Video directed by Jovana Ivanac for Spectre off the full length album Indecipherable Glyph available on Rumour Rest.

https://youtu.be/2FzLSMYbb_M

Footage shot in the old brothel we lived in for a year in Belgrade, Serbia.
Rumourrest.com

Spectre- video by Jovana Ivanac

LAURIN HUBER, Dog Mountain, LP

Release date - July 30th 2021
Catalogue nr. - HG2199
Format - Vinyl / digital
Hallow Ground

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1) Raja (04.59)
2) Nickel (05:50)
3) A Town Is Not A Town (04:54)
4) Storskog-Borisoglebsk (07:32)

Credits:
Composed and recorded by Laurin Huber
Mixed by Rolf Laureijs
Mastering by Lawrence English
Artwork by Michael Bodenmann

///
»Dog Mountain« is the second release by the Zurich-based producer and composer Laurin Huber on Hallow Ground. After last year’s »Juncture« saw the Edipo Re co-founder work mostly with synthesizers and programmed rhythms, the four tracks are much more restrained, drawing on tape loops and feedback, recordings of acoustic guitar and synthesizers such as the Korg MS-10 as well as field recordings that relate to the overarching topic that informed the making of the record. While »Juncture« had previously aimed at deconstructing the binaries and dualities that shape our lives and thinking, »Dog Mountain« is dedicated to geographical divisions that result from political processes and social constructions. »›Here‹ means one nation, ›there‹ another,« writes Huber in a literary piece that accompanies the record. »Being in sound, such a separation seems odd.« 

While treating the metaphor of the border as a »membrane, registering and translating the vibrations of its surroundings« and thus as something that is constantly (re-)defined, maintained and defended however, the artist also takes into consideration that »one cannot escape one’s standpoint,« as he puts it. The music on »Dog Mountain« may transcend and overcome certain borders, but it does not deny the realities that they impose on each and every one of us – whether in our political lives or in the realm of sound. This is mirrored in Huber’s engaging in the structural and sonic interplay of repetition and difference. Working with slowly evolving and modulating elements that are exposed to slight shifts, »Dog Mountain« puts a focus on the interaction between small elements that together form a bigger whole which is marked by constant evolution and change. 

Opener »Raja« (»border« in Northern Sami and Finnish) starts off with a two-note melody played on an out-of-tune guitar. Different field recordings and synthesizer sounds drop in and out of the mix until the dynamic shifts and Huber starts playing more notes on his instrument, thus increasing the tension. It’s a meditation on minimalism, but also a piece that mediates between notions of what constitutes the difference between noise and music or referentiality and abstraction in sound. After »Nickel« (named after a Russian monotown near the border to Norway) dedicates itself to explore the friction between hissing white noise and melancholic tape loops, »A Town Is Not a Town« (a phrase taken from the documentary »Kiruna – Rymdvägen«) structurally mirrors the experiment of »Raja« with very different sonic means. 

Closing the record, »Storskog-Borisoglebsk« (the title refers to the northernmost land border between Schengen-Europe and Russia) is the longest and most challenging piece, working with both long-form drones and musique concrète elements. It proposes a synthesis of the opposites that are explored patiently and with much attention to detail throughout this record.

LAURIN HUBER - A Town Is Not A Town (HG2199)

Lawrence English is one of those sound recordists, manipulators and archivists that seems to extract living vibrations in the form of discreet little moments, plucking them seamlessly out of thin air. Whether it's from the city sounds of a unique community (see Approaching Nothing), the weather rumblings of a fierce and howling wind (see Viento) or the mechanical action of the pressurised air of the pipe organs (see Observation of Breath), this Australian artist, composer, and owner of the revered Room40 imprint has always excited these ears and taken this mind on a journey beyond. On this track, which is somewhat malevolently titled, "Outside The City Of God (Augustine wept)", we hear more of that sonically rich pipe organ sound, layered with intricate textures as familiar as they are alien, which even after its four long-playing minutes begs to go one for another sixteen. This piece is his contribution to Remo Seeland's "concept-compilation" released on his very own Lucerne-based (Switzerland) Hallow Ground label, titled EPIPHANIES, on which 16 composers come together to pursue a "non-rational creative process in approaching the phenomenon of epiphany through sound." Among Lawrence English, there are pieces from FUJI||||||||||TA, Norman Westberg, Maria W Horn and Siavash Amini, who all have previously released on the imprint. "All of these compositions thus draw on the unique emotional powers of certain acoustic instruments, obfuscating the borders between physicality and abstraction as much as those between time and space." The results beautifully encapsulates the concept behind this label, "challenging not only conventional notions of what music is supposed to sound like but also the listeners' perception through the power of sound." A decadent collection of aural delights.

