★Unfathomless
Yoi
'In April 2011 David Vélez invited Simon Whetham to Bogota to run a field recording workshop at the Nacional University as part of the Masters in Fine Arts that Vélez was taking. They also planned to work together outside the workshop, a major part of this exchange being to visit the Colombian Amazonas to record, explore and collaborate - capturing sounds and sharing experiences.
During the trip, they were removed from their comfort zone and endured the rigors of the jungle in different situatio…
Strata
'Strata has been constructed from recording made in a series of vacant lots and their immediate surrounds in the north-west of Melbourne. These vacant lots are backed onto by various factories and warehouses on one side and a train line and Moonee Ponds creek (perhaps more aptly described as a concrete storm water drain) on the other. Running some 20 meters above all this is a large multi-lane highway overpass. This area has interested me for some time, the creeks and their walking paths act as …
Zeltini
Maksims Shentelevs, Eamon Sprod, John Grzinich, Kaspars Kalninsh, Felicity Mangan. 'Revenant' is an ongoing project with open membership that focuses on site-specific acoustic actions. All sounds originate from materials found in-situ, and from interactions with the space itself. There were some 'dark' elements surrounding this session. It was mid-November in the Baltics which meant that it was cold, gray and the sun goes down early. By the time we entered the bunker and set up to record there w…
Lignes D'Erre & Randons
Secrets. Hidden places. Unnamed memories. This is what is known of Kassel Jaeger ‘s Lignes d’erre & Randons. Furthermore, the name Kassel Jaeger itself is a fiction — a pseudonym employed by a Parisian composer who claims membership at GRM. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to make of that, or if I’m supposed to believe it. The composer teases with the notion that the source sounds for this electro-acoustic album originate from places that are important to Jaeger, whoever this person may be ; and…
Paradise & Winchester
Paradise & Winchester was created in late 2011 for the Belgian imprint Unfathomless who's credo is to commission works that 'illustrate artists personal fascination for specific locations, either natural, human built, or fictitious'. In response to this, Novak chose a location that he had never been to, yet knew he would have a strong reaction to, Las Vegas, NV. The piece focuses on 'The Las Vegas Strip', a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard outside the city limits spanning two unincorporated townsh…
Quelques usines fantomes
“As a listener, I'm always intrigued as to what attracts me or doesn't with regard to works in the field recording vein. The same applies to other areas of music as well, of course, but it's especially interesting in these works composed of sounds generally taped on site and, to a lesser or greater degree, assembled back in the studio. They're simply sounds, after all, more or less what I could hear on my own by concentrating on my surroundings at any given moment (allowing for different sources…
Merua
"Merua is a magic place for the Garifunas, and also one of awe. Only those considered as initiated go through this sanctuary. It’s a refuge for the spirits of the Ancestors from the beliefs of this mixed culture that finds its roots both in Africa and South America. It’s a plot of dense jungle, a snakes’ nest, intact despite its small size and the fact that its perimeter is occupied by humans. A perimeter composed of two villages (Triunfo de la Cruz and La Ensenada), the mangrove and the lake at…
History of violence
Sounds were recorded in the Belanglo State Forest, 150 kilometres to the south of Sydney, Australia. Its quiet solitude and isolation contrasts dramatically with its turbulent and macabre history Ð the scene for a series of horrific murders in the early 90's at the hands of one of Australia's most notorious serial killers. I choose Belanglo as a location due to my own somewhat morbid fascination with its history, but also due to its virtually indistinct organic character. It is essentially a for…
Garig Gunak Barlu (AustralOpus 1)
1. breakdawn (birds in the swamp, screeching parrots passing by from time to time and singing tree in the wind on abandoned red beach). 2. Coralreef (snubfin dolphins [orcaella heinsohni] echolocation, crackly decapods and mysterious fishsongs: wood-like-knocking and those difficult to describe and radioactive crackle of uranium). 3. Nocturnabyss (ultrasonic insects sliding across the time-grid meets hypnotic nocturnal chorus sprinkled by sonar of bats and barking geckos). Sheltering from the he…