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RM 4237LP
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$24.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 11/8/2024
From Lawrence English: "It's hard to imagine that this year [2024] William Gibson's Neuromancer celebrates its 40th anniversary. Having recently re-read the book for the first time in a great many years, the world building Gibson undertook in that text and the lingering cultural specters he conjured, feel ever so evocative of moments of our contemporary lived experience. The books continued cultural resonance has resolved in a way that captured a future reading of an, at that time of its release, unknown internet era. It was an era of promise, and imagination, of speculative hope and down-right uneasiness in equal parts. In 1994, as the books 10th anniversary was on hand, New York duo Black Rain were commissioned to make a soundtrack to the audio book version of Neuromancer. Read by the author himself, this document, originally publish on a series of cassettes, would go on to be recognized as a unique glimpse into Gibson's sensing of the characters and places that make up the Neuromancer zone. Following a period of work as an expanded collective, Stuart Argabright and Shinichi Shimokawa, the two core members of Black Rain, decided to strip back their unit largely to a duet format. Their focus became more engaged around studio practice, and it was this refocusing that was ultimately serendipitous. As they started work on Neuromancer a number of new approaches and techniques emerged and with them came a new sonic language the pair had only imagined previously. The audio book was a huge success and the soundtrack too was recognized for its brooding and post-industrial electronic grind. Since that time however, the recordings have largely remained in obscurity. While a couple of the pieces have surfaced in various editions including an excellent compilation by Blackest Ever Black, the entire suite of pieces has remained unpublished until this moment. Working off the original master tapes, this edition (like the book), folds and morphs over itself in an episodic stratification. Pieces emerge, like strange architecture, from one another forming a sonic environment that feels almost tangible. I spent many weeks working on these tapes and also on the connections between the pieces. In collaboration with Stuart, our joint aim was to create a version of the soundtrack that speaks to the very atmosphere of the text itself. It's a delight to share this collection of work for the first time."
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LP
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RM 4225LP
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$24.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/18/2024
From Lawrence English: "This recording was, in many ways, a critical one for me. In some respects, it rounded out a period of work that was focused on a particular marriage of thematics and harmony. Like For Varying Degrees Of Winter, it dwelled on old world impressions of the seasons, something that, in the southern hemisphere, isn't intrinsically part of our way of approaching place. I think it was this incongruity with my own lived experience that kick-started the interest in making these recordings. The intention had originally been to take Vivaldi head-on, as the holder of the Four Seasons terrain (I jest of course), but shortly after completing this album, it became resoundingly clear that even in the old world, seasonality was a thing that was known 'then', and unknowable 'now'. Climate change, as a lived experience and not merely as a 'possibility', suddenly came into focus with reports flooding in about the climatic dynamics since the turn of the century and events like the Black Saturday fires here in Australia. It felt like, and continues to feel like, seasonality as some predictable measure of our world is relegated to the 'before' times. This record is not about these climatic shifts however, more a recognition of how we have used patterns and predictability to guide us over the centuries and perhaps a realization that the way forward is not the path we have known historically. Listening back to the record with fresh ears, a process made completely delightful by Stephan Mathieu who has carefully remastered it, I am struck by how minimal some of the structures were. There are moments that strike me as uncharacteristically patient and even generous, allowing one element to hold without interference. I'm grateful to still feel a deep connection to this edition and to the people and places that helped shape it. I hope you find some sense of your place here. It's offered with that intention and invitation."
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RM 4226LP
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Evening Air is the result Loren Connors and David Grubbs's first trip to the recording studio in the two decades since their first duo album, Arborvitae (Häpna). Arborvitae stood out for its spell-binding, utterly unhurried meshing of electric guitar (Connors) and piano (Grubbs). With this long-awaited return, Connors and Grubbs take turns trading off on piano and guitar, with Grubbs at the keyboard for the two gently expansive pieces on the first side and Connors taking over the instrument for three gorgeous miniatures on the flip, including an album-closing and perfectly heart-stopping version of Connors's and Suzanne Langille's "Child." The album's wildcard is "It's Snowing Onstage," which finds the two locking horns with two electric guitars before Loren blew the minds of all present in the studio by unexpectedly switching to drums. Loren Connors is one-of-a-kind, one of a handful of deservedly storied musical greats gracing listeners with their presence, and with Evening Air David Grubbs again demonstrates that he's a stellar musician who also ranks among the most simpatico of collaborators.
