Psychic Liberation presents the "Sonic Encyclopedia Series", an eclectic batch of short run tapes aiming to explore and document a wide cross section of aural content around the world. Specialization and confines of genre are antithetical to the direction of this nebulous encyclopedia of tapes. The artists chosen are curated by Nick Klein, with design and illustrations provided by Scott Goodman.

Richard Vergez is a mainstay of the Miami, Florida experimental music community working under various monikers and running the label Noir Age, a receptacle for visual and sonic creations. On this Night Foundation cassette, the viewer is brought into post Indu0strial , somewhat New Age, sonic territory. Doting loops of blissful synthesizers and bellows from a far of origin, the tape is an ouroboros; at once creating and making malleable its own environment.

I Had A Feeling

Psychic Liberation $

PLIB SES 003 - Night Foundation - A5. I Had A Feeling (From "I Had A Feeling")

MATTHIAS PUECH, Mt. Hadamard National Park, LP

Release date: 31 January 2023
Catalogue nr. - HG2302
Format: Vinyl / digital
Hallow Ground

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1. Mt. Hadamard National Park     (22:48)
2. Suspension     (3:57)
3. Imperceptible Life     (14:57)

Credits:
Composed, recorded and mixed by Matthias Puech
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Photo by Caroline Schöbi
Drawings by Matthias Puech
Artwork by Laurin Huber
Thanks to Gustave Evrard

///

“Mt. Hadamard National Park” is the Hallow Ground debut by composer, programmer, and instrument designer Matthias Puech. Informed by mathematical and artistic approaches that aim to both contemplate on and control complexity, the eponymous five-part composition explores natural and mystical forces through what he calls “audio-naturalist noise”. The composition is complemented by two further pieces: “Suspension” emulates the chemical phenomenon of the same name, while “Imperceptible Life” hinges on the musical possibilities of stridulation. Over the course of the entire album, Puech’s singular take on electro-acoustic and electronic music creates unique sonic spaces as much as it pays its dues to the unpredictability of the world that we inhabit.

Jacques Hadamard was a pioneer among physicists and mathematicians who, in the early 20th century, were puzzled by processes that are deterministic but hard to predict. While researching the history of Chaos theory, Puech also felt drawn to an artistic movement from the mid-19th century, the so-called Hudson River school of painting, whose rise coincided with the gradual taming of the sites of Northern American wilderness it chose as its source of inspiration and subject. Fascinated by both attempts to contemplate on and control complexity, Puech wondered what would happen if those were to meet. “Mt. Hadamard National Park” offers thus in Puech’s words “an audio-naturalist noise meandering through an invented space that is subject to the arbitrariness of natural and mystical forces.” The sounds, arranged in sweeping and tense dynamics, serve as multiple agents within a complex system. The synthetic flora and fauna feels uncannily familiar or even disturbingly hostile at times. “Mt. Hadamard National Park” is an artistic expression of natural phenomena, but also a meditation on the imprint those leave on the psyche of the people who encounter them.

The short piece “Suspension” picks up on a similar idea. “In chemistry, a suspension is a mixture of small solid particles inside a liquid,” Puech explains. This process is mirrored in aquatic yet tangible sounds as well as dynamics that slowly converge towards density before the composition ends on a quiet note. The 14-minute-long “Imperceptible Life” is based on a live performance first conceived as a full-scale test drive of some new electronic equipment Puech was designing at that time. It explores the musical potential of stridulation, the act of creating sounds by rubbing together certain body parts—in the insect world, a common means of communication. Again, Puech’s approach is neither purely naturalistic nor only mimetic. Rather, “Imperceptible Life” offers yet another artistic reflection on the theme of chaos and order, and how human perception and emotion relate to it.

As a whole, “Mt. Hadamard National Park” thus not merely mirrors natural phenomena but transforms them in ways that are emotionally evocative: the complexity and apparent arbitrariness of Puech’s compositions reveal an underlying beauty that is equal parts haunting and comforting.

