2020-01 Music To Write To (Tiny Portraits)

A portrait of Kalliga Square, Athens, Greece for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

The scenery is strictly urban. Imagine that it was written having 
in mind a small square in a neighbourhood close to the center 
of Athens, surrounded by the mass housing buildings that 
Athens is full of, near the home I grew up and where I played 
as a child. I don't live there anymore - my mother still lives 
close by - but I have a strong bond with that place. And as an 
old slogan written on the walls nearby says: my only homeland 
is my childhood years. 

Zenjungle, Athens, Greece

My Childhood Is My Only Homeland - Zenjungle - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of a street corner in Hanoi, Vietnam for the Tiny Portraits project 
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

After watching a film shown at Goethe institut, I walked outside 
to go home. Suddenly I realized all the sounds around me, 
at that time, were so colorful and lively. So I decided to record 
hem. The sounds from moving trees, leaves, insects, wind, 
people talking and motorbikes – all represents the typical 
urban landscapes in Hanoi at night. Those field recordings 
were manipulated then mixed with processed music box to 
create a storytelling ambient piece. 

Sound Awakener, Hanoi, Vietnam 

Nocturnal Scenes - Sound Awakener - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of Shikinejima Island for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/
Do you know why I chose this site? Maybe because Shikinejima is not known very well in the world. I am happy if I can have many more people know the wonder of southern Japan and this beautiful island, Shikinejima. 

Masayoshi Mitazaki, Shikinejima, Niijima, Tokyo, Japan.

Marine - Yuco - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of the 59 tram line in Budapest, Hungary for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/
At their end station in the hilly suburbs of west Budapest, the trams of line 59 have to go around in a small circle before heading back towards the city. While doing so, they squeak and creak loudly as the wheels graze against the rails. This recurring noise is without doubt the signature sound of the place and depending on time of day, topography and weather, it can even be heard 1-2 kms up the hills.
Peter Terner, Budapest, Hungary

Endless59 - Peter Terner - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of a working harbour in Riga, Latvia for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/
At the rail road near the harbour, the cargo train makes a manoeuvre and moves very, very, slowly. Sometimes you can hear every little detail. Closer to the riverside, port cranes are loading ships that come from abroad, and if you’re standing on the narrow groyne, that is located opposite, you can listen to the soundscape with natural reverb. These sound sketches makes a little picture of tender October in Riga in 2015.
Sound Meccano, Andrejosta, Riga, Latvia
Credits: 
Mirva Tarvainen – double bass
Jura Laiva – guitar, piano, toy clarinet
Sound Meccano – field recordings, electronics, sound processing, objects


Andrejosta. Rudens Vilcieni (October Sketches, 2015) - Sound Meccano + Jura Laiva - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of fog in Berdsk, in Siberia, Russia for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

The piece in english transliterates to tooman, туман is Russian for fog. This is a little piece about fog in the town where I live. The town is called Berdsk. I have compiled rather different field recordings - industrial sounds of hammering beams and local folklore ensemble to show the dual nature of life in Siberia. 
Foresteppe, Berdsk, Russia.

Tooman - Foresteppe - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of a view of the Carpathians from a porch for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

This piece was recorded last week during our morning session directly on the porch of an old small house in the Ukrainian Carpathians. With the help of acoustic guitar, recorder & yamaha dx7. It's our portrait of a countryside in the Carpathians, near Slavske settlement, Ukraine. The Carpathians and all Western Ukraine is the most incredible part of our country. And we chose this location to compose because it reflects in the best way the real atmosphere of the Ukraine. It opens the heart and soul of our country - singing, welcoming, with beautiful nature and huge mountains, with pleasant people, who store  and honour ancient traditions and with unique sound environment full of various birds, cracking trees, whispering and a mystical flavour in the air.
Gamardah Fungus, Slavske, Ukraine

Mysterious Carpathians - Gamardah Fungus - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of street protests in Mexico City for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

This piece portrays a series of street protests that took place in Mexico City in reaction to the disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School on September 2014. The articulation of the different itineraries that i followed as well as the registration of sounds and voices that coexisted within these demonstrations underpins the political significance of the act of coming and speaking together, of assembling bodies and voices in the public space as a collective response to the current precarization of existence.
Andrea Ancira, Mexico City, Mexico
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en español

En esta pieza figuran una serie de protestas que sucederion en la Ciudad de México como respuesta a la desaparición de 43 estudiantes de la Escuela Normal de Ayotzinapa en septiembre de 2014. La articulación de los diferentes itinerarios que seguí durante estas manifestaciones, así como de los sonidos y voces que coexistieron en éstas, apuntala al significado político y la vigencia de un actuar-juntos y polifónico en el espacio público como estrategia colectiva frente a la actual precarización de la existencia.
Andrea Ancira, Ciudad de México.