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RM 4199CD
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A note from Yui Onodera: "I stayed in Iwate, where I was born, for a few days and created some sound materials using limited materials and old media. Over ten years ago, Iwate was devastated by the Great East Japan earthquake. Many old things that remained in my memory became rubble, dismantled, and new scenery was there. I bounced every song from 1982 straight onto an old tape recorder. This album that comes out of my interest in sonic 'degradation and rebuilding.' I treated the guitar and synthesizer in a lot of new ways, so using a lot of tape recorders and/or pedal effects. I wanted the guitar to be an extension of the ambient textures rather than technology and imperfection. The raw and the processed. We benefited greatly from the evolution and democratization of computer and audio technology in the early '00s. I was fascinated by sounds that could not be created by humans, such as real-time audio synthesis and granular synthesis. Now, 20-odd years later, I am fascinated by sounds that cannot be created with a computer. It was a unique acoustic texture created by deterioration and wear, including accidental wear, due to old technology that is disappearing. It's like a memory of my old days in Iwate."
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RM 4219CD
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A note from Jon Rose: "Characteristically invisible and inaudible, the wind is made manifest solely by its agency and performance on objects: huge waves crash to shore, sand dunes edge forward over millennia (rumbling as they go), cyclones uproot trees and houses, intergalactic winds confound the planets. On a more modest scale, I've been building aeolian instruments since 1979, part of my investigation into the innumerable aspects of the vibrating string. I designed the two recent aeolian instruments heard on this album, the Monolith 2021 and the Tube 2022, with a focus on engaging with the variable windy conditions experienced in central Australia. The bodies of these instruments are flanked on all sides by multiple strings. The 1.25-meter Monolith is made of plywood, with 36 strings of both piano wire and fishing line. The Tube is literally a 2-meter PVC pipe and is fitted with fishing line only. Discrete adjustments can be manually made if the wind shifts or if the operator wishes to engage other adjacent strings, often resulting in microtonal beats. The Monolith is set up with contact microphones cut into each bridge, and the Tube was recorded with air microphones inserted internally. Tuning rational has as much to do with tautness, thickness, and material quality of string as actual pitch when in a state of 'excitation' -- this violinist's intuition. These aeolian experiments are ongoing and may go some way to designing an instrument that simultaneously handles both the von Kárán vortex effect and unpredictable wind patterns. The results so far have generated numerous sonic surprises."
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RM 4224CD
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A note from Hasegawa: "The first LP by the Taj Mahal Travellers was recorded at Sogetsu Hall in Tokyo on July 15, 1972, which became the title of the work and was released the same year by CBS Sony Records. A live performance celebrating the 50th anniversary of this album was held on July 15, 2022. The only original members of the Taj Mahal Travellers who attended were myself and Seiji Nagai. This is because two of the six members passed away, two are religiously active and they cannot play music according to their belief, and the last one has lost touch with us. Therefore, young musicians were recruited to perform with us. This performance was a spark of improvisation that broke 50 years of my silence. Let me recall a little about the day of the concert. The venue was a live house called Forestlimit Hatagaya, about 20 minutes by car from Shibuya. In the pouring rain, we ended up entering a narrow alley from where it was impossible to reach the place by car, so after unloading my instruments, we had to head back to a wider road and find another route. The venue was small and located on the basement floor. Among performers and stuff members we were more than ten people, and including the audience, in total about 60 people gathered on that day. Indeed, the place felt packed like a crowded train in Tokyo. Many of the performers were meeting each other for the first time, and not only the audience but the participating musicians themselves could not imagine what the performance would be like. For this live performance, I asked my friends to perform stone, shadow, bamboo, and gorilla."
