SoundCloud Weekly .9745367

SoundCloud Weekly .3649346

Peter Kramer

Recent releases

Release date: 27.05.2022

Martin Taxt – microtonal tuba, hand bells, composition
Rolf Erik Nystrøm – alto saxophone, hand bells
Laura Marie Rueslåtten – organ, hand bells
Inga Margrete Aas – double bass, hand bells
Peder Simonsen – microtonal tuba, hand bells, modular synthesizer

Second Room is Taxt’s second album in a series of works investigating possible relations between music and architecture. In this work written for alto saxophone, two microtonal tubas, double bass, church organ, hand bells and modular synthesizers he is inspired by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, and his ideas on different concepts of living. 

In a lecture at the Harvard University in 2011, Fujimoto sets up a comparison between the nest and the cave, as two fundamentally different ways of living concepts. Whereas the nest represents safety, conformity and predictability, a space designed for people, the cave on the other side represents the unknown, a naturally shaped space, not designed for the purpose of living. It can be uncomfortable to enter the dark cave but spending time inside one can gradually start to adapt to the space. By rethinking our concept of space and the relation between space and human body we will eventually discover different functionalities within the cave and innovate new functions in the already designed space. 

(…)A grid system with 36 pitches was the starting point of the composing process. Imagining the grid as a cave, I made 3 different paths through the grid as if I was exploring the cave. These three melodies became the outline for this composition. On ‘Disruption, disjunction, deconstruction’ the musicians are exploring the 36 pitches independently, as if, quoting Fujimoto; finding their own small favourite comfortable places inside the natural cave(…)

Martin Taxt: disruption, disjunction, deconstruction from Second Room

Release date: 27.05.2022 (CD/DD) 05.08.2022 (LP)

In their new composition, Swagger, Oslo-based vocal duo Propan augment their customary sound palate with the aid of an eight-strong ensemble of strings, winds, percussion, voices, and electronics - an ensemble by the name Propanions. Combining pre-scored and improvised content, Swagger moves between the soft sound of tuning forks, odd beats, curious text, playful melodies and textural noise, resulting in an eccentric piece of definite character - an eclectic manifestation of the duo’s electroacoustic universe.

SWAGGER was commissioned in 2016 by Femme Brutal, a feminist booking and DJ collective. It received its world premiere at Oslo’s Parkteater, as part of the 2016 Femme Brutal Festival. The original score included choreographic movements performed live by musicians and a detailed lighting design.

Propan was founded in 2011 by vocalists Ina Sagstuen and Natali Abrahamsen Garner. They have toured widely throughout the world, including Japan, Australia, USA, Europe. Swagger is their fourth release, following Baby (Va Fongool 2016), Trending (SOFA 2019) and Loom (GLARC 2022).

Propan: B2 from Swagger

Title: mind is moving (IV)
Artist: Michael Francis Duch
SOFA 591 (2LP/DD)
Release date: 27.05.2022

mind is moving (IV)

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: "The flag is moving."
The other said: "The wind is moving."
The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."

mind is moving (IV) is part of a series of pieces composed by Michael Pisaro-Liu. It is a collection of 60 sounds for the contrabass, and any performance may include anywhere from 30 to all 60 sounds in the score, that may be played in any order. There is one sound per minute and all are played pizzicato and generally soft. After playing the sound the performer should hold her/his position for as long as possible before playing the next sound, allowing the sound to ring as long as possible. 

The Koan that inspired the title of this series gives us an idea how to approach this piece, both as a listener as well as well as a performer. What are we listening to: The bass, the decay of the sounds played or the background noise?  Sound is moving and we are observing the process of the birth and death (decay) of each sound and, of course, the empty space between each sound event. In Zen this is referred to as Ma.

