Since its first release in 1982, Touch has created sonic and visual productions that combine innovation with a level of care and attention that has made it the most enduring of any independent music company of its time.
The first period up to the digitization of music in the mid-80s saw releases of several cassette magazines, where sounds by luminaries such as New Order, Cabaret Voltaire and The Residents were paralleled by visual work and writing by Neville Brody, Jon Savage, Joseph Beuys
and many others. As the industry went through its usual elaborate cycles of self-annihilation and rebirth, Touch adapted to incorporate new technologies with the old, underscoring the power and necessity of editing and presentation to bring the best out of each production.
Now working extensively with Fennesz, Chris Watson, Philip Jeck, Biosphere, Ryoji Ikeda, BJNilsen and many others, Touch celebrated its 26th year in 2007!
The transitions from analog to digital, from camera-ready artwork to broadband file-sharing and from 1/4Ó masters to web site downloads are only the surface manifestations of the great changes that have taken place in recorded music over the last 25 years. Touch has been at the
forefront of these changes, and will continue to be.
A brief history of the label can be found here:
http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/history_of_touch.html
http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
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TONE 067CD
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Zachary Paul's debut album for Touch, A Meditation On Discord, compiles two live recordings from 2018 and a short film score, showcasing his expressive range and unique playing style. Both live recordings -- "Premonition" and "Slow Ascent" -- were fully improvised on his violin ("The Duke," 1878), with a minimal assortment of pedals (Earthquaker Afterneath, Diamond Memory Lane Jr, and Boss RC-30) and looped vocals. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering; artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Edition of 500.
"'Premonition' (October 12, 2018) was recorded on the first day of Desert Daze music festival. For this performance I tuned my violin in open G (G-D-G-D) for the very first time. The afternoon was warm and bright, but storm clouds, yet to be seen at the time of this recording, loomed on the horizon.* My improvisation began in the present moment, reflecting the vibrations of the sun. Once locked in with these higher frequencies, the instrument took control and painted the evening. This performance was both a premonition of night and an astral projection towards the clouds crawling towards the festival grounds, catalyzed by an instrument resonating with the frequencies of the earth. 'Slow Ascent' (February 23, 2018) was recorded at Human Resources, Los Angeles, for an event celebrating the release of Yann Novak's second album. This performance was an inverted guided group meditation. In front of my biggest audience to date, I was extremely anxious. Rather than letting my nerves lead the way**, I fed off of the energies of the audience, letting their patience, calm and warmth guide the instrument. 'A Person With Feelings' is a score for a short abstract film to be released in 2019. A modern trance film, the piece follows a young actor's internal journey. The soundscape reflects the arc of the film and showcases the textural range of my instrument." --Zachary Paul
*Later that night, the headline act was forced to leave the stage and the festival was shut down after intense lightning and rain storms.
**My anxiety, manifesting as physical tremors in my arm, can be heard in the jagged bow stroke that opens the piece.
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TO 115CD
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Agora is Christian Fennesz's first solo album since Mahler Remix (TONE 052LP, 2014) and Bécs (EMEGO 165CD/LP, 2014). Fennesz writes: "It's a simple story. I had temporarily lost a proper studio workspace and had to move all my gear back to a small bedroom in my flat where I recorded this album. It was all done on headphones, which was rather a frustrating situation at first but later on it felt like back in the day when I produced my first records in the 1990s. In the end it was inspiring. I used very minimal equipment; I didn't even have the courage to plug in all the gear and instruments which were at my disposal. I just used what was at hand." Fennesz uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. His lush and luminous compositions are anything but sterile computer experiments. They resemble sensitive, telescopic recordings of rainforest insect life or natural atmospheric occurrences, an inherent naturalism permeating each piece. He lives and works in Vienna. Recorded at Kaiserstudios, Vienna, August, September 2018. "Rainfall": vocals by Katharina Caecilia Fennesz; "Agora": field recordings Manfred Neuwirth, vocals Mira Waldmann. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye. Extended digipak. "Imagine the electric guitar severed from cliché and all of its physical limitations, shaping a bold new musical language." --City Newspaper
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TO 112CD
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Soundings, Simon Scott's debut studio album for Touch finds the composer and sound ecologist using field recordings from various cities around the globe; modular synthesizer treatments; live strings and laptop electronics to create an album of transition and shifting time zones. The recordings were edited and composed in hotels rooms across the world as Scott was constantly on tour as the drummer for Slowdive, who successfully reformed in 2014. "Hodos", the album opener, begins with 85 mph Storm Barney recordings, ending with the fading sounds of bellbirds and cicadas recorded in Brisbane 2018. "I took a home recording I made of Storm Barney in Cambridge, listening to it on repeat when I was flying from continent to continent. I wanted this to be the starting point of the process of musically documenting how much travelling I was doing". This album was created from the US to Asia, South America to Europe and the Arctic Circle back to the UK via California. "Working in hotel rooms and on flights, listening to and editing the recordings I'd made from all of these distant cities formed the basis of the album. It's the soundtrack to four years of my life in flux with constant change, jet lag, excitement and the seeming perpetual motion of travelling". Scott has previously released the live album FloodLines in 2016 (TONE 053CD) and reissued Below Sea Level in 2017.