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RM 4215CD
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Keiji Haino is, without question, one of the truly iconic artists to rise beyond the dusk of the 20th century. An artist focused singularly of the beautiful visceral promise of music, his practice is a many-headed beast taking in movements from the gentlest of guitar play, through free improvisation and noise. As divergent as the work might be, it is held tightly by his unique way in sound, one that exists moment to moment with a force like no other. 20 years since its first release, Black Blues remains one of his most provocative recordings -- a collection of 6 songs, recorded twice over. One version "Violent," the other "Soft"; and the differences could not be more radical. Black Blues exists at both margins of Haino's sonic spectrum. At the Violent end, each piece is delivered with a sense of tangible intensity. In some moments it is as if listeners are inside Haino, his voice completely consuming all it comes in contact with. The guitar, carving a path that is part rhythm, part harmony, its tenderness cradling his voice with a determination and generosity. By contrast the Soft versions are almost lullabies, all be it ones that carry a mournful and anguish ladened atmosphere. Here the guitar splays out into clouds of reverb that shimmer at the edges, housing a voice which is constantly seeking a deeper resolution within the songs. Gentle but never settled. Black Blues captures the dynamic form of Keiji Haino's work in its most raw form; voice and guitar. The songs encapsulate a very particular portrait of an artist whose work only continues to grow deeper in is wonder and profundity.
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RM 4151CD
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On Stone, Suzuki expounds his approach of "throwing and following," casting out sounds and gestures into space and catching their returns. Each of the pieces explores the materiality of his chosen objects and the space within which each is activated. The recordings catch this process of sonic offering, and receiving, that characterizes the generosity of his relationship with sound, space and time. Originally recorded in 1994 in Berlin, this 30th anniversary edition features a new booklet with text by David Toop and photo documentation, some of which has not previously been published. The edition is also entirely remastered from the original recordings. From David Toop (excerpt from the Stone booklet): "With concentration, or elevated tension as he has called it, Akio Suzuki enters completely into the substance of sound, its emergence and its passing. What he does with sound may propose a rarefied world to many people, and yet it possesses a persuasive quality of rightness. One of the most difficult aspects of music and soundwork to explain is the concept of 'right action.' How is that music can be evaluated almost immediately, just as quickly as a fire alarm or a baby's cry? When Akio performs, certain qualities (grace, warmth, a quiet authority of mind and action, an engagement with the vessel of nothingness through which sound can emerge) are evident as presences, as soon as he begins. He begins from a state we call silence, by listening, yet at the same time raises questions about our ideas of what this silence might be. Time passes; fixity gives way to destruction; visual perfection is relinquished within the faintest of sound fields. As for the work, this ceremony returns us to nothing, 'to the feeling of not knowing exactly what is before us,' so to the uncanny, to the shell-like ear found by the sea, the 'ungraspable phantom of life,' the record of a haunting, time regained. The sound is a parabola, a finger tracing on skin, a brush point, bird in flight." Recorded in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Studio I on 11, 12, 13, and 17 October 1994. Mixed by Hans Peter Kuhn. Recorded by Junko Wada. Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space.
