This podcast reveals the current situation and condition of art in Yogyakarta by tracing artistic works and cultural actions from the early days of the national awakening to contemporary times. A series of statements, poems, plays, songs, and conversations that talk about identity, collective work, the art ecosystem, the position of art in society, to its imagination in the future are presented through live performances in the recording studio by Wok The Rock, Gunawan Maryanto (Alm.), and Ramberto Agozhalie.

This podcast was recorded in May 2021 and released in December 2021 to commemorate Gunawan Maryanto who left us suddenly on October 6, 2021. Hopefully, he and his work will always inspire and become a reference for the emergence of new and progressive initiatives in Indonesia and beyond.

English version on norient.com: https://norient.com/wok-rock/autonomous-art-uncertain-life-yogyakarta

Podcast in english

Autonomous Art of Uncertain Life in Yogyakarta (Indonesian Version)

Sandy Chamoun is one of the most prolific performers in Beirut today. Her musical range spans Arab political songs from the 1960s and 1970s, pop from the 1980s and 1990s, and electronic music. Her most recent foray into electronic music production blends her unique voice and sounds influenced by the upheavals in her country. This mixtape features the singers and producers that inspire her music.

read full article: norient.com/liliane-chlela/thank-you-holding

This mixtape is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Beirut» curated and edited by Rayya Badran.

Explore the full exhibition on the Norient Space: norient.com/beirut-adrift

Tracklist 

Abdullah Miniawy: «Ana Fi El Bahr»
Roly Porter: «In System»
Rabit: «Straps»
Arca: «Sesafio»
YouTube excerpt of «Aswat Iraquiya اصوات عراقية»
Death Grips: «No Love»
Hadra Kadiria: «Dayem allah»
Einstürzende Neubauten: «Emmanuelle» 
Yasmine Khalat: «Dawaret iyam el sheti»
Excerpt from Borhane Alaouié’s film Beirut the Encounter (1981)
Jerusalem in My Heart: «7ebr el 3ouyoun»
Margarita González Rey: «Nazarena de Marchena» (Saeta)
Diamanda Galas: «L’Heautontimoroumenos (1857)»
Sainkho Namtchylak: «Who Stole the Sky» 
Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet: «The Electricity Goes Out and We Move to a Hotel»
Arca: «Mutant»
Rosalia: «De Aqui No Sales»
DJ Haram: «Overeager»
Marguerite Taos Amrouche: «Procession de l’oncle Mahmoud»

read full article

I Am in the Middle of the Sea, Deal with It

Emmerson «2 Fut Arata» (Sierra Leone)

Positive Black Soul «Wouyouma» (Senegal)

Fac Alliance «Mariama» (Guinea)

Sidney «Scenti no!» (Ghana)

This sonic essay is produced and created by Maria Frederika Malmström and Desert Kites. It combines field recordings from multiple fieldworks in Cairo between 2012 and 2018 with music by @desert-kites, along with the Egyptian musician Mr Kordy’s (with his permission)composition Fuckin’ Widda Real (video directed by Raed Al Murish).

The piece is part of «Sonic Worlding», a new monthly Norient column. It invites writers and artists from all over the world to to think and speculate with and not only about music. Where most music writing treats music as something that can be categorised and placed in pre-determined boxes (personality cults, end-of-year lists, genres, origins, styles), «Sonic Worlding» is interested in the vast potential of rhythms, ideas, and worlds that are still to be unlocked, attempting to spin new webs of thought spanning the globe. Edited & curated by Norient editor Philipp Rhensius @k-lone

https://norient.com/maria-frederika-malmstrom/ghost-city

Affective Sonic Fragments in Sisi’s Egypt [Sonic Worlding]

A mix from Arshia Fatima Haq from L.A. based Discostan (www.facebook.com/Discostan) collective. Read what she writes about her mix:

«Making a mix from the sounds of the subcontinent proved challenging as these are the sounds I am closest to, so I tried to use that to my advantage. What I came up with is a personal audio memoir, using scores from lesser known films, children's songs, and field recordings of my own in Pakistan and India (thus the raw quality of some of what you'll hear), and playing on nostalgia, exile, the tension between the sensuality of the soundtracks and the austerity of the religious dogma over loudspeakers (both Muslim and Hindu) as well as political broadcasts in these places.»

For the tracklisting read on Norient.com:
http://norient.com/podcasts/mix-from-pakistan-and-india/

Line of Control: Forgotten Scores and Field Sounds from India and Pakistan

Hörprobe aus dem neuen Buch von Bernie Krause zu den Klängen aus der Natur.

