Created for Azimuth 6, here as a stereo version of the original 32-channel version.

'Based on the introduction of Jean-Paul Resweber's book "The Philosophy of Language", the piece explores the ambiguity between the voice that conveys a message and the voice whose acoustic and musical qualities are heard. It seems that when our attention is focused on the musical aspect of the voice, we forget the message it carries, and vice versa. The back and forth between these different levels of listening leaves the listener free to give it its own meaning, if there is one. And this is precisely the question asked by the original text. '

https://www.azimuthfoundation.net

La philosophie du langage

Preview of the album 'Luchtwezen'
SØVN Records, July 15 2020, cd/dl/stream
https://sovnrecords.bandcamp.com/album/luchtwezen
____

Constructed by Rutger Zuydervelt, Rotterdam, February – April 2020
Rutger Zuydervelt: church organ (Oude Kerk Charlois), electronics
Berlinde Deman: serpent and vocals (recorded at home, Ghent)
Mastered by Ian Hawgood
Many thanks to Lies Klaus, Gilbert van Drunen (Koffie & Ambacht),
Jaap van Gils, Stepping Stone, and SØVN records 
____

Rutger Zuydervelt, a.k.a. Machinefabriek , needs no presentation to the ambient and drone audiences. (Hyper)active since the early 2000s, he epitomizes a minimalistic, electro-acoustic approach to these genres bringing together real world and synthetic oscillations. Berlinde Deman is a tuba player, and amongst many other projects member of the unconventional jazz big band Flat Earth Society.

In Luchtwezen, the two are brought together by a common veneration of the physical experience of the creation of sound. Both musicians each exploit on this record an unusual instrument: Rutger plays the Hess church organ of Oude Kerk Charlois, in south Rotterdam (together with some electronics); Berlinde sings, and plays the serpent, an ancient wind instrument, made out of wood and shaped like a snake. The meeting of the two should have taken place, as a matter of fact, in the Oude Kerk Charlois itself, during a live concert organized by Koffie & Ambacht. However, the quick rise to power of Covid-19 forced the duo to turn this get-together (as all musical get togethers during our quarantines) into a virtual one: a studio recording, that you can hear as Luchtwezen .

And yet, by just listening to the record, you may be fooled into thinking that this was a live recording - as we have all thought, because of their intensity, that some quarantine Zoom calls were not happening over a screen, but rather out there, in the real world. The flow is natural, the sound space unitary. The clicks of the organ keys are just right there in front of us. After the first brooding half, we all feel the mysterious, oriental breath flowing from the serpent in the spaces between us. And then, a simple melody sang by the organ reminds us of the feeling of excitement of going to a live concert - where you know that a serpent will dance to the sound of the organ's pipes.

Machinefabriek with Berlinde Deman – Luchtwezen (preview)

"Vessel II (Sparks Of The Sacred)," by Jeremiah M. Carter

Short excerpt of a 40 minutes live improv 
15 October 2019 @ Les Instants Chavirés
Sharing the bill with Kate Carr, a concert produced by La Fabrique Agitée
https://www.instantschavires.com/kate-carrvalerie-vivancos/

Valerie Vivancos Live Instants Chavirés  15 Oct 2019 (excerpt)

second excerpt from nicola di croce | 47AD cd on Unfathomless.

this release is limited to 200 hand numbered copies and packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert and additional art card on 350gr satin paper.

47AD

U64 | nicola di croce | 47AD_excerpt2

Optionica - Biomechanics [Illusions In The Bathyscaphe Nearfield Remix]

Splinters as a composition has a dream like quality, dark and enigmatic. Electronic noise colours the drone and bubbling soundscapes of a somewhere. Repeating musical phrases mix with recognisable sounds from life - a spoken utterance, a rumbling train. As a listener you drift with the current through misty scenes, on a journey down a river towards some marshland on the edge of an urban sprawl.

Made in response to an invitation from TACO! - an artist space in Thamesmead in South East London - Splinters documents Kate Carr’s relationship with that space, and the area of London it is located in. Over an 18 month period Kate kept a growing sonic diary of her journeys to the space from her home, her construction of work in the gallery, her wanderings around the green spaces and urban architecture, the coming and goings of visitors and the artistic material from other artists and musicians working at the space. This work is a sonic portrait of a time and a place, and the actions and events within it.


