Scène XIX - 14/09/2023

Conversation between Jonathan Sterne and Rouzbeh Shadpey on the topic of fatigue during Radio Insomnia. Moderated and curated by Anabelle Lacroix and Nicolas Montgermont.

Learning from Fatigue - Interview with Jonathan Sterne and Rouzbeh Shadpey for Radio Insomnia

Scène XX w/ Eugène Blove - 12/10/2023

buy/stream: https://johnobject.bandcamp.com/album/plead
written and produced by Grischa Lichtenberger and John Object

If there was something else that felt like this, it would be bought and sold as we breathe.

My Life, The Remix

This is not me. I am not a soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, wearing my father's wartime uniform, on a laptop in a basement somewhere. I am an experimental producer.
but for some reason Russians want me dead, therefore
This is not me. I did not produce these wonders of soundwave, I did not mix the remix and master the masterpiece. I am a soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, wearing my father's uniform.

But a heart is a heart and there are eleven hearts here and they are S280F and Grischa Lichtenberger and Angelo Harmsworth and Galen Tipton and sv1 and trngs and Sara Persico and Hwoaranng and Ludwig Wandinger and Ross Alexander and John Object. I am a file on their drives and they are the song in my heart.

The idea for a John Object compilation would seem obvious to some, as I really do know some of the greatest Ableton Live users to ever stumble upon this plane. I never had the heart to ask!

Ludwig Wandinger and Ross Alexander are two of my friends from Berlin, and they are, to date, the only people that made it their business to bring me to play in that blessed city. I played at 8MM Bar both times (that place is fucking sweet) at Salon Oblique events. Now, at this war, in what I can only describe as a gesture of love and tender caring, they called upon the geniuses of today to work on my work and provided me with an album where there could not be one. This is a remix compilation that I found out about only when it was already release-ready.

I really only could take one night off, walked to the nearest village, and my dear friend Andrii, a soldier himself, brought me my camera, and I titled the compilation in blood. Then for a month I worked on a .pdf booklet for the digital edition, that, really, tells the whole story.

I think this is probably the wildest, most advanced music ever to be released by a soldier in active service.

I can't adequately express the crushing magnitude of tenderness, love and gratitude that I feel towards every person involved.

Thank you S280F: https://s280f.bandcamp.com
thank you Grischa: https://grischa-lichtenberger.com
thank you Angelo: https://angeloharmsworth.bandcamp.com
thank you Galen: https://o0o0o0o0.bandcamp.com
thank you sv1: https://sv-1.bandcamp.com
thank you trngs: https://trngs.bandcamp.com
thank you Sara: https://sarapersico.com
thank you Hwoarang: fantasyfictionrecords.bandcamp.com/album/won-for-the-heart
thank you Ludwig: www.ludwigwandinger.com
thank you Ross: https://rossalexanderpayne.com
thank you Andrii for being the best friend in peace and in war.

This all happened only because Ross brought me to Berlin for Salon Oblique at 8MM Bar www.salonoblique.net, and then Ludwig brought me to Berlin to record with him and play at Salon Oblique again, and then because they cared about me, and because my friend Andrii brought me the camera and helped me find the right way to call this.

So much never happened, and so much never will, because of Russians and their deep-seated hatred of me, of everyone I love, and everyone Ukrainian. I am still at war and I am still under threat of violent death every day. Many people I knew and served with have already been murdered by Russians. I am just lucky.

Coming soon:
Limited edition engraved USB carabiner drive with Plead, .pdf booklet, and a recording of a John Object live set at Salon Oblique on October 18th, 2021, when the war seemed so very, very unlikely, and this existence was not imaginable at all. Ships starting November 1st.

And, lastly, https://alightineverydarkness.com

Cum/Blood (Grischa Lichtenberger Remix)

@despinadespina - Fire from Heat
Label: Infinite Machine
CAT#: IM105
Format: Digital
Release: October 20th, 2023

Despina was trying to write a follow-up to their 2022 record ‘Gravity Games’ on Kindergarten Records as they fell into a deep depression, during a harsh New York winter and against a backdrop of escalating legislative attacks on trans people in the USA. In the struggle to express themselves through music while maintaining their usual exuberant voice, they found a darker musical path, and ‘Fire From Heat’ is the result of exploring this path.

The title ‘Fire From Heat’ comes from the expression “heat from fire, fire from heat,” an expression that is used by the trans community in voice training and that was popularized by YouTuber Z from TransVoiceLessons. At the same time as Despina searched for their voice as a trans, non-binary person in a country continuously stripping the rights of their trans siblings, they found an alternate, musical voice through the extensive use of human and non-human voices. This dichotomy and the interplay of both voices became a conceptual thread that runs through the entire record. These voices are countered by rhythmic constraints, undulating cyclical grooves, sinister basslines, and interruptive structures that create a delicate interplay between the imagined speaker and an idealized dancer.

