concerto 185 B

Temple Dust

This is the eleventh in a series of Module Music pieces. There are three parts. It uses fm-synthesis and generative techniques. The source-code can be found at github.com/danielstahl/module-music-11.

Bright Light Night Part 1

out in June through Lynn and Boyce Hatti
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https://soundcloud.com/ly_nn

Trait [Time Is When, CD-r 2017]

From the upcoming Album "Vegetal Negatives"
Release Date 29 March 2019
Hallowground.com
HG1901
Vinyl / Digital

”Let us unfold the animal outward: the bronchia will become a thick foliage, keeping its respiratory function, but in reverse, naturally (CO2 absorption), reversed also concerning color, from the tint of calves’ lungs to its complementary cabbage green. The digestive system will become roots, maintaining its role of drawing in nourishment from the outside environment. […] for each animal form there exists a corresponding vegetal form. The man who would find his vegetal negative and unite with it would restore the integrity of the cosmos.”

Vegetal Negatives is a game of sonic mutations, mimicry, inversions, and association inspired by a text called "On pataphotograms", by the French writer René Daumal – a quasi-metaphysical essay that toys with breaking the conceived separateness of natural forms through poetic imagination.

Marja Ahti (b. 1981) is a Swedish-born artist living and working in Turku, Finland. She has been an active part of the Finnish experimental music scene for more than ten years. Now arriving at her debut LP under her own name, Ahti explores a new formal language and sonic palette that ventures far from the path of her earlier work.

The four electroacoustic compositions on the album combine and arrange field recordings, electronic feedback, Buchla and ARP synthesizers, bowl gong and harmonium, textures of detailed acoustic sound, and sustained tones with gentle microtonal beating into a precise musical narrative. She juxtaposes recordings of rooms and empty vessels, natural and artificial climates, spontaneous and staged events. Ahti draws upon Annea Lockwood's ideas about associative movements between sounds based on shared characteristics and sonic energy. Her approach to field recordings is neither diaristic, documentaristic, nor purely acousmatic, but rather it starts out from somewhere in between these notions: the sounds hover between abstraction and the deeply familiar, moving into a realm of poetic metaphor where they are set in relation to each other, fleetingly mirroring or shadow-dancing. Acoustic environments mutate into synthetically derived shadow forms.

The opening track, "Coastal Inversion”, moves from a seemingly familiar seascape into an ocean of wavelike synthetic staccato patterns, turning itself inside-out on the shore, before diving back into a sea of resonance. ”Rooftop gardens” arranges a series of largely unprocessed field recordings into a dream-logic sequence of upward movement towards the clouds. On the other side, ”Symbiogenesis” brews a slow evolution of wet, airy and earthy sounds and resonant friction. The closing track, ”Chora”, imagines a meditative space of breath: filter resonance posing as organ pipes against a backdrop of breezy industrial hoovers merges halfway with a harmonium improvisation that foregrounds the frictions of the wooden instrument itself, just before filtering out into resonant harmony.

Tracklist:
A1) Coastal Inversion (12:14)		B1) Symbiogenesis (07:22)
A2) Rooftop Gardens (05:44)		B2) Chora (10:47)

Credits:
Marja Ahti: composition, production, field recording, Buchla 200 and ARP 2600
Recorded at EMS, Stockholm, WORM, Rotterdam, and on locations in Greece, Alaska, Finland and Sweden.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Designed by Ruth Stofer

Vegetal Negatives

BUY VINYL/DL

MARJA AHTI - Symbiogenesis (HG1901)

A Field of Social Tension, taken from the forthcoming album Unabled Form by Li Yilei. Pre-order now at https://www.ltrrecords.com/buy/unabled-form-lp

Unabled Form

A Field of Social Tension

Li Yilei - A Field of Social Tension

Taken from 'Critique + Prosper', Ecka Mordecai's debut release, out now on Takuroku.

Ecka Mordecai is a relatively new figure in the London experimental music scene. After a nomadic creative life in the North of England, forming relationships with the likes of Andrew Chalk, Tom Scott, Holly Jarvis and Kate Armitage, 'Critique & Prosper' is her first solo album and presents the most recent development of her solo practice. Melodic mantras, wandering improvised passages and refracted blues vocalisations find each other in her domestic world, revealing glimmers of sensual songcraft that opens outward.


"Compass needle frantically spins near irregular electric fields of ghosts, and phones too. Receiving metallic frequencies of interconnected ghosts, stroked by scratchy fingers 1. astroturf melts into tufty faux fur. Strands of memory vibrate towards an open wound, lightly tapping on the soft box that withholds 2. mouth-a-boundary, finding space across fibres of a dried throat. The closure of lips contains a transcending hum, sealed an inhale but released an exhale into sweaty sticky-crisp air. Rubbery skins rub against each other in attempt to open 3. hot tarmax. We have to acknowledge skin as our biggest organ, shields against the losing of the individual, forming pockets of space in arrangement of skipping stones stirred into a dark glistening puddle. Before we notice, we are thrown off gravity and stuck onto some unknown surface, breathing with inflamed lungs. Outer fear unleash the voice of 4. critique + prosper to disjoin the cells of inner comfort. With wind brushing our eyes, we found a few hairs on the largest grassy rug, traces of inhabitation or passing. Consistency of domination. Air that passes through our head phones and ears, 5. did begun we hear or listen. Transmitting signals to the cell tower - Unarmed! Dismantle! 6. Show up or shut up in our library. Clashes of volatile shells, nails, the undead in the transparent vessel of bodily fluids

