Recorded live onto TASCAM DR44
Modular equipment and tape delay

Kata

from the LP Sharing Waves out World Wide June 1st

VINYL WAVES NOW SHIPPING:
www.stonesthrow.com/store/album/coo…e/sharing-waves
RIDE THE MARITIME BANDCAMP:
coolmaritime.bandcamp.com/album/sharing-waves

Sean Hellfritsch returns to Leaving Records with his second outing for the label as Cool Maritime. Sean is an active mixed-media visual artist, and modern modular electronic composer living and working in North East Los Angeles with his wife Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. 

Sharing Waves is all-expansive environments, and fully-realized worlds to explore and get lost in. A persistent sense of adventure and excitement is practically baked into the songs, many of them having been recorded in inspiring and remote outdoor locations using a nomadic studio including a "lunchbox" modular system. The narrative flair of this instrumental music comes naturally to Hellfritsch, who is also an accomplished filmmaker. What you hear is musical ideas captured in moments of awe, happiness and inspiration. Although the sounds are largely electronic, the feeling is organic, with lush arrangements that breathe and breaststroke their way gracefully through the open air. Illustrative song titles like "Forest Bathing" and "Secret Caves" evoke inviting landscapes of reflection and resonance. Pristine and glassy droplets of sound pitter over damp and mossy beds of emotional chords and feelings, as escape turns inwards. 

In an interesting contrast to the nature-heavy motif, a number of the tracks on Sharing Waves were the result of a commission to create pieces for a large outdoor plaza in downtown Los Angeles. This dichotomy of nature versus development makes for an interesting fold in these fully realized compositions. As for the album's title, Hellfritsch, who is an inveterate surfer, explains: "Sometimes surfing can be a competitive environment with crowded breaks and not enough waves to go around. The 'right of way' rule is that the first person to catch the wave closest to where it’s breaking gets it. It’s a known rule and everyone expects you to respect it – but the exception to that rule is that friends love to share waves. It’s a joyful experience to be riding this big undulating ripple of water with a pal alongside you. Such a unique moment of fun and connection and excitement that always sticks with me."

Be it in a beautiful natural environment like those of the albums' creation or shut away indoors, Hellfritsch says he'd love for people to experiment with different ways of listening. "My favorite way to listen is laying on the floor in a dark space with some nice speakers. The tape deck in my 1987 Toyota van while driving very slowly along windy, foggy coastal road would be runner up." This idyllic image of a reliable old ride propelling through an endlessly unfolding seaboard perfectly captures the magic and mystery waiting to be found on Sharing Waves. Hellfritsch says, "the biggest thing i learned on this album was to trust my intuition when making music and not spend too much time second guessing myself. Just go for it and have fun!" Tune in with an open mind, and dare to share a wave.

VINYL

Cool Maritime - Climbing Up

The basis of the twelve-tone technique is the tone row, an ordered arrangement of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale (the twelve equal tempered pitch classes). There are four postulates or preconditions to the technique which apply to the row (also called a set or series), on which a work or section is based:

1. The row is a specific ordering of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale (without regard to octave placement).
2. No note is repeated within the row.
3. The row may be subjected to interval-preserving transformations—that is, it may appear in inversion (denoted I), retrograde (R), or retrograde-inversion (RI), in addition to its "original" or prime form (P).
4. The row in any of its four transformations may begin on any degree of the chromatic scale; in other words it may be freely transposed. (Transposition being an interval-preserving transformation, this is technically covered already by 3.) Transpositions are indicated by an integer between 0 and 11 denoting the number of semitones: thus, if the original form of the row is denoted P0, then P1 denotes its transposition upward by one semitone (similarly I1 is an upward transposition of the inverted form, R1 of the retrograde form, and RI1 of the retrograde-inverted form).

marvin blotto

Dedicated to the brave and wise Greta Thunberg that represent millions of voices in this era. Hoping that the world listen to her.

The image was created by: Cassandra Hedberg/ https://www.instagram.com/cassie_colors/

Music Composed and played by: Jorge Alcaide /Piano-ukelelle-base.

Thanks for listening

Thunberg

Call Back Carousel: Voyages en Grèce
 
An audio time-travelogue… A found sound road trip… A vicarious vacation…

The basis of this piece is a found reel-to-reel tape labeled ‘Voyage Grèce en 1972’ bought from a flea market in Brussels 15 years ago. As might be expected it is a document of a Belgian family camping holiday to Greece. One side of the tape is an audio diary of sorts documenting the trip moment by moment, much of the time recorded in the car in between destinations it seems. This side runs to an epic 3 hours on long play. The other side is a recorded slide show commentary over a backdrop of traditional Greek music at a more modest 2 hours. Although it becomes apparent that there is a wife (referred to only as ‘bobonne’) and child in tow we only ever hear the voice of the father. They don’t even appear in the background. Maybe they were mic shy or maybe they were just never given a look-in. Either way their absence on the tape is perplexing.

I had been invited to Brussels this summer to make a new radio piece for Radio Picnic’s ‘Musica per la radio’ series. I was also supposed to be going on a family holiday to Greece but because of obvious circumstances neither trip has happened. Out of necessity the production of this radiophonic excursion has been my way of taking a holiday without travelling anywhere – a sonic souvenir from a vicarious vacation.

In the composition of the piece excerpts from the tape have been combined with my own field recordings from holidays in Greece decades later in 2005 and 2015. Holiday memories of Greece from different times have been transposed on top of one another, intermingle and become confused. In addition, improvisations with a collection of objects selected for their sound making properties that were bought from the flea market at the same time as the tape have also been incorporated.

Special thanks to everyone who helped me with translations: Elina Bry, Selene Mauvis, Jonathan Frigeri, DinahBird, Anne-Louise Kieran, Sonia Dermience, Inès Guffroy and Meryll Hardt.

Extra thanks to Elina Bry for additional Athens field recordings.

A project by Radio Picnic with the kind support of the Swiss Foundation for Radio and Culture and Pro Helvetia. 

First broadcast on Freie Radio Berlin, 18th August, 2020.

Call Back Carousel - Voyages en Grèce

Lars Schmidt is a dance, sound and visual artist,
These instant compositions and sound sculptures have been recorded live and without overdubs, using electronic and electro-acoustic equipment, objects, field-recordings and here and there conventional instruments.
Headphones or good sound system recommended.

Kata

Lars Schmidt

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