mercredi 7 avril 2010

Bill Laswell - Outer Dark (Fax +49-69/450464, 1994)





1 Chakra 24:14
2 Ananta (Passing Dream) 23:31

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mardi 6 avril 2010

Symphonies Of The Planets - NASA Voyager Recordings




1-1 Symphonies Of The Planets 1 30:52
2-1 Symphonies Of The Planets 2 30:38
3-1 Symphonies Of The Planets 3 30:46
4-1 Symphonies Of The Planets 4 30:15
5-1 Symphonies Of The Planets 5 31:08

"Share the journey of a 5 billion mile trek to the outer limits of our solar system. Hear the beautiful sounds of the planets. The complex interactions of the cosmic plasma of the universe, charged electromagnetic particles from the solar wind, planetary magnetosphere, rings and moons create vibration "soundscapes" which are at once utterly alien and deeply familiar to the ear. Some of those sounds are hauntingly like human voicer singing, giant Tibetan bowls, wind, waves, birds and dolphins. Many are familiar in a way unique for each listener.

These recordings are the most unique approach to deep level relaxation and inner expansion through the use of sound in the world today.

Voyager has left out Solar System forever. The sounds on this recording will never be made again in our lifetime."
liner notes

sold out visit LaserLight Digital

thanks to SikkeMeister
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Parisonic, projections et installations sonores, 1er et 2 mai



Pour sa première édition, Parisonic aborde les questions actuelles de notre relation à ce qui nous entoure, en présentant le travail d'artistes pour lesquels le son est le moyen, le matériau et le véhicule d'une attention, d'une sensibilité et d'un questionnement sur cet environnement.

Issu des pratiques documentaires et radiophoniques, le "field recording" (prise de son environnementale) investit aujourd'hui le champ des arts plastiques par des formes multiples débordant et ouvrant largement son cadre documentaire original.
Attentifs au monde qui les entoure les artistes dits "sonores" portent une attention particulière au contexte d’apparition de leur travail et le réalisent souvent en fonction de cet environnement, qu’il soit social, acoustique, architectural ou politique.

Diverses approches et contextes sont l'objet de l'attention de ces artistes :

* Sons produits par les êtres vivants aquatiques et terrestres, activité à la lisière de la science et de l'écologie.
* Phénomènes naturels : écoulement d'une rivière, vents et souffles, fonte des glaces…
* Paysages sonores "naturels", échos en montagne, espace sonore du désert, chant des dunes…
* Environnements urbains, chaque ville porte une "signature" sonore, acoustique d'un lieu, lieux de passage…
* Sons inaudibles : hydrophonie, rayonnement électromagnétiques, ultrasons…
* Architecture : vibrations dans les éléments de l'espace d'exposition, dans un immeuble…
* Les fictions, anticipations : "cinéma pour l'oreille" convoquent les sons du réel pour créer des formes radiophoniques, conceptuelles… qui puisent dans l'ici et maintenant l'ailleurs et le futur.
* Les relations humaines et ses récits.

Toutes les pratiques qui en découlent, enregistrement et diffusion "tel quel" (on parle alors de sonographie comme "photographie sonore"), mixage d'environnements, fictions et pièces radiophoniques, documentaires sonores (…), ont pour trait commun une attention portée au monde, à l'homme, une sensibilité à l’environnement.

Parisonic propose d'en explorer les formes en invitant des artistes dont le travail singulier parle directement de notre relation au monde.

Artistes:

Dinahbird
Steve Roden
Luc Kerléo
Thomas Tilly
Yannick Dauby
Eric la Casa
Julia Drouhin
Cédric Peyronnet
Brandon LaBelle
Patrick McGinley
Simon Whetham
Rodolphe Alexis

tous renseignements: http://parisonic.fr/

lundi 5 avril 2010

Mark McGuire - Dream Team (Wagon, 2008)







1 Dream Team 1 17:18
2 Different Light 9:43
3 Dream Team 2 13:10

This disc, split into three extended solo improvisations, features McGuire's signature post-rock build-ups while minimizing the proggy leanings that so much of his output has. While a lot of McGuire's stuff reads like the guitar part to an Emeralds song before inevitably building into some heavy momentum stuff, this one starts with a fuzzed out opener on "Dream Team 1." Almost Sonic Youth-y sound here, though much less constructed as distorted riffs intermingle and loop around one another before McGuire's vocals slip in to infuse some melody into the mirage. Quite lovely and unapologetically pretty stuff. "Different Light" follows up with a gloomier take, as thick oscillating drones move through some dense circuitry on their way toward the skies. Reminds me a bit of McGuire's playing on that Skyramps disc, totally epic wash whose parts are spread far outward before tiny little steel pan melodies formulate themselves sin the background like little dust mites congregating into an army. Whole thing clears itself eventually too, which only makes it more exquisite a journey.