Although being an early piece by Pisaro-Liu (1996), it is seldom performed and has yet been recorded. This recording took place in the Nidaros cathedral in Trondheim in August 2019. As mentioned, the piece itself has no narrative as such, as the sounds can be played in any order and half of them may be omitted. Yet, the performer creates a narrative when interpreting and playing it. 
There is also another possible narrative here to be listened to. The piece was recorded in one take around midnight, and by default an hour of sound was documented from inside the cathedral, telling a parallel story of its own.

Michael F. Duch / Michael Pisaro: mind is moving (iv) excerpt

SOFA is proud to mark its 100th release with the stunningly beautiful double album Hereafter, a new major work from guitarist/composer Kim Myhr, written for the 15-piece Stavanger-based ensemble Kitchen Orchestra. 

“Hereafter can be seen as a meditation on mortality and transience”, Myhr explains. “It was written at a time where the prime minister of Norway told the country’s population that ‘you have to be prepared to lose someone dear to you’.  It was like taken out of Tarkovsky’s “Sacrifice”. This atmosphere set the tone for Hereafter, which was written in 2020. For me, this piece is about the acknowledging and acceptance of disaster”. 

During the months of composing the music, Myhr kept humming the song sung by Salamat Ali Khan in Satyajit Ray’s classic film “Jalsaghar”, in the scene where the son and wife of the main character dies in a storm. For Myhr, the song resonated with the mood of the moment and acted like an undercurrent for the making of Hereafter. “There is a haunting sadness to that song, but there’s also something very grounded about it. The way the singer looks straight at the protagonist. There is no escaping this. That was the feeling.”

Kim Myhr’s previous release “Sympathetic Magic” which was written the following year, was utopian and deliriously optimistic in character. In Hereafter, there is a strong gravitas, and the state of mind is centered.  “I think it’s one of my more eloquent and varied pieces. Even if the framework is grave, it goes through many different shades. And if the piece takes flight into more ecstatic territory, the music quickly retires back to more pensive ground”. The piece consists of two main parts, a bit like a morning and evening raga, where the first part is darker and second part is of a more uplifting character (the two sections are divided into smaller sections for listener’s convenience). 

Thus, sunrise and sunset, the sea and the shore, life and death, permeate the often-elegiac music on Hereafter, a stunning piece of music that ranks among Myhr’s best works yet. It is released as a gatefold double-LP, CD and DL, with a beautiful cover photo by Eleonore Huisse and art direction by Stephen O’Malley.

Kitchen Orchestra is a heterogenous ensemble based in Stavanger with musicians coming from different musical scenes, a perfect match for Kim Myhr’s music. The line-up includes drummers Ståle Birkeland and Dag Magnus Narvesen, Marius Munthe-Kaas on vibraphone, Øyvind Dale on organ and synthesizer, Johan Egdetveit on accordion, Signe Irene Time on vocals and cassette player, Dag Egil Njaa on laptop processing, two bass players John Lilja and Thomas Bang doubling on guitar as well as electric and double basses, string players Nils Erga and Jenni Witick, and horn players Arild Hoem, Petter Frost Fadnes, Gunhild Seim and Gaute Vikdal focusing primarily on the darker timbres with two baritone saxes, bass trombone and trumpet. Kim Myhr himself plays both 12- and 6-string electric guitars.

Bio 
Norwegian guitarist and composer Kim Myhr has been touring internationally since the early 2000s and has released several records under his own name. His album You | me (2017) was nominated to Nordic Music Prize, and received wide acclaim internationally. As a composer he has made music for Australian Art Orchestra, Canadian string quartet Quatuor Bozzini, Kitchen Orchestra and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra of Norway, and has collaborated with Jenny Hval (on the 2012 collaborative album “In The End His Voice Will Be The Sound Of Paper”, Tony Buck of The Necks (on the album “You | me”), Lasse Marhaug, Christian Wallumrød, poet Caroline Bergvall and many others. His last record Vesper with Australian Art Orchestra was nominated for a Norwegian Grammy in 2020 in the contemporary category. Hereafter is the ninth album under his own name.
“Kim Myhr is a master of slow-morphing rhythms and sun-dappled textures that seem to glow from the inside”. -       The Guardian

