Chaotic (poly)rhythms generated by natural elements such as wind and water, extended and combined with micro-improvisations. Field recordings of trains, crickets, grasshoppers are joined by a generative synthesis, inspired by the traditional music of Laos. Sounds of Jonáš’s childhood, sounds of immediate surroundings, ultrasounds pitch-shifted to our hearing dimension.
The main theme of the album is erratical behaviour of the environment and fauna in collaboration with attempts to find a pattern and order; exploration of ASMR phenomenon through unconventional microphone techniques and deep focus on meridian-response-inducing timbres. Each used sound has a strong emotional connection with Jonáš’s past and has its own story in the overall experience.

Spevy

“Gruska remains a distant conductor, assembling sounds with finesse and a touch of humor.” - FACT Mag on Jonáš Gruska’s debut, Spevy

For his sophomore album proper, Bratislava-based artist and microphone-builder Jonáš Gruska breaks from the field recordings that dominated his 2017 debut, and turns his focus to digital synthesis and algorithmically generated music. The sounds on Žaburina comprises choice snippets from Gruska’s generative computer compositions, unfolding into colliding rituals of interlacing digital notes. Key sonic inspirations include everything from insects and birds, to hydrophone recordings, the work of Harry Partch, and traditional musics from Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. 

Žaburina essentially takes places in the subaqueous world envisioned by Gruska. The album’s title even comes from the Slovak word for part of a pond covered over with algae and frogspawn. The spasmodic, bubbling music of Žaburina represents Gruska’s dreams about “non-traditional, alien societies living mostly underwater,”; they imagine the peculiar folklore and ceremonial musics such a culture could have. 

This music approaches scales and rhythm with its own alien logic, with almost every track utilising polythyrhms and polymetry. The latter refers to the myriad tempi various voices across the album use, perhaps starting a piece in unison before falling apart over time. The resultant rhythmic patterns are often chaotic, yet deeper listening reveals a vibrant internal logic all their own. Album centrepiece ‘Sen’ (‘Dream’) takes the process to its limit, ushering a choir of generative synth melodies into mutating wreaths for over eight minutes.

A key part of the compositional process came in adapting this music for live performance. Gruska employs a set of horn PA speakers dotted about a performance space, each spreading the various voices in each piece around the room. The sonic qualities of the horn speakers - a bright sound focused on projecting over distance and with relatively little available at the lower end of the frequency range - in turn influenced Gruska’s process when programming both the tone and timbre of each piece. 

“Performing them like that made me rethink,” says Gruska of the horn speakers. “They are my little choir.” Gruska’s methodology also has the benefit of creating productions that lose little on lower quality sound systems. He assures us that this release doesn’t suffer from bad listening situations. “It can actually benefit from it.”


Also included on Žaburina is a trio of remixes by Broshuda, &apos (Bepotel), and Max Eilbacher (Horse Lords, SEF III), each recontextualising Gruska’s source material across glitchy beats and hypnagogic soundscapes. Jonáš Gruska continues to helm his instrument manufacturer and record label, LOM, out of Bratislava.

Get digital/physical

Žaburina

Солнце (Sun) is a collection of hypnotic works by Jonáš Gruska, traveling around topic of Sun, Slavic and Surreal. Meditation of senses destined to synchronize your oscillations and hear a glimpse of omnipresent harmony within. Kind Rays are rolling the Tapes of Dimension and gently caressing the Sonic god(dess).

Released in limited edition of tapes. Sold out.

************************************
Selected by Impose as one of "The Best Free Music of 2013"
http://www.imposemagazine.com/bytes/the-best-free-music-of-2013

Mentions:
http://easterndaze.net/post/69064447909/traveling-around-sun-slavic-and-surreal-jonas-gruska

http://www.imposemagazine.com/bytes/jonas-gruska-LP

Солнце

Луна is an album by Jonáš Gruska, a natural consequence and female complement of the hypnotic Солнце. Луна voyages and explores the voids and seas of the Lune. Cosmic rules apply and time is heavily affected by the gravity. Occult powers may be discovered.

Available as free download and limited edition cassette.
Contact for more info: zvukolom@zvukolom.org

Луна

"Site Specific Resonances II" is a compilation of compositions from sound installation made by Jonáš Gruska. The work has been created specifically for the acoustic and atmosphere of the unused laundry hall in the psychiatric hospital Bohnice in Prague, Czech Republic.

Get digital/limited edition cassette: http://zvukolom.bandcamp.com/album/site-specific-resonances-ii

I (from Site Specific Resonances II)

Binaural recording from inside of a trolleybus in Bratislava. For the best experience listen on (good) headphones.

Koliba ↘ Hodžovo námestie (binaural trolleybus recording)

Placed stereo pair of microphones on the ground amongst the plants and insects of the meadow. All those little sounds are made by the inhabitants!