The final track, "Dream Team 2," opens sounding more like much of the other McGuire stuff I've heard as fractured pieces with plenty of space are pieced together into a kind of post-minimalist, post-Cluster sound (yeah yeah, same associations everyone makes but you gotta admit that it's right on target...) that somehow ebbs its way into some celestial worlds all its own. I have to say, watching McGuire construct his set at Bard really makes all of this that much more interesting to listen to--his control is absurd, but never sterile, and his playing touches on so many realms that it enters itself into some next level areas. Drifting and lovingly constructed work that continues to build upon this already impressive dude's output. Super nice dude too, if you ever get a chance his shows are not to be missed. Put out on Emeralds' own Wagon label too, always a winning combo.
The Ear Conditioned Nightmare blog

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samedi 3 avril 2010

Aidan Baker - Periodic (Crucial Bliss, 2005)





1 Periodic 1 29:55
2 Periodic 2 26:32

Aidan Baker is a very busy man. Not only is he a writer, he also plays music under no less than three monickers. His drone metal outfit Nadja, his avant prog experimental group ARC, and of course his solo work under his own name. Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find two other releases from Nadja, big beautiful lumbering slabs of slow motion sound, but here, on his latest solo endeavor, it's an entirely different situation. Gone are the beats and the downtuned guitars, the sludge, the doom, the dirge, leaving nothing but the drone. And even that is practically washed out into nothingness. Periodic is very subtle and quiet, ultra minimal drifts of microscopic sound. A few spikes pop up here and there, but for the most part it's a near flatline, a barely there wash of creaks and shimmers, whirs and rumbles, totally abstract soundscapes that require active listening to full grasp. Headphones transport the listener to another world. Under the sea, in some lost cave, floating in space, hard to tell exactly where you are with a head full of these sounds, which is why Baker is so good. Eyes closed, ears full, we are drifting lost in some parallel universe, where everything is tiny, a world of slowly shifting little pixels, or a world where everything is massive, so all we see are huge expanses of color and shape. So mysteriously dreamy. And of course highly recommended.
Aquarius Records

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jeudi 1 avril 2010

Marble Sky - Sway (Monorail Trespassing, 2009)






A Standing Still 9:35
B Bell Ringing Softly 9:30

"The most meaningless movements and the fiercest"
no need for a review, just take it...

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link removed still for sale in fact buy it here

mercredi 31 mars 2010

Lilypad - Cognition Failure (Wagon, 2007)



A1 Gold Drapes, Green Metallic Wallpaper (13 Sine Waves) 3:32
A2 Elegant Rug (The Murdering Room) 11:17
B Amazing Bronze Lamp & Stained Oak Trim 14:21

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Birchville Cat Motel - White Ground Elder (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2002)

*** sorry no cover art ***

1-01 White Ground Elder 31:36
1-02 Mounted Archers Fortress 25:11
2-01 Lamplight Devotions 32:13
2-02 The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes 21:24

Tour double DCr

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mardi 30 mars 2010

Birchville Cat Motel & Anla Courtis - Three Sparkling Echoes (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)