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RM 4236CD
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From France Jobin: "Quantum mechanics unfolds an intricate realm of limitless possibilities and probabilities, eluding easy definition. It paints a picture of the universe vastly different from our perceptible reality. What captivates me is the lens through which I perceive sound, akin to the principles of quantum physics? I don't merely hear the audible, but rather, I extract elements to construct novel auditory experiences. My profound interest in science, particularly quantum mechanics, originates around 2008-2009 during a resurgence of enthusiasm for string theory, (10-33cm released on ROOM 40) hinting at the prospect of a comprehensive theory of everything. The notion of existing within 11 dimensions, as opposed to our familiar four, held a mesmerizing allure. Lacking a background in quantum mechanics intensified the challenge of my exploration, yet I stayed attuned to emerging theories, albeit at a surface level due to time constraints. The advent of the pandemic granted me the opportunity to immerse myself in the intricacies of quantum mechanics, with a particular focus on the bizarre phenomenon of quantum entanglement, which stands as one of the most enigmatic aspects of modern physics, alongside gravity. Embarking on this intellectual journey presented a steep learning curve, leaving me in a state of bewilderment for the initial six months. Yet, amid the confusion, I gleaned a profound insight: the intrinsic nature of probabilities within quantum mechanics means that feeling adrift and perplexed isn't a hindrance but rather an advantage. It becomes a preparation for the myriad possibilities and uncertainties that define this captivating and eccentric realm. Moving forward to 2021 brings me to the four sources of inspiration for the Entanglement project: the fluidity of time, the principle of entanglement, the Copenhagen interpretation and many worlds interpretation. Three iterations have been created so far with visual artist Markus Heckmann: Entanglement AV, Entanglement XR, Entanglement Dome, and finally, a fourth one, a series of four albums entitled Entangled Quantum States." All sounds recorded at various locations in Europe, Japan and South America, at MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio) and at EMS (Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm). Cover image: Markus Heckmann.
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RM 4235CD
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Final is Justin Broadrick. While many might recognize him through his connections to legendary groups such as Godflesh and Techno Animal, or via his various solo guises (Jesu, JK Flesh, etc), Final charts an entirely different sonic terrain. Focused primarily on devolved landscapes of heavily treated guitar, Final sees Broadrick dwell in a foggy and subliminal zone where source materials are submerged, morphed and reborn as wholly different sound-beings. What We Don't See is a record that pierces into the realm of post-experience that exists beyond sense and sensation. It reaches towards the invisible, the inaudible and the intangible and imagines a soundtrack to this non-place. The record is cast in a hazy gauze of filtered noise within which seismic tremors of tone and harmony fold into each other. It is a record that breaths with a measure of deep dreams and an unfettered desire to dwell in sound. From Justin Broadrick: "The theme of this recording is the invisible world, and one's (my) need for it. It's necessary for me, this idea of the invisible world, if I am to function on a daily basis. I find comfort in knowing that this is all not just us here and now, that there's something else around us. That there's something within us, that isn't just this frail skin and bones and the immediate environments we drag ourselves around. I am sure since I was a child, that within me I am many, I am more than this. I surely can't be just this, so I am motivated by the fantasy and/or promise of more?" Created and produced by Justin K Broadrick. Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space.
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RM 4230CD
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Through the eye of the pinkish gate. Soft lights. Cool evening breezes, toxic fumes, burnt champagne and supper for one. Love and longing. Disenchantment. The murky meanderings of Pinkcourtesyphone. A gourmet offering befitting a pall party without compare. Attempts have been made in this collection of recordings, obdurate and diegetic, to express anxiety, always, often, and sometimes. Arise in Sinking Feelings, an unmistakable Pinkcourtesy mood, simply combines of magic and memory that spin out within moments before delighted senses. This album includes a printed insert of inspiration. Use it to gain maximum benefits from your study of Pinkcourtesyphone. Read and imbibe the insert while you listen to the recording. The Room40 Media Institute recommends the
"Double Sensory" method of absorbing sonic information. Its consistent use will greatly increase your powers of concentration and retention. Let your feelings sink as you let Pinkcourtesyphone sink in; its secret can destroy you in its un-yielding grasp.
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RM 4234CS
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A note from Stuart Argabright: "I had gone to LA in early summer of 2021 to help produce a mix tape for Stefan. The tracking went well and I began thinking we might get in some time to do some cassette-based work while we were hot. This worked out too, we recorded across three or four days. I had brought a selection of tapes with voices on them and Stefan had at least six or eight different decks. Almost all of them could playback slower too. Once we had our tapes loaded, we would take off into something else new and in the moment. The result sometimes drifted and blurred, becoming like a kind of pitched down or screwed Lower Broadway jam. Blue Dream; Blue Agave, blue neon path, to Whole Foods. We went to Japan Town. Drove across town one evening to the ocean drive up to Malibu and waves were coming in, through a haze. North to Encino and stayed some nights in Toluca Lake. Then McArthur Park and somewhere else we heard Venice Beach chimes. The Bradbury was in the neighborhood -- that classic set for the interior of JR Sébastien living quarters in the cyberpunk classic Blade Runner -- as well as for the Outer Limits episode starring Rau Culp -- "The Demon with the Glass Hand," written by Harlan Ellison. These memories haunt the tapes going forward."
