text:
Based on the original score for the film "I Am Here" (due to be released in 2015), written and directed by Anders Morgenthaler, starring Kim Basinger, Jordan Prentice and Sebastian Schipper. All music written and produced by Jóhann Jóhannsson and BJ Nilsen.
This is the first collaboration between Jóhann Jóhannsson and BJ Nilsen… very much a mix between their two worlds (you can hear both their signatures) and with the help of additional musicians, including Hildur Guðnadóttir on cello and the remarkable voices of Elfa Margrét Ingvadóttir and Guðmundur Vignir Karlsson, they together create a world of great beauty and mystery.
Buy Jóhann Jóhannssen & BJNilsen "I Am Here" [LP + WAV download] from the TouchShop
Repose was a site specific performance in Cocky Eek's inflatable performance space, Sphæræ, commissioned by the 2014 AxS Festival in Pasadena, California.
The performance highlighted this unique space through a gesture-less performance of sound and light. The piece is comprised of a purely synthesized sound devoid of traditional compositional elements and was accompanied by 180º projections of pure color.
Repose is presented here in a longer form to take advantage of the digital format.
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play "Repose"
Release date: 20th October 2014
Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft
Cut by Jason at Transition, mastered by Denis Blackham
Featuring David Sylvian and Burkhard Stangl
Special 10th anniversary edition
Track listing:
The Future Will Be Different
Rivers of Sand
Chateau Rouge
City of Light
Circassian (guitar: Burkhard Stangl)
The Other Face
Transit (vocals: David Sylvian)
The Point of It All
The Stone of Impermanence
The Future Will Be Different and Tree complete the Venice sessions in one release… "Venice" was recorded on location in the summer of 2003 and subsequently assembled and mixed at Amann Studios, Vienna in January/February 2004.
"Venice", the fourth studio album by Christain Fennesz, finds electronic music at a crossroads between its early status as digital subculture, and the feeling that there has to be something more, an emotional quality that rises above noise and moves towards melody and rapture.
It was voted No. 3 in The Top 50, The Wire, December 2004, was album of the week at BBCi on its release and remains Christian Fennesz's best-selling record to date. prefix (USA) noted: "Although Fennesz's breakout record Endless Summer was followed by a live release and a collaboration with Jim O'Rourke and Peter Rehberg as Fenn O'Berg, Venice is the true heir to that album's ascendant pop. Venice is not as unabashedly poppy as its predecessor (the lack of Beach Boys references can attest to that), but still mines much the same vein. It was marked by critics at the time as a move away from the relatively robotic music spawned by the IDM craze of the late nineties. Instead, its melodic, emotive tracks foresaw an electronic music that could be purely human."
Pitchfork Media (USA), in a lengthy review, also noted: "Venice's quality extends beyond its sound. Touch proprietor Jon Wozencroft-- through his breathtaking design and photography - continues to fight the good fight against records-as-pure-data by making the CD a value-added prospect." and The Declaration Online (Web): "Two blue empty row boats left listless on rippling water. Red orange green riverbed foliage reflected in the water's gauzy oil slick surface. An airport enveloped in dull gray stratus and snow. Upon seeing the photography and packaging accompanying Christian Fennesz's latest recording, Venice, it is clear that the record label Touch remains intent on not simply putting out records but creating audiovisual imprints dedicated to inextricably tying sound and vision."
Buy Fennesz "Venice" [DLP and wav download] in the TouchShop
Release date: 20th October 2014
Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft
Cut by Jason at Transition, mastered by Denis Blackham
Featuring David Sylvian and Burkhard Stangl
Special 10th anniversary edition
Track listing:
The Future Will Be Different
Rivers of Sand
Chateau Rouge
City of Light
Circassian (guitar: Burkhard Stangl)
The Other Face
Transit (vocals: David Sylvian)
The Point of It All
The Stone of Impermanence
The Future Will Be Different and Tree complete the Venice sessions in one release… "Venice" was recorded on location in the summer of 2003 and subsequently assembled and mixed at Amann Studios, Vienna in January/February 2004.