1 First Sparkling Echo 12:23
2 Second Sparkling Echo 12:13
3 Third Sparkling Echo 14:13


We're sort of surprised this match up hadn't already happened before. Pretty much a no brainer. Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel, and Anla Courtis, from the now defunct Reynols. While it most definitely seems like a match made in noise rock heaven, there was definitely the potential for a very chaotic mess, but the two most definitely brought out the best in each other, and the result might just be one of our favorite releases from either of these guys.
Three looooong tracks, each a gorgeous and languorous slow build, minimal, but dense and heavily layered, simple propulsive rhythms, and all sorts of warm rich sonic textures. The opener, is maybe one of the most beautiful 'noise rock' tracks EVER. Swirling, beautiful cello-like melodies, low and lumbering, moan and croon, a deep, resonant, cavernous, creeping minor key dirge, lurking mysteriously beneath a swirling cloud of metallic cicadas and oscillating whirs and flutters. One of those tracks that should go on forever. Building gradually in intensity, but never exploding into full on heaviness, instead just drifting dreamlike, until the various sounds peel back leaving just a gorgeous soundscape of simulated nature sounds and abstract ambience. The first time we threw this on we ended up listening to this track 3 or 4 times in a row. But as soon as we could tear ourselves away, we realized that the other two tracks were darn near just as beautiful.
The second track is a spacious and spare expanse of tinkling music box chimes, strange percussive thumps, guttural vocalizations, and a warm melodic whir, heavily panned, swooping dramatically from speaker to speaker. Those swoops eventually transforming into thick slabs of guitar whir, a gorgeously glacial epic, rife with muted melodies, and dense with sonic subtleties...
The closer pretty much seals the deal. Simple tribal drums, clattery junkyard percussion, over warbly warped FX drenched guitars and a loping dirge-like rhythm building in intensity until the guitars become a huge tangly squall above that static mesmerizing rhythm. It's almost like a noise rock Tom Waits.... like the Black Rider performed by Sunroof! Or a super blissed out take on old Swans. Guitars so thick and warm you just want to curl up and climb under, letting that clattery motorik rhythm just carry you away...
Aquarius Records

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New Ruralfaune releases

MARK BRADLEY "Godspeed" cdr limited 60

Faltermeyered and puzzled beats melted in some peculiar rhythmics. Strangely calming, strangely hypnotic.
Singular works from MB. Quite different from his previous works and a new direction with suffocated minimal beats. Rhythmic


INNERCITY "Visions from dream state" cdr limited 70

An animated semiotic drive on the subways of post industrialized languages. A new age order.
Modular release with the Upstairs (OPN) cdr and theTaped Sounds split tape. 3 different covers available for each copy.


MAGINA "Nazca Lines" 3"cdr limited 40 - non-portuguese edition

Unique digital capsule of melodic memorabilia on keyboards. Obsolete and old-fashioned technology to create a retro-futuristic voyage. Worldwide edition of this newcoming portuguese artist.



EASY RIDER "Eternia beach" cs30 or cdr limited 70

Born in the milked sands of Eternity. Dreamy-influenced synth figures of a lost new new age.
Choose your format



MARC-HENRI ARFEUX "Blossom" cdr limited 100

MHA is a french novelist, poet & philosophy teacher. A musical project exploring the mystery of the world in connection to perception, emotion and its metaphysic enigma.
A journey through french avant-garde and synthetic minimalism. File under GRM (Groupe de recherche musicale, founded by Pierre Henry)


ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER "Young Beidnahga" cdr limited 50

Special reissue for march european tour 2010 - Originally released as rur062 (Ruralfaune 2009)
ONLY 10 copies left !


QUEEN ELEPHANTINE "8 XI 08 Live in Brooklyn" cs48 or cdr limited 70

Heavy riffs and dark psychedelic atmospheres from Brooklyn.
An absolute heavy tantric doom, like molten lava flowing down a mountain. Slow yet unstoppable, consuming everything in its path...

THE DRIFTWOOD MANOR "The Same Figure, leaving" cdr limited 50

Beautiful irish folk between melancholia and springlike feelings. A pastoral atmosphere with poetic lyrics by David Colohan of Agitated Radio Pilot


SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE "In a new Mouth" cdr limited 60

Following stellar releases on Digitalis, Students of Decay, Stunned...
Beautiful drifting melodies and haunted guitar figures. A patchwork quilt of drone influenced sound snippets, subtle synth undulations and strange ethereal vocal lines...



DYLAN ETTINGER "Cutters" LP co-released w/Digitalis Industries LP limited 150

The come back of the king of pop
Already sold out at source, please check the availability at every good retailer and reserve your copy . Lps will be available mid-april.

dimanche 28 mars 2010

Slow Listener / Century Plants / Terrortank - My Mind Is Blind (Spread The Disease, 2008)



1 Slow Listener - Untitled 19:57
2 Terrortank - Untitled 12:51
3 Century Plants - Untitled 15:39
4 Terrortank - Untitled 13:19

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Slow Listener - Untitled (JK Tapes, 2007)



1 Untitled
2 Untitled

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Karen Cooper Complex - Shinjuku Birdwalk (self release, 1981)


Reçu un mail de Bill qui faisait partie du groupe Karen Cooper Complex dont WMFU vient de ressortir les titres / Received a mail from Bill who was part of Karen Cooper Complex, WMFU just reissued their tracks as free downloable...