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TO 108LP
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In December 2017, Howlround (Robin the Fog) was invited to perform at "The Winter Solstice Soundscapes" for the recently opened record store "Vinyl Café" in his home town of Carlisle, Cumbria. Inspired by the reception to his first ever performance in the great border city, he covered his parent's dining room table with the same equipment, stretched loops of tape around his mum's seasonal candlesticks when she wasn't looking... and this LP is the result. The only equipment used on the album is two 1/4" reel-to-reel tape machines and one microphone. The sounds created are entirely at the discretion of the machines (much of them derived from "closed-input" recordings) and all tracks were produced in a single take. There are no edits, no overdubs and no additional effects. This marks a new, heavier direction for Howlround, a project better known for more ambient work. Described as "Tapeloop Techno", thick knotty tangles of dense, pulsating bass are an echo of Robin's early days making bad dance music, while the abrasive snarls of feedback swirling around these tracks point to his more recent embrace of indeterminacy and chance composition. Previous vinyl releases on Psyché Tropes, The Wormhole, A Year in the Country, and Front & Follow as well as his own label The Fog Signals have shown a deep understanding of the possibilities of tape manipulation. On The Debatable Lands, Howlround eschews the usual field recordings in favor of exploring the interior world of the machines themselves.
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TONE 065CD
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Touch issues Jana Winderen's Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone. The marginal ice zone is the dynamic border between the open sea and the sea ice, which is ecologically extremely vulnerable. The phytoplankton present in the sea produces half of the oxygen on the planet. During spring, this zone is the most important CO2 sink in our biosphere. On Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone the sounds of the living creatures become a voice in the current political debate concerning the official definition of the location of the ice edge. The listener experiences the bloom of plankton, the shifting and crackling sea ice in the Barents Sea around Spitsbergen, towards the North Pole, and the underwater sounds made by bearded seals, migrating species such as humpbacks and orcas, and the sound made by hunting saithe, crustaceans and spawning cod, all depending on the spring bloom. Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone is a Sonic Acts and Dark Ecology commission, first shown as a seven-channel installation at the Sonic Acts festival (Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, 2017). Includes booklet.
Jana Winderen is an artist educated in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London with a background in mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology from the University of Oslo. Jana focuses on audio environments and ecosystems which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally. Amongst her activities are immersive multi-channel sound installations and concerts which have been performed internationally in major institutions and public spaces in America, Europe and Asia. Winderen lives and works in Oslo.
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TO 106CD
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Ipek Gorgun's Ecce Homo explores the lighter and darker shades of the human psyche, behavior, and existence, and humanity's ability to create beauty and destruction. What lies in the essence of such complexity has become a core idea for the album, while Gorgun seeks to figure out if there is a true meaning to being human, and human being. Starting with "Neroli" as a human fascination with nature and finalizing with "To Cross Great Rivers"; a never-ending, hopeless dream of the mankind to conquer and control the world, the album reflects the contemplations of a spectator being exposed to the human civilization, and witnessing human activity, including his/her own. Trying to acquire a glimpse of the multiple layers of such narrative, the sound of the album aims to present a diversity of the sonic spectrum, with tracks varying between ambient and noisy landscapes. Ipek Gorgun is an electronic music composer currently enrolled in the doctoral program of Sonic Arts at Istanbul Technical University's Center for Advanced Studies in Music. After graduating from Bilkent University with a degree in political science, she completed her Master's degree studies in philosophy at Galatasaray University. As a bass player and vocalist for projects and bands such as Bedroomdrunk and Vector Hugo between 2001-2013, she also performed in an opening gig for Jennifer Finch from L7 and Simon Scott from Slowdive, as well as performing live with David Brown from Brazzaville. Besides group projects and solo performances, she also composed the soundtrack for the documentary Yok Anasinin Soyadi (Mrs. His Name) directed by Hande Cayir in 2012, portraying Turkish women's struggle for keeping their original surnames after marriage. Her debut album Aphelion was self-released in February, 2016. In 2017, she released a collaborative album from Halocline Trance, with Canadian producer Ceramic TL (aka Egyptrixx) entitled Perfect Lung (HTRA 007LP). Ipek Gorgun also practices performance, street, and abstract photography.
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TO 107CD
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Ozmotic is a multidisciplinary artistic project, deeply fascinated by the dynamics of contemporary society, by architecture, cities, and vast uncontaminated spaces. Ozmotic creates world sounds characterized by an intense tonal variety and a refined rhythmic research. The interaction between electronic music and digital visual art in real time is an essential trait of Ozmotic's aesthetic. Having previously collaborated with Fennesz, Murcof, Bretschnider, and Senking, Elusive Balance is their third album, following AirEffect in 2015, and Liquid Times in 2016 (both for FolkWisdom). Ozmotic now release their debut album for Touch, Elusive Balance. Elusive Balance explores the relationship between humans and nature, as well as the search for balance between these two great entities. The theme of equilibrium and its precariousness, and its natural tendency to achieve relative stability connects all living things. Equilibrium is also a junction point and evolutionary engine -- unstable and elusive, ready to deteriorate and to start a new reaction mechanism bringing organisms to a new harmony. "Beauty is a rare and fleeting thing; it often corresponds to those phases where we can grasp that unstable equilibrium which exists between us and the world at large." Musically the album seeks resolution of sound contrasts, in a continuous search for an emotional component that gives simultaneously a feeling of tension and stillness. There is a duality between the "organic" components (represented by soprano sax and percussion) and their interaction with machines and computers. In Elusive Balance, Ozmotic investigate the essence of their sound to expand its emotional and compositional potential. Each track contains a search for a synthesis between sound elements apparently distant from each other, but in reality, they create a new balance -- as poetic as it is musical. The album's seven tracks draw a sonic flow in which the melodic aspects are countered by glitches and angular sounds, and the ambient passages are subjected to heavy rains of rhythm, leaving space for dreamlike moments.
