David Lang

Reading

26.07.17

Many composers find inspiration in their environment and surroundings, and we have hinted at this in several past playlists (Nature Waves, Sonic Environment Waves). This month's playlist, Landscape Waves, brings together a selection of works for varied forces, all reflecting on aspects of the outdoor or natural world and sound: the sounds of people, animals and places, and especially the sounds of climate.  This progression from drought through to deluge is your soundtrack to another month of southern hemisphere summer.

Landscape Waves (February 2018)

2018 Waves

I Lie - David Lang

Infinite Greyscale is delighted to present a new long-form composition by Stara Rzeka. The Polish village of Stara Rzeka and its surrounding countryside were devastated by a huge tornado on the 14th of July 2012. Stara Rzeka is where musician Kuba Ziołek, who adopted the name as one of several artistic projects, spends his summers, and the morning following the storm Ziołek was present to witness the aftermath. 
 
This self-titled piece opens to the crackle of electricity in the air and a distinct impression of menace. The distortion softens, but never truly fades, as it gives way to song; a graceful and melancholy ode to what nature has been divested of in the storm. Eventually this human presence, like the tornado, departs to leave the composition sounding like the land itself; wounded but brimming with life, buzzing and psychedelic. 

The fact that the artist, music, and location all exist under one heading suggests that these elements are interdependent and inseparable. This is music as elegiac at it is sanguine, at perpetual as it is fixed in time, and here Stara Rzeka is all of those things.



Single sided 10”, pressed on dark green vinyl with screen-printed b-side. Numbered edition of 300.  
Handmade artwork by Paul McDevitt and Cornelius Quabeck. Screenprint by Ulrich Schmidt-Novak. 
Includes numbered insert, photograph, and download code.
Mastered & cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin.


Stara Rzeka – Stara Rzeka IGR05

Purchase here: geographic-north.com/cassette/m-sage/
Catalog #: GN21
Rosso Corsa cassette, limited to 100

Born and raised in Ft. Collins, Co, Matthew Sage established himself as a formidable player in the greater experimental scene as a producer of utterly monumental works of processed ambient music using anything and everything at his disposal as M. Sage, along a bevy of other pseudonyms. From guitar, pedals, cello, field recordings, and severe but tasteful post-production, sound takes shape in a carefully focused but altogether organic way. Sage's acts of grandeur don't simply fall back on piling on just any noise or sound. Tones are sifted out of the ether naturally, separating themselves with the ease of an inherent belonging, best heard earlier this year on the sprawling A Singular Continent LP, wherein Sage created sonic worlds, fabricating entire geographies, geologies, latitudes, and histories. 

With Data in the Details, Sage turns the focus inward, pulling from a series of deeply personal scenes in his final two months in Ft. Collins doing data entry and moving high-end furniture into high-end mountain homes. The resulting two tracks process the experiences in disparate but inextricably linked ways. A-side’s “Data in the Details (heads up extended edit)” routes an amorphous and elusive trail of textured ambient modes. Glitched and muted melodies fold on top of one another in ways only Vladislav Delay previously mastered, while frigid patterns of sound ice over similar to Fennesz’s alluringly processed tones.

B-side’s “Data in the Details (mover isuzu dub edit)” repurposes the ample washes of the original track into more rhythmic and minimal acid-dub. Calling to mind Porter Ricks’ sub-aquatic dubbiness, traversing Jan Jelinek’s mutant, kraut techno, Sage revels in a sort of muted throb that flows through the entire side with both nothing and everything to lose.


02 Data In The Details (Mover Isuzu Dub Edit)

Track from NE15 Född Död - Studie I Närhet, Längtan Och Besvikelse LP

Order here: http://northernelectronics.bandcamp.com
https://clone.nl/item34101.html

Född Död -  I smärtan, fri

04 Psyche

http://store.collectiveres.net/track/dreams-aquatic

Swing Scholars - Dreams Aquatic (Out now on Collective Resonance)

It has been more than a year since I last uploaded any music, so here's a cover of Yann Tiersen's well known Comptine D'un Autre Été. I hope it's worthy of your time and I'd appreciate your feedback.