We refer to it as "Analog Music from a Lost World" -- previously unreleased post-punk experimental rock from 1981, unlike anything else recorded before or after.

The Karen Cooper Complex line goes all the way back to Big Naptar, a six-piece band featuring two sax players, formed in 1970 here in Richmond, that Frank Daniel, Steve Bernard and I all played in. In those days, we were attempting to force a marriage between elemental rock and free jazz. At the same time, Wm. Burke (aka Key Ring Torch) and Bo Jacob (aka Bo Janne Valvoline) were playing with local oddball legends, the Titfield Thunderbolt. Jacob eventually left to go on the road as a sound man for Parliament/Funkadelic and Burke later went solo, calling his act, Wm. Burke's Hideous Truth.

In the late 70's Steve Bernard and a rotating cast of musicians and non-musicians who called themselves I Saw a Bulldozer, recorded a series of private party tapes, organized around three or four female vocalists who wrote Surrealist-style "Exquisite Corpse" lyrics and chanted them in unison in front of a band, coming across something like a female, beatnik version of the Last Poets, who were more interested in art than politics.

Frank Daniel then plucked Karen Cooper out of the Bulldozer lineup and made her an integral, impulsive instrument in a band that played loosely structured, improvisational rock that was more "Bitches Brew" than Grateful Dead, if that makes sense. From my perspective, all these years later, Karen sounds like an unbridled outsider artist who's simultaneously sending and receiving while the band churns around her. This isn't jazz, and it wasn't intended to be, but we were obviously listening, responding and playing off of each other in the same way more technically proficient improvisers do.

Four of us were also DJs on a local independent radio station and when I listen to this music now, it sounds to me like we'd clearly digested enough influences that I won't try to list any of them in particular — at the risk of omitting as much as I could include.

After the first sessions, Burt Blackburn stepped in for Steve Bernard, who was already living 200 miles away in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and Bo Jacob, who'd gone back out with Randy Newman, was replaced by the first drum machine in town.

Just as things really began to gel, Karen, who was married to Les Smith, informed us that she was expecting — and the band never played live — in fact, from that point, it never played again at all.

Frank Daniel died of complications of Type I diabetes in 2004 and I've collected and digitized this volume as a salute to his memory and in hopes that someone out there will listen to this music and say "Good work, Frank. Thanks."

-Bill Altice Feb 2010

"This is amazing stuff and we would be honored to feature it in wfmu's curated portal on the free music archive. I'm very sorry for our slow response, we have a lot of stuff to wade through to find gems like these."
WMFU

free download

samedi 27 mars 2010

Nathan McNinch - A Lonesome Arctic Waltz (petite sono], 2004)



1 A Lonesome Arctic Waltz 18:59

a waltz for polar bears....
petite sono]

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Re-up

Sylvain Chauveau - Nocturne Impalpable (les Disques du Soleil et de l'Acier, 2001) : here

vendredi 26 mars 2010

Corey Fuller - Seas Between (Dragon's Eye Recordings, 2009)



1 Winds May Scatter 2:41
2 Late Summer 14:17
3 November Skies Tokyo 5:43
4 Of A Winter Dawn 6:51
5 Snow Static 5:46
6 Seas Between 8:51

Opening in mist, with disassembled activity both hidden and continuous, Seas Between is a work containing the solemnity of temporality, trembling tenderness, and the brightest side of sightless imagination. Corey Fuller was born in the United States, but while still very young, he relocated with his family to Japan, where he spent the next 20 years, before returning to the United States to live in Washington state. December of 2009 marks the release of his first solo album, and his return to Japan with his own family, to live and work. The album represents both a literary and imaginative vision of home and the distances between, a document of the placement and creation of a convolved third-culture reality.

Seas Between was created using an expansive assortment of acoustic instruments, including piano, prepared piano, Rhodes electric piano, pipe organ, pump organ, vibraphone, pianica, accordion, acoustic/electric guitars, Gamelan bells, Thai finger cymbals, assorted percussion, and found objects. Field recordings were given delicate attention, including room tones, contact microphones, hydrophone recordings of both shores of the Pacific Ocean, field recordings from Japan and Washington, reel to reel tapes, cassette tapes, and analog tape delays. Custom software was also employed to create a convolved, indeterminate blend of instruments, with field recordings from both sides of the Pacific Ocean, above and below.