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TO 110CD
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Based in Düsseldorf, Germany, Strafe Für Rebellion, or Strafe F.R., is a long-term collaboration between the artists Bernd Kastner and Siegfried M. Syniuga, which started in 1979. After a long period of hibernation, The Bird Was Stolen marks their return to Touch following four previous releases in the '80s and early '90s. From their early connection with the local scene, centered around the Ratinger Hof in Düsseldorf, Strafe went on to develop a unique and influential form of sound sculpture that pioneered the use of field recordings alongside home-made instruments and the use of the studio as a performance space. A new track, "Virgin", which appeared on the recent Touch Movements CD/book (FOLIO 002CD, 2017), gave an early indication that they are back at the peak of their powers. The Bird Was Stolen presents 14 new compositions that push the signature sound of Strafe F.R. All songs recorded by Strafe F.R. in 2017 at STRAFE Studio, Düsseldorf, Germany. Features vocals by Caterina De Re and Strafe F.R. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham.
Strafe F.R. explain the recording:
"1. We have a piano that is somehow completely bare-boned as if a butcher had been at work. The piano is lying on its back -- we can climb into its corpse. The piano strings are easy to access and we prepare them with anything that influences a possible recording. Loudspeakers are installed. Inside the piano we play bass and guitar to use the resonance of the strings of the piano. 'Pianosmoke' was recorded in this way.
2. Sound sources are often 'accidents'. We were recording with our old Uher Portable Tape Recorder -- all of a sudden the machine developed a strange malfunction: the Uher had problems with its engine. Himmelgeist was born. The recorder began to 'scratch' like a vinyl record, but it was the recorder doing everything itself; we could also manipulate the speed with our hands. This was magnificent. Strange rhythms just happened, the tape recorder did it... We are thankful that we managed to record all of this.
3. We often amplify sounds quite loudly, that actually have a very low natural dynamic. This is interesting when recording guitar, piano and the human voice... To reduce the normal recording level by an extreme and amplify the soft, low sounds."
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TO 104CD
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Mark Van Hoen on Invisible Threads: "In mid-2016 I did a brief tour of the west coast with Philip Jeck, Simon Scott, Daniel Mensche, Lee Bannon, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Pye Corner Audio, and Marcus Fischer. The music of all these great artists and the experience of playing these shows with them all informed what would become Invisible Threads which was primarily composed and recorded in the latter half of 2016. I had not played live at dates in such a dense cluster for many years, and the exposure to so much great music and the artists was inspiring. Other Touch artists were also an influence here -- Claire M Singer, Jana Winderen, and as ever Chris Watson (who has been an enduring influence from the moment I first heard Cabaret Voltaire in 1979), along with my project drøne with Mike Harding, the collaborative aspect of drøne brought up a few new paths in itself. During the time I was recording the album I was editing audio and sound design for films -- this too went some way to defining the structure and sound of Invisible Threads. At the time of recording several of the titles on the album, I had re-read The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839), a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, and in some ways this record is a soundtrack to that. The title Invisible Threads refers to the intangible connection between all of the musical and personal influences that brought this record into being." Instrumentation/sound sources: Modular synthesizer notably using modules manufactured by Make Noise, The Harvestman & Mutable Audio Software -- Ableton Live, Pro Tools and many plugins -- heavily used were Max, Soundhack, and Native Instruments' Reaktor & Kontakt Sound libraries from Spitfire Audio; Fender Rhodes piano, Fender Jaguar guitar; Farfisa Organ, Vox continental; Notably no analogue synthesizers were used on this album - probably the first time I've made a record without them since Aurobindo: Involution in 1994. A few field recordings made on my very modest Zoom H4n recorder (mainly domestic sounds) made it onto the record Some 'found' sources also are present, mainly from vinyl records and YouTube." Photography & design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham.