TR042 - Ecka Mordecai - 'Mouth-a-boundary'

Naima Karllson treats us to deep searching improvised recordings on 70s organ and vector synth. Originally recorded in Jan 2020 for an installation by Gery Georgieva at Cubitt Artists in London, Naime later reworked the piece, transmuting the material into '[Vital organs] I. In it, slow winding motifs and melodic washes find their feet in a melancholic dirge. Lines of sound open up and unfurl, revealing over time a fragile inner structure. Like the work of her grandparents, Naime's music is rooted in the soil of the earth but gradually lifts itself skywards, finding solace in both the physical and digital world.

The track is accompanied by a video collage by Naime: "The video is a collage of still and moving found images that journey through the organ track on an internal and universal scale. Taking influence from the title, protection and the body are prominent themes. The images search for fluid interconnections between micro and macro bodies in the physical, digital and astral realms such as far-off stars, cell phone devices, Dogon astronomy drawings, bodies of water and our central heart space." - Naime Karlsson

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Naima Karlsson - All instrumentation & video collage 

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50% of the profits of the release will go directly to the Movement for Black Live https://secure.actblue.com/donate/movement-4-black-lives-1


Recorded by Maxwell Sterling
2020

TR037 - Naima Karlsson [Vital Organs]: I. Heart Protector

Anything to do with crisps (especially Tyrells) gets our resounding support here at OTO. Two of the most mischievious experimentalist in our community - Louie Rice & Luciano Maggiore - share with us an extended piece cyborg text piece that acts as an instructory rhythmic prompt to munch on the salty snack. Florian Hecker has experimented with similar computer voicings before, but there's not quite anything comparable to this gloriously dry, candid and obscene opus. Concrete poetry for the flaccid digital age (and for fans of crisps).

"58 minutes of music assembled using recordings of an online digital voice synthesiser reciting an exhaustive list of permutations of the words NO PA PA ON. Pauses in speech are punctuated with a bass tone and could act as a prompt to eat a crisp.

NO PA / PA ON is a performance series that started in Cafe OTOs project space and is often mispronounced."

Text generated using
https://textmechanic.com/text-tools/combination-permutation-tools/combination-generator

Synthesised voices generated using
http://onlinetonegenerator.com/voice-generator.html

Additional audio material generated using
http://onlinetonegenerator.com/frequency-sweep-generator.html

Synthesised voices and low frequencies to eat crisps with

TR040 - Luciano Maggiore & Louie Rice - 'Synthesised voices...' [sample]

The Duo Ludwig Wittbrodt, that‘s Emily Wittbrodt on cello and Edis Ludwig on laptop and drums. The two develop a thicket of sounds and melodies that absorbs us in a completely unpretentious way and fills us with associations and warmth. Sometimes in the jungle, sometimes under water in the desert, we are reminded of the achievements of both Krautrock and Neue Musik, of early electronic music as well as Drone and Ambient.

At first glance, Emily and Edis seem to be an unequal couple. She has an academic background as a cellist, he is self-taught with his main instrument being computer and programming. She is active in Free Jazz, he drums with the rock band Düsseldorf Düsterboys. On the other hand, both have been active in the Free Improv scene in the German Rhine-Ruhr region for years - for example in ensembles such as The Dorf or Hilde (Emily) and Nasssau or Transport (Edis).

After some concerts and a first tour now is the time for the release of the group‘s debut album. Ludwig Wittbrodt will be released on cassette (yes, on real music cassette) and of course digitally. These four tracks, which evolved from a mixture of improvisation and joint composing, show the musical communication between Edis and Emily, but also the fun of combining moods, styles and instruments, which, according to our dusty listening habits, are surprising and irritating in a pleasant way.

Ludwig Wittbrodt

Ludwig Wittbrodt - Prélude, All Deserts Filled With Water

TR115 - Maria Chavez & Jordi Wheeler - 'Five Thousand'

As you can imagine we are under huge pressure at the moment and are working flat out to ensure Cafe OTO survives this. The impact of this situation is extremely acute for small venues like ours and we need all the support we can get to pull through. Please donate what you can, if you can. Thank you. 

Cafe OTO opened in April 2008 with the aim of providing a home for creative new music that exists outside of the mainstream. It comprises one large cafe/performance space open during the day serving food and drink with an evening programme of live music almost seven nights a week. 

OTOROKU is part of OTOProjects - a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) that has been set up to manage the programme at Café Oto. Any profits from OTOROKU are put back into supporting what we do and will help us to continue programming the best musicians and performers from all over the world.

www.cafeoto.co.uk

TR037 - Naima Karlsson [Vital Organs]: I. Heart Protector

cafeOTO