"Venice", the fourth studio album by Christain Fennesz, finds electronic music at a crossroads between its early status as digital subculture, and the feeling that there has to be something more, an emotional quality that rises above noise and moves towards melody and rapture.
It was voted No. 3 in The Top 50, The Wire, December 2004, was album of the week at BBCi on its release and remains Christian Fennesz's best-selling record to date. prefix (USA) noted: "Although Fennesz's breakout record Endless Summer was followed by a live release and a collaboration with Jim O'Rourke and Peter Rehberg as Fenn O'Berg, Venice is the true heir to that album's ascendant pop. Venice is not as unabashedly poppy as its predecessor (the lack of Beach Boys references can attest to that), but still mines much the same vein. It was marked by critics at the time as a move away from the relatively robotic music spawned by the IDM craze of the late nineties. Instead, its melodic, emotive tracks foresaw an electronic music that could be purely human."
Pitchfork Media (USA), in a lengthy review, also noted: "Venice's quality extends beyond its sound. Touch proprietor Jon Wozencroft-- through his breathtaking design and photography - continues to fight the good fight against records-as-pure-data by making the CD a value-added prospect." and The Declaration Online (Web): "Two blue empty row boats left listless on rippling water. Red orange green riverbed foliage reflected in the water's gauzy oil slick surface. An airport enveloped in dull gray stratus and snow. Upon seeing the photography and packaging accompanying Christian Fennesz's latest recording, Venice, it is clear that the record label Touch remains intent on not simply putting out records but creating audiovisual imprints dedicated to inextricably tying sound and vision."]]> Reviews:
Other Music (USA):
Touch releases this special 10th anniversary edition of Venice, the fourth studio album from Christian Fennesz, available for the first time ever on vinyl, pressed on double LP and housed in a gatefold sleeve. As we wrote at the time of its release: "Venice sees Fennesz focusing on the sound of the electric guitar, extending its palette through various digital processing techniques... While Venice may not be as immediate as some of Fennesz's previous efforts, its combination of somber haunting melodies and grainy texture illuminates a space where simple, somewhat catchy guitar playing wontedly coexists with the din of contemporary computer manipulations which is further illustrated by Jon Wozencraft's beautiful cover photographs documenting human interaction and manipulation of nature.
Highlights include 'Transit,' a stunning collaboration with David Sylvian that continues where their fantastic duo track on Sylvian's recent album Blemish left off. Situated directly in the middle of a mostly subdued listening experience 'Transit' literally bursts out of the speakers accentuating the album's more pop-like characteristics as well as its more restrained moments."
Norman Records (UK):
Christian Fennesz is a true romantic. He recorded 'Venice' on location, and the music he created betrays his love for its natural beauty, its unique position in the world and the sheer vastness of the place -- the sustained synths sound like water ebbing and flowing, curling up against the edge of canal beds and then returning. The guitars he uses, too, are only processed so they can sound more rustic, another part of this landscape that always feels gorgeously ancient. If Fennesz was trying to capture the natural beauty of this place, he succeeded: his electronica always had an emotive force, but on 'Venice' it was as if he were trying to extract that and put it in an empty place: boats and water as his protagonists, it never felt like this soundscape was meant for humans. The artwork on the back of 'Venice' feels like a sly wink to that. Unlike the beautiful front cover, it puts reality in front of the listener, showing a snowy Venetian airport runway and a couple security guards. Fennesz has to recognise the people of 'Venice' occasionally, but they're not what he came there for.