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SPIRE 007CD
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Semper Liber consists of a series of duets featuring Marcus Davidson, Hildur Gudnadottir, Mike Harding, Charles Matthews, Clare M Singer, Maia Urstad, and Anna von Hausswolff and are drawn from recordings made at Spire events since 2009. Mixed by its curator, Mike Harding, at the Völlhaus, and mastered by Mark Van Hoen, this powerful four track collection -- to be played as one piece -- explores the sonics of the mighty organ in all its thundering glory. Warning!: Extremely low frequencies (bass) may cause distortion on headphones/computer speakers! Performed on the 1893 Schlag & Söhne organ at Johanneskirken, Bergen; the 1967 Karl Ludwig Schuke organ at Passionskirche, Berlin; the Peter Bares organ, inaugurated in 2004, at Kunststation St Peter, Cologne; the 1885 "Father" Henry Willis organ at Lincoln Cathedral; the 1877 "Father" Henry Willis organ at Union Chapel, London; the Rieger organ at St. Stephan's Church, Mautern & the 1897 Johnson & Son organ at St. Saviour's Anglican Church, Riga between 2009 and 2016. The four colour plates by the art historian and author Sydney Russell show cave art from four-to-six thousand years ago. Taken in Brazil on one of several expeditions she made around the world, these highly emotional works reveal the sophistication and ageless quality of the imagination of the peoples who were expressing themselves at this time; they have been slow to reveal their beauty to us, having survived all weathers; their acoustic soundtrack unfolds slowly, submersive and involving. Sydney Russell writes: "These photographs were taken in 1976 in Brazil. We eventually obtained minimum radio carbon datings for levels covering the paintings from approximately 3750-2500 BCE. They originate from the rock shelter sites of Sucupira, (Lagoa Santa) and Lapa do Cipo (Santana do Riacho), near Minas Gerais and Quadrillas (Montalvania), Bahia. Please refer to the website for more information." Photography by Sydney Russell. Artwork by Philip Marshall. Mixed at the Völlhaus; Mastered by Mark Van Hoen.
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TO 105CD
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The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past is the latest album by Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist and composer Yann Novak, and his second for Touch. It considers the relationships between memory, time, and context through four vibrantly constructed tracks that push Novak's work in a new direction while simultaneously exploring his sonic past. The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past is composed as a sonata -- a single gesture broken into four parts -- that meditates on the inevitable progression of time. The album's conceptual roots stem from The Archaic Revival (1991) by American ethnobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna. In it, McKenna theorizes that when a culture becomes dysfunctional it attempts to revert back to a saner moment in its own history. He suggested that abstract expressionism, body piercing and tattooing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, and rave culture were proof of this default to a more primal time. The text's idealism was influential to Novak in the '90s, but the theory bears a darkly-veiled resemblance to the modern rise of nostalgia-driven nationalism. Novak on the release: "For this album I was interested in expanding into a more emotive compositional style and palette. In doing so, I was reminded that this was territory I had covered early on in my career -- the whole process became a way to reconnect with my own past and history." The album's four tracks dynamically shift and surge, where time is rendered as material and momentum compels it into movement. Subtle distortion throughout the album ties the tracks together and echoes techniques explored in Novak's Meadowsweet (2006). Tension gives way to a halcyon vision of place in "Radical Transparency", immediately followed by the austere swells of "The Inertia of Time", a piece that captures the twin impulse of generating optimistic beauty in harshly muted tones. Both tracks introduce subtle bass swells and stabs reminiscent of In Residence (2008). From there, the album grows darker with "Casting Ourselves Back into the Past" and "Nothing Ever Transcends its Immediate Environment", two icier tracks that preserve the album's core. The latter introduces a processed vocal sample of Geneva Skeen, similar to Novak's collaborative work with Marc Manning on Pairings (2007). The album is a study in perception and alteration, manipulation, and awareness, effectively capturing Novak's command of emotional texturing. Artwork & photography: Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Lawrence English. Edition of 500.
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FOLIO 002CD
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In a 24/7 world, there is no greater challenge than "to be in command of one's own time". Is it true that the ability to download anything, at any moment, constitutes freedom? Has the '"value" of music, art and design been stripped bare? "I Google, therefore I am"... Touch Movements has been compiled over the course of three years. It is a response to many requests for Touch to publish a fuller account of Jon Wozencroft's photography for the cover art of the project. The book follows the music, which was compiled step-by-step, like a jigsaw; there was not an "open call" to the artists, rather a sequential development which gives the CD a special narrative quality. And since their last Touch 30 compilation in 2012 (TONE 033CD/LP), the accuracy of the music has grown and rises to the challenge of what sound can do to transform perceptions about the immediate emotion of musical work and its more difficult, longer term evolution. Following Halfway to White in 2015 (FOLIO 001BK), the Touch Folio series is a dedication to finding new ways of audiovisual publishing, somewhere between the twin peaks of a jewel-cased CD and a lavish box-set. The two elements of sound and the visual work in parallel to create the idea of an "Ear-book" whose interdependency reveals itself over time, and allows the richest of listening and viewing experiences. The music and the photography is fully annotated, alongside a rarely-seen manifesto by the surrealist film-maker Jan Svankmajer which celebrates the spirit of the creative act. Features: Mika Vainio, AER¸Bethan Kellough, Wire, Carl Michael Von Hausswolff, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Claire M Singer, Hildur Gudnadottir, Three 20, Philip Jeck, Simon Scott¸ Eleh, Russell Haswell, Heitor Alvelos, Johann Johannsson, Mark Van Hoen, Fennesz, Sohrab, Strafe FR, Jim O'Rourke, Situation Stabilised / BJ Nilsen, Peter Rehberg, and Oren Ambarchi. 79-minute CD; 76 pp book in full color. Art Direction, photography, text: Jon Wozencroft.
