Hello Hello Hello fans of sound art, musique concrète, field recordings and experimental noise. Here's another roundup of non-musical recommendations for you. Been listening to so much great stuff lately. This list barely scratches the surface...
Anyway, as always, if you like what you see/hear, please considering supporting these tremendous artists & labels by buying their albums and following them on Bandcamp and/or social media.
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Coagulant - Map of the Dusk Until Its Replacement
(Antenna Non Grata, 2023)
Coagulant is a conceptual sound art project devised by Fabio Kubic, who is an Italian-born artist based in London. Since 1998 he has been creating experimental sounds and abstract noisescapes using a variety of environmental microphones, electronic manipulation techniques and audio-feedback editing. He has released a range of albums, both independently and through various labels that specialize in experimental noise art. This latest album of his was recently released on the Polish label Antenna Non Grata.
'Map of the Dusk Until Its Replacement' consists of two sprawling album-length tracks. The original source material for these tracks were sounds recorded in two different locations, during Nautical Sunset and Astronomical Sunset, which is reflected in the titles of these two pieces.
In the first track 'Nautical' you will hear a mighty build-up of some kind of powerful metallic whooshing, shimmering drones, dissonant feedback, motor-like humming and distant echoes that ricochet through this abstract sonic environment like some ghostly human wailing... all of which creates an utterly haunting and mesmerizing ambient soundscape of a vast oceanic quality.
In the second track 'Astronimical' you will hear trembling static, thunder-like rumbles and crashes, low gurgling drones, sinister weather noises, cacophonous cricket-like chirping, mechanical stuttering, ambient feedback, sustained metallic bell-like sounds and lots of other indistinguishable fluttering noises that drift and swirl around this surreal dreamscape.
'Map of the Dusk Until Its Replacement' is a powerful and wonderfully hypnotic album of haunting sound design and surreal psychoacoustic phenomena. A highly immersive sound journey.
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Kate Carr - False Dawn
(Flaming Pines, 2023)
Kate Carr is a London-based composer and field recordist whose work uses sound to explore the spaces we create together. She is particularly interested in shared public spaces, and the ways we deploy sound to connect, occupy, immerse and remove ourselves from locations, events and each other. Her live work is centred on objects, chance events and textures.
Her latest album 'False Dawn' is a foley forest, originating from a series of field recordings Carr created for various workshops, which (if I understand correctly) she then used for a series of live performances in London and Vienna.
In these recordings you will hear a variety of whistles, horns, plastic bottles, squeaky toys, bags of rice, duck quackers, splashing water, percussive rattles, brushes and bells replicating the unique sounds of a forest at dawn - birds singing (both the familiar and the exotic), ducks quacking, frogs grunting, bugs rattling, insects scuttling, critters rustling, feet shuffling through detritus and creatures swimming and frolicking in the water... accompanied by Carr's signature eerie drones in the background, which gives the entire thing a rather dark, subtle and haunting atmosphere. And if you listen to this closely, in a quiet environment, you will hear a really beautiful background ambience emerge out of the mix at some point.
'False Dawn' is an impressive and luxurious soundscape of exquisite forest noises. From the subtle crackling micro-movements of small beings, to the louder shrieks of bigger mammals - this album of fake sounds somehow manages to aurally encapsulate the rich and marvellous cacophony of this unique hidden habitat, and also makes for a beautiful and rewarding listening experience.
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Kory Reeder - Self-portrait as a meditation on Somewhere Else
(Sawyer Spaces, 2023)
Kory Reeder is an experimental composer/musician based in Denton, Texas. As well as having released a wonderful back catalog of contemporary classical music and improvisations under his own name, he also runs the record label, Sawyer Editions. And very recently he started up an imprint of the label called Sawyer Spaces, focusing on field recordings and soundscape composition.
'Self-portrait as a meditation on Somewhere Else' is one hour-long (ish) soundscape composition, consisting of a combination of field recordings, acoustic instruments, sine tones and various noises taken from the Everglades National Park (Florida) during Reeder's stay there as an Artist In Residence.