Splinters includes audio samples from concerts and exhibitions held at TACO! Featuring material from live sets by Liz Helman, Tom White, Rebecca Lennon, Pouya Ehsaei, Jonathan Higgins and Hannah Dargavel-Leafe, and audio material from the exhibitions Scratch! by George Barber, and Heavy View by Laura Yuile.

Mat Jenner, director, TACO!
--------------------------------------
Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering.
Design by Louise Mason.
A huge thanks to Liz Helman, Tom White, Rebecca Lennon, Pouya Ehsaei, Jonathan Higgins and Hannah Dargavel-Leafe for permission to use short excerpts of audio material from their wonderful live sets, and to George Barber and Laura Yuile for access to audio from their installations. 
Also massive thanks to Mat Jenner for inviting me to TACO in the first place!

Detritus Clouds from Splinters out Sept 3

Handstitched* update: pre-order 25 October ->  

https://handstitched.bandcamp.com/album/paragraphs

https://vimeo.com/460924638

Emba  – “Paragraphs” is released in two limited editions, a digipak version, limited to 50 copies and a handmade edition, limited to 20 copies. Both editions come with artwork by Genoveva Kachurkova.

Emba is a collaborative project between Tim Diagram, UK and Mathieu Lamontagne who is based in Quebec, Canada.

Thanks for listening x

Emba - Paragraphs [Sampl3r]

1986754

Track from:
Simon Whetham "Forced to Repeat Myself" CD

“When performing with a limited set of resources, through choices in materials to work with and the constraints of being nomadic, there can be a tendency to repeat actions and scenes that 'work', even when improvising and having to respond to each new situation in a unique way.”

One characteristic aspect of the touring experience that is not discussed often enough is the dilemma of repetition. Not repetition as a mechanism of the work itself, but as a tedious consequence of being obligated to perform night after night in quick succession. Generating a completely unique performance for each stop, even with the assistance of improvisation,  is a laborious undertaking that consumes too much time and sanity, while adhering to a rigid set of rules leaves one open to both burnout and diminishing returns. Is there a way to split the difference so that both performer and audience are always engaged to the highest standard?

“I set these constraints on myself. The need to produce something (at least a little) different in each event of a tour was fierce, especially when traveling with other musicians.”

Explicitly within the title itself of his latest CD, Forced To Repeat Myself, UK sound artist and composer Simon Whetham tackles these questions with both a sly wit and sincere inquisitiveness. The tracks, all collected from recordings documenting a 2018 tour, utilize analogous source material and means of execution.  Whetham paid particular attention to the contour and character of each venue when deciding how to best put the pieces together, offering a customization that subverts pure deja vu for a sharp observance of the unfamiliar.

“In each situation objects and materials unique to the space were incorporated into the performance setup and structure, generating sounds or resonating with them. And yet I could hear similar scenes, movements, even spaces. This repetition determined the dynamic of the composition, working with it and against it.”

By the very nature of their disseminating sparseness, the tracks of Forced To Repeat Myself demand from the listener an attentiveness fixed on nuance and variation. The amplified cracks and static of ethereal currents and anonymous electronics infer the works of others who’ve made it their mission to attune our attention toward sounds outside our natural perception, including Christina Kubisch’s electrical walks, Toshimaru Nakamura’s no-input mixer excursions, and Jason Zeh’s experiments with blank tapes and the mechanizations of his cassette players. Whetham’s shaping of the album’s source material to highlight certain exclusivities of each live performance emphasizes how the inherent dynamics of time and chance guide his self-imposed constraints into pathbreaking spectrums. 

“The title references a phrase many of us will have heard in our formative years, ’Why do you force me to repeat myself?’ I have no answer to this question. I never forced anyone to do anything. But with this work, I did.”

One inherent paradox of Forced To Repeat Myself is that each listen naturally manifests a distinct, individual experience. The way sounds are received and processed in one instance to the next each forget their own entryway into transcribing meaning from this abstraction. And Whetham is keenly aware of this as the sounds of Forced To Repeat Myself find consistent, unique ways to perpetuate themselves, ensuring any repetition to be delicately understated.