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TO 103LP
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Conceptualized (2010-2013), composed and produced (2014-2017) by Carl Michael von Hausswolff in Palma (Majorca) and Stockholm. Still Life - Requiem is a musical piece consists only of sounds emitted and extracted from physical matter using emission spectroscopy as the sole basic technology. Acknowledgements to Linköping University (IFM), Sweden. Still Life - Requiem consists of one piece with the same title and is divided up into two to fit the LP format. The piece is, as the title suggests, a requiem and its contents are solely composed by sounds captured from a specific physical solid state material. The composer has used a technique called "emission spectroscopy" whereby the frequencies generated from the material was analyzed and transferred into, for humans, a listenable pitch (between 15 and 14000Hz). This captured organic sound material has been stretched, looped, equalized, and composed to produce the recording. A requiem is a piece of music dedicated to certain sole or several restless souls that wander our worlds looking for a place to call home. A requiem radiates calm, peace and perhaps comfort for tormented spiritual beings -- it's a piece dedicated to promote and insert tranquility and transcendence. This requiem also provides the listener with a certain feeling of connection -- perhaps a connection with the unknown and with the energy field clusters and mental abilities of post-mortem life forms that would be the incorporeal essence of a living being. Carl Michael von Hausswolff (born 1956 in Linköping , Sweden) has a long history within the communities of contemporary music and visual art. His first records were released in early '80s while the most recent saw the light just a few years ago. In recent years, he has been collaborating with Leslie Winer -- (1) (MONO 005LP, 2015) -- and Hans-Joachim Roedelius -- Nordlicht (2017). He has also instigated and curated the collective sound-installation "freq_out" during 2003-2017, which includes artists such as Jana Winderen, JG Thirlwell, Finnbogi Petursson, Christine Ödlund, and others. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft and Carl Michael von Hausswolff. Mastered by Jason at Transition.
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TONE 059CD
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2019 repress. Following Scottish artist Claire M Singer's debut album, Solas (TO 101CD, 2016), comes the release of the beautiful and intriguing Fairge, meaning "the ocean" or "the sea" in Scottish Gaelic. Fairge is a single 21-minute piece for organ, cello, and electronics, composed, performed and produced by Claire and is very much a companion work to the title track on her debut album Solas. Commissioned by Amsterdam's oldest building and parish church Oude Kerk, Fairge premiered at the church in February 2017. Claire M Singer's performance on the Ahrend and Bunzema organ, cello, and electronics is truly captivating. The work very much encapsulates her signature style of expansive soundscapes full of intricate textures, rich overtones, and powerful swells, emotionally resonating from beginning to end. Fairge was written specifically for the Ahered and Bunzema organ and explores the precise control of wind through the pipes using mechanical stop action. This creates a lush harmonic backdrop against the harmonics and melody of the haunting cello. Singer on the piece: "Oude Kerk were very generous in letting me have time to explore and really get to know the instrument. The work was developed over many visits sitting in the church until the very wee hours over the winter months, which was incredibly magical and inspiring. When working with mechanical stops and precisely controlling the amount of air that passes through the pipes it requires a lot of practice and exploration to learn each incremental sound the organ can make and what the quirks of the instrument can be. As every organ is unique, the piece will differ on other organs but that's what makes writing and working with the organ so fascinating. The tuning is mean-tone temperament, which I have not worked with previously. With Fairge I really wanted to show how special this relatively small organ is and the beautiful pallet of sound it can produce." Singer's work has been widely commissioned, exhibited, and performed throughout Europe and North America. This includes acoustic and electronic composition, fixed media, multi-media, installations and live electronics. Claire is also Music Director of the organ at Union Chapel and Artistic Director of the Organ Reframed festival. In June 2017, she was a recipient of the inaugural Oram Awards from the PRS Foundation and New BBC Radiophonic Workshop for her innovation in sound and music. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye.
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TONE 058CD
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The sixth in the series of limited edition compact disc live recordings -- following releases in the series by Thomas Köner & Jana Winderen (TONE 051CD), Simon Scott (TONE 053CD), Bethan Kellough (TONE 054CD), Yann Novak (TONE 055CD), Robert Crouch (TONE 056CD) -- offers a recording of Philip Jeck live at Iklectik, London. Philip Jeck studied visual arts at Dartington College of Arts in the 1970s and has been creating sound with record-players since the early '80s. He has worked with many dance and theatre companies and played with musicians/composers such as Jah Wobble, Steve Lacy, Gavin Bryars, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, Sidsel Endresen, and Bernhard Lang. He has released eleven solo albums, the most recent Cardinal, a double vinyl release on Touch (TO 098LP, 2015). Suite, another vinyl-only release, won a Distinction at The Prix Ars Electronica, and a cassette release on The Tapeworm, Spool (2009), sees him playing only bass guitar. His CD Sand (TO 067CD, 2008) was second in The Wire's top 50 of the year. His largest work made with Lol Sargent, Vinyl Requiem was for 180 record-players, nine slide-projectors, and two 16mm movie-projectors. It received a Time Out Performance Award. Vinyl Coda I-III, a commission from Bavarian Radio in 1999 won the Karl Sczuka Foderpreis for Radio Art. Philip also still works as a visual artist, usually incorporating sound and has shown installations at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, Hayward Gallery, London, The Hamburger Bahnhof Gallery, Berlin, ZKM in Karlsruhe, and The Shanghai and Liverpool Bienalles. Philip Jeck has won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers 2009. A presentation ceremony took place at The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, on November 9th, 2009. He has toured in an Opera North production playing live to the silent movie Pandora's Box (composed by Hildur Gudnadottir and Johann Johannson). He has also worked again with Gavin Bryars on a composition "Pneuma" for a ballet choreographed by Carolyn Carlson for The Opera de Bordeaux and has recently made and performed the sound for The Ballad Of Ray & Julie at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. Recorded and mastered by Jeff Ardron of St. Austral Sound. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. CD comes in a slipcase; Edition of 500.