In addition to palette, a group of collaborative musicians contributed work, such as John Friesen on Cello, Tyler Wilcox on saxophones and bass clarinet, and Tomoyoshi Date on piano and electronics. Their contributions further complete a graceful warmth, to an already startlingly pronounced recording of poetic allusion, uncertain acceptance, and hazed mystery.

Throughout the 45-minute work, clarity is demonstrated through swelling, warm tones, acute instrumentation, combined with the chill of the ocean breeze, and the indistinguishable traits of swirling, impermanent images. Beside crisp crescendos of the early morning dawn, foamy field recordings are hidden in the fine clouds; a formed, thin film, hidden in winter's winds. In Seas Between, here falls the shadow, between essence and descent, longing and fulfillment, wholeness and brokenness. The sense of separation and constant longing is ever-present, in our surroundings that are unwavering, but often unpredictable as the sea.

-text by Will Long (Celer)

Seas Between's title references the fact that after being born in the United States, Corey Fuller and his family relocated to Japan for twenty years before returning to the US to live in Washington State. The collection is therefore significant not only for being his first solo album but for also marking Fuller's recent return to Japan with his own family to live and work. It's hardly accidental that Fuller references the natural world explicitly in the titles of the pieces, as Seas Between is anything but a series of hermetic electronic works assembled in the sterile confines of a studio. Using a multitude of instruments and field recordings, Fuller transmutes the beauty and mystery of the natural realm—seasons, locales, elements—into forty-four minutes of ravishing ambient sounds. Sometimes that occurs literally—amidst the gleam of ambient organ tones in “Of a Winter Dawn,” for example, one hears the crunch one associates with trodding through a landscape freshly covered with snow, or the crackle of a campfire at a wintry setting during “Snow Static”—but more often than not the effect is created by way of allusion, with the material indirectly hinting at a place lodged in Fuller's memory.

Included among the acoustic instruments he used in producing the material are acoustic and electric piano, pipe organ, pump organ, vibraphone, accordion, guitars, Gamelan bells, Thai finger cymbals, assorted percussion, and found objects. Custom software was employed to blend the sounds, including field recordings (room tones, contact microphones, hydrophone recordings of the Pacific Ocean, field recordings from Japan and Washington, etc.). The recording is dramatically elevated by the presence of three guest musicians, cellist John Friesen, woodwinds player Tyler Wilcox, and pianist Tomoyoshi Date, all of whom make substantial contributions to the pieces on which they appear.

Slowly coming into view with a web of gleaming organ tones, sparse piano musings, and field noises, “Winds May Scatter” inaugurates a recording that deserves to be heard in listening numbers far greater than the 250 copies that have been made available. During “Late Summer,” minimal bass tones anchor a whistling stream of electric piano accents and electronics for fourteen contemplative minutes. Wilcox's bass clarinet floats along the music's surface too, prodding its ever-so-gentle movement forward. The album's most beautiful piece is the title composition, which turns into a nine-minute outpouring of melancholy when Friesen's cello playing is added to Fuller's expansive sound design. It's a tremulous ambient setting of poetic force and ethereal beauty that conveys a sense of longing for home, a longing that in Fuller's case is especially pronounced when such ties have rooted themselves so powerfully in not locale but two.
Textura

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link removed still for sale here

mercredi 24 mars 2010

Bernhard Günter - Univers Temporel Espoir (Trente Oiseaux, 1999)



1 Un Lieu Pareil À Point Effacé, 1ere Partie 15:00
2 Un Lieu Pareil À Point Effacé, 2eme Partie 15:17
3 The Ant Moves / The Black And Yellow Carcass / A Little Closer 28:14
4 Vertige Hasard 12:01

by request

This album collects two pieces which had previously appeared on anthologies, as well as two new pieces. "Lieu Pareil, Pt. 1" was originally published on a CD distributed with the magazine Halana, and "The Ant Moves..." was released in an earlier version on the Ash International anthology. The last piece is the newest, and is one of Günter's few pieces with anything recognizable as a beat, although at the intended low volume the sound is more like a heartbeat than anything one might hear in a dance hall. There are in fact several layers of beats at different speeds, superimposed, fading in and out at different times. With a sudden loud woodblock event signaling the last section of the piece, the sounds alternate between the woodblocks and quiet static, reminiscent of the Japanese temple blocks in Stockhausen's "Telemusik." The other pieces deal with more naturalistic sounds -- wind, water, and thunder. One of the fascinations in Günter's music is his ability to recall natural phenomena without necessarily using natural sounds (although almost every sound he uses is sampled). "Lieu Pareil 2" and "The Ant Moves..." both share sectional division sounds with the last piece, but the overall sound world is quiet, non-developmental, persistent and rewarding for listeners who clear their mind and focus on the small sounds that Günter exposes.
All Music Guide

