Name: L. Lerkenfeldt _ 19th Century Ash (excerpt) by Vienna Press
Duration: 11 min 58 s
Description: Taken from Keys to the Fields 27: Various Artists "The White Madonna"

been coming back to your profile for a several weeks and each time is like: wow, what is this. your work is so otherworldly, unsettling, love-craftian, bewitching. does not get old.

LAWRENCE ENGLISH, Observation of Breath, LP

Release date - Sept 10th 2021
Catalogue nr. - HG2103
Format - Vinyl / digital
Hallow Ground

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1) A Torso (10:01)
2) A Binding (06:05)
3) And A Twist (02:42)
4) Observation Of Breath (20:44)

Credits:
All organ recorded at The Old Museum, Brisbane July-November 2020,
except A Torso’s centre section which was recorded in 2016 on the same organ.
Performed and Produced by Lawrence English
Picture by Juan Valverde de Amusco, 1560
Design by Ruth Stofer and Greenpointless

///
Do you remember the last time you were breathing consciously? Either way, you are likely doing it now. On his new album »Observation of Breath« for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label, Lawrence English worked exclusively with an organ for four compositions that are exercises in »maximal minimalism,« as their creator himself notes in a nod to Charlemagne Palestine, who coined this term. While it seems somewhat fitting that those four pieces based on a steady flow of air were conceived and recorded in a situation of accelerated standstill caused by a respiratory disease, the Room40 founder is not so much concerned with capturing the zeitgeist than rather incorporating the spirit of time itself. »It is a record about presence and patience,« he explains. Exploring the unique sonic affordances of a singular instrument, »Observation of Breath« is not only devoted to the durability of sound but also to its density. That it marks his debut on Hallow Ground after having shaped its sound by mastering most of the label’s releases in recent years is just as fitting then as its release following albums by Kali Malone and FUJI|||||||||||TA, whose innovative work with organ instruments have facilitated a rediscovery of their possibilities. 

English’s compositions however are neither directly indebted nor responding to these musicians. His exploration of the organ’s many facets started a decade ago when the composer was given access to an instrument built in 1889 that is presently housed at The Old Museum in Brisbane. After it had already played a crucial role on his seminal albums »Wilderness Of Mirrors« and »Cruel Optimism,« last year’s self-released »Lassitude« was the first record that English entirely composed and recorded with that instrument. »During the soft lockdowns, I spent many days playing to an empty concert hall, recording the pieces that became ›Lassitude‹ and then, this album,« says English in regards to an unfortunate situation that fortunately provided him with time and space—two major themes but also key qualities of the four new compositions. In this sense, he goes on, »Observation of Breath« resolves a number of the questions originally raised by »Lassitude.«

»The organ is an exercise in the observation of breath,« English explains the album’s title. »It is a physical breath, one that manifests both audible and inaudible waves of vibrations. The sheer scale of the instrument, its weight and the physical length of the pipes involved in producing the sounds we experience is nothing short of mind-boggling.« More importantly, the sound artist is fascinated by the organ’s ability to produce frequencies that exist at the sensory limits of human awareness—it’s at the edges of these limits that fascination can be found, he argues. »The particular organ that I work with comprises four manuals and 45 speaking stops and it has a tubular-pneumatic action,« he explains. »It’s the stops that are the focus of my interest. They are very specific and when manipulated in certain ways and in certain combinations, create a unique set of unsteady timbres that make it a remarkably intoxicating instrument to collaborate with.«

LAWRENCE ENGLISH - A Binding (HG2103)

“Distant Water Exotic Landscape” is a generative audio and visual installation that explores the micro and macro perceptions of environmental cycle system through the transformational and transmittable materiality of water. It invites audience to (re-)consider the interdependencies among human, water and technology, as well as the liminal boundaries between natural and artificial environments.

The installation creates an imaginary landscape on coloured paper, where the black ink is constantly washed out by vaporised molecules of the water collected from various sources such as a local river, rain, spring, and imported bottled water. A pair of headphones is given to each viewer one at a time as live recodings reveal the energetic activities behind the formation of landscapes. Two types of microphones are installed behind the paper: a hydrophone inside the water bottle — to magnify the movements of liquid water and its vaporised steam, and a pair of electromagnetic sensors — to capture the electric flow consumed by the water vaporiser.

The duration of forming a piece of “landscape” and its energy consumption is precisely controlled: each piece is made of one distinct source of water ‘transforming’ on one piece of paper, within 7 hours of completed vaporisation. In this sense, new landscapes are created on a daily basis until the end of the exhibition.

A 31:28 soundtrack titled “Distant Water Exotic Landscape - Post Installation Studies” is comprised of recordings originating from 2 different exhibition spaces and various formational phases of different landscapes. These digitally recreated soundscapes transform the physical event into reimagined energetic phenomena that are led by unnatural laws in the digital environments. They are presented through constantly shifting listening angles and time frames. Meticulous streams of environmental information are articulated by active listening, constantly forming newly-emerging fragmented realities.

*This recording has been modified and split in half to accommodate the cassette format.

aloisyang.com/Distant-Water-Exotic-Landscape

archiveofficielle.com  
credits
released August 5, 2022

Archive Officielle-024, 2022
Duration : 31:28 Min
2 tracks, First edition of 50 copies

Sounds and production by Aloïs Yang
©2022 Archive Officielle

Recorded & Presented by SONICA
Festival, Ljub ljana, Slovinia, 2020,
oiioiooi’20, Sdalt Wehlen, Germany.