The influence 'Venice' has had, with the textural heights it reached, is phenomenal: I can hear these gasping electronics in so much of what's recorded now, and it feels like another chapter in which Fennesz was able to reconcile white noise and sonic assaults with beautified and ambient-leaning electronica. The ominous drone of "City of Light" feels ingrained into the minds of artists like Josh Mason, while the furious and gorgeous noise of "Onsra" feels like the key to unlocking Deerhunter's "Ink" compositions on 'Cryptograms'. Even the gasping processed sounds that mull around the record's edges feel strangely predictive of the blustery beauty Oneohtrix Point Never would go on to create. And though he worked in his own special realm -- processed guitars, electronic haze and a handy laptop to lean over -- Fennesz managed to conjure a feeling that artists have been trying to get back for years: one that's about truly recreating where you where in the world and what you wanted from it when you made your music. On 'Venice', the city is his. [Robin]
Babadu (Russia):
"Venice", the fourth studio album by Christain Fennesz, finds electronic music at a crossroads between its early status as digital subculture, and the feeling that there has to be something more, an emotional quality that rises above noise and moves towards melody and rapture. It was voted No. 3 in The Top 50, The Wire, December 2004, was album of the week at BBCi on its release and remains Christian Fennesz's best-selling record to date. prefix (USA) noted: "Although Fennesz's breakout record Endless Summer was followed by a live release and a collaboration with Jim O'Rourke and Peter Rehberg as Fenn O'Berg, Venice is the true heir to that album's ascendant pop. Venice is not as unabashedly poppy as its predecessor (the lack of Beach Boys references can attest to that), but still mines much the same vein. It was marked by critics at the time as a move away from the relatively robotic music spawned by the IDM craze of the late nineties. Instead, its melodic, emotive tracks foresaw an electronic music that could be purely human." Pitchfork Media (USA), in a lengthy review, also noted: "Venice's quality extends beyond its sound. Touch proprietor Jon Wozencroft-- through his breathtaking design and photography - continues to fight the good fight against records-as-pure-data by making the CD a value-added prospect." and The Declaration Online (Web): "Two blue empty row boats left listless on rippling water. Red orange green riverbed foliage reflected in the water's gauzy oil slick surface. An airport enveloped in dull gray stratus and snow. Upon seeing the photography and packaging accompanying Christian Fennesz's latest recording, Venice, it is clear that the record label Touch remains intent on not simply putting out records but creating audiovisual imprints dedicated to inextricably tying sound and vision."
*10th Anniversary Edition with two bonus tracks "The Future Will Be Different" and "Tree"* 'Venice' was the follow up to the groundbreaking 'Endless Summer', a record with a legendary pedigree and with sales substantial enough to have shaken up its label. Musically, 'Venice' is a much more varied affair, reflected by the contrasting imagery in the cover photography. Check the heartbreak melancholy of the opener 'Rivers Of Sand' to the somewhat playful 'Chateau Rouge', the freeze framed longing of 'City Of Light' and 'Circassian' featuring the searing guitar of Burkhard Stangl. The justifiable hyped up collaboration with David Sylvian is as you'd expect, upfront confessional lyrics behind the buzz and hum of plucked electrical wirings and trapped angels -. My personal favourite is 'The Point Of It All' which has the most beautiful harmonies you'll have heard close up all year plus the tempo and mood shifts. The most brutal track on display 'The Stone Of Impermanence' rounds out this collection in a pure rush of ear splitting intensity but still with that essential melodic undergrowth.
Boomkat (UK):
'Venice' is the official follow up to the groundbreaking 'Endless Summer', a record with a legendary pedigree and with sales substantial enough to have shaken up its label (Mego) to the extent that they seem to have been on a mission ever since to keep it as difficult as it gets. It seems Touch has no such hangs up. This is an amazing album that will no doubt come to be as highly regarded as 'Endless Summer' though musically its a much more varied affair, reflected by the contrasting imagery in the digipak photography (an old and new rowing boat moored up / nature and classic architecture reflected through water / an ice bound airport / an evening shot of a weir). Check the heartbreak rushing melancholy of the opener 'Rivers Of Sand' to the somewhat playful 'Chateau Rouge' then the freeze framed longing of 'City Of Light'. 'Circassian' featuring the searing guitar of Burkhard Stangl will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The justifiable hyped up collaboration with David Sylvian is as you'd expect, upfront confessional lyrics behind the buzz and hum of plucked electrical wirings and trapped angels - amazing. My personal favourite is 'The Point Of It All' which has the most beautiful harmonies you'll have heard close up all year plus the tempo and mood shifts. The most brutal track on display 'The Stone Of Impermanence' rounds out this collection in a pure Mego rush of ear splitting intensity but still with that essential Fennesz melodic undergrowth. This is one essential album - truly life enhancing music.