Forced to Repeat Myself

Forced to repeat Myself

Simon Whetham "08-11"

Night Foundation - Hold That Thought

Unfathomless is a thematic series focusing on phonographies reflecting the spirit of a specific place crowded with memories, its aura & resonances...


Published so far :
U71 juan josé calarco - poleas
U70 philippe neau - étang donné
U69 Masayuki Imanishi - insects are
U68 Clinton Watkins - Raaswater
U67 simon whetham - dry
U66 philip sulidae - Vandemonian Verplaatsing
U65 Ludovic Medery - Les pierres sèches
U64 nicola di croce - 47AD
U63 Thibault Jehanne - Farol
U62 Vanessa Rossetto - self-care
U61 grisha shakhnes - being there
U60 Leo Okagawa - something veiled
U59 Banks Bailey - Mountains and Waters
U58 René Aquarius - Woodland Sigil
U57 Jared Sagar - Tombland
U56 brb>voicecoil - reclaim
U55 A.F. Jones - Bourdon du Kinzie
U54 Bruno Duplant & David Vélez - our seasons reverse
U53 - Jérémie Mathes - In[Core]Wat[t]
U52 - Frédéric Nogray - Ondureñas
U51 - Mathieu Ruhlmann & Joda Clément - Sound Diary of Quiet Pedestrians
U50 - Jeph Jerman - Imbrication
U49 - Yiorgis Sakellariou - in Aulis
U48 - Philip Sulidae - Ramshead
U47 - Banks Bailey - The Pool
U46 - Haptic - ten years under the earth
U45 - Ludovic Medery - eMERgences
U44 - Fergus Kelly - Local Knowledge
U43 - João Castro Pinto - Suntria - imaginal sonotopes
U42 - Jared Sagar - Holme
U41 - Sala - scare me not
U40 - Rihards Bražinskis & Raitis Upens - Aldaris
U39 - Stéphane Marin - Invisible(s) Archipelago(s) 1 – Serendib rhythms
U38 - Five Elements Music - lokrum patterns
U37 - Kassel Jaeger - Onden  隱佃
U36 - Andrea Borghi - Fuochi Rituali di San Giuseppe
U35 - Vanessa Rossetto - The way you make me feel
U34 - Flavien Gillié - Nonante-neuf fragments harenois
U33 - David Vélez & Bruno Duplant - Moyens Fantômes
U32 - artificial memory trace - hypnotikon (australOpus 2)
U31 - Jérémie Mathes - Fallow Memory
U30 - Osvaldo Coluccino - Parallelo
U29 - Michael Trommer - night swimmer
U28 - Nicolas Perret & Silvia Ploner - Nýey
U27 - Jay-Dea Lopez - The Australian Gothic
U26 - Claudio Parodi - Prima del terzo
U25 - Manrico Montero - Sisal
U24 - Yiorgis Sakellariou - Klaipeda
U23 - Frédéric Nogray - Merua
U22 - Loren Chasse - Characters at the Water Margin
U21 - darius ciuta - ld2i(3)
U20 - artificial memory trace - garig gunak barlu
(australOpus 1)
U19 - philip sulidae - History of Violence
U18 - Tarab - strata
U17 - David Vélez /Simon Whetham - Yoi
U16 - Kassel Jaeger - Rituel de la Mort du Soleil
U15 - Jérémie Mathes - Efequén
U14 - Yann Novak - Paradise & Winchester
U13 - Bruno Duplant - Quelques usines fantômes 
U12 - Chris Whitehead - Ravenscar (not yet released, but imminent !)
U11 - Five Elements Music - Rishikesh
U10 - David Velez - Sonido Descompuesto
U09 - Joda Clément - The Narrows
U08 - James McDougall & Hiroki Sasajima - Injya
U07 - simon whetham - Mall Muzak
U06 - Juan José Calarco - aguatierra
U05 - revenant - zeltini
U04 - Kassel Jaeger - lignes d'erre & randons
U03 - Nicholas Szczepanik & Juan José Calarco - Lack Affix
U02 - Luigi Turra & Christopher McFall - Tactile.surface
U01 - mathieu ruhlmann - tsukubai

U64 | nicola di croce | 47AD_excerpt2

Unfathomless

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