Jean-Luc Guionnet - Axène (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


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Lionel Marchetti - Portrait D'Un Glacier (Alpes, 2173m) (Ground Fault Recordings, 2001)

1 Portrait D'Un Glacier (Alpes, 2173m) 28:40

"Tape-music composer Lionel Marchetti seems to be most comfortable when creating short works. To his credit are two 3" mini-CDs (on the Metamkine label), one split CD with RLW (on Selektion), only one full-length album (on Intransitive), and now, a brief 28-minute work. It is far different from the complex tape-splicing Marchetti has become known for, a rather more sedate and deliberately paced collage made from footsteps walking through wet snow, metallic clanking (perhaps of hiking equipment?), and occasional voices murmuring or calling to each other. The events within the piece are small ones, and an understated calm prevails as the overriding mood of this trip up Mont-blanc to le Glacier de Tre la Tete in France. One steady tone modulates quietly behind the main events, a musical ground to offset the concrete documentary aspects of the piece. These finally come to the fore for a beautiful finale of long high tones; an airplane flies overhead, and we arrive at the top of the mountain. The duration is an excellent compositional decision, concisely implying (rather than demonstrating) distance and remoteness." Howard Stelzer

"Some of the best concrete, environmental works you could hear, weaved location recordings I guess from the Alps, adorned with sound sources that come from far away to the left or right occasionally. You are always travelling, there's always movement, seamlessly, calmly, not sudden switches of environment, but a steady flow of change and new characterization. I like the use of one time sounds that don't get repeated. You want to click back and hear it again but then some other current scenario is making your mind work by then. These works are great, not since some of the best Eric La Casa or the Liminality comp have I been transported so completely. The wind, the crunch of snow underfoot, the bent branches left behind, the far away hail of a fellow trekker." Manifold Records

Lionel Marchetti has blended field recordings with electronic drones and other sounds to create an incredibly dramatic recording. Recorded on the Glacier de Tré-la tête on Mont-Blanc, in France, at an altitude of 2173 meters we hear low rumbles, creaking, water splashing and sounds of footsteps crunching the icy surface all appearing out of the silence. Voices in the distance...a small propeller rescue plane overhead?

Portrait d'un Glacier is a Series I release which puts it in Ground Faults quiet category. While most of the CD is relatively quiet, there are moments at the middle of the CD where things get a little nerve wracking. It's very cold, dark and dramatic.

This is one of those CDs that is great to drift asleep to in a darkened room only to be awaken by the sudden "events" that occasionally happen.
Ground Fault Recordings

"I used to hike mountains, (the Alps), and the first time I descovered the Glacier "Tré-la tête", on Mont-Blanc, in France, with my friend Bruno Roche, I realized that we met a strange "vivacity". This glacier is coverd with stones, on 5 "kilometres" at less. It's a sort of desert where it's possible to see, on the floor, near our feet, a strange blue eye looking at us, saying : - do you want to know more about my face ?"...

In "Portrait d'un glacier (Alpes, 2173m)", I tried to find beauty of the mountain when it is abble to give us an incredible geomorphic entity as the glacier ; I tried to represent the breath of who is walking in a such beauty, dealing, in that way, with more than only his human condition - "the most difficult area" - ; but with not forgetting this idea of "panic" i can feel when mountain is danger too, archaicism i can feel under my feet, and sometimes should distruct me only with a breath..." LM

Glacier de Tré-la tête (2173m)

Ce matin, réveillé vers cinq heures

couleurs métalliques et vertes
lumière, force
tournoiement de l'esprit projeté
psychisme, sécrétion
lente humeur animale

soudain sonore

aurore en montagne

intelligence.

Lionel Marchetti

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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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Crawl Unit - Stop Listening (Ground Fault Recordings, 2000)

1 Overload Harmonics (15:39)
2 (Untitled) (5:31)
3 Empty Sound (14:22)
4 Study For 3 Speakers (13:22)
5 Wake Up You're Alone (5:51)

A pioneer in sound event constructions, Crawl Unit (Joe Colley) has been releasing material since 1992 on labels around the world, including Drone, Manifold, G.R.O.S.S., Ant-Zen, Chocolate Monk and Self-Abuse, among others. Crawl Unit has also appeared on over a dozen compilation recordings, composed sound for dance and performed live nationally and abroad.

In addition to recording and performing as Crawl Unit, Joe Colley also runs the renowned label Povertech Industries, releasing material by sound artists such as Michael Prime, Hafler Trio, Hands To, Crawling with Tarts, Francisco Lopez and many others.

With Stop Listening, Joe Colley, aka Crawl Unit put together a beautiful sound art record, one of the finest productions on the Ground Fault label. Five works make up the 55-minute program. Most of the material is related to ambient drones, the purest and most soothing example being "Empty Sound". "(Untitled)" sounds like a treated hurdy-gurdy, at least something more metallic. But the highlight is the first piece of the set, "Overload Harmonics" (15 minutes). Sitting on the fence between avant-garde minimal drone music and noise, it takes the shape of a slowly evolving piece punctuated with strange pollutions -- totally entrancing. The same comment cannot be applied to "Study for 3 Speakers", a "live" recording of a 3-channel speaker installation. There are interesting ideas, some rattling sounds seem to indicate the use of objects and contact microphones in the speakers (a technique better exploited by Xavier Charles in Silent Block), but overall the piece remains more technical than absorbing. The main reason for that is the distance kept between the music and the listener. A more binaural recording may have done the trick, although the piece also lacks a bit of cohesion, its segmentation failing to bring something more to the table. Still, Stop Listening is a strong album.
Ground Fault Recordings