Artwork by Benfika
Mastered by Fausto Mercier

Despina - U Writhe

@bonebrokk - In Between Two Worlds
Label: Infinite Machine
CAT#: IM107
Format: Digital
Release: November 24th, 2023

From the very start of Bonebrokk’s debut album, we are plunged into a downward spiral of industrial percussion and distorted voices. ‘Altered Realities’ builds a terrifying maelstrom out of what sounds like an engine in a deep tunnel, a seismic alarm, and a hype MC calling for help through a busted intercom. Soon a galloping kick appears and we are off to the races. From there, the record rarely lets up.

The sonic palette remains fairly consistent throughout, but the album covers a lot of ground rhythmically and stylistically, touching on deformed dancehall, hyperfuture dnb (Vassilina’s guest spot provides one of the few moments of relative tenderness), and loads of mutant, latin-inflected techno rollers. Two beatless interludes provide breathers—‘Timelines Melt’ and ‘Valey of Wolves’— although, as the titles might suggest, even these are steeped in dread.

Bonebrokk has crafted ‘In Between Two Worlds’ as a bridge into an imagined world that he can escape to, a respite from the banality of day jobs and our mundane everyday existence that club music can provide for us all.

bonebrokk - Stealth

Scène XXIII - 14/12/2023

Scène XXIV - 11/01/2024

JAMES K
"ELEKTRA (Scream Through the Eyes of a Statue)"
CD in jewel case w OBI strip
Edition of 250
Release 19.01.2024

“Why is female sound bad to hear?” - Anne Carson

ELEKTRA (Scream Through the Eyes of a Statue), is a multimedia performance broadly conceptualizing the female voice as an “X-ray to the bones of sound.” It was commissioned by Issue Project Room and performed April 26th, 2018 in Brooklyn, New York.  Taking poet, essayist, and Classics professor Anne Carson’s translation of Sophocles’ tragic play Elektra as a point of departure, James K monstrously externalizes the inner sonic world of female vocalization through a scored collaborative framework interpreting each of Elektra’s “screams” in the Greek tragedy.

The piece develops unique methods of screaming through musical and non-musical objects -- performed through manipulated text, videos, and live contributions from James K (voice, electronics, violin, video) Brooklyn-based musician Eve Essex (alto saxophone, various winds and electronics), electronic producer and performer Dylan Shir (electronics), composer and cellist Leila Bordreuil (cello), and poet/artist Eli V Manuscript (textual alchemy, projections).

Within this collaborative framework, James K scores “the scream” to express the various relations between hysteria and the “gender of sound” -- a blurred and overlapping feminine sound defined by its fragmentation and resistance to scripted narrative. Elektra’s presence is emblematic of a radical alienation that occurs as a standing discrepancy to tragic convention. Amongst society, she is the anti-dialogue, a symbol of protest.

‘my cries are wings, they pierce the cage’

Elektra’s vocalizations pierce through language, revealing a shattered interior of multifaceted reflections constructed against habitual linguistic or vocal expression. In tragic convention, such habitual vocalization takes the shape of the often terse, patriarchal voice of the Greek philosopher -- a didactic, conceptual container in opposition to the expressive “becoming” of Elektra’s cries that riot against fixity. As a tragic character, Elektra is radical and alien for Sophocles and his audience -- an ever-present conviction that demonstrates how female shame has constructed a life-size funeral urn around her.

Through translating a text within layers of translations, a fragmentation of the firsthand into traces, James K mirrors Elektra’s deconstruction of reality into siren shards, offering an experiencing of female sign language as a means of sabotage to the world of normal utterances. By sliding on the edge of convention to sharply abandoning rational speech and sonic construction, K’s piece aims to embody Elektra’s strained and stretching screams, as cuts against the glass; her sabotage bound within the blanket loop. In response to rigid vocalization and fixed sonic understandings, ELEKTRA (Scream Through the Eyes of a Statue) takes the scream as an unruly, emotive sonic experience projecting outwards into objects and audience: to the very bones of sound.

This is a live recording of its single performance. Recorded by Bob Bellerue at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY. Mixed by James K. Mastered by Jack Callahan. Performed by James K, Eve Essex, Via App, and Leila Bordreuil. Conceived and scored by James K for four players, and written in collaborative improvisation with the performers. Textual alchemy by Eli V Manuscript. Design and layout by Nicola Tirabasso and James K.

JAMES K - ELEKTRA (iDEAL225 CD excerpt)

Into the expansive sonic universe of Chuquimamani-Condori: timestretched romanticism, chopped ballads, stargazing country and ancestral travelling.  
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/chuquimamani-condori-22nd-march-2024

Chuquimamani-Condori: Find Me 220324

Stimulate, Sterilize, Gesture

'Scènes' with Racine on @hkcrlive

'Graffito' LP by Corporation on @genotcentre : https://genot.bandcamp.com/album/graffito

'The Wind Of ?' LP on @infinite-machine : https://infinitemachine.bandcamp.com/album/im071-keru-not-ever-the-wind-of


contact: programme-rose[at]hotmail.com

Stimulate, Sterilize, Gesture

Keru Not Ever

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