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TONE 051CD
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Issued on compact disc for the first time. Originally released digitally in 2014. Thomas Köner and Jana Winderen, recorded live from the cloisters at Evreux Cathedral, Normandy, France by Franck Dubois on June 14th, 2014, as part of L'Ateliers. With thanks to Denis Boyer. Limited edition CD in card sleeve; Remastered by Thomas Köner; Photography by Jon Wozencroft.
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TONE 056CD
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Robert Crouch is an artist and curator whose work encompasses sound, performance, and technology. As an artist, he locates his work with the intersection of post-phenomenological listening practices, conceptual sound art, and contemporary electronic music. At its core, his work can be understood as a conversation between tonality, context, history, and subjectivities. Similarly, Crouch's curatorial work focuses on the overlapping disciplines of sound, technology, movement, and performance. Sublunar continues Crouch's inquiry into the complex relationships between sound, context, and meaning, first proposed in his 2016 release, A Gradual Accumulation Of Ideas Becomes Truth. The four tracks which comprise Sublunar were composed using field recordings from and audio files originally created for mas gestos y mas caras, a collaborative performance with artists Rafa Esparza and Yann Novak. mas gestos y mas caras was a durational performance incorporating sound, breathing, and a series of repetitive actions and gestures, choreographed within an architectural installation of adobe bricks fabricated and designed by Esparza. Sonically, Sublunar is a radical departure from the originating performance, yet these tracks remain tethered, literally and aesthetically, to the processes and context of their construction: Esparza's labored breathing, cautious footsteps, a soft cascade of water, dust, soil. The title itself, Sublunar, reinforces an attachment to the Earth and the physical world, and intentionally resists metaphysical interpretation or decontextualization. It is precisely through this tethering that Crouch seeks to open up a diversity of possible approaches to the work, rather than confine our reading to a primarily or exclusively musical text. The first track, "Descension", opens with sounds of breathing, muted movements, and environmental noises, and serves as an acknowledgement of our collective understanding of sound, of these specific sounds, as physical phenomenon. By extension the listener is allowed to consider this particular organization of sound itself as a kind of sculpture, architecture, and choreography. The body becomes the primary oscillator and architect, delineating boundaries and defining the work as a space within which the listener might inhabit. Presented live in Los Angeles. Source material originally developed as part of mas gestos y mas caras, a collaborative performance with Rafa Esparza and Yann Novak, presented at the Hammer Museum on July 8, 2016.
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TONE 057LP
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UnicaZürn, David Knight and Stephen Thrower, build their long, ceaselessly evolving musical compositions through a process of improvisation, followed by careful editing and processing. Their music, drawn from subconscious associations while recording, is frequently aquatic or oceanic in overall mood and texture. Knight has spent most of his life living on the banks of the Thames while Thrower resides on the East Sussex coast, and their musical flights of imagination tend toward rolling river dynamics and open seas of synthesized sound. For UnicaZürn, tidal imagery, oceanic forms and the slow rhythms of coastal water are a recurring structural presence, with strong associations of rootlessness, of being far away from home. The inability of human lungs to breathe water endows rivers and seas with a special poetics: a boundary between two different but inter-related states. On the one hand, solidity, clarity, definition; On the other, fluidity, uncertainty, dissolution. The sense of a threshold between opposites gives rise to an elusive otherness, suggesting a portal through which the everyday world can be escaped. Death under the water, the survivors of a lost kingdom clinging to the rocks of an unfamiliar island, a coastal boat ride into deepest abstraction, a deserted beach expressing a world outside reality. A sexual frisson too: a hovering at the brink, poised at the turbulent edge of pleasure, swept away into oblivion. There's a darkness in the sea, even if illuminated by the most dazzling sunshine. Open horizons shows the clutter of human life to be transient, and as the sea offers a dizzying sense of the eternal. Aquatic sensibility, oceanic timescales: the action of the salt sea beating on the shore. Beaches are cosmic, elemental. UnicaZürn's core instrumentation blends analog synthesiser, mellotron and electric piano with electric guitar and clarinet. Both Thrower and Knight draw upon their love and wide experience of electronic music, from the outer shores of Stockhausen to the outer space-ways of Tangerine Dream. In addition, Knight is renowned for his pioneering multi-textured fretwork with Danielle Dax and his ambient guitar settings for Lydia Lunch, while Thrower's reed playing provided a distinctive melancholy in Coil and emerged as electro-acoustic texture in Cyclobe. The title "Pale Salt Seam" is drawn from the poem "Night-Song of the Andalusian Sailors" by Federico García Lorca. Parts of "Pale Salt Seam" were recorded live at the Ironmongers Row Baths on March 2nd, 2013. Additional production assistance by Ivan Pavlov.