Aquarius Records (USA):
Christian Fennesz' 2001 album Endless Summer firmly established him as one of the electronic avant-garde's greats with his delirious balance of hotwired digital glitches and a nostalgic revisitation of summery pop sensibilities. The assimilation of overloaded digital filtering technologies and guitar driven song fragments has continued to be Fennesz' strongest asset through his celebrated arrangements for David Sylvian's Blemish album, and has even earned him a curious forthcoming collaboration with Sparklehorse! Venice is his fourth studio album and clearly stands as his best work to date. According to Asphodel's Naut Humon, Venice was almost a doomed project, as Fennesz' hard drive crashed less than a month before he needed to deliver the record to Touch. With about a quarter of the album salvageable, he scrambled to reassemble the album from memory. While it's hard to say if this time constraint benefited or detracted from his process, the album itself is stunningly good. Just as Endless Summer channelled the acid fried spirit of Brian Wilson, Venice also finds itself an album with a muse: Kevin Shields. There have always been short-circuited elements of My Bloody Valentine shot from Fennesz' tricked out guitar sound; but Venice pushes Fennesz affection for shoegazer's bucolic atmospheres and sublime melodies to the forefront with marvelous results. Each song appears to be nerve-rattlingly familiar; yet just as Endless Summer invoked Brian Wilson without ever resorting to self-conscious quotation, each of his tracks glides along the same oceanic currents authored by Slowdive, AR Kane, Ride, Loveliescrushing, and The Cocteau Twins. Again, no direct references can be heard in Venice; rather Fennesz taps directly into the hopelessly romantic sentimentality of shoegazer music and replicates it perfectly behind a light dusting of digital pixels.
The one track which gives us pause on Venice is the single collaboration with David Sylvian. While this track on its own works as good if not better than anything on their aforementioned Blemish album, it sticks out like sore thumb against the sublimely textured ambience which dominates the remainder of the record. Here on the double lp redux of Venice, Fennesz had the sense to lead the second lp with that track, thus remedying much of the disconnect found with the cd listening experience. Venice stood as one of the finest electronic albums of 2001; and it's still an excellent album a decade later, now fleshed out in its 10th Anniversary vinyl edition with two short bonus tracks of pastoral, pixelated blur, "The Future Will Be Different" and "Tree", presumably recorded at the same time.]]>
3 mixes, 3 directional speakers, sound installation 2014, Jiyeon Kim @ SeMa Biennale MediaCity Seoul
'Grandmothers' Lounge - From the Other Side of Voices' is a joint work of radio producer Sang-il Choi (KR) and sound artist Jiyeon Kim (KR), commissioned by SeMa Biennale MediaCity Seoul 2014. Largely based on Sang-il Choi's anthropological audio recordings of folksongs and stories of grandmothers from South Korea, Jiyeon Kim made this sound installation adopting 3 directional speakers. This mix is especially prepared for TouchRadio.
birds without mouths 00:00~06:17
Grandmothers who had lived in mountain villages used to play with imitating bird's call. Songs about birds and imitative sounds of birds call were passed on orally. For the people who lived in mountainous areas, birds were believed to be the reincarnation of the dead, who had oppression and resentment during their lives. Most of the words and lyrics concern listening to one's sorrows and comforting one's soul. You can hear calls of the lark, owl, cuckoo, wood pigeon, pheasant, nightingale, etc mimicked by grandmothers from different mountain villages with rustling leaves and folksong on birds.
prayers 06:19~10:58
A mix of grandmothers' confessions during the act of praying with songs used in exorcism rituals. Sounds of metal resonance, water flow and feedback were added to accentuate an aspect of their lives - a shaman in their own families.
unfinished chorus 10:59~15:07
This mix starts with one of the old ladies saying, "…I can't even sing." As song is assumed as a centralised and capitalised epic, marginal unsong elements are often neglected and erased. With chopped sounds and refrains from mainly labour folksongs, I focused on 'unsung elements' (breaths, humming, laughter, shouts, etc.) to be extended into another kind of song. Grandmothers' chorus would not be finished until they stop breathing.