Kim Myhr & Kitchen Orchestra Hereafter VI

Kim Myhr & Kitchen Orchestra: Hereafter VII

Full Album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGLPhODskbY

Artwork: George Sand, Common Thistle

Song Without Words

©Florent Caron Darras & Otmani Éditions

SENTINELLE NORD - for 21 musicians and FM synthesis (8 Channels)


Dedicated to David Reiland, Luis Naon, Stefano Gervasoni

World Premiere September 26, 2017
Orchestre des Lauréats du CNSMDP (OLC)
David REILAND, conductor

Violins
Irène DUVAL & Apolline KIRKLAR

Violas
Sonia MOSHNYAGER & Marion PLARD

Cellos
Michèle PIERRE & Aurore MONTAULIEU

Double-Bass
Tsui-Ju LI

Flutes
Ludivine MOREAU & Nei ASAKAWA

Oboe
Bastien NOURI & Anne-Marie GAY

Bass Clarinets
Bogdan SYDORENKO & Masako MIYAKO

Bassoons
Lorraine GUYOT & Antoine BERQUET

Pianos
Chae-Um KIM & Cécile SAGNIER

Microtonal Accordion XAMP
Jean-Etienne SOTTY

Electric Guitar
Christelle SERY

Percussions
Guillaume VITTEL & Thibault LEPRI

Sound technicians & Ingeneers
Sébastien TONDO, Jacques WARNIER

Recording & Transaural / Binaural Mix
Jean-Marc LYZWA, Arthur DELZESCAUX

Sentinelle Nord - for large ensemble and spatialized electronics - David Reiland cond. (2017)

Excerpt of track 1 from 'Mikroklimata', released by Entr'acte June 2010.

Tephra excerpt

Andrea Borghi "VHS" LP      
MAR047

Reflecting the artist's passion for cinema, VHS consists of audio recordings that were produced through an open
VHS Recorder using manipulated videotapes. Most source sound is taken from background parts edited from
old tapes of obscure and underground cinema. Mechanical memories and the suggestions of past cinematographic
sets are converted and re-contextualized in order to explore the expressive possibilities of an archaic media.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi, released in a limited edition of 100 LPs packaged in deluxe tip-on gatefold jackets.
https://misanthropicagenda.bandcamp.com/album/vhs

Andrea Borghi "VHS"

Leden and Laura's live performances are based on a real-time processing of saxophone’s sounds, using digital devices designed by Fabris himself to sculpt, mould and generate their own sonorities. Laura's playing involves different extended techniques and the use of the mechanics of her instrument, the only sound source of their live set.Their new repertoire combines the emotional power of melody with experimental ambient soundscapes.

LEDEN / AGNUSDEI live electronics

⠠⠔⠧⠊⠎⠊⠼⠸⠺

Sylvia Monnier - Hard Edge (side b - excerpts)

00:00 Hadean
00:42 Retrograde6
01:28 Retrograde24
01:56 Retrograde42
02:39  Retrograde42 (Shin Sung Hoon mix)

M3g’s EP "Retrogrades" is up on bandcamp finally. Featuring five tracks in total, fresh four by M3g and a remix track by dn\d affiliate Shin Sung Hoon. dingndents.bandcamp.com/album/retrogrades

Retrogrades (2018) - Hadean / Retrograde6 / Retrograde24 / Retrograde42 / R42 remix

Underhand, Underfoot

snf05 : luciano maggiore "9 enclosures" part 6

When I read the parameters for this week's project, I realized I already had a completed track.  I made this ambient version of Gymnopédie No. 1 back in 2013.

More on this 363rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Gymnopédie Rats: Make over Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédie No. 1” in your chosen genre — at:

https://disquiet.com/0363/

Many thanks to Peggy Nelson and Alex Hawthorn for having proposed this project, at the tail end of last week’s project.

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0363-gymnopedie-rats/

There’s also a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet to join in.

