Francisco López - La Selva (1998)

"La Selva is an immersion into the sound environments of a tropical rain forest in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica. An astonishing natural sonic web created by a multitude of sounds from rain, waterfalls, insects, frogs, birds, mammals and even plants, through a day cycle during the rainy season. A powerful acousmatic broad-band sound environment of thrilling complexity. And above all, a tour de force of profound listening".

Much against a widespread current trend in sound art and the customary standard in nature recordings, I believe in the possibility of a profound, pure, 'blind' listening of sounds, freed (as much as possible) of procedural, contextual or intentional levels of reference. What is more important, I conceive this as an ideal form of transcendental listening that doesn't deny all that is outside the sounds but explores and affirms all that is inside them. This purist, absolute conception is an attempt at fighting against the dissipation of this inner world.



[From the liner notes of the CD “La Selva. Sound environments from a Neotropical rain forest” (released by V2, The Netherlands).
Extracted and modified version of parts of the in-progress larger essay “The dissipation of music”]

+ info about La Selva @ http://www.franciscolopez.net/env.html

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track 1 _ 1:10:50''

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Terry Fox - ATARAXIA : Works with Sound (1979-1981)

"Sound is a means of communication, a universal language. It enters the healthy ear without impediments of language or prejudice it is perceived by every culture in the same way: via the auditory canal. It enters the ear without consent of the listener. It vibrates the eardrum. It requires no intellectualization. No intelligence is necessary. No common language need be spoken. Illiteracy is irrelevant. Sound pauses as pulses in the air.

Performance is, for me, an attempt to discover a language or method of communication which bypasses these barriers as sound does. The most important aspect of performance is the elimination of media or mediating or condition. The action is performed live and in front of its receiver. It exists only on these terms and in this context and no other: like eating. My work with the labyrinth led increasingly to the almost limit less sculptural possibilities of sound."

—Terry Fox

"In the field of the now quite famous (at least to the more attentive "Blow Up" readers) "Wire Music", the name of Terry Fox is probably less celebrated that the ones of Ellen Fullman or Paul Panhuysen and his rare incisions on vinyl are really hard to find, and a cult object for collectors. But this Seattle artist is a veteran of the genre, and a seminal figure for the performance and sound installation world. For these reasons, this first edition on CD is almost an event! As a true nomad, Fox has lived in various parts of the world, also in Italy (Rome, Bologna, Napoli, Firenze), realizing his installations in various strange places. "suono interno", the first excerpt of this cd, only 2'50'', is taken from three six-hours performances that the artist gave in the former Santa Lucia Church in Bologna, 1979. In the completely empty and abandoned church, two piano wires of the church's lenght were stretched from a point of the big wooden door. The audience was looking at the performance from a single hole in the door. The same door was also working as resonance projecting the sound outside. Also in the other tracks site-specificity is a key element. The almost 25 minutes of "Berlin attic Wire" are a great example of pure sound art, this time the piano wires exploring the resonances of the attic of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. What seems incredible is the fantastic electronic character of the pieces, also because no electronics at all were used, except the use of a microphone for recording! The exceptional side in Terry Fox's sculptures is in the ability to transfigure sound sources and space, creating an art textured for the moment and the sound space achieved events convey minimal, but with very strong emotions."

in "Blow Up", Italy, July/August 1999.
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ATARAXIA - Works with Sound (79/81)

1 Suono Interno (2:50)
2 Rallentando (2:50)
3 Lunar Rambles (9:24)
4 Culvert (9:24) (Featuring - Bill GIlbert , Bootz Hubbard)
5 Berlin Attic Wire, Beating (24:44)
6 Berlin Attic Wire, Bowing (15:07)

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Natasha Barrett - Isostasie (2002)

"Not so long ago, electronic music was the province of those lucky enough to be able to gain access into the squeaky clean labs of IRCAM or similar institutions, where large, impossibly expensive boxes festooned with dials and flashing lights awaited the bidding of the composer. Now that a similar level of wizardry is achievable with just the aid of a laptop, and contemporary electronica made in bedrooms all over the world enjoys cutting edge status, it's tempting to wonder what the point of 'classical' electronic music actually is. Records like this one may be the answer...

A graduate of Jonty Harrison's B.E.A.S.T. project, Natasha Barrett's approach is highly rigorous, borne of compositional rather than improvisational process. Though on paper her methods can seem a little dry, her music is possessed of an overtly sensual and often awesome power that rivals anything else you're likely to hear. Her 'acousmatic' techniques transform field recordings, percussion and voices into restless soundscapes that conjure up strange geographies buffetted by even stranger meteorological phenomena, cosmic forces on a massive scale or hallucinatory rainforests straight out of J.G Ballard.

Barrett's structural precision gives her pieces a strong sense of narrative as well as place. Tiny sonic fictions unravel throughout; footsteps recede over glassy, gong like tones. A door is opened, a cat enters, draws near, purrs and eats from a bowl seemingly placed in your left ear. You're dragged through dense undergrowth packed with insects, or sat in a dripping cave listening to distant machines devouring the landscape. But most of all it's her control of timbre that catches the ear again and again.

At times during the opening "Three Fictions" the immersion factor almost sent me into some deep alpha state, or the abstract sweep of millions of tiny oscillations produced such strange sensations in the small of my back I had to take my headphones off to catch my breath. One of Barrett's interests is in manipulating the listener's perception of time, and it's something she does with consummate ease.

