★Allquestions
Conservatory (San Sebastiano)
Referring to the soundtrack for Conservatory (San Sebastian), John Duncan speaks of 'ghost voices', emphasizing a line of research he's followed in the last several years beginning with Phantom Broadcast (2002), the audio work and live concert performances that utilize a shortwave radio transmission intercepted in the course of a single recording: a shadow play that assumes the form of bells resonating into infinity, where they merge and reverberate, morphing into choruses suspended in space. Du…
Fresh
The zeitkratzer ensemble performing two tracks by John Duncan in a collaboration promoted last year by Podewil in Berlin. A project started over a year ago, the result of continuous and tenatious work over several meetings between Duncan and the musicians, in charge of performing two originally electronic compositions with their acoustic instruments.The 27 minutes of the first piece revisit NAV-FLEX, a composition published last year by Duncan in the double CD with Francisco López, NAV . In zeit…
Nine suggestions
NINE SUGGESTIONS gathers collaborations over the past couple of years between sound installation artist John Duncan and the two members of Pan Sonic, Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. Duncan's previous collaborators have included Elliott Sharp, Bernhard Günter and Carl Michael von Hausswolff, and the album is on his own label. As Pan Sonic's reputation would lead you to expect, there's enormous confidence here in the handling of material, whether we're talking about distorted screeching like the st…
Phantom Broadcast
Following the records made in collaboration with Francisco López and the instrumental ensemble Zeitkratzer, John Duncan returns to solo work and to exploring further the sound source he's always preferred, shortwave. We know nothing about the actual radio transmission that Duncan picked up on 18 April 2002 in the course of a single recording that gave life to this work. Only shadows remain, taking on the aspect of bells, resonating into infinity, together with reverberations and apparent choruse…
Blind Jesus
Blind Jesus by Andrew L. Hooker and Stefano Pilia debuts with a record that, according to this writer, is one of the best works of avant-rock heard recently: unravelled stuttering in the vein of Storm & Stress fall from crumbling gorges of tape loops, caracoling flights in the foreground interrupted with improvised retro-folk, wanton porno-concrète jokes arm-in-arm with strained ecstatic drones, followed by melancholic acoustic crackling, industrial creaking, soulful moans, obstacular Supreme Di…