Sang-il Choi's online archive of Korean traditional folksongs and in English
Exhibition link
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play "Grandmothers' Lounge - From the Other Side of Voices - Lounge Mix"
30th September 2014 at The Silent Movie Theatre
611 N. Fairfax, LA, CA 90036
The Golem (with live score by Jacaszek, a polish sound artist who works with us at Touch - we released an album by him in June 2014)
about The Golem]]>
Tobias Fischer interviewed Mike Harding & Jon Wozencroft for Dutch magazine, Tokafi
You can read the full article here:
Mastered by Thomas Köner
Photography by Jon Wozencroft
Text by Denis Boyer
Track listing:
1. Cloître
Recorded live from the cloisters at Evreux Cathedral, Normandy, France by Franck Dubois, 14th June 2014, as part of L'Ateliers
Buy Thomas Koner & Jana Winderen "Cloitre" [WAV Download] in the TouchShop
Mastered by Thomas Köner
Photography by Jon Wozencroft
Text by Denis Boyer
Recorded live from the cloisters at Evreux Cathedral, Normandy, France by Franck Dubois, 14th June 2014, as part of L'Ateliers
Track listing:
1. Cloître]]> Reviews:
Sly Vinyl:
Here's another conversation piece to put in to your collection, readers. This record revolves around the recordings of multiple records' locked grooves, which as you all know, serve as a barrier between the label and the needle. Achim Mohné is a sound artist (an artist in general, I suppose) from Cologne, Germany. These locked groove recordings you hear on the preview of this record come from a record collection spanning over sixteen years. As the record synopsis states, and as you can infer, each record's locked groove is going to sound unique due to a wide array of factors – age, number of plays, dust, scratches, and so on. This could possibly be considered ambient to my ears, but again with something such as this, whether you can call this music or not is entirely up to you. These "non-music" records tend to fetch a prettier penny as time goes on in case you want to sell, but as I wrote, this, if nothing else, could be a great conversation piece. Another interesting aspect: you can play this at any speed you like. Check out the preview of Accelerated Standstill by going through the Buy Now link below and see what you think of it. Cheers!
Metamkine (France):
Un travail à base de vinyls et de sillons fermés, souvent ceux de la fin de disque. Répétition, bruits de surfaces, et accumulation. Hommage au support et à la boucle, mise en avant de la poussière et des fantômes qui s'y cachent. Ce disque ravira les amateurs de Philip Jeck, Pure ou Intemporal Analogic Sound. Un disque noir dans une pochette blanche standard limité à 300 copies.
ambientblog.net (France):
Barely a month before the release of "Tiento de las Nieves", Touch released a (WAV-only) download performance by Thomas Köner and Jana Winderen .
This 45 minute piece was recorded live at Evreux Cathedral, Normandy, France in june 2014.
The characteristic Köner drones perfectly match with Winderen's processed environmental sound recordings. Ánd with some live environment sounds, by the way: a faraway emergency siren, some birds, church bells ringing, audience coughs.
The resulting piece is completely absorbing: it must've been quite an impressive experience to attend this performance at the square garden between the cathedral and the bishop's palace.
"That night of June 2014 in Evreux, Normandy, they fashioned together a very discreet and evolutionary soundscape, which included mist, birds, slow – very slow – breathing, celestial humming, rain… all of which integrate a panorama their common music designs, which is not necessarily cold."