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RM 4228CD
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With Bodies, Australian composer Madeleine Cocolas unlocks an embodied tidal force. As many of her antipodean compatriots would appreciate, water plays a huge part in the understanding of Australia. Vast fluid bodies spill out from its shores and the dynamism and intensity of these oceans -- physically and psychologically -- act as a guide to the forms of this record. Like these fluid bodies themselves, the record shifts between violent ruptures, as waves of sound collide, before giving way to passages of rich lightness and near tranquility. From Madeleine: "Bodies explores similarities between bodies of water and human bodies and seeks to blur the boundaries between them. These works incorporate sounds of water I recorded on recent trips to the Australian coastline as well as creeks and waterfalls in Far North Queensland. I have taken these recordings and other recordings of my voice and breath and heavily processed them together with synths and electronics so that the boundaries between field recordings, vocals and electronics are also blurred. These sounds together create sonic collages that move in ways to emulate rhythmic cycles that can be found in both water and humans such as waves, pulses and currents. In many ways I consider Bodies to be a companion album to Spectral (RM 4167CD, 2022). Whilst Spectral explores the idea of sounds evoking memories and emotions, Bodies is about being present in your body. Sounds wash over you in ways that are sometimes comforting and inviting and in other moments are overwhelming and dark, but it is in those moments of intensity that I invite people to breathe through that discomfort with the knowledge that time will pass and that moment will move on. When I listen back to these pieces, I often imagine I'm floating on my back with my ears half submerged in the water, being pulled back and forth by currents and tides with a sense of vulnerability and release."
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RM 4223CD
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Remember hearing music while dreaming, fully confident that you'll be able to reconstruct it once awake? Music that, as it turns out, you were the sole witness. In retrospect, why ruin the experience by something so vulgar as hearing it a second time, much less having to share it? Now, David Grubbs and Liam Keenan have returned from the dark side of the pillow bearing Your Music Encountered in a Dream. How did they do it? They did it by meeting to record a series of electric guitar duets in Sydney just as summer was turning to fall. They did it because Grubbs was limber and uncharacteristically chill after a couple of weeks in Australia playing shows and not playing shows. Sydney resident Liam Keenan's comfort zone gravitates toward singing and songwriting under the moniker Meteor Infant, and on this session one genuinely senses an unabashed spirit of discovery. It's happening, it's really happening in these three generously scaled improvisations. Maybe The Necks -- as well as solo recordings by Tony Buck and Chris Abrahams -- count as unconscious reference points. From the juggling and interplay of pitches in isolation, to the ecstatic speaking-together of strings, to guitar music as electronic music, there's little in the way of searching for endings in this revelatory meeting. No hastening the dream's end. Hail the first encounter.
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RM 4233CD
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As Celer, Will Long and Danielle Baquet laid out a framework for extended exercises in ambience, texture and atmosphere. Their work, much of which was initially circulated through collectors, traders and fanatics, went on to become a blueprint for an approach to sound that was equal parts patient, generous and drifting. Cursory Asperses collects a unique set of shorter form works that typify the pairs interested in warmth and subtle density. Recorded between 2007 and 2008, it captures a culminate step -- an introduction to minute detail, revolved ideas, and fragile structural ideas. A truly unique offering that soaks deeply into their variations in sound. A note from Will Long: "Recorded in 2007 and 2008, Cursory Asperses was created with cassette tape recordings of water sounds from various rivers, streams, lakes, beaches, and pools, combined with direct to tape instrument recordings from synthesizers, an organ, cello, piano, and bowed instruments. Instead of traditionally mixing these, at the time we were interested in software, using free Mac OS Classic programs such as Audiosculpt and Soundhack. Before we had a DAW, before VSTs, we used non-realtime convolution processing through software, using the water recordings as an impulse for the instrument sounds. The instrument sounds were 'arranged' (by adding silence before, during, or after) in layered, visual swathes, to create an audio interpretation of the movement of water and waves, slowly evolving and shifting, for a meditation on deep and focused listening. Opposed to passivity, where sounds become lost in distant tones and layers upon layers are misinterpreted as single, meaningless tones. Or, it's just as meaningless as the passing of water, the flow of rivers -- the crashes of sparkling ocean waves, all those sounds that we recognize. The tones are unpolished, left in their fuzzy form, with the high noise crushed into the deep. Behind the swells, and under the depths is a longing, or a lack thereof. It's passing by, no different than it was years before."