MATTHIAS PUECH – Mt. Hadamard National Park (Part 1) (HG2302)

a free interpretation of the song ★ KIND DER NACHT by KNARZ / THOMAS P. HECKMANN ★

★ more CHILD OF THE NIGHT versions here : 
https://soundcloud.com/le-slapon/sets/child-of-the-night-6-versions ★

𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 : 𝓒𝓱𝓲𝓵𝓭 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓝𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽

This was given to me by James Izzo (Thread) back in 1999. It is unclear as to which song or songs he has remixed by Pan Sonic (Panasonic back then).  RIP James, you're missed.

Pan Sonic, "unknown (Thread remix)"

*

Cloud Cover from the album Beauty Data Pollution by Perfume.

Melbourne, June 2018.

Full album available at:  https://perfume.bandcamp.com/album/beauty-data-pollution

*

Cloud Cover

Infinite Greyscale is pleased to release Damn Luei Lit  a new 10“ recording by Andi Toma, also known as one half of electronic music pioneers Mouse on Mars.  Following on from the band’s percussive masterclass, Lichter (also on Infinite Greyscale) and their ambitious 2018 album Dimensional People (Thrill Jockey), Damn Luei Lit sees Toma going it alone in an exploration of off-kilter rhythms and extraterrestrial sounds. From an opening of bird song an inorganic structure is assembled; and with the stage constructed, the performance begins. What follows is a deep and engrossing exploration of an alien ethnography. Within a frame of hypnotic rhythms Toma traverses sounds and rituals to reveal field recordings from another planet.

Damn Lieu Lit

1 March 2019

Andi Toma – Damn Luei Lit (excerpt)

Oil Thief - White Car

R. Elizabeth is the recording name of London-based artist and academic Rachael Finney. Every And All We Voyage On is her
solo recording project’s second full length and is a focused distillation of her practice in sound art and her knack for pop
minimalism. It follows a long sold out release on Where To Now? Records and a prolonged period in which she concentrated
on artist residencies exploring her interest in recorded sound and voice. Immediate and natural, Every And All We Voyage On
manages to sound joyful while tackling complex themes, handling everything with an improvisatory touch. The songs are full of
air and light; infectious, melodic and off-the-cuff.
Recorded using a single 80s Casio keyboard, reel-to-reel tape manipulation, piano and vocal, Finney’s practice with R. Elizabeth
belies a studious attention to detail. Her academic work is often focused on analysing sounds – particularly voice and language –
divorced from meaning and R. Elizabeth challenges the listener with overtly emotional tropes: sweeping portmento lap-steel
guitar keyboard tones on Back From Ten suggest a nostalgic melancholy when it intersects with the narrator closing her eyes,
realising she has nothing left to give. The lilting vocal cloaked in reverb is disarming, with an almost child-like surrender to the
undertow of the song. On Tragedy And Trade there’s a rough grace to the mixing with visceral, manipulated tape sounding like
the artists’ hands are literally in the speakers wrenching the melodies in mid-air. When it intersects with chants about the “gaps
and the silences” it has an eerie, hauntological effect. R. Elizabeth is constantly playing with sound and song: a Wonderland of
perceived emotion, the listener’s perception of what they’re hearing constantly in flux, it’s deceptively simple and deserving of
repetitive listening.
Cut Piano opens the album and introduces a documentary-feel which the album upholds through-out. It’s the sound of the artist
mangling a tape of her own piano recording, twisting it out of shape and suggesting a bend in reality. We’re listening to the artist
becoming a ghost in her own machine, a 3rd or 4th generation copy of an emotion rendered a long time ago, chilling and playful at
the same time. An Image Is Different bursts out of this with a sunny Casiotone beat, a melodic contrast that also introduces
Finney’s vocal. It flitters between a gorgeous repetitive melody ruminating about the nature of reality and a seemingly careless,
conversational tone. The effect is joyful, but you don’t really know why. The lyrics instruct someone (you? The artist?) to “go
outside and break someone’s neck, make it feel so real” before ending with R. Elizabeth nonchalantly stating “I dunno, to be
honest I don’t really care” as if on the phone to someone they’re bored with. It would be jarring if it wasn’t so catchy and uplifting.
The title track is a slow-tempo meditation with droning synths providing the background to slow, dragging tape sounds and
grounding, just-out-of-focus vocals bunkering down in the mix. The methodology suggests the work of Broadcast: there’s a
loping bassline that propels the track forward but the duet/duel between Finney’s haunted vocal and the soloing tape warble
provides aural snakes for the listener’s ear to follow.