This long-form recording begins with the natural hum and cacophonous chirping of the various critters, insects and birds of this tropical wilderness. The lovely natural ambience is soothing and meditative to listen to. Then a few minutes into the piece you will hear the faint distant drone of a motor, which gradually becomes louder and more prominent, at some point becoming clear that it's the sound of a passing helicopter (or possibly a jetski?), overwhelming all nature sounds entirely, and polluting the environment with its noise. You will eventually hear the unmistakable sound of human voices, rustling movements and splashing water, mixed in with subtle sine tones. Then there's the heavy and persistent trickle of falling rain (or dripping water) gently merged with soft swells of musical instruments - the occasional tinkle of a piano, and possibly a stringed instrument... leading into the ominous rumbles of tropical thunderstorm. You can almost feel the heat and humidity of the Everglades bleeding through the speakers. Halfway through the composition you will hear the grunting of some large reptile or amphibian, along with exotic birdsong and underwater gurgles, to the backdrop of more motorized traffic sounds.
As the piece moves towards its end, the noise and ambience dwindles back down into a peaceful and natural serenity, with Reeder's quiet and subtle acoustic flourishes giving the whole thing a more emotional and tender quality.
'Self-portrait as a meditation on Somewhere Else' is a beautiful and captivating listening experience. The strange juxtaposition of the natural and unnatural, the ebbing and flowing of all the various noises in this hot sticky environment, and the subtle acoustic instrumentation peppered throughout the composition makes for an alluring and exquisite sound art album.
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María Alejandra Bulla - to be noise and dance
(Sawyer Spaces, 2023)
María Alejandra Bulla is a music maker interested in the creation of flexible performance situations that allow individuals to experience art in a personal way. From the construction of miniature objects to oversized scores, instrumental pieces and field recordings, she attempts to create experiences in which music becomes part of everyday situations. Her artistic work lives comfortably at the intersection of sound, craft and design.
This album 'to be noise and dance' consists of a series of SoundWalks in which the artist has collected, compiled and collaged field recordings from her aimless walks around various cities in America and Columbia. The purpose of this sound experiment was ''walking with no other purpose than recording what happens'' while thinking, remembering and reflecting on life and love.
In these recordings you will hear a variety of familiar busy city sounds - the beeping and whooshing of passing traffic, human voices, construction noises, distant helicopters, bicycles and bustling footsteps...which are seamlessly blended with beautiful nature sounds, such as birds tweeting and twittering, insects buzzing and chirping, along with all kinds of weather sounds - sometimes loud and heavy, sometimes gentle and distant. Lots of ambient rainfall.
And over the cacophony of these strange soundscapes you will sporadically hear the soft humming and whistling of the artist, sparkly electric piano melodies, quiet somber drones, lonely music box notes and muted rumbles and swells of indistinguishable noise.
'to be noise and dance' is an absurdly captivating sound study of large urban environments that we walk through on a daily basis, and a fascinating sonic exploration of the elemental forms that make up our human existence, and city life in general. Such an intriguing and wonderful listening experience.
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Heavy Cloud - Zennor
(self-released, 2023)
Heavy Cloud is the solo music project of English experimental artist/musician Ryan Hooper. Hooper has released a vast number of works - both independently and through various small record/tape labels. He creates collage-based sound art and experimental textures inspired by memory and internal/external landscapes.
'Zennor' is a village on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, UK. In this album, Hooper used Zennor as ''a metaphorical location for the Zennor Sound Group to workshop sonic ideas and share and cross-thread histories as a form of therapy, by way of a lofi radio play across timelines and ley lines.''
This album consists of 14 sound collages, which are made up from voices, texts, field recordings, found sounds, tape noises, snippets of musicality and turntable experiments.
In these bizarre sound collages you will hear a variety of fragmented voice samples, snippets of found piano melodies, tape hissing, damaged drones, radio music, dramatic waves of immersive noise and the unmistakable sounds of turntablism...all cutup, manipulated, detuned and bashed beyond recognition to form these wacky, demented and dream-like excursions into twisted territories of inner and outer worlds...
These minimalistic found sounds along with the noise of tape manipulation and audio disentegration create a unique kind of ambience, and a strangely cinematic listening experience. 'Zennor' is a surreal and satisfying album of avant-garde sound art.