The City Was All Lip/All Cocoon - aag - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of a brick wall in Perth, Australia for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

When I was living south of the river last year, this uncompromising brick wall is something I used to drive past whenever I was heading into the markets or the city. For whatever reason I found its austerity to be amusing; the unadorned facade, with no windows, doors, and (up until recently) not even any graffiti seemed surreal and in some ways signifying of the unglamorous landscape of this suburb. Perhaps its the influence of my friend Drew Woolley, whose own compositional work at the time included postcard pieces dedicated to the mundane urban clutter of Perth’s eastern suburbs, that made this weird southern monument stand out to me so much. Since noticing the wall I’ve been lucky enough to visit the Hamburger Bahnhof exhibition of Joseph Beuys in Berlin and walk through the 20 tons of tallow fat that constitute ‘Unschlitt’, a series of sculptures cast from the useless corner of a pedestrian underpass - ‘a testament to empty space slowly being wasted', as Alena Sokhan describes it. My homage to the wall is my way of trying to look at a similar idea, passing through a more personal veil of memories of people and place that I associate with the area now.
Josten Myburgh, Perth, Australia

blessed, Very blessed - Josten Myburgh - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of a Parisian business park for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

Utterly silent at nights, "Allée de l'Arche" in Paris's business area "La défense", is filled with footsteps of thousands of employees every day early in the morning, swallowed throughout the day, who then become thousands of sucked-out souls spitted out at dusk. This huge demon functions on the coals these robot-people feed it; It takes in everything they have to offer and gives back millions of tiny whirlwinds from within its bowl-like stomach, which makes this whole area the windiest area in Paris. Inside this beating heart of "never ending demands", with veins made of concrete giants, any living thing seems eminently microscopic. In here, what's lost is gone forever unless someday found inside its faeces. What's swallowed will only be given back as razor-sharp piercing gas. 
9T Antiope, Paris, France

Brobdingnagian - 9T Antiope - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of Shobra in Cairo for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

Shobra is the largest and most populous neighborhood of Cairo. It is a coptic word which means "the manor or village". Muhammad Ali Pasha created it in 1809  and it was not originally part of Cairo, but today it is in the heart of the city and replete with people and stories, life and pain, noise .. rapid and maybe fickle change, education, action, soul, killing time, presence.
Jacqueline George, Cairo, Egypt

The Same Sun - Jacqueline George - Tiny Portraits

A portrait of a garden in Svedala, Sweden for the Tiny Portraits project
flamingpines.com/tiny-portraits/

This piece is based on a field recording I made at dawn in the garden of the house where I grew up. My parents still live there, and once in a while when I go back I'm reminded of my teenage years and how I sometimes, after coming home from friends or parties at 5 or 6 in the morning, used to lay down in the grass just drifting off  - reflecting, contemplating, listening to the emptiness, the distant freeway, the wind and the birds, before falling asleep. Those moments really stuck with me.

After being asked to participate in the Tiny Portrait series, I decided to have a go at recreating, or interpreting that state of mind sonically the way I remember it, making this one of my most personal audio compositions to date.

Tobias Hellkvist, Svedala, Sweden

Tiny Portraits

5 am - Tobias Hellkvist - Tiny Portraits

For some reason my shortcut through the woods was flooded. Every year the water level in this area was rising until the location became permanently waterlogged. Trees fell and the former forest became silent and inaccessible. This summer the area was drained, and it is now no longer a swamp or a forest. In the evaporating puddles the last of the remaining water creatures can be heard crunching.
Peter Olsén, Järna, Sweden.

eat the world of yesterday to make room for today - Peter  Olsén - Tiny Portraits

In August of 2016 I was invited to Sweden to prepare a piece for the Transition show which was to feature the Tiny Portraits series. I stayed in the very small house owned by Lina Sofia Lundin located on the outskirts of the town of Falun. In this time my days consisted of recording trips to the forest, which was filled with blue berries, moss and the smell of pine, and to the nearby water lily pond. I also became obsessed with trying to photograph the water lilies in all their sun dappled glory from underwater. I was very tired during my time in Sweden as I had recently moved cities from Belfast to London, and although usually I am quite a delicate sleeper, Lina's forest was so nice and sunny, I found myself often napping on beds of moss while undertaking recording. In some of these naps my dreams would combine my activities into a sun drenched extravaganza of water lilies, moss, sun and blue berries. This piece is an attempt to soundtrack one such dream. 
Kate Carr, Falun, Sweden.

Perhaps It Was Just A Dream About Water Lilies  - Kate Carr - Tiny Portraits

Ramberget towers over central Hisingen. Like a remnant of something ancient, something that was here before we even started measuring time. As a reminder of everything that came before us, and of all that will continue once we’re gone. Through ages that will soon have forgotten our mere existence, it will remain, silent, unyielding. But there is a promise in that. Something always remains, something that watches over us, something that never forgets.
Keillers Park at Ramberget was inaugurated on October 3rd 1908. In 1912 and 1915, the park was enlarged in a northern and westerly direction. Today it comprises approximately 31 hectares.
Life is short. Humans exist for a moment, only to fall back into darkness once more. But something remains. Some call it the soul. The law of entropy states that energy can never disappear, it can only change from one form to another. And energies have to go somewhere. Keillers Park is a place where energies gather.
On August 22nd 2016 I went up on Ramberget to do some field recordings for this piece. I made recordings on a number of locations, in the park and in connection to the park. When I later listened through the material I discovered recurring noises in some of the takes. High frequency sounds which I did not know the origin of, and could not find any logical explanation for. I had not heard these sounds during the actual sessions, something had disrupted the recordings. Perhaps it was merely radio waves, perhaps the recording equipment just malfunctioned? Perhaps someone is trying to tell us something. I let them become part of the piece.
I don’t believe in the soul and I don’t believe in the afterlife. But I do not believe that death is the end of everything. Death is perhaps just a new beginning. Of what I don’t know.
Dag Rosenqvist, Göteborg, Sweden