Lush, disturbing and beautiful all at once, Isostasie at once connects with the rich and strange concoctions of classic musique concrete, coupled with a timeless quality lacking in the ephemeral world of contemporary electronica. Stunning."

by Peter Marsh, in BBC experimental review, January 2003

"A former student of Jonty Harrison and Denis Smalley — two important figures of the British electroacoustics school — Natasha Barrett integrates the approach of these two composers into a proposition which recalls both sound ecology and properly abstract composition. Isostasie is full of these poetic, disconcerting environments, impressionistic pictures of various formats, evocative of her country of adoption, Norway. In this CD, one will encounter various meteorological happenings, the midnight sun, Red Snow (a phenomenon due to the growth of algae or diatoms), as well as an ode to the forest, Viva la Selva!. Plenty of illustrations and impressions of the Norwegian landscape, postfaced with an «exploration of spatial musical structure» (The Utility of Space), all fabricated with utmost delicacy by a young composer with an attuned ear, of whom this is the third album already (following two self-produced CDs, Rocks & Wraiths and Chillies & Shells.)"

in electrocd website

Isostasie (empreintes DIGITALes | IMED 0262 | 2002)

Three Fictions (Northern Mix) (2000) 10'34''
1. In the Rain 3'51''
2. Midnight Sun: Midday Moon 3'35''
3. Outside Snow Falls 3'02''

Displaced:Replaced (2001)
4. Fog, light wind 2'46''

5. Red Snow (2001) 15'39''

Displaced : Replaced (2001)

6. Wet and gusty 1'42''

7. Viva la selva (1999) 17'28''

Displaced : Replaced (2001)

8. Gathering wind 2'50''

9. The Utility of Space (2000) 13'25''

10. Industrial Revelations (2001) 11'32''

total duration: 76'41'

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(note: track 8 is in the first folder for uploading space optimization)

Anthologie Musicale de la Péninsule Arabique Vol. 4: Le Chant des Femmes

Anthologie Musicale De La Péninsule Arabique
Vol. 4: Le Chant des Femmes
A Musical Anthology of the Arabian Peninsula
Vol. 4: Women's Songs

Simon Jargy Collection
Recorded in 1968-1990
Released in 1994, Disques VDE-Gallo

01-02. Chants de mer (Sea Songs)
03-14. Chants de mariage (Wedding Songs)
15-19. Chans de l'enfance et du travail (Childhood and Working Songs)



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The Hafler Trio - Fuck (1992)

"Fuck is the second part of a projected trilogy that begins with Masturbatorium, and for which the third part has not been released as of early 2001. While Masturbatorium used sounds generated by performance artist Annie Sprinkle in a sonic investigation of female sexuality, Fuck concentrates on male sexual energies, using sounds leading to the brink of male orgasm from Andrew McKenzie, in addition to various atmospheric frequencies and field recordings. As with the trilogy's first part, the liner notes go into some detail about the sonic origins and the overall purpose of the piece, its specific practical intents, and its relationship to investigations into sexual energy.

Unusually, McKenzie directs that the recording be played at maximum volume, and that the CD player be in strict accordance with left and right channel connections. With the correct playback configuration, the ominous low drone opening shakes the room, and when the various fast rhythmic layers are added in, the piece takes on an overwhelming aura seldom found in other Hafler Trio releases. A looped bass vocal alternates between the two channels in the second track, exercising the separation McKenzie mentions. Given the sexual intent of the piece, one might suppose that it would start slowly and build, but in fact the opposite is the case. The beginning is the loudest, densest, and fastest, with an overall tranquility and lightening as the piece progresses. Its unity of purpose makes it one of the better Hafler Trio releases, although the cover art and subject matter make it for mature listeners only".
Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide

"The first piece can be seen as an abrasive experience in deep-breathing oppressive terror-technonoise, somehow reminiscent of both Gerechtigkeits Liga and Porter Ricks; the second piece finds the "trio" in more familiar ground, reducing the scope of sonic assault to create a slow, bass-based progression from multilayered noise to total darkness". The Juju Unintelligible Reviews

Performed by A.M. McKenzie & Zbigniew Karkowski

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Javanese Court Gamelan (1971)

"This recording was made on January 10, 1971, in the great reception hall, or pendopo, of the Pura Paku Alaman in Jogyakarta, by kind permission of H.H. Paku Alam VIII. The occasion was a radio broadcast in honor of his birthday, celebrated every 35 days according to the Javanese calendar. The gamelan was arranged in two halves, melody instruments, bonangs, and gongs to the left, and soft-playing instruments, drum, and singers to the right. The players sat with their backs toward one of the 3 open sides of the pavillion, facing inward across a spacious tile floor toward the entrance to the inner rooms of the palace. Occasional muffled soundsfrom the busy streets outside the compound and the twittering of flights of sparrows that make their nests in the rafters of the pendopo are a part of the normal sound ambiance". Robert E. Brown, CD liner notes

"A stunning counterpoint to the violence and agitation of the better-known world of Balinese gamelan. Deep, almost meditative, slow-paced and astoningishly beautiful. If, as someone once said, Balinese gamelan is the sonic equivalent of sexual frenzy, then this Javanese gamelan recording could stand as an example of post-orgasmic beatitude". The Quick'n'Ignorant Dallas Review

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