Performed and produced by: Ahmed Emad

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpDUlLjy9NnVeGsECf-7_oA
Twitter, Instagram & Tumblr: @Emadoforte

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/AEPianoProductions

Comptine D'un Autre Été - Ahmed Emad - Piano Solo

1st movement of "An Australian Backyard Suite". This 6-part composition depicts various flora and fauna commonly found in Australian gardens.

The movements are:
Lorikeet
Fire Ant
Tree Fern
Blue Tongue Lizard
Cicada
Poinciana

This piece received 2nd Prize in the Franz Schubert International Composition Competition in Vienna in 2012.
It was also selected for performance by the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company in 2014.

Lorikeet (Live)

5th movement of "An Australian Backyard Suite". This 6-part composition depicts various flora and fauna commonly found in Australian gardens.

The movements are:
Lorikeet
Fire Ant
Tree Fern
Blue Tongue Lizard
Cicada
Poinciana

This piece received 2nd Prize in the Franz Schubert International Composition Competition in Vienna in 2012.
It was also selected for performance by the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company in 2014.

Cicada (Live)

Also known as "Sol Tempest", if you want the more pretentious title. Written in December 2011, revised January 2012 at National Music Camp.

Summer Thunderstorm

Recorded during practising.
From the soundtrack of the movie "Intouchables" - "Ziemlich beste Freunde".

Fly - Ludovico Einaudi

Matthias Bamert
West Australian Symphony Orchestra

This work was commissioned as an education piece, and is
designed to showcase the sections of the orchestra at the circus or at the zoo:
Brass (opening): fanfare, welcome to the circus/zoo;
Woodwinds: the monkeys;
Strings: the trapeze/the swans;
Percussion: lions and tigers;
Tutti, and brass fanfare to end.
The conductor may pause at each new section to introduce the instruments
of the orchestra, or may have the opening few bars of each section of music
played before performing the piece without pause.

Roar!

For solo soprano and SSAATTBB. Commissioned and recorded by The Australian Voices, 2012. Conducted by Gordon Hamilton.

Dedicated to William Duckworth and Jocelyn Wolfe.

Text:
DROUGHT

BY JUDITH WRIGHT

The summer solstice come and gone,
now the dark of the moon comes on.
The raging sun in his pale sky
has drunk the sap of the world dry.
Across the plains the dustwhirls run
and dust has choked the shrivelling tree.

This is my world that dies with me, 
cries the curlew in the night.
I have forgotten how the white
 birdfooted water in the creek
used in spring to call and speak.
All is fallen under the sun
and the world dies that once I made.

The strength that brandished my green blade,
the force uncoiling from the cell,
 drains like water from a wrecked well,
 says the dried out corn of the earth.
The seed I cherished finds no birth.

Now the dark of the world comes on.

Drought (choral)

The tale of the mythic pentaki mountain has been engraved on a two-sided circular piece of wax.

the north face of the peak is steep, abrasive, and has been the subject of many legends in the region. it is said that whoever would manage to climb it would find a plateau, leading to a place called “the single source of truth”.

considered as the ultimate goal by both psychedelic gurus and database o
ptimization corporations, and as an ideal retirement destination for a couple of lost souls in search for coherence and objectivity, the source diffuses endless loops of haunted voices, apparently sampled from a discarded call center, running low on power, encouraging listeners to shorten cycles, deliver requests and improve user experience.

it is also said that anyone climbing from the south side would never reach the summit or find his way to the plateau, and would always end up on a lower altitude than where he started.

this topographical anomaly is probably the reason why the south face of the pentaki has always been favorited by locals, with its sunny weather and its luxurious vegetation flourishing along the soft downward slope, leading to a slow and peaceful end.

Kangding Ray . The Pentaki Slopes . 12" E.P
r-n 145 . raster-noton

A1 : North
A2 : Plateau ( a single source of truth )
B1 : South

Summer Thunderstorm

David John Lang