Name: Observable Future by Carmen Villain
Duration: 8 min 14 s
Description: Taken from the upcoming album Both Lines Will Be Blue, out July 12th on Smalltown Supersound. Produced by Carmen Villain. Flute performed by Johanna Scheie Orellana. Mastered by Matt Colton.

From a series of (almost) daily ocean glimpses. The music is composed to a video of the sea (photons captured fresh every day). You can experience the full video version here: https://youtu.be/aw18NEBzDRI

Glimpse 938

Glimpse 938 (Apr 24 2024)

from the album Charles Cohen - "Brother I Prove You Wrong" out on Morphine Records 2015 - doser026LP

Composer, improviser, and Buchla Music Easel master Charles Cohen returns to Morphine with a suite of new material. In keeping with the timbre spectrum of his semi-modular system, Brother I Prove You Wrong is built around pointillist analog tones—Cohen's cosmic "beeps and boops"—that swarm and scatter in mesmeric patterns across four sides. Moving through surrealistic textural overlays and industrial miasma, the album's nine tracks reveal a more introspective and personal side of the artist, following from a retrospective LP trilogy released via Morphine in 2013. Those assembled works, dating back to the late '70s, quickly became essential listening and brought Cohen—at the time largely unknown outside Philadelphia's experimental circuit—to critical renown. 

Brother I Prove You Wrong was recorded in Berlin in September 2014 using the Buchla Music Easel, with production help and support from Rabih Beaini. Mastered by Neel and curated and designed by TankBoys; cover art by Nathalie du Pasquier.

Charles Cohen - The Boy and the Snake Dance

Suzanne Ciani
Buchla Concerts 1975
FKR082LP
Finders Keepers Records

Finders Keepers invite you to witness the incredible first ever Buchla synthesiser concerts/demonstrations providing a distinctive feminine alternative to The Silver Apples Of The Moon if they had ever been presented in phonographic form. This is history in the remaking.

This spring Finders Keepers Records are proud to release an archival project that not only redefines musical history but boasts genuine claim to the overused buzzwords such as pioneering, maverick, experimental, groundbreaking and esoteric, while questioning social politics and the evolution of music technology as we’ve come to understand it. To describe this records as a game-changer is an understatement. This record represents a musical revolution, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counter culture creativity. This record is a triumphant yardstick in the synthesiser space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial moon. While pondering the early accolades of this record it’s daunting to learn that this record was in fact not a record at all… It was a manifesto and a gateway to a new world, that somehow never quite opened. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic, pulses, tones and harmonics found on this 1975 live presentation/grant application/educational demonstration had been placed in a phonographic context alongside the promoted work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos or Tomita then the name Suzanne Ciani and her influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound and gender of our record collections. Hopefully there is still chance.

In short, Suzanne was a self-imposed twenty-year-old employee of the Buchla modular synthesiser company, San Francisco’s neck and neck contender to New York’s Moog. Buchla was run by a community of festival freaks and academic acid eaters whose roots in new age lifestyles and the reinvention of art and music replaced the business acumen enjoyed by its likeminded East Coasters. In the eyes of the consumer the creative refusal to adopt rudimentary facets like a piano keyboard controller rendered the Buchla synthesiser the more obscure stubborn sister of the synth marathon, steering these incredible units away from the mainstream into the homes and studios of free music aficionados, art house composers and die-hard revolutionaries. Championed and semi-showcased by composer Morton Subotnick on his albums The Bull and Silver Apples Of The Moon, Buchla’s versatility began to open the minds of a new generation, but the high-end design features and no-compromise modus operandi was often confused with incompatibility and, in the pulsating shadow of Moog’s marketing, the revolution would not be televised nor patronised. Suzanne Ciani, as one of the very few female composers on the frontline (and also providing the back line) did not lose faith.