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Eric La Casa - The Stones Of The Threshold (Ground Fault Recordings, 1999)

1 S'Ombre (17:46)
2 Chrysalithe (20:34)
3 Les Pierres Du Seuil (Parts 1-3) (32:35)

La constellation des musiques pour bande bénéficie encore aujourd'hui du mythe de la nouveauté. Pourtant, comme dans d'autres musiques, les stéréotypes sont plus nombreux que les oeuvres vraiment inspirées, alors que le champ d'innovation du genre est régulièrement nourri de continuels progrès techniques. L'accès facilité des compositeurs à des enregistreurs portables, aux possibilités de restitution extrêmement précises a ouvert une nouvelle voie d'exploration qui permet d'observer et d'exploiter, comme avec un microscope, la trame à l'intérieur de n'importe quel grain sonore. Les ~uvres disponibles sur ces CDs s'inscrivent en partie dans cette démarche.
Dès la pièce "S'ombre" d'Eric LA CASA, on est gagné par la sensation que le compositeur donne du temps au temps, nous permettant de plonger corps et âme dans cet écoulement d'eau. Petit à petit, des minéraux flottants s'entrechoquent et le souffle perd sa couleur naturelle pour prendre celle d'une soufflerie industrielle. Dès le retour au calme. l'auditeur est sorti de la simple jouissance écologique du paysage sonore, pour guetter dans cette nouvelle quiétude le moindre élément sonore ambivalent pouvant devenir agressif: l'écoute, gagnée d.une compréhension supplémentaire, devient moins naïve. Chaque son employé garde sa singularité et le travail de composition se refuse à fondre les corps, irréductiblement différents, dans un même continuum. Cette préoccupation éthique permet d'accorder une attention aux différences dont chaque sonorité est porteuse. Eric LA CASA les a saisi dans la vie et ne les emploie pas dans un projet préconçu. La création musicale est indissociable des rencontres effectuées dès le collectage sonore qui renferme la mémoire, les expériences individuelles et le temps de vie.
Bien que les percussions employées pour "Chrysalithe" soient d'origine ethnique, la pièce est de facture très contemporaine, conjuguant à la fois une volonté de rupture dans l'enchainement des sons ainsi qu'un souci d'homogénéité dans le grain sonore et l'ambiance générale de la pièce. Les harmoniques issues de la voix déjouent les attentes de ïauditeur en quête d'exotisme, créant une atmosphère corrosive. La montée progressive d'une sensation d'effort physique. qui succède, reste le moment le plus délicieux. "Les pierres du seuil - Part I - 3" garde. à travers ses transmutations de coulée, un aspect plus proche du cinéma documentaire. J'imagine parfois les séquences épiques d'un paysage de pluie de Pelechian. Comme dans le cinéma de Tarkovski, la poétique d'Eric LA CASA n'oublie pas d'inclure dans son écoute du monde ses cicatrices, qu'elles soient naturelles ou issues de la civilisation.
Revue et Corrigée

I happen to be a big fan of Eric La Casa's music, which is created entirely from composed recordings of natural sounds such as wind, water, trees, things like that. la Casa explins his guiding philosophy: "Beyond a virtual mapping of the world, I go back to the landscapes of the real, within the geography of being. And I find out that, round the body, the microphone is breathing in all the energies of the shore, where ephemeral and eternal are grazing against each other. All sound fabrics are transmuting into a vibratory ground where both real and reality are slowly unfolding a landscape as yet unheard of. My works are then breathing out the musicality of these invisible reaches. And the listener is patiently taking in everything outside and inside as the Reality of a very same world. My work is looking for this frontier, at the threshold of reality and real, feeling as if there is somewhere else everywhere". Got it?
Intransitive Records

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Kiyoshi Mizutani - Bird Songs (Ground Fault Recordings, 2000)

1 Binzui (9:13)
2 Toratsugumi (5:52)
3 Hokora No Mizuba (16:08)
4 Tokyo Bay Bird Sanctuary (7:09)
5 Aokigahara (14:29)
6 Nimbo (5:15)

Disque dont l'essentiel est constitué de field recordinggs d'oiseaux, mais Kiyoshi Mizutani a été bien au-delà en les réhaussant d'electronique, d'une boîte à rythme ou en en faisant des collages....

Essentially these are field recordings of various nature locations. The focus mostly remains on bird songs, but it goes a little bit beyond that: Mizutani arranged and enhanced the material a bit. The song of the "Binzui" is echoed by electronic treatments, broken down to its constituents for us to marvel in its complexity. That's as far as the artist goes though. In "Aokigahara," the only non-nature sound is the tinkling of a music box (or a jack-in-the-box or other toy) played very slowly, two or three notes at a time. "Hokora no Mizuba," recorded near a spring fountain, features metallic sounds, like someone lightly hitting a metallic grid. A similar addition is heard in "Nimbo". This piece is a collage of recordings in a Chinese city. It is the only manifestation of human civilization on this album and also features a metallic "klang "(a fence?, rods of different lengths?). All these alterations (except for the electronic "birds" in the first tracks) vanish into the recorded environment.
François Couture

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