No physical release, unfortunately, which may be a pain for some collectors. But still we should thank Touch for distributing a recording that otherwise would've probalby remained unavailable.
This is a 44-minute single-piece live recording made in France in 2014 and available in download-only format from Touch or, for unlimited access, bleep.com. An extremely well balanced piece, it combines Köner's frigid yet comforting slow-motion drone textures derived from electronically-treated gong sounds with Jana Winderen's transparent, summery, semi-pastoral environmental recordings. In fact, at the 24 minute point, it sounds as though Köner begins to play a section from his second album 'Teimo' from the early 1990's. The piece evolves glacially and on occasion there are sounds that can be identified, such as screeching swifts in the distance overhead. [Alan Haselden]
The Quietus (UK):
Cloitre, her live collaboration with Thomas Köner from earlier this year effortlessly forges a fiction by bringing together not just two experienced sound artists together but by adding the additional dimension of a reverberrent space to their emanations. Performed in the cloisters of a cathedral in Normandy, this third 'collaborator' suited Köner and Winderen's output perfectly - a reverent space designed for silence into which the pair gradually pour their recordings of bat and bird song, ice crevasses, submarine ambience, winds and vapours. Like Out Of Range, despite the wildlife hissing, chirruping and twittering, the overall feeling is that of floating in an undiscovered environment. There are seriously deep, sinking sensations at work here, as if descending through the other side of the ocean into a deserted lagoon at the bottom of a vast chasm, the only suggestion of human life is the rare toll of a church bell, presumably provided by the venue and not the players. As such it would be the perfect soundtrack for Ballard's early climate fiction, at times reminding of both The Drowned World's tropical temperatures and flooding, and The Crystal World's solidifying jungle. [Russell Cuzner]]]>
Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye
The tracks are the atmospheres of "special places", recorded with the use of camouflaged microphones.
"In recent years I have noticed that some of the locations I visited as a sound recordist displayed remarkable and particular characteristics. These may be sparkling acoustics, a special timbre, sometimes rhythmic, percussive or transient animal sounds. Without a doubt, playing a recording made at one of these sites can recreate a detailed memory of the original event. Also, as others have described, there is an intangible sense of being in a special place — somewhere that has a spirit — a place that has an 'atmosphere'. These recordings avoid background noise, human disturbance and editing. They are made using sensitive microphones camouflaged and fixed in position usually well in advance of any recording or animal behaviour. The mics. are then cabled back on very long leads to a hide or concealed recording point, the aim being to capture the actual sound within each particular location without external influence. Sites are discovered by researching local natural or social history, by interpreting features on a map or through anecdote and conversation with people about their feelings for or against particular places. The author and researcher Tom Lethbridge identified the sources of several spirits within the topography of the area. I suspect that this also includes flora and fauna, local time of day, the weather and the season. The following recordings are the atmospheres of special places." (Chris Watson)
Buy Chris Watson "Stepping into the Dark" [Download] in the TouchShop
The tracks are the atmospheres of "special places", recorded with the use of camouflaged microphones.
"In recent years I have noticed that some of the locations I visited as a sound recordist displayed remarkable and particular characteristics. These may be sparkling acoustics, a special timbre, sometimes rhythmic, percussive or transient animal sounds. Without a doubt, playing a recording made at one of these sites can recreate a detailed memory of the original event. Also, as others have described, there is an intangible sense of being in a special place — somewhere that has a spirit — a place that has an 'atmosphere'. These recordings avoid background noise, human disturbance and editing. They are made using sensitive microphones camouflaged and fixed in position usually well in advance of any recording or animal behaviour. The mics. are then cabled back on very long leads to a hide or concealed recording point, the aim being to capture the actual sound within each particular location without external influence. Sites are discovered by researching local natural or social history, by interpreting features on a map or through anecdote and conversation with people about their feelings for or against particular places. The author and researcher Tom Lethbridge identified the sources of several spirits within the topography of the area. I suspect that this also includes flora and fauna, local time of day, the weather and the season. The following recordings are the atmospheres of special places." (Chris Watson)
1. Low Pressure
0810h 6th October 1994
Wind wherever the sound recordist operates is an obvious nuisance. Just as it is with turbulent seas and fast-running water, it is relatively simple to make a recording that captures the generalised bashing and cashing of the elements, but this results in white noise that describes nothing of the detailed ebb and flow as witnessed. The remarkable thing here, in Glen Cannich, was that i could walk through the foci of these wind sounds within a few paces, as if being part of some great instrument. The blast here was so strong that it took some time to fix the microphones securely - I felt surrounded by the full force of the elements being channelled through this site, and wanted the recording to reflect the bent-double posture and sheer physicality I was experiencing. I cabled back 50 or 60m to a sheltered position and managed to run the tape for almost ten minutes before the microphones were blown over.