These “concerts” are the epitome of rare music technology historic documents, performed by a real musician whose skills and academic education in classical composition already outweighed her male synthesiser contemporaries of twice her age. At the very start of her fragile career these recordings are nothing short of sacrificial ode to her mentor and machine, sonic pickets of the revolution and love letters to an absolutely genuine vision of and ‘alternative’ musical future. In denouncing her own precocious polymathmatic past in a bid to persuade the world to sing from a new hymn sheet, Suzanne Ciani created a bi-product of never before heard music that would render the pigeon holes “ambient” and “futuristic” utterly inadequate. Providing nothing short of an entirely different feminine take on the experimental “records” of Morton Subotnick and proving to a small, judgmental audience and jury the true versatility of one of the most radical and idiosyncratic musical instruments of the 20th century. These recordings have not been heard since then.

Suzanne Ciani - Buchla Concerts 1975 (Excerpts)

BEATRICE DILLON - Drum programming, electronics, synthesizer, bass guitar, field recordings

RUPERT CLERVAUX - Vibraphone, drums, percussion, field recordings, additional drum programming


A Different River Once - Beatrice Dillon & Rupert Clervaux

B1  Speculation

Ursula Bogner: Winkel Pong
Format: 7” Vinyl/DL
Label#: faitiche15
Release date: Sept 8th 2017
 
Faitiche is delighted to announce the release of a new Ursula Bogner record (faitiche15). Winkel Pong contains three previously unreleased pieces from the archive of the sound researcher who died in 1994. In 2008, Jan Jelinek put together a first album from Bogner’s tape archive (CD/LP Recordings 1969-1988, faitiche01). A second followed in 2011, compiled this time by Andrew Pekler (CD/LP Sonne = Blackbox, accompanying the book of the same name with texts, photographs and Bogner’s graphic oeuvre). For Winkel Pong the tape archive was passed on to Lucrecia Dalt. The Berlin-based Colombian sound artist and musician chose three tracks from the 1980s (exact dates unknown), editing the tape recordings for their release on Winkel Pong.
 
Gundrun Gut (Malaria!, Einstürzende Neubauten), an activist and reluctant chronicler of Berlin’s underground scene since the 1980s, has worked with Lucrecia Dalt. She is also familiar with Ursula Bogner’s work. Reason enough to ask her for an interview:
 
Jan Jelinek: Gudrun, how does it feel to be constantly obliged to talk about the 1980s Berlin underground as someone who was there at the time?
 
Gudrun Gut: I’ve learned to live with it as there are clearly too few people who witnessed it first-hand. Maybe it’s even important to do these interviews as a woman – so that someone actually says that women, too, have written music history. Men tend not to mention this. But it’s true, people do always ask the same questions.
 
JJ: Did you know about Ursula Bogner in the 1980s? Did you ever meet her?
 
GG: No, I never met Ursula Bogner in person and I only discovered her in 2008 thanks to Faitiche. But that’s no surprise: firstly, I don’t know every single woman artist, and secondly, far too many women artists never see the light of day. In the male-dominated art and music market, women are not considered important – or worse still, they are not understood. Look at artists like Sonia Delaunay, Eva Hesse, Bebe Baron, Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram. Some of them have now been discovered – but only recently. A lot has changed in the last few years: there is a growing awareness of art and music made by women.
 
JJ: But isn’t it annoying that the conventional distribution of roles still applies? One example: in many articles, Ursula Bogner has been presented as an “electronic housewife”.
 
GG: When Ursula Bogner is referred to as an electronic housewife, then sadly that reflects the situation of many women artists at the time. Women could only pursue artistic activities in private – transcendence was reserved for men. This has still not been overcome. But today, the home has become a site of professional production for all. I’m talking about bedroom producers: it is totally normal to make art and music at home. And that makes things interesting, because “working at home” is no longer associated solely with women.
 
JJ: For Winkel Pong, Lucrecia Dalt compiled and remixed three pieces from the Bogner archive. You know Lucrecia and you’ve already worked with her. How did you meet?
 
GG: I met Lucrecia through MySpace – I think it was 2007. Back then she was still living in Medellin, Colombia. Lucrecia’s father made loop machines for her that she still uses. The Sound of Lucrecia was part of my 4 Women no Cry compilation series on Monika Enterprise, each with four producers from different countries. She’s great fun to watch as a performer because she has a unique sense of rhythm and feel for music. Above all I’m impressed by her sustained approach as an artist, someone who can and does think around corners. I’m thinking specifically of her album Ou, for which she ploughed her way through post-war German cinema, using it as a source of inspiration for a soundtrack. This is proof that she thinks like an engineer – so it makes perfect sense that she would want to explore the work of Ursula Bogner.
 
