Mark Rothko and the mobiles by the mobiles of Alexander Calder, using CCITT ringtones (mobiles getit?) as sound sources. Of the nine pieces, five are from
the texture series, and here Smolders uses static tones that are similar but not the same to create a richly varied elegant tapestry of sound. The sounds glide and pass by, move gently through space. The connection to Rothko is indeed present, and musically it relates to the work of Alvin Lucier. The mobiles are shorter tracks of
shorter sounds that sound unlike anything those annoying ringtones I hear on the street or in the train. Maybe bythemselves the 'Mobile' pieces aren't that convincing, but they form an interesting counterpoint to the longer 'Texture' pieces, which if only present on this release, would maybe a bit too much also. Now the balance is just perfect. Moving along the lines of his previous release 'Music
For Kalx.com' (on ERS Records), this is a more than excellent release. For those who love Lucier, Asmus Tietchens and 12K, this is definetely a must have.
Vital Weekly
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