2. Embleton Rookery
0600h 7th May 1983
The churchyard looks out to the sea and across to the castle at Dunstanburgh Head, the vertigo cliff face forming a curve to create what was once a remote deep water harbour, used by Tudor monarchs. Maybe shipwrecked sailors have returned, reincarnated as the rooks that have chosen upon the old stone church in Embleton, whose name itself gives off a particular hum. Is it that the rooks are only rooks, and they sound dark to us because the Black Birdhas so many associations with malevolence and ill-omen? Lethbridge might have said that the birds come here, largely due to this always pagan site having obvious associations with the strong atmosphere of its ley lime and ritual past. Today, cars file past on their way to a family picnic on the promontory.
Go there at dawn, or last thing at night, out of traffic hours, and another sound takes over. The acoustic of the place spins the parliament of the rooks through the cold air, its stillness, and into the timeless chaos, as always, driven on by the ringing of the bells.
3. The Crossroads
0620h 27th March 1994
This morning the conditions were just right. This crossroads at Smalesmouth in the Kielder Forest, I am told, connects two of the 'old straight tracks' upon which Scottish drovers would herd their livestock south across the open hill. Today, the forest clearing is home to a host of bird, both resident and migrant. Here, however, end of March, the birdsong comes from local voices at the peak of their activity. So at our usual site on the junction of the forest tracks, recording began just after the light came up. The cold, dry air was full of detail, this isolated spot quickly reanimated by the ringing song and calls of chaffinch, robin, wren, songthrush, siskin and crossbill...
4. River Mara At Dawn
0615h 16th September 1994
A looping curve up river is edged with lush riverene forest. The location is spectacular, but its splendour has to co-exist with an oft-repeated stress on being vigilant; one does not wander alone on foot about the Maasai Mara.
Having set the mics, I cabled back some distance to the Land Rover and started to record. Eventually, building with the heat, were the convergent sounds of swirling water, black kites, wind through the surrounding vegetation and a blanket covering if flies.
5. River Mara At Night
2130h 16th September 1994
The same evening, Francis asked one of the other Maasai guards to take me back up river. Nightfall brings more danger. The hippos, who spend the day in the river, come out and graze on the vegetation, and can be very threatening animals... more people are killed by hippos than they are by lions.
The 'atmosphere' had changed. Listening for the wooden chimes of tree frogs, we were met by heavy rhythm, a wall of nocturnal sound. Moths and night flying beetles are being hunted - you can hear the deep octaval roar as they come close to the microphone. The metallic sounds, I suspect, are the acoustic calls of bats.
6. A Passing View
2350h 3rd April 1992
Today, Fai - a local fisherman, took us into the huge mangrove forests at Los Olovitos by canoe. We had spoken about some of the special places in the mangroves and in the early afternoon we stopped at a resting place bordering the lake. It was hot, humid and very quiet. I cabled some mics out into the water's edge with the idea of returning before dawn the following day. Curiosity forced my return that night when I heard and recorded these mechanical sounds of fishing bats in the darkness. Afterwards, in torchlight, I could watch these beautiful, long-legged russet coloured animals trawling for small fish feeding on the surface of the water.