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RM 4229CD
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In Filipino, the word "Panghalina" roughly translates to magnetism. It's a fitting name for this grouping of three of Australia's emergent voices in the realms of improvisation, extended technique and unusual song-form. Maria Moles, Bonnie Stewart, and Helen Svoboda have each carved out a unique place for themselves in the antipodean music landscape and here, on Lava, they create a gravitational orbit around each other's' practices. This cyclic approach has produced an utterly communal sound language that is equal parts atmospheric, harmonic and exploratory. A note from Maria, Bonnie and Helen: "Lava is an ode to the connections between sound, emotion and human experience, exploring the interplay of sonic duality. The overlapping duos within the trio framework brought forth uncharted possibilities, allowing each of us to weave our individuality into the improvisations. The crafting of the record revealed the project's distinctiveness. With an instant resonance, we found ourselves drawn to this project -- a canvas that allows various aspects within our artistic practices to flourish. The album encapsulates the dialogue between our spirits and the music, celebrating the alignment of artistic kinship. We've named the album Lava, drawing inspiration from the melding of our sounds that resonates with the characteristics of molten rock -- its subdued, unhurried motion juxtaposed against its fiery core. Just as molten rock emerges from a terrestrial planet, our collaboration springs forth from a distinctive sonic realm that is exclusively our own."
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RM 4213CD
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"Let`s go back to the pre-orthodox world, the ancient one, which gave us mythology, extreme experiences, congealed in stories. Echo was a storyteller herself, distracting from what was going on around her, up to the point when she got punished, and from then she was only able to repeat the last words spoken to her, to her, to her... A loop is a loop is a loop and it`s all about roses. A rose is arrows, is errors... Echo -- is a potential, endless space. We need this construction towards an actual eternity we cannot grasp. This layer was up above the countless expressions. I could hear it from the very first moment to the last. Searching in transitions, lost in transitions. The idea of a space behind the next space helps us get through, in order not to get lost in such constructions. If We Could Hear has seven pieces, a beginning, and an end. It`s a poem and not a Matryoshka even though it sounds like one. 'A strange footprint on the shores of the unknown, out there extending from nowhere, turning in on itself to a place which is both an ending and a beginning." --Robert Smithson
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RM 4222CD
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A note from øjeRum : "Your Soft Absence is a suite of processed sine waves and sampled wind instruments. It's a narrative of a particular feeling of absence that's haunting me; perhaps best described as the longing for a childhood emotion, a feeling of unconscious wonder, a state of simply being without an essence or perhaps like a memory continuously receding whenever I try recalling it, seemingly closest and most present at a certain distance, with a certain absence."