Supported by SHAPE platform
Creative Europe
license
all rights reserved

Distant Water Exotic Landscape - Post Instalation Studies (Archive Officielle - 024–album Preview)

Félicia Atkinson - Ma Langue La Premiere (Love Means Taking Action Mix)

From Keys to the Fields 17: øjeRum "Under Gange"

øjeRum _ Above Dreams Hands Now Flee III

"Red Velvet Or Nothing" by Belong from the definitive "October Language" LP reissue due out Spring 2018.

"Red Velvet Or Nothing" by Belong

From the LP "Velocity of Sleep" co-released with XKatedral 2017

Kali Malone "1113"

'A Poem' cassette available @ www.strangerules.com

Emily Berregaard - A Poem [Excerpt]

Taken from Keys to the Fields 27: Various Artists "The White Madonna"

L. Lerkenfeldt _ 19th Century Ash (excerpt)

"Figures / Ground" is a commission for the „Untraining the Ear“ series, produced in collaboration between @savvy-contemporary, @deutschlandfunkkultur and @ctm-festival. For the radio feature, the two parts are interspersed by a conversation in german with Jan Rohlf (Co-founder and artistic director of CTM / Disk agency).
Premiere on 29.03.2019, the piece is from now on available for free on-demand streaming under the following link:
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/klangkunst-abschied-von-den-hoergewohnheiten-figures-ground.3685.de.html?dram%3Aarticle_id=437789

Figures / Ground (extracts - link in text)

FUJI||||||||||TA, iki, LP

Release date - April 3th 2020
Catalogue nr. - HG2003
Format - Ltd. Vinyl/digital

https://hallowground.bandcamp.com

Credits:
All music composed, played and Recorded by FUJI|||||||||||TA
Mixed by Makoto Oshiro
Mastering by Lawrence English at Negative Space

Tracklist:
1) keshiki (09:42)
2) nNami (09:20)
3) osoi (10:12)
4) sukima (07:03)

///
"FUJI|||||||||||TA has created a work that operates as a beautiful nexus between the material and immaterial qualities of music. 
It is a lived-in dreamscape of deep, rich tonality. A remarkable debut."
(Lawrence English)

///
FUJI||||||||||TA, real name FUJITA Yosuke, is a Japanese sound artist. After countless performances in different contexts either solo or along artists such as Yamantaka Eye of Boredoms and the legendary avant-gardist SUZUKI Akio as well as a slew of solo releases, his LP »iki« (»breath«) for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label is his first in nine years. On these four pieces, Fujita explores the idiosyncratic sound qualities of the pipe organ he has built all by himself in 2009. This - quite literally unique - instrument features only eleven pipes, an air pump called »fuigo« which was modelled after a traditional blacksmith’s one and has no keyboard. Inspired by traditional gagaku, it was designed to evoke rich landscapes rather function as just another musical instrument. While his previous records saw FUJI||||||||||TA explore various modes of abstraction, »iki« is a highly emotive yet meditative album, musically restrained but full of imagination.

»keshiki« immediately sets the mood for this record with a long sustained note that is punctuated by the soft clicking of Fujita’s air pump. Once Fujita carefully starts bringing melodies into play, the interplay of the drone and the discrete rhythmic element gives way to a fuller harmonic whole. »keshiki« is an intimate piece that perfectly displays the artist’s knack for painting a rich sonic picture with only a reduced palette. »nNami« juxtaposes the sounds of two pipes that are out of tune with each other, creating a hypnotic sensation of ebb and flow (»nami« translates to »wave«) that is full of subtle friction. It’s a staggering artistic interpretation of the instrument’s material characteristics. Clocking in at ten minutes, »osoi« (»slow«) is an overall melancholic piece that explores the relationship between different tone colours through minute changes in pace. Finally, »sukima« (»blank space«) is the shortest and the most rhythmic piece of the four. Composed of only staccati, it is a masterful exploration of the harmonic qualities Fujita’s stunning pipe organ has to offer.

Recorded between September and December of 2019, »iki« marks the culmination of FUJI||||||||||TA’s ten-year-long work with the instrument that he had built without any prior knowledge and started to teach himself to play without a manual in sight. It is, in other words, the unique result of a unique musical mind paying his dues to the uniqueness of his own creation; introspective and welcoming at once.

FUJI||||||||||TA - osoi (HG2003)

Available now via Imprec.com

Akhira Sano's  Penetrating, For Filtration was manufactured on C60 Super Ferro tape for a low noise floor, high output, and an incredible warm sound. Packaged in a purple tinted case with silver shimmer printing. 

Japan's Akhira Sano is a young master of slow, ambient, electro new age music. His compositions are highly organic, growing and flowing with great patience and care. But, like in nature, imperfections and incidentals are allowed to evolve producing sublimely primal and imperfect music. In a world where everything can be made perfect, Sano's work is deliciate, shimmering and electric; abolishing and preserving time simultaneously. 

Sano creates painterly music (he is also a painter) based on the themes of error and constraint. He is a visionary sonic architect who sees his musical structures as incomplete; always unfinished. His debut on Sun Ark Records in 2019 was very well received and his demo for Imprec was immediate and compelling. Lose yourself in these two long tape sides on the second official release from Akhira Sano.

L. Lerkenfeldt _ 19th Century Ash (excerpt)

Vienna Press

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