Degradation Loops was a 16 day composition that gradually and completely 'bit crushes' my 2015 album Yellow Bell. Produced for a group show at the 55 Sydenham Rd, Marrickville gallery in Sydney, a process of sonic destruction unfolds in response to visual artists destroying and reassembling their work, to create new work, and to question the dominance of commercial imperatives within art. Here is a 14'48" time lapse edit of the 16 day composition, 2016.

Degradation Loops_55 Sydenham Rd Marrickville

Prescott Circle Percussion - Bad Times

Recorded in the hollow body of Deutzer Bridge, Koln, for brass ensemble, electronics, 8-channel sound. For Bruckenmusik 2018. Listen on good speakers.

Acoustic Shadows - brass (Excerpt)

Yolabmi - Dawn (Excerpt 1)

Kouhei - Tear My Shadow Into Pieces, Kiss Each, Sew Em Up Again

From tape 'House (Unbuilt), by Belarusian composer Kirill Mazhai. Released October 25 2019 through Moloton. @kirill-mazhai

House (Unbuilt)

Kirill Mazhai - 7th Floor

http://www.folkloretapes.co.uk/product/ethereal-transects-the-lore-of-celestial-objects

Ethereal Transects - The Lore of Celestial Objects

Years ago I read an interview with György Ligeti where he spoke about the overused European tuning system and how he tried to escape it. He mentioned a few ethnomusicologists whose recordings were primary inspirations for his work. One of the names was Hugo Zemp and I immediately delved into his unbelievable recordings collected on the Southern part of Malaita island around the year 1970.

The music of the 'are'are people back then was fragile and heartwarming, communal and sublimely celebratory. Ever since I simply haven't been able to escape the sounding of their panpipe ensembles. At the same time I feel really sad that - like so many plant and wildlife species - small local cultures are also disappearing at an alarming rate, theirs included. My whole research and artistic output can be seen as a dedication to these people of disappearing local cultures.

As a first step I recorded "Proto Equiheptatonic Music" last year where I used the theoretical equiheptatonic tuning system which is a close approximation of their musical DNA. Listen: bit.ly/2Sb6JsQ

As I studied more and more - thanks to the scientific papers of Mr. Zemp - I could see the structures in finer details and as a consequence I could record "Pseudo Equiheptatonic Music" where I was using the exact tuning system of their recorded panpipe ensembles - but in a completely different context and vision. So I cannot emphasize enough that these musics cannot be considered as representations of their musical culture in any ways, rather an uninterrupted continuation of the ever-expanding universe of Gosheven's ceaseless dreaming.

releases May 1, 2020

https://gosheven.bandcamp.com/album/pseudo-equiheptatonic-music

Pseudo Equiheptatonic Music

Pseudo Equiheptatonic Music III

helios

Tangled up and rooted in between chilean folklore, gaucho laments and an electric landscape sung by mechanical birds, Ahrre is a record that portrays a vernacular decay, as well as it rejoices in the streams still flowing through it's traditions. The result is a set of impressionist scenes, which make use of the recording quality and the distorting effects of basic digital technology as aesthetic resources. The low-fidelity textures are applied to the sound as virtual varnishes that fuse melody and soundscape into a distant and mysterious fog.

The treatment of sound coming from a recording device such as a cellphone is crucial. Guitar compositions are shrouded in an impending rash, as if coming from inside a layer of decaying sonic skin. There's also a sense of hearing an aloof AM transmission, or an archive of field recordings scarred by the harshness of dust and moisture. The folk traditions that Rambu assimilates and the warmth in his arrangements seem fractured and threatened by the medium holding them, as half obliterated stories in an ancient binary parchment. It's all about substance and texture, at the edge of palimpsest.

The word "Ahrre" is a twist of the interjection "arre!", an hispanic expression shouted by riders to rush horses into battle or racing, but this record is more on the key of whispers. Sometimes drowned in hazy atmospheres, surrounded by electronic neighs and trills, the compositions seem to sprout from desolate land. Ahrre is the work of a craftsman whose might, even though solitary and bruised, appears as an eager ghost handcar returning home through a dilapidated digital railroad.

All music performed and recorded by Martín Bruce
Computer treatments by Nicolás Carcavilla

Limited cassette edition of 35 numbered copies
available here: https://nonlocalresearch.bandcamp.com/album/ahrre

Yolabmi - Dawn (Excerpt 1)

Madriguera

Recent comments

ϙue

Jenni Hgrnn

Related tracks