Epiphanies

Outside The City of God

TRACK PREMIERE : Lawrence English - Outside The City Of God (Augustine wept)

Mod Test 2 3vco 4

Always Electric [2022]

FUJI||||||||||TA, MMM, LP
Hallow Ground
Vinyl / digital, catalogue nr. HG2403
Ltd. purple vinyl / digital
Release date 18. April 2024

FUJI||||||||||TA returns to Hallow Ground with his second full-length for the Swiss label after it had released his international breakthrough album »iki« in early 2020. Active since 2006, the Japanese composer and sound artist has become prolific since the release of »iki,« releasing a slew of records while also touring the world. His new album »MMM« is Yosuke Fujita’s most complex so far. Changing the set-up of his pipe organ by switching to an electric air pump allowed him to activate new sonic and compositional potentials of the instrument, while he also expanded upon his experiments with his own voice. »MMM« is a masterpiece of conceptual and formal rigour—a testament to how multi-layered and versatile the music of FUJI||||||||||TA can be. 

Previous releases had already showcased Fujita's interest in working with the rhythmic potentials of the organ he built himself in 2009. Replacing its hand-operated air pump with an electric one allowed him to work with it more freely and simultaneously record its sounds. This marked the starting point for the opener »M-1,« for which he recorded the pipes by waving a gun microphone close to it, thus creating shifting rhythmic patterns. The piece engages in a perpetual play of repetition and difference, balancing sonic intensity with compositional dramaturgy. For »M-2,« the artist uses his voice and works with a singing technique he has developed over more than a decade: constantly exhaling and inhaling, he puts a strain on his internal organs in order to create what he calls a »third voice.« The resulting piece is built on a throbbing rhythmic foundation topped by wordless melodies.

»M-3« closes the album as a synthesis of these two pieces, but is far more than the mere sum of its parts. The subtle tonal shifts of the organ take on a more subdued role this time, and Fujita’s scat growling and singing reappears in processed form. »M-3« combines the rhythms and melodies of the previous pieces to let something entirely new emerge out of them, much like the album is based on perpetual changes and recombinatory strategies. In fact, Fujita explains, the acronymic title can be read in many ways: this album is minimalistic, but freely mixes and mingles different materials in magical and even metaphorical ways while also paying its dues to his wife and daughter—M. and M. Just like its title can mean a lot of different things, »MMM« itself is ever-evolving, traversing different moods and opening itself up to a plethora of interpretations at each of its many turns.

FUJI||||||||||TA  -  M-3

Listen to the full album here: https://soundcloud.com/zweikommasieben/sets/magda-drozd-songs-for-plants-pe
@zweikommasieben

Painkiller (Songs for Plants, LP)/ Präsens Editionen

On Miniatures, his first release under his own name, Swiss artist, composer, and producer @samuelreinhard looks back to his early work as a sound artist and his exchanges with visual artists, as well as to the indeterminate techniques of mid-century experimental composers, to produce a sonic path forward that’s as refined as it is evocative. Consolidating long-running traits from his multi-faceted practice—reduction, repetition, a focus on texture—Reinhard finds a place from which to open up his practice by synthesizing what’s essential.

While Miniatures is built from recordings of short piano gestures decaying towards silence, amid the four movements that comprise the suite, something else grows. Reinhard has arranged piano samples within a system devised to allow him to remove himself a few degrees from the process of composition; notes cycle, collide, and wash away within boundaries the artist has set, but in their wake new processual textures develop. A hiss blankets the harmonic material, clicks that once marked sharp cuts between repetitions become a percussive undercurrent. From these asynchronous continuums, subtle harmonics emerge. Devoid of breaks or narration, sounds interact with each other like the cells of an organism.

Working with digital tools, Reinhard conjures the interior of an animate environment that’s ever-changing. Whatever blossoms in the mind while taking in these compositions, we’re surrendered to the feeling of being still while moving forward, an invitation to notice the small stuff that swells when we settle in with duration. Focused in palette but rangy in its evolving grain, Miniatures is a generative composition brimming with intricate, lively detail below its cool surface. 

Since completing an MA in Contemporary Arts Practice at Bern University of the Arts in 2015, Reinhard’s output has taken many shapes, ranging from collaborations with visual artists, experimental solo releases under various monikers, production work for a wide variety of artists, as well as installation work that has been shown in Europe, Asia, and the United States. 

This album follows releases from @martina-lussi , @magda-drozd , Robert Turman, Anna Homler, and Steve Moshier on Präsens Editionen. 

Mastered by @lawrence-english .