Gymnopédie No. 1 [disquiet0363]

Known to many through his collaborative works with Oren Ambarchi, crys cole, Kassel Jaeger, Klaus Lang, Joe Talia, and many others, this LP is Rushford’s first solo release in a decade and the very first he has composed, performed, and recorded entirely alone.

Primarily recorded in Los Angeles in 2017, The Body’s Night is a single electro-acoustic suite stretching over thirty minutes, utilizing field recordings, flutes, ocarina, microphones, organ, percussion, piano, tape, analog synthesizers, viola, and voice. True to its title, the record immediately ushers into a nocturnal, intimate, claustrophobic space where the hyper-amplified rustle of clothing and vocal mumbles are shadowed by uneasy synth tones, fluttering white noise and distant filigrees of ultra-high-pitched tones at the edges of aural perception. While the influence of contemporary composers such as Klaus Lang and Jakob Ullmann (both of whose music Rushford has performed extensively) makes itself felt in the music’s attention to the liminal space between sounds, Rushford also draws on the bedroom synth explorations of ’80s acts like DDAA and the harmonies and production values of black metal, drawing a common thread between these influences in terms of their shared interest in atmosphere and deliberate retreat from perspicuity. Relief from this claustrophobic atmosphere comes through the episodic structure of the piece, where like an already dark shot fading to black, each sequence retreats from your ears before you can properly grasp it.

Rushford uses classical electro-acoustic techniques and plays elegantly on the fundamental ambiguity of the acousmatic situation in which you can never be sure of the source of the sound you are hearing. But rather than a tribute to the masterworks of musique concrete, this is defiantly idiosyncratic and personal music. Meticulous in production values and exploratory in timbre, tonality and form, The Body’s Night is a key work from one of the most singular young composers at work today.

Stunning artwork by O.B. De Alessi. Design by Lasse Marhaug. Mastered for maximum fidelity by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

BT047 - James Rushford "The Body's Night" [sample]

Pip is a duo playing improvised and composed pieces of music, consisting of Torstein Lavik Larsen on trumpet and Fredrik Rasten on guitar. 
Long lasting, blending sounds with a basis in chord structures and harmony is an ever returning element in their music. 
Pip's music also emphasizes small variations in tonal colour, often applying just intonation, extended playing techniques and repeating musical patterns.
Sometimes they include electronic sounds, without leaving behind the core sound of guitar and trumpet as a point of departure.

The duo has existed since 2006, and since then explored many different musical approaches. 
A recuring theme of their exploration has been expansions of the duo instrumentarium, including 
electronics, multiple guitars and different electronic and acoustic keyboard instruments.

Pip released their first official release on the Portuguese label Creative Sources in 2016,
and they have toured in countries as Germany, Czech Republic, England and the Scandinavian countries.

The duo has also worked with artists from other disciplines. They collaborated with choreographer and contemporary dancer Marie Bergby Handeland on the piece Lyden av besluttsomhet, jeg tåler den ikke, which were premiered at the CODA festival in Oslo in 2013, and they have also worked together and performed with the Copenhagen-based live visuals duo of Freya Sif Hestnes and My Lambertsen, called Manuals.

Torstein and Fredrik also play together in the band Oker, with drummer Jan Martin Gismervik and bass player Adrian Fiskum Myhr, and in the quartet Volumes with Magda Mayas on prepared piano and Isak Hedtjärn on clarinet.

Release date: 27. September 2019

Pip: Possible Worlds (excerpt)

Ruggine (for string quartet + electronics, 2019 - Casa Ricordi)
co-commissioned by Fondazione I Teatri Reggio Emilia / De Sono Associazione per la Musica
written for / dedicated to / premiered by:  Quartetto Maurice
Live recording:  09.11.2019 @ Willem Twee Concert Hall, Den Bosch (NL) - 
November Music Festival

Ruggine

Ruggine (2019)

SOFA is a Norwegian record label for experimental music run by musicians Martin Taxt, Ingar Zach and Kim Myhr.