In less than two years Danny Clay & Greg Gorlenhave already produced so much staggeringly good work together - both on Gorlen's Cascading Fragments & Sifting through Shards, as well as for Mmm Sound & for Canti Magnetici & its related Kirlian Recordings - that these ears are shamed to have only come across these plaintive, dappled delicacies very recently... From the plangent, keening Brittle & Marigolds (their most recent output - an edition of 80 tapes on CM & a digital self-release on StS) to last year's lovely, stately Conch, the pair conjure something ravishing out of their palette of "junk, found tapes, & home made cassette loops", as Gorlen puts it. You could mention faint warping, a gaseous, blurry mood, the occasional felted piano refrain, a far-off grumbling guitar. But none of this begins to capture how affecting, how frail & human this music is.
NB: images from Canti Magnetici&Mmm Sound. Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.
Drama - the sense of moment, event or even ritual - figures notably large in Touch’s recent output. It always has, of course (think Kiri No Oto or Without Sinking…). But ravishing new releases like Claire M Singer’s Solas & Bethan Kellough’s Aven seem drenched in it - most obviously because of their string & organ parts, but more broadly because of their shade & light interplay of acoustic, electronic & field recording elements.
It also seems to reflect the imprint’s growing body of live releases this year. Aven is one; Floodlines by Simon Scott – whose gripping Insomni for Touch affiliate Ash International was part of LMYE’s 2015 Festive 33-1/3 - & Fennesz's Mahler Remix two more. All clearly gain great atmosphere & power from being captured in the moment...
Touch’s US West Coast ‘conference’ in the summer amped up this emphasis on performance. Besides Aven, gripping shows by Philip Jeck, Daniel Menche and Mark Van Hoen were shared through Touch Radio – a wonderfully rich ‘platform for recordings from artists affiliated to or whose work appears on Touch’. To these ears at least, it connects too to drΓΈne’s Reversing Into the Future. This thrilling piece – surely the most kinetic non-dancefloor record in an age ("sounds moan and sing, forming their own phonemes") – feels like an honorary part of Touch’s work even if formally a debut for Anna von Hausswolff’s Pomperipossa: a collaboration between Touch co-founder Mike Harding & Van Hoen (whose digital-only Artefacts I came out on the ‘audio-visual resource for ‘emerging artists’’ TOUCHLINE in October 2015).
Much more Touch performance in tonight's 17th Spire ("organ works past present & future") at Organ Reframed - for which Singer is artistic director. Hope to see you there...
Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.
Yet another party that these ears are late to, granted - but Jeremy Young's The Chants Beneath 'project' ("There is no album, or record, and no distribution, this collection exists only here") is so rich & so replete with members of the LMYE pantheon that recognition is due all the same. The idea: "create 125 unique artist edition double-sided loop pieces towards developing sustainable audience engagement with the sonic arts, housing all the loops online in a freely streamable living archive and commissioning over 120 sound artists to create new work using each singular piece." Fair enough, not least when the artists in question include (alphabetically, not in archival running order...) Astral Social Club, Jimmy Billingham, John Chantler, Chris Herbert, Giuseppi Ielasi, Julia Kent, Machinefabriek, Josh Mason, Daniel Menche, My Cat Is An Alien, Orphax, Stefano Pilia, pinkcourtesyphone, Nils Quak, Janek Schaefer, Mike Shiflet, thisquietarmy & Simon Whetham. The result: a glorious, defiantly non-commercial "living archive of cassette tape loops" based on 125 pairs of 7-second loops from Young's ravishing original chants beneath the bed of the furnace brook("a descriptive reflection of movement and stillness").
Highlights are headed by Orphax's insistent, beautifully balanced 'remix'. Less than five minutes, it seems to embody the idea of a loop as something without beginning or end that could play on, satisfyingly, forever... MCIAA's celestial/skittering/naif/bass smear brew also jumps out, along with compatriot Stefano Pilia's on-the-brink-of-collapsing workout, Janek Schaefer's equallyintense Golden Gates, a hovering, gauzy take by Chris Herbert& Julia Kent's glowing gloop-meets-bow Round, Reversed. Other compelling contributions include the unfurling, tendril-like Together at Wimshurst by Drew Barnett, Nils Quak's soothing, contemplative The Crying of Lot 32& pcp's subtle, shaped Tape Chanting As We Speak.
Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.
If the official 'retired Serbian steelworker turned self-taught electronic musician' line around Abul Mogardis in any way true, his is an extraordinary trajectory. But even if - as seems likely - it's just a confection to make 'his' music stand out from others', what really differentiates this work (a handful of tapes, remixes & a recent-ish compilation on Ecstatic) is its poise & - sorry - grandeur.
It's been a year since the last original (ahem...) Mogard release, Circular Forms. These ears are primed for more of these affecting, swelling textures - their emotional heft belied by the banality of their self-description as "made using Farfisa organ, synthesisers and computer software".
"June 12, 2016 — I have been working on this piece for a while but it always just felt so dark. Darkness is what I feel today. This work is dedicated to the victims of all violence against LGBTQ people. 100% of the profit from sales/downloads of this work will be donated to: THE GLBT COMMUNITY CENTER OF CENTRAL FLORIDA + PULSE TRAGEDY COMMUNITY FUND may love prevail over hate in all its forms, richard chartier PS: please also consider donating directly to the links above to help the community as well as the victims' families." Prompted by tragedy but also in support & celebration of its maker: darkness & a little light in an array of gripping, mostly recent work by Line-lord Chartier - largely in his "more emotional, dare one say musical" Pinkcourtesyphoneguise...
NB: Photos from 3particles.com/pinkcourtesyphone.com. Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.