Pre-Order LP

Samuel Reinhard - 3rd Movement

find the full tracklist and lots of information about and related to this mix here:
https://agemoworos.wordpress.com/mix-ii/

JENUS - THE REVERSE END - agemoworos mix II

Mats Erlandsson – Minnesmärke - LP
Release date - Nov 6th 2020
Catalogue nr. - HG2008
Format - Vinyl / digital

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1. Vilja 	(19:08)
2. Slakt	(22.03)

Credits:
Hilary Jeffery - Trombone, Tuba
Gaianeh Pilossian - Violin
Yair Elazar Glotman - Double Bass
Mats Erlandsson - Everything Else
Mastering by Andreas Lupo Lubich
Artwork by Marijn Degenaar

///
Mats Erlandsson makes his debut on the Swiss label Hallow Ground with »Minnesmärke,« at once a nuanced sonic exploration of the industrial and political history of his native Sweden and a deeply personal album. One of the key figures of the Stockholm drone scene, the prolific composer worked with The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s Hillary Jeffery, violinist and long-time friend Gaianeh Pilossian as well as sound artist and frequent collaborator Yair Elazar Glotman for a two-part composition built around tuned sustained tones performed by electronic and acoustic instruments that were combined with field recordings in order to evoke a psychedelic state of reflection, a dream-like elegy for the acoustic properties of the former iron ore mine Ställbergs Gruva where the music has been conceived and recorded. Following up on releases on labels such as Hallow Ground label mates Kali Malone and Maria W Horn’s XKatedral imprint, »Minnesmärke« is Erlandsson's most accomplished work yet. 
Originally a commissioned work by the Non Existent Center for a month-long artist residency in Ställbergs Gruva last Summer, »Minnesmärke« conceptually picks up on the socio-political and economic history of the Bergslagen region where the mine is situated. After mining operations had been on-going for decades prior, in the Industrial Age iron became one of the country’s largest exports, making the mining industry an integral part of the country’s progression towards a socialdemocratic welfare state in the years after World War II. With the rise of neoliberalism and the simultaneous erosion of the welfare state however, the mines around the region started closing, which resulted in the surrounding community losing its relative prosperity. Erlandsson’s interest in this story though does not exclusively stem from the historical significance of the mine, that has been re-opened in 2012 as a centre for cultural activities and critical thought. In fact, his grandfather was born and raised in the vicinity of it and thus his life - and, by extension, his grandson’s - was inextricably linked to its fate and the ebbs and flows of the industrial development in the area. 
It’s no surprise then that the two parts of »Minnesmärke,« which translates to »memorial« or »monument,« is marked by a sense of dislocation and dissociation. »Working in Ställberg was a somewhat surreal experience from the point of view of a musician some one hundred years later,« says the artist. »Being in that environment makes you view time from the side - since the place remains the same it accentuates the deep chasm that separates my perspective from those of my relatives, while at the same time providing a form of intimacy with them.« This naturally shaped the recording process, which saw Erlandsson create an interaction between the acoustic and the electronic, the human and the machinic as well as the natural environment and the technology that has shaped it as much as it has been shaped by it. A combination of synthetic and recorded sound sources was processed by reamping it in various rooms of the vast mining complex. The resulting hybrid field recordings were transferred to tape and have then been treated extensively. An arrangement for Pilossian’s violin, Jeffery’s tuba and trombone playing as well as Glotman’s parts on double bass were recorded separately and similarly manipulated to create an expanded chamber ensemble with a wider range and an ability to transcend the usual temporal bounds of the instruments.

MATS ERLANDSSON - Vilja (edit)(HG2008)

On Interior, his follow-up to 2020’s Miniatures, Swiss composer @samuelreinhard excavates intricate resonances at the periphery of our attention. Across four movements of near-equal length, Reinhard once again follows a process whereby he layers and loops fragments of piano improvisations, imposing an asymmetric system that generates an unending growth of sound. Interior complicates its own systematicity, however, by using samples that are not only recognizable as piano notes, but as live recordings of a piano being played. 

As such, the experience of hearing these Interiors is driven by the delicate timelessness of a pried-open piano chord: one is invited to tender stillness, even reverence. And yet Reinhard composes from traces both analog and digital, leaving the seams of his work exposed. Texture arrives in the form of static hiss and clicks, but also the soft trace of a finger pressing a key, the shuffle of a body shifting position in the close architecture of a small room. Having already stalled and stretched our sense of time, Reinhard asks us to think about where we are, and how close we are willing to look, feel, and listen. Over the course of these four movements sounds return again and again, familiar but transformed. What sounds like repetition is something more like accumulation, a thickening of space. Whether regarded at intimate range or from a distance, these compositions reveal more the longer we linger in the presence of each.

This album follows releases from @magda-drozd , @martina-lussi , Robert Turman, Anna Homler, and Steve Moshier on Präsens Editionen.

Samuel Reinhard - Interior III

HALLOW GROUND 
is a platform for Music and Art that leads to Visions.

It was established in Lucerne/Switzerland by a group of individualists, idealists and first of all artists. We act as publishers, hosts and performers.

www.hallowground.com

FUJI||||||||||TA - M-3

Hallow Ground

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