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RM 4208CD
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A note From Fabio Perletta: "This release borrows its title Nessun Legame con la Polvere (No Attachment To Dust) from a Zen story as well as from a small wooden box, namely one of ten sculptures of my project I Fiori Non Vedono Mai I Propri Semi (Flowers Don't Ever See Their Own Seeds). This artwork was exhibited in 2020 at Pollinaria's forest, Italy as part of Aequusol Autumnus MMXX. The exhibition had no sound. It is now clear that life, the matter we are made of, and the objects we use every day cannot be considered entities in their own right but rather as relationships between these things, the way they affect each other. Even their own tangibility and particular properties are nothing but the way they influence and act on other things. It is a perspective that quantum physics has adopted for many years, but also the basis of our biology, of our feelings. When we perceive the world we establish a strictly localized perspective which in turn can generate a more extended and widespread resonance within and around us. Nessun Legame con la Polvere is a web of mutual influences; encounters that come and go forever; sounds that intersect with others in unpredictable ways, fragments sedimented over time and resurfaced, personal happenings that unwittingly steered the rudder towards one course rather than another. Nessun Legame con la Polvere is a meditation on lost friends, death and its counterpart, the extraordinary force of life. Although the title of this work seems to betray what I have stated so far, it is in its paradoxical, bizarre riddle that I learnt to really appreciate the value of things. I embraced a perspective that contemplates life's complexity in a broader sense, without looking for a purpose, an alleged answer to our existence, a meaning or God. Having no attachment to dust opens up to possibilities, it welcomes likelihoods. I hope that this work can generate some light while listening, and create new relationships between you and the shadows of the world, their ripples and little openings, between the infinitely small and the unknowable vastness of the universe."
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RM 4218CD
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A note from Kate Carr: "All the birds I never recorded, and some I did. Re-imagined. Stretched and stuttering, glitching and morphing, swirling and sputtering. Artifact and performance, digital bits all. I imagine them swooping and calling in these scaffolds of sound I have made for them. Gleaming amid technicolor jungles. Alive, unassailable; in a world we haven't ruined. In a field recording I never made."
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RM 4214CD
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A Note from Lawrence English: "The work of Amby Downs, aka Murri/European artist Tahlia Palmer, occupies an intensely personal and unique space in the Australian music landscape. It is a project that speaks as much to trauma, as it does to aspiration or hope. It is work that recognizes the complexities of intergenerational exchange; emotionally, socially, politically and culturally. For the past half decade, Tahlia has been seeking to trace unspoken, and in some cases deeply fragmented histories, and thread a linage that is heavily worn by the weight of colonial aggression and obfuscation. She is a collector, a researcher and a surgeon, stitching together these pieces of connective tissue, and through doing so she creates the opportunity to imagine, perhaps even re-imagine, the stories that have forged her very being. 'Ngunmal' and 'I Am Holding My Breath' are two long form works that exist both as sound pieces and as audio visual installations. They are pieces that operate in the realm of the physical. They are loaded with a low frequency energy that breathes, sighs and yearns. There's a sense of simultaneous constriction and expansion in her compositions, a quality that draws you in deeper and deeper. This depth is sensed as pressure. In some respects, her sound works mimic the research that feeds into them; even the smallest crack, the tiniest murmuring, can be split open to reveal an entire cavern of sound. Amby Downs, and Palmer's practice more broadly, asks us to make ourselves available. It asks us to be vulnerable to places and situations of not knowing, to be uncertain, to being unsettled. It prompts us to recognize within ourselves the way we operate in the day to day, and through doing so opens us up to experience these wildly intense, provocative and ultimately beautiful works."
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RM 4227CD
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A Note from JW Paton: "Anyone who knows me, knows my obsession with the 1981 film Thief. The opening scenes show a cold, methodical, neon lit diamond heist soundtracked by Tangerine Dream. Contrasted with, the thief sharing a danish with a stranger fishing on an endless ocean at dawn. The heist is technical and calculated. The fishing is grounded and ancient. I'm sure that I'm projecting some of my personal experiences onto the film unfairly. As over time I've come to see the line between these two scenes more and more blurred. The contrast between night and day, city and ocean, drill and rod, I see these less as a dichotomy and more as a merging of worlds that slowly collapse in on each other. Choosing tracks for this release highlighted ideas that I've returned to for years. Technology and its place in the natural world. The way labor and skill shape identity. How my ancestors were in many ways more advanced than the society I live in today. A kind of ancient futurism."