Keillers Park - Dag Rosenqvist - Tiny Portraits

In the summer of 2015 I spent two weeks in a small house by the beach in Marušići, Croatia. With a view to the island of Brač and the quarry where our landlord’s grandfather rowed to gather stone when building the house, it was a perfect place for a holiday of relaxation. Recorders were placed outside, around the house, recording more or less continuosly for two weeks, capturing the sea, bathers, birds and wildlife, farmers, workers, an out-of-tune rooster and daily life though a warm and sleepy period of summer. After several days of windless, almost unbelievably hot weather, the weather changed and strong winds ripped across the coast for almost 12 continuous hours. This overnight recording formed the raw material for this composition. The winds changed the sonic signature of this beach paradise completely, making it into a much more poetic scene than the usual sun-drenched beach with cries of children playing in the water, birds and boats. This short piece is an attempt at capturing this poetic. 
Ulf A. S. Holbrook, Oslo, Norway.

Borka (winds) - Ulf A. S. Holbrook - Tiny Portraits

Outside of Memory is a piece comprised of aeolian harp, wind, and a thunderstorm. It was recorded in a single afternoon in Southern Colorado, USA at a place called Sisu, which is private land owned by a family of artists. It’s a unique spot, ringed by four separate Rocky Mountain ranges and with views of the great plains, though the immediate terrain is semi-arid high desert full of cactus, piñon, and juniper. I’ve spent many days over the past half-decade at Sisu, camping, hiking, sitting around a fire, talking, drinking coffee, reading, taking photos, performing, and recording.
 
This piece shares its name with a series of sketches from Sisu by Charles Parson. Many thanks to Chuck and his family for the hospitality and inspiration over the years. I’m happy to have a bit of the place documented and shared in this way. Thanks, too, to Seth Chrisman, who provided an alternate mix and mastering for what became the final draft of this piece.
Cody Yantis, Arvada, Colarado, USA.

Mastered by Seth Chrisman.

Outside Of Memory - Cody Yantis - Tiny Portraits

Every once in a while - during these last few years - I get to stay a few days in Liguria, a region that I love very much, during holidays or times when I do not have to work (I work as a graphic designer in Cremona, the city where I was born and live). Near the house where we stay there is an impressive place called San Fruttuoso Abbey (very close to Camogli and Portofino), which as well as being the residence of the Doria and a catholic Abbey, was also a hideout for pirates!
The place is still reachable only by boat or through a long path in the woods, but I must say that to swim in the sea of that small harbour really worth it!
I visited this place at least three times, and the thing that has always struck me, even more than the beautiful sea, is the atmosphere of the inside of the abbey (I’m not a Christian then is not a religious issue), especially if visited in a season where there are no tourists or bathers outside.
On one of these occasions I had bought the umpteenth music box from a vendor outside the church (since I incorporate them very often within my music I'm always looking for a new one).
Then, once we were on the balconies of the abbey, my oldest (at that time four years old) daughter Viola began to play the music box very slowly and it felt so good that, in the absence of professional equipment, I began to record everything with my iphone.
Once back home I arranged this raw recordings in a sampler and I used that as a starting point for a series of improvisations with the simple aid of looper + ring mod + fuzz pedals.
Nicola Fornasari, Cremona, Italy.
Mastered by Jason Corder.

A Quiet Removal - Xu - Tiny Portraits

From the Tiny Portraits Industrial series.
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About the piece: 
Originally marshland situated at the mouth of the 
Don River and Lake Ontario, the area became industrialized in the 
late 19th Century. Currently lying mostly abandoned due to the 
area’s large-scale de-industrialization in the mid-80s, the area is 
on the verge of a massive high-tech urban redevelopment scheme 
dubbed the ’Smart City’ project. 
The Port Lands are home to a large variety of boreal waterfowl, 
including cormorants, several species of ducks, geese as well as a 
diverse range of freshwater fish. Most recordings were sourced 
from ships currently being refurbished in the area’s Turning Basin 
complex (including large ‘Laker’ cargo ships, which characterize 
water transport in the Great Lakes region) as well as from the 
massive, derelict Hearn Generating Station complex. ‘Port Lands D’ 
is intended as a sonic portrait of a location in transition – an area 
that exists in the liminal zone between the urban and natural, 
and at the confluence of an rapidly developing metropolitan centre’s 
past, present and future. 
Michael Trommer, Toronto, Canada 
For the Tiny Portraits online map visit: flamingpines.com

2020-01 Music To Write To (Tiny Portraits)

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