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Sylvia Hallett - Telescope
(Scatter Archive, 2022)
Sylvia Hallett is a multi-instrumentalist and composer moving between violin, Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, saw, accordion, electronics and found objects. She currently plays solo and with The London Improvisers Orchestra and The Heliocentrics. As a solo artist, she has released six solo albums.
This album consists of one 29-minute long sound collage of improvised tape loops and home field recordings taken during the 80s and early 90s. As Hallett states herself, this is the period of time that she felt like she was looking back on through a telescope while making this album.
If I understand it correctly, these found recordings of hers were done on reel-to-reel tape recorders and a high-speed Tascam Portastudio, played backwards and/or at a warped speed, and eventually recomposed on a computer.
There's a lot going on in this piece. You will hear natural room acoustics, manipulated detuned voices, cavernous reverberations, sinister sweeping drones, gurgling wind-like noises, reversed shuffling sounds, draining water, erratic rumbles, steel clanking, abstract pulses, fragments of slowly-stretched creepy electronica, some sort of tribal chanting, segments of dreamy ambience and a variety of other miscellaneous indistinguishable sonic textures.
'Telescope' is a baffling and intriguing sound collage of fragile tape loops, warped audio, abstract atmospheres and free-form improvisation using minimalistic (dated) equipment, and lovingly brought back to life using more modern audio treatments. A fascinating listening experience.
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Mykel Boyd - What Is Behind Me Still Remains Ahead Of Me
(Park70, 2023)
Mykel Boyd is an experimental sound/conceptual artist that lives in Bradley, Illinois. He is also the founder/owner of the sound art label Somnimage. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, Boyd creates work in which a fascination with the clarity of content and an uncompromising attitude towards conceptual and minimal art can be found. The work is aloof and systematic, and cool and neutral imagery is used.
'What Is Behind Me Still Remains Ahead Of Me' is an album of dark abstract atmospheres and textures, made from manipulated field recordings. It consists of two long-form pieces.
'Images of Absolute Truth' begins with the resonating echoes of a gong-like bell being hit slowly and repetitively against a background of static, which suddenly morphes into the more threatening sound of stuttering wind sounds. This gradually quietens down into an array of subtle sonic abstractions, pierced through with sinister bursts of squalling noise and ominous bangs, while the tension and atmosphere trembles away...
'Fall On Us and Hide Us' beings with distant banging, watery gargles, sustained ambient tones and various fluttering textures, every now and then ending with gentle explosions. There is also bizarre laser-like beams of sound, dipping and rising in frequency. Like the previous track, it has that haunting crackling static noise throughout...sometimes subtle, sometimes right up to the forefront.
'What Is Behind Me Still Remains Ahead Of Me' is a dark, eerie and fascinating listening experience, and a real atmospheric treat for fans of experimental noise and sound art.
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black_ops and The Creeping Man - Wound and Suture
(Wormhole World, 2023)
black_ops and The Creeping Man are two noise artists that both work within the field of eerie experimental sound art. This is their debut full-length collaboration album, and the follow-up to an EP they released last year called 'Dust', which they called ''an audio apertif to whet the palate - a pledge of things to come''.
'Wound and Suture' is a dark collection of haunting soundscapes made up of sinister drones, fractured static, ghostly ambience and sweeping post-industrial noise... intertwined and interweaved with twisted audio samples that are a signature part of The Creeping Man's solo output. The more the album plays out, the more you find that these voice samples and manipulated audio excerpts are an integral and crucial part of the overall unique sound design of these compositions. The use of field recordings throughout this album are subtle and tasteful, smoothly blending into the eeriness of these dronescapes, whilst at the same time not being too much of a distraction. The source material of these recordings remain mysterious and abstract, and provoke feelings of confusion and unease.
'Wound and Suture' is a brilliant collaboration between two dark underground noise artists who have both individually honed their unique crafts to the point where you can clearly distinguish their separate contributions to the overall sound of this album, yet the styles are sonically blended together with such discipline and finesse. If you're a fan of ominous drones, manipulated field recordings and haunted sound art - this album's for you.