© Bernie Krause / www.wildsanctuary.com

Infos zum Buch beim Verlag Antje Kunstmann: http://www.kunstmann.de/titel-0-0/das_grosse_orchester_der_tiere-965/

Bernie Krause: 2.8 Gletscherspalte

Bernie Krause: 1.6 Wapiti

The first form of communication was not language but vibration. Listen to an audio essay featuring the biologist Juan José López and sound artist Ludwig Berger who sonify species that soon threatens to become completely extinct - if we don't listen. 

This audio essay podcast was created by the musician, writer, and Norient editor Philipp Rhensius aka Alienationist @k-lone in autumn 2023 at Klang Moor Schopfe 2023. It is part of the Online Special «Sonic Natureculture»: each piece features conversations with (and sometimes sounds by) the artists and their installations, occasionally merging with Rhensius’ own compositions and poetry.

https://norient.com/sonic-natureculture

A Huge Reservoir of Life ‒ Audio Essay on Insects

As a part of a longitudinal inquiry into soundscape ecologies, Pale Blue Dotter (Surbhi) and beatnyk (Padmanabhan) set out to record dawn choruses in different parts of Delhi, weaving the soundscapes into a composition that reveals a city of contradictions just as it wakes up. 

This composition is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

norient.com/delhi-sensate

The City at Dawn

As a part of a longitudinal inquiry into soundscape ecologies, Pale Blue Dotter (Surbhi) and beatnyk (Padmanabhan) set out to record dawn choruses in different parts of Delhi, weaving the soundscapes into a composition that reveals a city of contradictions just as it wakes up.

This composition is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

norient.com/delhi-sensate

Remembering Ishrat Meenai

This piece was composed using sounds collected by the author over time: field recordings, domestic appliances, machines, audio journals, decibel levels, notes, and tones that Gaurav weaves into the soundtrack of the city of Delhi, India, which he calls home.

This sound piece is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

norient.com/delhi-sensate

Dots and Dashes

A sonic transmission by Ruhail Qaisar, an artist and producer who dabbles in field recordings, electronics, drones, noise music, and other experiments with sound. In this experimental composition and accompanying note, Ruhail (de)constructs a soundscape of sonic emissions from New Delhi, India, evoking the all-too-familiar feeling of being entrenched in a simulatory chaos of coalescing and collapsing.

This sound piece is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

norient.com/delhi-sensate

Dilli Ki Sair

«Art is life in the face of death», says Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad in conversation with sound artist and researcher Gilles Aubry as part of his Norient Special Sawt, Bodies, Species . In this extended interview, Aubry speaks with Essyad about a great variety of topics, including performance in electroacoustic music, cultural roots and identity («my identity isn’t fixed»), the importance of music («music fructifies me. It’s my daily wine»), the voice and the body and its significance in the canon of Western art music («intelligence sent to the body produces insanity»), and, last but not least, nature and ecology («to make art, you have to reduce nature because it’s too complex»).

Read full interview: https://norient.com/gilles-aubry/body-sound-ahmed-essyads-electroacoustic-music

Toubkal (1972): Between Timbral Exploration and Melodic Articulation

The track «Aranis» by Soap Kills (from 2005) is discussed in the book «Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Networks in Beirut» by Thomas Burkhalter (Routledge). Info: http://beirut.norient.com/

Book Info

Soap Kills - «Aranis»

Canina is a promise of the city of Bogotá, Colombia. Acting on this promise, she delivers a track that contains multiple sounds, noises, and expressions of what Bogotá means to her. As part of a renewed cultural wave of communities occupying clubs and itinerant venues, she proposes a reflection of sounds and bodies through it.

BOGOTÁ XOXO

A mixtape from Sol Tornasol, one of the heads of Club Felinas, through key sounds from and for Latin America. // Un mixtape de una de las cabezas de Club Felinas, Sol Tornasol a través de sonidos claves desde y para América Latina.

Read full article: norient.com/sol-tornasol/deg-perreo-hard-vol-2-deg

Sol Tornasol: ° ✧ PERREO HARD vol 2 ✧ °

A mixtape from five artists gathered by Mariposa to answer questions about common sounds and contradictions of Bogotá. // Un mixtape de cinco artistas reunidos por Mariposa para responder preguntas sobre los sonidos comunes y contradicciones de Bogotá.