Berlin, 2017

Ursula Bogner: Atmosphärische Energie (edited by Lucrecia Dalt)

CHAM-PANG
Tant pis 81-82

www.tnzr.org/tnzr055

A1. Bella V
A2. Oriental intrigue
A3. Ziggurat
A4. It may be acid rain, my love
B1. Tant pis pour les heures de sommeil
B2. Presqu'heureuse
B3. Come se dice

————————————————————

Best known as an electronic duo, Cham-pang became a fixture of the Montreal new wave scene in 1981 with the release of a two-song EP on YUL Records (“Tantum Ergo” b/w “Ne mourrez pas”). The session featured Men without Hats’ Allan McCarthy on electronics and Yvel Champagne on vocals, although the group also depended on contributions from Mario Spezza of Rational Youth and Pyer Desrochers. A multidisciplinary artist with a singular voice and an arresting presence, Champagne then joined force with experimentalist Bernard Gagnon whose works at the time ranged from free improvisation to electroacoustic music. He recruited former bandmate Angel Calvo, of new wave outfits Vex and Rational Youth, as well as Robert M. Lepage, whom he knew from his early years with the Experimental Music Workshop. Long-time Cham-pang collaborator Pierre-Laurier Lamarche and Daniel Lajoie completed the group, helping give it a new direction both sonically and performance-wise.

This LP contains material composed ahead of a defining concert at the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal’s Tritorium in April of 1982.

Chroniques (Reviews)

** Sortie officielle (official release date) 25-10-17 **

"Bella V" (Cham-pang : Tant Pis 81-82)

From the 2011 album "Sentimental Favourites" – originally released on Dekorder. Available digitally on Bandcamp at the nice price of pay what you want.
https://andrewpekler.bandcamp.com/album/sentimental-favourites

Sentimental Favourites

Name your price

The Twilight Of Your Smile

Taken from Futuro (Music for the Waldorf Project) released on 2LP and download 01/02/19.

• Not Waving’s engrossing, highly original soundtrack to Sean Rogg’s world-renowned art/theatre project
• Ambient tonal works and abstractions written between 2013-2018
• Mastered and cut at D&M, Berlin.
• Limited edition vinyl with full colour insert featuring photographs by Lee Arucci
• RIYL Laurie Spiegel, Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Shuttle 358

’Futuro’ is Not Waving’s sublime synth/ambient soundtrack to one of the world’s most intense art/theatre experiences: Sean Rogg’s radical immersive artwork ‘The Waldorf Project’ - fusing choreography, spatial design, music and performance into a cohesive experience.

Drawn from more than 20 hours of material made for the project between 2013-2018, ‘Futuro’ finds Alessio Natalizia exploring a style of tonal and spatial minimalism that works as a fine palette cleanser from much of what you’ve heard from him in the past. 

While not a new solo album, per se, the long form, Eno-like results of ‘Futuro’ demonstrate the full wingspan of Not Waving’s obsessive knowledge and emotive feel for electronic composition, making it in some senses one of the more substantial and unusual releases in his catalogue to date.

BUY!

Not Waving - Emotion 1.4 Decontamination [ELP040]

Taken from the upcoming album Both Lines Will Be Blue, out July 12th on Smalltown Supersound. Produced by Carmen Villain. Flute performed by Johanna Scheie Orellana. Mastered by Matt Colton.

Observable Future

The Sacrificial Code

Kali Malone - Litanic Cloth Wrung (from "The Sacrificial Code" iDEAL 2xLP/3xCD)

booking: nathalie@lb-agency.net
americas: miro@surefireagency.com

"Norwegian-Mexican artist and producer Carmen Villain makes atmospheric music made up of tapestries of field-recordings, flute, piano, vocals, zither, programmed drums and synths, culminating in her own distinctive sound combining elements of fourth world, dub and ambient."

Observable Future

Carmen Villain

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