R. Elizabeth - SPIRITUAL TO SYMPHONY (from Every And All We Voyage On)

Ancient Indonesian tradition meets doom metal in profoundly Ur ways on Stephen O’Malley and Senyawa’s collaborative commission for choreographer Gisèle Vienne, highly recommended if you’re into Sunn O))), Keiji Haino, Nazoranai, Phurpa, KTL.

Following a decade of creative bonds forged between theatre director and choreographer Gisèle Vienne and doom sayer Stephen O’Malley that spans multiple soundtracks (solo and with Peter Rehberg in KTL) and visual artworks, the pair travelled to Indonesia on a commission to explore the country’s rich culture in 2018. They immersed in a magical world of performative rituals where they encountered Wukir Suryadi, an experimental musician and instrument builder whose acclaimed releases both solo and as half of Senyawa have invigorated the avant and experimental rock scene over the past decade. 

The six tracks of ’Bimi Sakti’ document groundbreaking ventures between Senyawa and O’Malley, yielding an incredibly powerful mix of electric guitar and bass guitar amp worship blended with the remarkable range of tonalities from Senyawa’s custom-built bambuwukir, plus traditional pipes and possessed vocals. Practically without precedent in the modern musical sphere, the 44’ release speaks to a resounding mutuality and common musical philosophy between two musicians who are usually geographically separated by a hemisphere. Slow to start, but culminating in a wholly dilated musical vision, the performance effectively collapses eons of musical practice and thought into a singular yet timeless expression of beauty and anguish that transcends the sum of its parts. 

Fleshing out the frequency spectrum between flighty, avian flutes and sprawling subharmonic bass riffs, they come to inhabit a thrilling mid-ground over the course of the album as O’Malley moves up the registers to thrashing mid-range riffs while Suryadi invokes a range of demonic voices and unearthly tones from his bamboo instrument. The results come to prod the pineal like little else beyond, say, O’Malley’s Nazoranai trio with Keiji Haino and Oren Ambarchi, or the first Phurpa album on his Ideologic Organ label, and we reckon should be hailed among the boldest and most astonishing records of 2020.

SENYAWA & STEPHEN O'MALLEY "Dewi Hera, Part I" (from "Bima Sakti" iDEAL198 LP)

A track recorded for the soundtrack to the contemporary dance production, 'Auricular' by Surface Area Dance Theatre.

'Auricular' was premiered at Baltic39, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK on 28 and 29 June 2013.

http://www.surfacearea.info/news/auricular.html

http://www.dancecity.co.uk/events/performances/568/auricular-surface-area-dance-theatre

Corrugated

no one wants to admit that i am afraid (for W.B.) [emotionally overextended version] 
Pinkcourtesyphone

there comes a time on any dance floor when the lights go low, the music turns pretty, and everyone gets that cheek-to-cheek look in their eyes. 

this deflated valentine from Pinkcourtesyphone is not for that time. 
is your heart awake... yet? 


originally created during the "sessions" for the album September 2020 Pinkcourtesyphone 'Leaving Everything To Be Desired' (room40, Australia) [https://richardchartier.bandcamp.com/album/leaving-everything-to-be-desired] 

... further manipulations, pokings, and frostings continued through January 2021.
released February 5, 2021 as a bandcamp exclusive download

photography: James Elaine 
thank you: L.English, W.Basinski, J.Elaine, M.Harding 

published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd 
3particles28

Desensualized

no one wants to admit that i am afraid [emotionally overextended version] by Pinkcourtesyphone

Label ran by @nick-klein
contact: psychicliberation@gmail.com

For the physical and digital purchasing of PSYCHIC LIBERATION/PRIMITIVE LANGUAGES :
www.psychicliberation.bandcamp.com

Distributed in the USA by Fantastique
Distributed in UK/EU by Industrial Coast
Distributed in RU by Stellage Store
Distributed in Japan by Tobira Records
Distributed in South Korea by Rope Editions

PLIB SES 003 - Night Foundation - A5. I Had A Feeling (From "I Had A Feeling")

PL/PSYCHIC LIBERATION/PAIN LIBERATION

Recent comments

iDEAL Recordings

Related tracks