Microphones in the grass

Track from an forthcoming album "Spevy". This track was part of Below The Wire compilation #19 by The Wire magazine.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/btr/below-the-radar-19/8

It is dedicated to exploration of system excitations, wind and water in their tight collaboration exciting objects of their liking, Jonáš tries to play along. It is dedicated to all the beauty hidden in the chaotic behavior of fundamental constituents of the world and their liquid rhythm.

Tečúci Vietor

Train sounds recorded with my DIY SASS fitted with Uši microphones on Sound Devices 702.

Vlaky, 2. 4. 2015

Field recording of a bus ride with Elektrosluch, electromagnetic listening device.

Electromagnetic Bus

Get full album: https://jonasgruska.bandcamp.com/album/vlakom

Vlakom is a collection of raw electromagnetic field recordings from a train ride between Bratislava and Prague. In an electromagnetic field, a train becomes an electric creature – interwoven with streams of neuro-digital communication, it thirstily sucks its life-energy from the wires above. The electromagnetic dimension only embraces the notion of how alive these iron monsters actually are. It might change the way you see and hear trains forever. 

The recordings are unprocessed and contain a lot of very high frequencies, which might be harmful at extended periods of loud listening.

Vlakom (album excerpt)

Volanie

Pontón

Brušky

Spev Cvrčka

Jonáš Gruska – Žaburina

“Gruska remains a distant conductor, assembling sounds with finesse and a touch of humor.” - FACT Mag on Jonáš Gruska’s debut, Spevy

For his sophomore album proper, Bratislava-based artist and microphone-builder Jonáš Gruska breaks from the field recordings that dominated his 2017 debut, and turns his focus to digital synthesis and algorithmically generated music. The sounds on Žaburina comprises choice snippets from Gruska’s generative computer compositions, unfolding into colliding rituals of interlacing digital notes. Key sonic inspirations include everything from insects and birds, to hydrophone recordings, the work of Harry Partch, and traditional musics from Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. 

Žaburina essentially takes places in the subaqueous world envisioned by Gruska. The album’s title even comes from the Slovak word for part of a pond covered over with algae and frogspawn. The spasmodic, bubbling music of Žaburina represents Gruska’s dreams about “non-traditional, alien societies living mostly underwater,”; they imagine the peculiar folklore and ceremonial musics such a culture could have. 

This music approaches scales and rhythm with its own alien logic, with almost every track utilising polythyrhms and polymetry. The latter refers to the myriad tempi various voices across the album use, perhaps starting a piece in unison before falling apart over time. The resultant rhythmic patterns are often chaotic, yet deeper listening reveals a vibrant internal logic all their own. Album centrepiece ‘Sen’ (‘Dream’) takes the process to its limit, ushering a choir of generative synth melodies into mutating wreaths for over eight minutes.

A key part of the compositional process came in adapting this music for live performance. Gruska employs a set of horn PA speakers dotted about a performance space, each spreading the various voices in each piece around the room. The sonic qualities of the horn speakers - a bright sound focused on projecting over distance and with relatively little available at the lower end of the frequency range - in turn influenced Gruska’s process when programming both the tone and timbre of each piece. 

“Performing them like that made me rethink,” says Gruska of the horn speakers. “They are my little choir.” Gruska’s methodology also has the benefit of creating productions that lose little on lower quality sound systems. He assures us that this release doesn’t suffer from bad listening situations. “It can actually benefit from it.”


Also included on Žaburina is a trio of remixes by Broshuda, &apos (Bepotel), and Max Eilbacher (Horse Lords, SEF III), each recontextualising Gruska’s source material across glitchy beats and hypnagogic soundscapes. Jonáš Gruska continues to helm his instrument manufacturer and record label, LOM, out of Bratislava.

Broshuda remix / meditation

Slnečno

Rybacie Spevy

Hladina

Vodné spoločenstvo

Slávnosť

Svitanie

Vidina

PLOT, a small site-specific performance on a metallic fence next to my house. Recorded by acidmilk.

❝Dočasná zvuková inštalácia / performance má za cieľ skúmať symboliku plota z niekoľkých uhlov: ako hranice medzi spoločným a súkromným, ako prostriedku komunikácie s okolím a v tomto prípade aj ako barériu chrániacu civilizovanú ulicu pred divokým porastom opustenej parcely. S týmto plotom som vyrastal, existuje tam väčšinu môjho život a dráždi k preniknutiu.

Kedysi na jeho mieste stál obytný dom, no od jeho zbúrania za ním ("len") bujnejú černice. V silných vetroch sa občas poškodí a potom jedna z jeho častí úpenlivo vŕzga a búcha – ako by si z neho živly robili hudobný nástroj. Vo svojej inštalácii si ho takto prepožičiavam ja.❞

Plot

A small site-specific performance for a fountain in Bratislava. Recorded by acidmilk.

Jonáš Gruska

Pinned to spotlight

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