Dale Lloyd is not only a Great artists but also the man behind the emblematic and/OAR label. His piece Warm Equatorial Nox is the first of the release: a warm, emotional piece with a beautiful mood evoking of Soviet sci-fi movie scores; a piece of deep immerse toughs and nostalgic wandering.
The second piece is Perplex Fable by Christopher McFall, a piece where drones and field recordings interact creating a strange sensation of still chaos.
Scott Taylor has published releases with labels such as CONV, Entr'acte and Touch among many others. His piece London Autumn Night has a taciturn and mysterious aura accentuated by rainy grey textures.
Of Mario de Vega I know a few things: 1) He drives a motorcycle wearing a white helmet, and his friends find that funny. 2) His live performances are quite intense and powerful. 3) His piece Corner (number four in the track list) is a personal recomended. Even though it's a pretty short piece (0:52) its ageless innocence and contemplating nature make of it a beautiful piece worthy to listen to it repeatedly like in a "Groundhog's Day style" citing Nagaru Tanigawa.
Asher's The Depths, The Colors, The Objects & The Silence on Mystery Sea was one the best releases of last year. His piece Four Fragments of Autumn (number five), like its title says, is a piece divided in four parts. The contrast between the field recording-oriented segments and the more "musical" segments is remarkable.
Kim Cascone's introduction is not required: he has been working with sound and music since the 70's. He has worked with David Lynch, Keith Rowe, Peter Rehberg, Oval, Carsten Nicolai and Doug Aitken among many other artists. Originally he was working on movies, then became the label chief of Silent Records, which he sold in 1996 in order to focus on his own sound work. Blurscape (piece number six) is a dripping water sounding piece with some strange events occurring on the background. Very subtle and crusty-textured piece.
Francisco Lopez' piece Untitled #209 is has a very needly sonority, like the effect of being overexposed to the sun, the bugs, the humidity and the loneliness on a jungle somewhere. Untitled #209 sounds like an insight to Captain Benjamin L. Willard or Lope De Aguirre on the toughest moments of their delirious adventures.
Tô is Elaeis Guineensis from France a great field recorder that created weird organic shapes and magnified broken glass-like textures for this piece. Le Crock St Laurent (number seven) is another personal recommended.
Manrico Montero's piece Cantaro de agua (number nine) can be heard on top of this page; This is a beautiful hypnotic piece with confusing and recurrent patterns. Manrico Montero is behind the { Mandorla } project and he was also the main curator of this successful project.
Blind Indian Summer Curtains Waiting for Dante (number ten) by Marcel Torkowski sets a very quiet scenario with wandering sines interlacing around the roughened wild core sounds.
Macumbista is from Berlin; I don't know his real name and among the musicians that have influenced him he cites Venom, Slayer, Black Sabbath, Misfits, Motorhead, Neurosis, Earth, Burzum, Celtic Frost, Sunn O))), Napalm Death, Carcass, Fela Kuti, Johnny Cash, John Fahey and Hawkwind. Among his favorite directors he cites Takashi Miike, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Andrei Tarkowski, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Greenaway, Roman Polanski, Bill Viola, Matthew Barney, Chan-wook Park, Werner Herzog, Stan Brakhage, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. Hollow Space Capacitance Discharge (piece number eleven) could evoke the sound and sonority of movies directed by them mainly those with a sci-fi approach. This is another must listen.
Rui Costa's El Viaje de las Golondrinas (piece number twelve) has a very interesting record tape-like qualities and sonority. Very nice song with a beautiful ending.
Fall Leave Tumble Song (piece number thirteen) is by by Maile Colbert, a filmmaker, video, and sound artist living in California. She is working on a feature documentary on Autism called The Plane Flies High Because I am Not Afraid. Using her own words Maile Colbert sounds like "On days like this the clouds probably absorbed the sounds from the surface of the earth. And not just sounds. All kinds of things. Perceptions, for example".
Sadly there is not much information on the web about Phil Thomson. His piece Late Autumn (number fourteen) is a subtle and austerely precise work, delicate and fragile but with a harsh needly crust around like a sonic sea urchin build on high frequencies.
Gabriel Hernandez (AKA GoGoo) from France is also the man behind the netlabel rainmusic; he just published à côté, a terrific release on the mOAR label. Camomille (piece number fifteen) is an piece based on acoustic guitar chords. It's indeed a welcomed break after some several minutes of field recordings, drones and micro textures, Like a ghost in the machine.
"Binaural sound art is both a particular style of recording and a particular approach. By inserting very high quality sub-miniature microphones into his ears, Dallas is able to sample his own human hearing and record what is known as "binaural sound" to conventional 2-channel stereo, with all the potency of a three dimensional surround sound experience when replayed on headphones...The approach is to engage the listener, through his own ears, in a guided experience of soundscape awareness and intuitive interaction with found and introduced objects. Movement through a location allows creative spatial choreography - the compositional arrangement of moving sounds in three dimensional space - with additional opportunities to create an unfolding narrative in time."
Dallas Simpson has been working with binaural sounds for more than a decade. He is also a professional CD Mastering Engineer. Cascades of Leaves (piece number sixteen) is a short beautiful piece with a percussive nature that evokes the sound produced by chimes but on a magnified perspective.
Sebastien Roux' piece La Ligne Vivante (number seventeen) reminds me of old radio, old sound equipment where static noises and music blend in our conscious.
Some weeks ago Akira Rebelais peacefully helped Britney Spears to get rid off some paparazzis in L.A. He also contributed to {Autumn Soundscapes} with one of the best pieces of the compilation, October 23rd, 2007 (eighteen and final piece). This a very elegant work with a subtle contrast between dark and strong shades and a holy-like white spreading light, that build up greatly into a linear expanding structure.
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{Autumn Soundscapes}, is one of the most impressive compilations I have heard recently, the download is more than worthy. Cheers to { Mandorla } and all the participating artists. |
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