Read full article: norient.com/mariposa/flutter-butterflies

A Flutter of Butterflies

Listening is presence and present, and this is what Ana María Romano proposes to us: a careful listening to her closest soundscapes. // Escuchar es presencia y presente, y esto es lo que nos propone Ana María Romano: una escucha cuidadosa de sus paisajes sonoros más cercanos.

This composition is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Bogotá», curated and edited by Luisa Uribe.

read full article: https://norient.com/ana-maria-romano/cuando-el-fuego-suena

Cuando el Fuego Suena

an audiovisual snap from www.norient.com
author article: Vera Fonseca, Diana Sanots
snap sound: Juliana Cuervo
snap quote: Vera Fonseca, Diana Santos
snap design: Juliana Cuervo

The rise of the Ballroom scene in Bogotá, Colombia has provoked an alternative queer community that blends voguing with familiar music genres like neo perreo, guaracha, and merengue, while providing a fresh and thought-provoking reaction to systemic violence.

full article: https://norient.com/vera-fonseca/voguing-oasis-mountains

A Voguing Oasis in the Mountains (Snap)

Anywhere You Wander (Snap)

Jakarta Keras (Snap)

The Weeds are in Bloom (Snap)

The Weightless Flight (Snap)

Blooming Through Concrete (Snap)

Soulmate is a Safe Space (Snap)

Whispers I

Whispers II (Snap)

Whispers III (Snap)

Sons of Betawi (Snap)

Soulmate is a Safe Space

Two humanoid figures stand facing each other across a sparse geometric plane. Both are dressed in full body suits and helmets encrusted in lines of light – one man's orange, the other, blue. Each holds a Roman-style discus with matching glowing electric patterns. The men stare each other down. The larger, orange-clad man moves, launching his disc at the smaller figure in blue. The disc whizzes through the air. The man in blue blocks, dodges, and then hurls his disc in one swift motion at his adversary. His disc flies through the air, a blue beam of neon light against the darkness of The Grid. The man in orange is too slow. The disc hits him squarely in the chest, and he explodes into a blaze of orange light, his particles dissolving into the air – «derezzed». The figure in blue sighs, then holds up his disc in triumph. It is yet another pyrrhic victory for Tron, a computer program champion who fights for the human Users against the megalomaniacal Master Control Program of the ENCOM computer mainframe.

Read full article here: http://norient.com/academic/the-ultimate-retro-future-music/

Figure 1: Tron «Romantic» Theme (B Major version)

Sind Pflanzen einfach stumme, grüne Materie? Ganz und gar nicht: Je nach Wetter und Tageszeit rauscht, flüstert und knirscht es in ihrem Inneren. Diese akustischen Fingerabdrücke der Pflanzen interessieren nicht nur Biologinnen und Biologen, sondern auch Klangkünstler wie Marcus Maeder. In seinen Installationen fragt er sich unter anderem, wie er den Klimawandel hörbar machen kann.

Artikel in voller Länge: http://norient.com/blog/tree-sounds/

Artikel zum Track

Die akustischen Emissionen einer Waldföhre (recorded by Marcus Maeder)

Before the new metro in Lausanne was finished in 2008, Patricia Bosshard asked the reponsible people at TL (Public Transport Lausanne) to compose the metro station jingles. Together with sound engineer David Scrufari they recorded local sounds and sound environments and produced the short pieces. The station announcements were spoken by Renato Häusler, who shouts the hours from the cathedral tower in four directions since 2002 (a tradition that goes back to 1405, originally to alarm the people of fire, nowadays announcing the hours between 22h-2h).

Background Article on Patricia Bosshardt: https://norient.com/podcasts/patricia-bosshard/

Background Article

Riponne

Gare

Flon

Chuv

The uncompromising work of Israeli sound artist Meira Asher has been portrayed by Norient from time to time. In this podcast she talks about her militant approach to music making and her aim of providing alternative information through sound art. She presents a few of her artworks such as «One Blanket Lost» on Nigerian girls being prostituted in the European sex business. A podcast from the Norient exhibition Seismographic Sounds by Thomas Burkhalter.

http://seismographic-sounds.norient.com
https://www.meiraasher.net

Norient.com

Meira Asher: Reducing Militarization Through Sound Art (Podcast from Seismographic Sounds)

Norient is an audiovisual gallery and a community (of practice) for the sound of the world:
We conceive music, sound, and noise as seismographs of our time, 
facilitating space and place for thinkers and artists from over 50 countries to tell new and different stories of the now and tomorrow.

Popular tracks by Norient