Second Editions presents Both by claire rousay. Claire Rousay has been exploring the sensitivities of sound always in relation to "the self" and "the other", equally. Her work is always seen as a contribution, as engagement. Recording, collaging and composing become acts of considering, remembering, giving. Therefore music becomes a context, or more precisely, a habitat. But what does it say about this music when the artistic choice goes deeper, when it is not only an urge to express but to find oneself? When there is more to communicate, to connect to than a "musical work"? This new record features two attuned location-based Hörstücke that sit somewhere between conceptual composition and magical realism. Library is a site-specific piece recorded at, and played back to the halls of the Central Library in San Antonio, Texas. A meticulous recording of social against functional space. Mixing a live microphone feed through a pair of loudspeakers and accompanying it with two sine tones pitched specifically to the building’s dimensions and resonant frequencies, rousay is blending architectual space and human interaction into one curated arrangement.
On the opposite side, Two Things acts as a transient dream sequence, an elusive mise en scene. It provides a sense of location so familiar yet very disorienting. A (re)introduction to a periphery state, a fictional truth, an outside world constructed entirely and deliberately from the inside of an apartment.
Composed and produced by claire rousay at Central Library San Antonio in Texas, 2019, and in Ciudad de México, 2019. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at Duplates & Mastering in Berlin, 2020