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Emmanuel Mieville - four towers and a bridge
(forms of minutiae, 2022)
Emmanuel Mieville is a Paris-born composer, field recordist and scholar of musique concrète whose work focuses on aural perceptions of daily life, and field recordings with a special focus on sound topologies recorded around the world, musical objects and environment.
This album is comprised of four ambiguous sound collages. In these recordings you will hear rapidly pulsating tones, oscillating feedback, modulating frequencies, glitchy electronic bursts, erratic crackling, haunting drones, industrial machinery, mechanical whining and grinding, doors slamming, surfaces squeaking, atonal squalls of noise, steel clanging and a vast array of objects being shuffled, shaken and banged... all against a backdrop of outdoor field recordings from various locations in France and Portugal - sounds recorded in, on, and around technologies of crossing; from the Ponte Eiffel bridge in Viana do Castelo (Portugal) to the elevator and automated railway system of the BnF (the national library of France) in Paris. You will disctinctly hear the rush of busy traffic, P.A announcements, birds chirping, dogs barking, wind blowing and fragments of human voices.
'four towers and a bridge' is an album of abstract and haunting sound environments that are jarring and unnerving, and sometimes frightening... but it's also a wonderfully unique and highly enjoyable example of avant-garde sound art. Highly recommended.
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Oishi - once upon a time there was a mountain
(Bezirk Tapes, 2023)
Oishi is the collaborative duo of experimental improv artists Zheng Hao and Ren Shang from China, currently-based in London, UK. They tend to perform using samples from their own music/materials, as well as field recordings and found sounds. Their live set up includes mixers, laptops and cassette players.
On Side A Hao is on laptop duties while Shang is on cassette player. This performance is based on a field recording of Hao walking a friend's dog in Urbana, Illinois, which has been stretched and manipulated (both manually and digitally) to create bizarre sonic abstractions. Minimalistic laser-like zaps and bursts of whooshing noises lay the basic sound foundation, over which layers of other ambiguous sounds are built upon through the piece. You will hear soft high frequency drones, haunting gargling sounds, distant crashing noises, fluttering static, erratic audio glitches, crunching footsteps, bird-like squalls, cut-up feedback and shifting pitches... all short-lived and fleeting, constantly interrupted by abrupt stops and silences.
On Side B Shang takes over the laptop while Hao occupies the cassette player - the vice versa roles of Side A. This performance was inspired by the instability of the car radio, and poetically simulates the sound of a motorcycle engine. In this recording you will hear the low frequency rumbles, puttering mechanical humming, engine-like revving and vrooming sounds - both gentle and wild, cut-up and warped tape manipulations, various intriguing song samples and chaotic crescendos of blistering squalls of noise.
'once upon a time there was a mountain' is a strangely exquisite sound collage, full of mystery and intrigue. It's a simultaneously baffling and endearing album of manipulated field recordings and experimental noise techniques. It treads an absurd middle ground between mundate reality and playful fantasy. Highly recommended.
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Stuart Chalmers - Suikinkutsu 水琴窟
(Fractal Meat Cuts, 2021)
Stuart Chalmers is a Yorkshire-based improvisor, tape splicer and ''sound scavenger'' whose work tends to focus on natural sound environments. He uses field recordings and a variety of different instruments and audio manipulation methods to create gorgeous improvised sound art and avant-garde musique concrete.
'Suikunkutsu' (English translation : water harp cave) is an album that was performed and recorded in Dowkabottom Cave in the Yorkshire Dales (UK) back in 2020, which had the second wettest February and the driest/sunniest May since records began. With the aim and intention of discovering more about the world's natural beauty and wonder during such a tumultuous time, Chalmers used water drops inside the cave to strike various objects of different materials and tones to create percussive sounds, and an unpredictable yet immersive acoustic environment for an album to be made in.
Throughout these tracks, the frequency and intensity of the water drips vary with the changing of the weather and the seasons. You will hear metallic tinkles, hollow dongs, watery trickles, shrill tings, wooden clanks, percussive bangs and some musical flourishes akin to the strum of a zither, or the soft striking of a xylophone. This is a serene and meditative sound art album, and a beautiful ode to nature.
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