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mardi 23 mars 2010

Aube - Emotional Oscillation (Old Europa Cafe, 1994)




A Empulsive Oscillating 22:10
B1 Emotionalism 8:27
B2 Uplift 14:08

All Composed Mixed & Recorded By Akifumi Nakajima at Studio MECCA Kyoto Summer 1994 Using Only 1 Voltage Controlled Oscillator As Material.

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lundi 22 mars 2010

Aidan Baker - An Intricate Course Of Deception (.Angle.Rec., 2004)




1 Interweaver 25:02
2 Thread / Bare 18:48
3 Gossamer 8:35
4 Weft 8:21

A guitarist impregnated with the sonic twists and turns of the drone universe, a member of ARC and also a poet, among others, AIDAN BAKER nurtures a very particular and personal style when experimenting with his instrument. From one album to another, and he has released many on different labels around the world, AIDAN BAKER has relentlessly been polishing exploratory sonic fabrics of a majestic beauty, always halfway between ether and psychedelia, with the obscure and indefinable touch that makes his music ideal for introspection and contemplation.

Aidan Baker’ natural ease and tendency to deconstruct and reinvent the guitar’s syllabus shows very well on AN INTRICATE COURSE OF DECEPTION…Long shadowy and droney passages go side by side with tripped-out smooth lo fi experiments which evoke, reinterpret, and take to a different level the sounds heard in the ethereal, experimental and ambient field of recent years.

Expansive, atmospheric and recursive landscapes are enhanced with evolving bursts of well-dosed noisy interruptions, perfectly in line with the overall experience of the whole soundtrack. A factory in the desert…
.Angle.Rec.

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dimanche 21 mars 2010

Jean-Luc Guionnet - Axene (Ground Fault Recordings, 2000)



1 Ivraie/Baragnes 27:14
2 Axène 15:54
3 Ressac/Ressac 28:13

Jean-Luc Guionnet, born in Lyon now living in Paris, has formally studied Electa-acoustic music at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory as well as the Pantin Conservatory in France. While working on his Bachelors Degree at the Sorbonne School of Art in Paris, Jean-Luc started recording with good friend Andrè Almuro. Soon after while working on his Masters degree he started working with fellow French Electra-acoustic musicians, Éric Cordier and Éric La Casa. In addition to music he has worked in the experimental film field.

Jean-Luc Guionnet is not a highly prolific recording artist; only about 16 recordings to over a 10 year span, but the quality of his recordings are top notch. Two of the recordings on Axène were recorded 10 years ago and were never released. After first hearing them I was amazed that the have never been heard by the public. They are absolutely brilliant recordings that the public has unfortunately missed out on for all these years. I am very proud to bring these recordings to the surface for all to hear.

Axène is catagorized as Series I, but don't let that fool you. While a good part of this CD is rather quiet, it does build to a fever pitch while never losing its smoothness. Erik Hoffman

"It is a little strange to find a CD by French electroacoustic artist Jean-Luc Guionnet on the noise label Ground Fault, but then again musique concrète can be seen from an avant-garde noise perspectives. The three extended (16 to 28 minutes) works included on Axène were created between 1989 and 1996 and had not been released before. In "Ivraie/Baragnes, " recorded for an André Almuro film by the same title, and "Ressac/Ressac", the composer favors textures over plasticity. Both pieces have drones, water and wood sounds, at their basis. Non-linear, these sound events are meshed together to form the soundtrack of a trek of some kind. Concrete and synthesized sounds intervene, arousing new imageries. "Ressac/Ressac" is embedded in a strong ocean theme (ressac = undertow), waves of sounds slowly approaching to gracefully come crashing at the listener's feet. Slotted between these two works, "Axène" becomes all the more academic and cold. This piece follows more traditional esthetics of sound sculpting, INA-GRM-style. It lacks movement and ambition to really captivate. But the two longer pieces are definitely worth hearing, especially for those favoring atmospheric electroacoustics" François Couture

Ground Fault Recordings

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