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RM 4221CD
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A note from Yuko Araki: "This might sound a little antithetical, but I am interested in making noise music that is free from unnecessary noise. I do realize how this sounds, but it is absolutely at the core of my new recording. I want to create maximum impact and dynamics in the music through using only the essential elements and materials. I am a huge fan of noise music, and in many cases I enjoy the excessive nature of that music. For my own work though I am interested in reducing this, boiling it down, to the very critical parts that can allow the music to profoundly affect those who choose to listen to it. I want to use what I have at my disposal with intent and with force. I also wanted to deepen my connection to, and place in, this music. To this end I have started to explore how it is I fit into the work. I explored how is my body part of this project beyond being a gestural interface between the various machines I use to make it. I've started to think about voice a lot and this has come into the process of the recording. I'm not so much interested in the way voice can speak to stories or singing for that matter. I'm more interested in how voice might haunt the music. I invited another artist, Taichi Nagura from the band Endon, to contribute some voice to this album too. He is featured on 'Sloshing' and his voice absolutely captures this quality I am interested in exploring. It's as if he is trapped in that piece, fight for and against the other materials in the sound. This tension captures, for me at least, the relationships I think are so powerful about making, and also listening to music."
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RM 4231CD
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$17.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 12/1/2023
A note from Daniel Wilfred, David Wilfred, Aviva Endean, Sunny Kim and Peter Knight: "The process of making music together in Hand to Earth is unlike any other we have experienced. It is not free improvisation but it is not composed either. It is somewhere in between, and it feels like 'weaving.' Through Hand to Earth, we weave the threads of our different histories, different lives, and different perspectives together, and become family. Daniel weaves the 'Manikay' (public songs) in his first language, Wagiläk -- into the syntax of our shared practices. He talks about the 'raki,' the string that is used to make the dilly bag that the Mokuy (spirit) can be seen carrying in many of the paintings by Djambu Burra Burra, Wally Wilfred, and others. Raki exists in the world we can touch, but it is also a metaphysical connecting thread that draws us together to the 'buŋgul' (ceremony, or gathering ground). When we play music, the raki pulls us all together -- Yolnu and balander -- we are joined by this invisible thread, and under its guidance, we gather to sing, play, dance, and listen. Like the wind that blows through different countries to bring people together -- which Daniel sings about in 'Wata Dharranhayŋu' -- raki traverses time and place and connects all of us no matter where we come from. The songlines Daniel and David care for stretch back for perhaps 60,000 years and form the oldest continuously practiced music tradition on the planet. But the songlines are also always being renewed. In Mokuy, the songs spring up with new sounds and energy inspired by each of our own relationships to country, and born of our shared learning and friendship. Each of our stories are part of these songlines now. As we close our eyes to listen to one another we feel the silent draw of the raki and it propels our imaginations to soar and intertwine. Like a diary written in the aether, Mokuy carves a record of our coming together, animated by Daniel and Sunny's voices; the breath of the trumpet and woodwinds; the insistent pulse of the yiḏaki."
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RM 4210LP
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"I'm not really sure when I first heard Beatriz Ferreyra's music. My best guess would be in the early to mid-2000s when I was working alongside the curatorial team at Liquid Architecture. Given the focus of the festival at that time, GRM and musique concrète more generally was very much a point of focus. That said, it wasn't until this decade that her work was sharply in focus for me (and I am guessing a great many others). In 2017, I had the great pleasure to meet Beatriz in Braga, where we both were performing as part of the excellent Semibreve Festival. Subsequent to that I invited her to perform in Australia and we also had the pleasure to send time together in Rio during the Novas Frequencies Festival. Across these meetings, I have come to realize the incredible focus, generosity and vision that Beatriz has maintained across her life in sound. Beatriz Ferreyra is one of only a handful of female concrète composers who were active across the second half of the 20th century through to today. Her work, which is still very much an active investigation, is simultaneously complex and elegantly simple. Often drawing upon singular object of focus, Ferreyra's use of tape and other forms of manipulation radically reconfigure her chosen sound materials, opening them outward. UFO Forest + collects together works from both her practices in tape-based music and also computer-based works. The pieces featured here epitomize her prowess in create dynamically rich sound works that are effortless in their sense of otherworldliness. Beatriz Ferreyra has created a sonic terrain all her own, and here lies the proof." --Lawrence English
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