We’ve reached book IV in Rupert Clervaux’s series of “Zibaldone” audio diaries, at which point we find him telling a different kind of story. 

“The first three all had very specific themes, while this one feels a little bit looser and doesn’t have just one thematic thrust,” he tells me, which maybe explains why listening feels a bit like annotating. I’m underlining, emphasizing, drawing arrows from here to there, highlighting symbols and noting motifs, realising, questioning, eureka-ing. An impressionistic meaning’s been encoded in and we’re lucky to be given the space to play that most poetic and boundless of all mental games: narrativization. 

There are no wrong answers, but Rupert offers some clues either way. If there’s any cipher here it’s “something like a meditation on the concept of ‘depth’––in all its connotative forms.” Think below the surface, (the) underground, yawning oceans, being ‘down in the dirt’, soil, roots, rootlessness, pulling at the dregs, collapse, profundity, stable and unstable horizons, distance, perspective, intuition, not to mention relative opposites: to be shallow, to be above, to be beyond. 

It’s got me thinking of Bresson’s “Bring things together that have as yet never been brought together and did not seem predisposed to be so.” His: “Dig deep where you are. Don't slip off elsewhere.” Rupert has realized these—two favourite goals of mine!—here. 

This is music that catches you at your own periphery, gives pause, has you offering a little “huh” to, asking “I wonder why” to. Again, it’s got me musing on another mindworm, this time from New York publisher and multi-sensory reading room Dispersed Holdings: “Feeling-making-knowing feedback loop; cartography of feeling; water as text, read to know the land beneath and around it, and body as reader.” 

Is it ok to offer up these other contexts out of context? I think so, because Zibaldone IV articulates a similarly swirly tone. Like, we’ve got Rebecca Solnit talking through Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” and later calling out to Michael Ruppert a ways away, and “Easy Rider” is playing in the wings. We’ve got Susan Sontag magically contextualizing Mariah Carey with poet Thylias Moss triangulating in order to sketch out (Rupert again) “something a little more interesting than wilful eclecticism or that laboured and patronising kind of pop-savvy.” 

Are we following? Whether yes or no Vanessa Bedoret follows on with a performance of a performance of Moss’s 'Water Road’: to be once or twice removed, via strange transitions, purposeful confusions, and, suddenly, seagulls. We’re on a boat with Ingeborg Bachmann—and how I wish I could actually be! But maybe thanks to this music I can as literature, films, friends, lethargy, coincidences, little mental links, eternal wormholes, lingering notions come together to imagine something better. 

Text by Natalia Panzer 
npanzer.com 

Artwork by Coline Cornélis 

Music by Rupert Clervaux 

with 
Vanessa Bedoret: voice and violin on Thylias Moss #2 
Eben Bull: trumpet and electronics on Mutual Aid and Departure from England 
Isis O’Regan; voice on Departure from England 
Nick Taylor: electronics on Chthonic ’97 
Ben Vince: saxophone and electronics on Chatsworth ’17 

Artwork by Coline Cornélis 

Warm thanks to James Marrs, as always, and Natalia Panzer 

Vanessa recreates and reads an excerpt from ‘Water Road’ by Thylias Moss. Isis reads ‘Departure from England’ by Ingeborg Bachmann (translated by Peter Filkins). This record is dedicated to both poets––with great respect and deep admiration.

Zibaldone IV of CVX

Feb 18th on @laura-lies-in

Pre-order: https://rupertclervaux.bandcamp.com/album/zibaldone-iv-of-cvx

03. Chthonic '97 (K1CVX)

05. Thylias Moss #2

04. Does Pop Culture Interest You?

02. Simple Food For Our Simple Taste

01. Mutual Aid

Taken from the album 'Quixotism' released as CD and Download.

Oren Ambarchi 'Quixotism Part 5' (eMEGO 202)

Andrea Belfi - "Natura Morta" out november 7th on Miasmah.

Natura Morta, "dead nature" or "still life". This album can be understood as a powerful study of the minute details of the art of electro-acoustic composition, as much as the Renaissance "nature morte" were a masterful display of the artist’s skill in portraying the glow of a ripe fruit, or capturing the light beaming on a vacant chair.

Six tracks, to be listened to as two long explorations in the art of variation and repetition. Layers of drums and percussions intertwine with synth waves making the portrait come to life, detail after detail, until a complex figure emerges from the white canvas. The constant, unsteady sounds, wavering noise, swirling cymbals, and distant feedback gently pull the listener into the picture, letting them enjoy every detail of this beautifully staged compositions.

Recorded at EMS studio, Stockholm, ZKM in Karlsruhe and at the legendary Funkhaus in Berlin, this album mixes influences from both Italian minimalism and the electro-acoustic contemporary scene. Somewhere in between the electronics of Keith Fullerton Whitman, the percussive repetitions of Jon Mueller, and the atmospheric sensibility of Pan-American.

Andrea Belfi - Roteano

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

the feeling of the moment
In a world that is currently on the brink of collapse, where power, money and the abandonment of all true values are all that matter, all that remains is to pause and look into the abyss. It is also a time when new doors and paths are opening up, offering new perspectives and making room for new, beautiful and wonderful things. 

Legal : https://www.ullip.eu/video-production
The use of my music to train AI and generate similar compositions is strictly prohibited and will be prosecuted. European and German copyright law applies in all cases. All rights reserved ©

Abyssos

2nd track on 'Intact' (Jj funhouse, 2016)
http://www.jjfunhouse.com/catalogue/jj010

Data

Early last year, Punctum finished recording their debut record, Remote Sensing, at the legendary EMS studio in Stockholm. After nearly a year and a half, the album is finally ready for public consumption. I have an oddly personal relationship to an album that is not yet released. I first got a taste of their work in a mix from Maria W Horn, which featured the heavy and hypnotic ‘Quick Botta’. This became a major go-to headphone listen. Strongly recommended for long journeys in the dark.

Technically speaking, a lot of the music on this record quite simple to describe. 303s, 606s and Buchlas dance around each other like an harmonic kaleidoscope. But listen to ‘Glory Bitch’ below. There’s a lot more going on here than simple synth meanderings, the likes of which every bedroom producer knows all too well. There is a meticulous care that has been taken in its entrance and exit. It’s like a set of opening credits, or an tuning orchestra, setting the stage for something huge, before snaking away into the distance. Fitting then, this should be the opening for one of the most exciting records in recent memory.

Remote Sensing

Premiere: Punctum - Glory Bitch [SUMME]

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)

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.

01. Mutual Aid

Rupert Clervaux

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