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TONE 055CD
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Yann Novak is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Ornamentation is Novak's first physical release on Touch and continues his investigations of presence, stillness and mindfulness through the construction of immersive spaces, both literal and figurative. On Ornamentation, Novak resists modernism's problematic relationship to race, class and labor, and attempts to decouple contemporary minimalist sound work from this historical precedent. The title refers to Adolf Loos's notorious 1913 manifesto, Ornament and Crime, in which the author argues that the desire to adorn architecture, the body, objects, etc., is a primitive impulse, and the proper and moral evolution of Western culture depends in part upon the removal of ornamentation from daily life. Loos devalued the labor traditionally associated with aesthetics and beauty, and equated ornamentation with the degenerate. In this context, one could consider ornamentation as a way of viewing decay. His examples as such (tattoos, fashion, style, painting, et al.) predictably fell along divisions of race and class, coding modernity as the next outward manifestation of white, capitalist patriarchy. Throughout the process of creating Ornamentation, Novak attempts to sidestep some of Loos's modernist intolerances by focusing on the labor of composition itself, rather than particular processes or structures. Novak began by incorporating specific field recordings from his archive, deliberately selected for their poor quality; awkward interruptions, low fidelity smartphone recordings, problematic frequencies. The selection of these difficult sounds, processed alongside recordings of modular synthesizer, created a unique set of challenges where the familiar, reductive approaches would fail to be useful, Novak ultimately abandoning them in favor of more dynamic, additive, and laborious processes. Unlike minimalism with its roots in modernism, or "sound art" with its conceptual biases, Novak creates a work that acknowledges these conventions, yet stands apart as a meditation on beauty, labor, and aesthetics; Ornamentation as an adornment of time itself. Presented live in Los Angeles at a small, private event. Source material includes field recordings captured throughout the United States and Canada from 2006-2016 and modular synthesizer recordings, all digitally altered.
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TO 102CD
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Lustmord, often credited as the originator of dark ambient, presents Dark Matter. Dark Matter was derived from an audio library of cosmological activity collected between 1993 and 2003; the audio was gathered from various sources including NASA (Cape Canaveral, Ames, The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Arecibo), The Very Large Array, The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and various educational institutions and private contributors throughout the USA. Lustmord writes: "The universe we inhabit is a vast expanse far larger than we are able to comprehend. As we attempt to understand its underlying structure and as we gain new insight into the nature of matter, new questions arise and further gaps in our understanding are revealed. Behind the world that we experience lies a veil of darkness and much is hidden between, beyond and unseen. We are limited by our inability to truly grasp the infinite breadth of the Universe, the time scales involved in its measure and our insignificant position within. Some things will always be unknowable, and existence does not begin or end with man's conception. Everything that has ever been observed by man, even with our most sophisticated instruments amounts, to less than five percent of the universe. Approximately sixty-eight percent of the universe is unseen dark energy and approximately twenty-seven percent is unseen dark matter. We have yet to discover what dark matter is, and only know the things it is not. Although it has not been directly observed, its existence and properties are inferred from its effects on visible matter, its influence on the universe's large-scale structure, and its effects in the cosmic microwave background. The universe began of darkness, not of light. While space is a virtual vacuum, it does not mean there is no sound in space. It exists in space as naturally occurring electromagnetic vibrations, many well within the range of human hearing while others exist at different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum and these can be adjusted with software to bring them within our audio range. The recordings of these interactions in space come from several different environments including radio, ultra violet, microwave and X-ray data and within these spectra a wide range of sources including interstellar plasma and molecules, radio galaxies, pulsars masers and quasars, charged particle interactions and emissions, radiation, exotic astrophysical objects, cosmic jets and flares from magnetars." Recorded in Los Angeles between October and December of 2015. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft.
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TONE 054CD
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Bethan Kellough presents Aven. Bethan Kellough (formerly Bethan Parkes) is a sound artist and composer. Kellough creates sound worlds that weave together instrumental materials, sound design and ambisonic field recordings. Her works are designed to open out spaces with sound, exploring spatial aesthetics and the interactions between sonically and visually articulated spaces. She holds a PhD in Sonic Arts from the University of Glasgow. Her composition Aven is based on a recording made in Iceland in 2015, which features the booming sound of underground geothermal activity escaping to the surface through a small shaft. "Looking down into the darkness, there was a sense that a whole world existed in an unknown space beneath. The sound world of Aven is a journey through such an imagined environment." The composition is driven by this sonic encounter, but enters the imagined worlds beneath through the instrumental material developed throughout the work. These melodic passages predominantly feature violin, which Bethan has played since childhood exploring traditional Scottish music, rock violin, free improvisation and classical studies. The field recordings used in Aven were made in Iceland during the Wildeye sound recording workshop with Chris Watson and Jez Riley French, and in South Africa during the Sonic Mmabolela residency with Francisco Lopez and James Webb. Each of the recordings explores a world of sound beneath a surface, reflecting upon the initial recording environment at the geothermal site. In South Africa, an approaching storm was heralded by wind blowing through bushes in the savanna, underneath which was hidden a Soundfield microphone. A contact microphone on a fence in South Iceland revealed the tones of the wind contained inside the wires, and in an Icelandic nature reserve the wind was also captured by microphones buried underneath a layer of grass - a miniature world sheltered by the strands of dry straw. Recorded with SoundField SPS200 & JrF C-Series contact microphones, Sennheiser ME64, Sound Devices 788T, Elektron Monomachine, RME Fireface UCX, and Cockos Reaper.
