22/11/24 Update!

After much procrastination and adding a mountain of new unrelated material to edit over the past 18 months, we've finally got round to honouring our pledge to edit up the four Noise Vs Silence Jams that we recorded in Spring 2023 into discreet tracks, which we will then assemble into a proper album. 

Having had so long to live with the project, it would have been tempting to move on and put it permanently on the back-burner, but given the nightmare perilous state of the planet, especially in the Middle East, we feel it's incredibly important to see the project through... given the diverse contributing artists who provided with such a wealth of material, it's the perfect example of music without boundaries, both metaphoric and literal. It's especially important to us to highlight the collaboration with artists and the Noise À Noise label from Iran, a place so pilloried in the West as centre of extremist terrorism, when in fact it's such a rich vein of culture and experimental music. 

"Portentous Siren" is the first of these full track edits, which seems a somewhat apt title given the terrible situation in Gaza and Ukraine... but don't worry, the rest of the jams aren't all doom and gloom. 

What follows below was the original post for this playlist....

Four years ago, we embarked on a collaboration with Iranian contemporary classical composer, @arshia-samsaminia, using recordings of his astounding music as source material for our improvisations. Arshia in turn introduced us to  his fellow country-man @soheil-soheili, who runs the experimental music label @noiseanoise. 

Thus began an enduring relationship with the label, with contributions to several of their compilation albums, most recently, four tracks on "Noise Vs Silence", which was released in January 2023 in support of the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement.

Inspired by the wealth of sounds from all corners of the globe found on the album, we thought it'd be a great idea to expand on the project and approach all the contributing artists to see if they'd be up for us using their tracks as source material for some new improvisations. With the exception of a handful of elusive artists who proved impossible to contact and one refusal, we got an enthusiastic thumbs-up from most of the 36 contributing artists.

We recorded four improvisations between the 5th of March and 16th April 2023, resulting in around two and half hours of new material that we hope you agree, creates a fresh synergistic re-synthesis of some inspiring music, while (hopefully!) still honouring the original source material. 

This playlist gathers edited highlights from each of the four jams. We plan to release the very best moments of the material as an album on Noise À Noise Records early next year. In the meantime, you can hear the jams in full on two of our recent episodes of our experimental net radio show for CampFR, "Sonic Soup for the Mind". The first jam is on the April 7th show and also features our interview with Soheil, discussing several of the tracks from the album and the artists behind them, here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/camp_fr/silo-portem-sonic-soup-for-the-mind-07th-april-2023/

The other three shorter jams are on the June 2nd show, here: 

https://www.mixcloud.com/camp_fr/silo-portem-sonic-soup-for-the-mind-02nd-june-2023/

Special thanks to: @arshia-samsaminia, @soheil-soheili, @chemxp, Mehdi Behbudi, @nourkara, @juliette-capel, @babaksepanta, @arschan, @mohamadnikpour, @alibalighi, @alireza-amirhajebi, @kian-hossein, @ali_aghili, @ibukun-sunday, @judithhamann, @saharhomami, @balam-ronan, @shaahinpeymani, @robbert-van-hulzen, @alyaalsultani, @negar-kharkan, @saboohi, @zhoobinaskarieh, @ashkin_shabani... and probably a few more that we've overlooked (apologies if that's you!)

Noise Vs. Silence Improvisations March - April 2023, edited highlights

This is not a track as such, but edited highlights of our first improvisation using samples exclusively taken from the compilation album "Noise Vs Silence", released by @Noiseanoise records in January 2023.

We recorded the roughly 65 minute jam on 5th March 2023, which we subsequently edited to just under an hour. You can hear the full improvisation in the second half of our bi-monthly experimental music radio show, "Sonic Soup For The Mind", for CampFR net radio here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/camp_fr/silo-portem-sonic-soup-for-the-mind-07th-april-2023/

Noise Vs Silence Jam 1 - Edited highlights

Edited highlights of our second improvisation using samples exclusively taken from the compilation album "Noise Vs Silence", released by @Noiseanoise records in January 2023.

Recorded on the 12th March 2023, you can hear the full improvisation in June's edition of our bi-monthly experimental music radio show, "Sonic Soup For The Mind", for CampFR net radio, here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/camp_fr/silo-portem-sonic-soup-for-the-mind-02nd-june-2023/

Noise Vs Silence Jam 2 - Edited Highlights

Edited highlights of our third improvisation using samples exclusively taken from the compilation album "Noise Vs Silence", released by @Noiseanoise records in January 2023.

Recorded on the 26th March 2023, you can hear the full improvisation in June's edition of our bi-monthly experimental music radio show, "Sonic Soup For The Mind", for CampFR net radio, here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/camp_fr/silo-portem-sonic-soup-for-the-mind-02nd-june-2023/

Noise Vs Silence Jam 3 - Edited Highlights

Edited highlights of our fourth improvisation using samples exclusively taken from the compilation album "Noise Vs Silence", released by @Noiseanoise records in January 2023.

Recorded on the 16th April 2023, you can hear the full improvisation in June's edition of our bi-monthly experimental music radio show, "Sonic Soup For The Mind", for CampFR net radio, here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/camp_fr/silo-portem-sonic-soup-for-the-mind-02nd-june-2023/

Noise Vs Silence Jam 4 - Edited Highlights

Here's the opening somewhat apocalyptical section of our first improvisations around the sounds found on the Noise Vs. Silence compilation album. 

Portentous Siren - Nz-À-Nz Jam 1 - 1

Second track from the first improvisation around tracks and sounds sampled from Noise Vs Silence

Opening Salvo - NzÀNz Jam 1 - 2

Sonic soup for the mind. Please listen on headphones

Head to Bandcamp for full versions of Samsaminia & Nuit albums, etc. and consider purchasing them if you regularly enjoy our music

All tracks are edited from improvisations recorded in the wee hours at our studio.....

We also make experimental films to project at our performances, some of which you can see on Vimeo and our instagram profile (see links below)

Extended edits of the improvisations are also available on Mixcloud

Noise Vs. Silence Improvisations March - April 2023, edited highlights

silo portem