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2CD
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TO 101CD
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Solas ("Light" in Gaelic) is Claire M Singer's debut album, spanning 14 years of her work in acoustic and electronic composition. In recent years she has focused on writing and performing a mix of organ, cello, and electronics with regular performances at Union Chapel, where, as Music Director, she runs a diverse program of concerts and educational workshops around the chapel's organ, which was built by Henry Willis in 1877. Solas comprises seven works for various combinations of organ, cello, and electronics, including "Eilean," which is an electronic work derived from recordings of cello, piano, and violin. In 2009 Singer was commissioned by the Aberdeenshire Council to write a new work for the Homecoming Scotland referencing "Land of the Standing Stones," composed and performed by Scottish fiddler Paul Anderson. Small extracts of Anderson's work can be heard interweaving throughout "Eilean." "The Molendinar," which takes up the whole of the second disc, is a co-commission between the Glasgow art gallery Civic Room and Union Chapel. The work is part of The Molendinar Burn Project, which is a 12-site series of art projects, each individually situated along the exact route of the Molendinar, a hidden burn upon which the city of Glasgow was founded by Saint Mungo in the sixth century. A work for solo organ written and recorded at Union Chapel in 2015, "The Molendinar" explores the precise control of wind through the pipes and therefore can be played fully on a mechanical drawstop action organ (Union Chapel) or with the addition of electronics (from the Union Chapel Henry Willis organ) when performed on an electro-pneumatic organ (Glasgow Cathedral).
All tracks written and performed by Claire M Singer. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. "Solas," "Wrangham," and "The Molendinar" were recorded by Iain Berryman at Union Chapel in London, February 26-27, 2016, on the organ built by Henry Willis in 1877. Mixed at Bennachie Studios in Aberdeen and EMS Goldsmiths in London.
Singer's previous work includes "4-8-1," a piece for string quartet and eight-channel surround which was performed at the Roundhouse in London by the LCO Soloists, and the audiovisual work a' fàs soilleir, which has been exhibited at the Tate Modern, XMV (New York City), and Ceremony Hall (Austin, Texas). She has also performed as part of Spire at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam, Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne, and many other locations.
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TONE 053CD
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FloodLines was recorded live at Cafe Oto as part of "Touch presents" on January 31st, 2016. Simon Scott is a sound ecologist and multi-instrumentalist from Cambridge, England. His past albums include Insomni (Ash International) and Below Sea Level (Kesh/TouchLine). His work explores the creative process of actively listening, the implications of recording the natural world using technology and the manipulation of natural sounds used for musical composition. He plays the drums in Slowdive and has recently collaborated with artists James Blackshaw, Spire, Taylor Deupree (Between), Isan and many more. This is his first physical release for Touch. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering. Artwork & Photography by Jon Wozencroft.
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2LP
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TONE 052LP
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Mahler Remix was recorded live at RadioKulturhaus, Vienna, in May 2011. This recording is mostly based on samples taken from Gustav Mahler's symphonies. The performance also includes an early version of "Liminality' from the bécs album, released in 2014 on Editions Mego (EMEGO 165CD/LP). Mahler Remixed was a commissioned work performed together with the visual artist Lillevan. The piece was only performed live three times, at RadioKulturhaus in Vienna, Carnegie Hall in New York City, and Borusan Music House in Istanbul.
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TO 098LP
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Philip Jeck writes: "To make this record I used Fidelity record players, Casio keyboards, Ibanez bass guitar, Sony MiniDisc players, Ibanez and Zoom effects pedals, assorted percussion, a Behringer mixer and it was edited it at home with MiniDisc players and on a laptop computer."
"...and they sparkled like burnished brass"
"Out of the depths of our complaints, it could be all so simple. To be never fooled by the finesse of a long-yearned for solidity, but in the momentary aplomb of a sleepy walk threading through familiar streets we'd hum our way, alto, baritone and tenor toward some harmonious end. An effect like some wonderful recollection of one or other of those technicolour movies. Not real for sure, but if you are in the mood..."
"I would like to acknowledge the influence the writer Marilynne Robinson has had on this work. I would recommend reading any/all of her four novels and also When I was a Child I Read Books (Virago, 2012). This collection of essays includes 'Austerity as Ideology,' which dissects prevailing economic thinking, and 'Open Thy Hand Wide,' which continues with a celebration of liberal thinking as Generosity (and also turned over my received knowledge of Calvinism). Her ability to convey a love of humanity and sense of wonder about the great mystery of existence in her writing has, since I first read a book of hers, found a way into the way I think about my work -- not illustrating but meditating upon." (April 2015)
Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops, turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. Jeck makes genuinely moving and transfixing music in which one hears the art, not the gimmick. He started working with record players and electronics in the early '80s and has made soundtracks and toured with many dance and theatre companies in addition to his solo concert work. His best-known work, Vinyl Requiem (with Lol Sargent), a performance for 180 '50s/'60s record players, won the Time Out Performance Award in 1993. In 2010, Jeck won a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Composers Award. This gatefold double LP comes with a download code for Jeck's "Live in Caen," recorded by Franck Dubois on February 28, 2015, at Impressions Multiples #4 (ésam Caen/Cherbourg), with thanks to Thierry Weyd.
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