7. Bosque Seco
0540h 6th April 1995
I left the camp at 0500h this morning and followed the winding path east towards my marker. Within the forest it was still very dark and quiet, with rising warm dry air. Just as the light was breaking through the canopy, I found my site at a fork in the path. I rigged up the tape recorder. The temperature began to climb like a jet off a runway. The acoustics changed, the orchestra awoke and the forest found its rhythm.
8. Sunsets
2230h 16th May 1994
During the late afternoon I cabled the equipment out into the marsh from a track. At 2000h I went back to listen out for the evening chorus of snipe. On the ground, they are cryptic birds and will choose their spot, usually reedy and damp, close to their very well camouflaged nestling places in tussocks and long grass.
The evening was quiet until the point at which the light dramatically changes and colour vision vanishes. At this hour, the snipe will perform. In an amazing ritual and localised aerial display, they dive vertically like guided missiles towards the water, the sound of their tail feathers buzzing through the air.
9. The Blue Men Of The Minch
1400h 30th July 1994
I was fortunate enough to borrow a hydrophone from the research station at Cromarty. Five metres beneath the surface of the Moray Firth and directly over a particular deep water channel, common seals roar during their diving displays. Within a 1km radius of the hydrophone, bottle-nosed dolphins navigate and hunt using echo locating clicks. Occasionally they communicate with their unique signature whistles.
10. High Pressure
0550h 25th February 1994
On the hilltop, there was no shelter this morning from the intense biting cold - or a feeling of growing anticipation. The hard dry air gripped the trees and margins of the pool - now frozen, with only one small area of water by the mics.
Daybreak revealed a small constricted community of coot, mallard, widen and teal.
11. Gahlitzerstrom
1740h 5th October 1993
Observing from a hide over the previous two days, the cranes have followed a similar path towards their roost out on the waters of Udarser Wiek. In particular, they seem to favour a narrow channel to navigate east to west - flying in low over the end of a thin spit of brown reedy marshland where earlier this afternoon I concealed the mics.
In Greek mythology, Hermes is said to have envisioned the Greek alphabet by watching the beating wings of cranes as they passed by his line of sight. Their calls and signs remain across the centuries...
12. The Forest Path
0625h 7th October 1994
It was raining hard - there was cover under the edge of a large dark section of mature plantation. Gradually, out from the background, came the crook of distant stags. A rich, velvet acoustic rolling down through the trees and suspended in a low clinging mist.
NoiseGate (UK):
"Watson's lead instrument is the tape recorder. After working with Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio, he became sound recordist for The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, he has since joined a film and video production company, working for BBC wildlife documentaries. The 13 recordings on Stepping into the Dark contrast a windswept forest in Glen Cannich with the gathering conversations of rooks roosting in a churchyard in Northumberland. Other atmospheres include the heat and wall of sound found on the river Mara in Kenya, fishing bats on a mangrove pool in Venezuela, the ritual dance of snipe at dusk in the North Hebrides, a hydrophone at 5m depth in the Moray Firth captures the signature whistles and clicks of bottlenose dolphins. Very good."
"Chris Watson made these extraordinary recordings by concealing microphones (so they wouldn/t be noticed by local fauna) in various outdoor locations around the world, from Scotland to Venezuela to Germany, then rolling the tape and capturing the sound of the particular place and time. That's 'sound' not 'ambiance' - rather than being "soothing sounds of the surf"-type stuff, they're dense with noises (swarms of flies, croaking birds, bowl-you-over winds). You have to listen to them actively. As an aid to that, they average about four minutes apiece, or roughly the length of a pop song. In fact, listening to them a few times, you start to hear each track that way: as a collection of textures (incessantly croaking frogs) and "riffs" (an evening chorus of snipe), of unique events (the deep hum of insects buzzing by the microphone) and thematic development (the slow, symphonic crescendo of a Costa Rican forest as it awakens at daybreak). The highlight is a pair of recordings of the Maasai Mara river in Kenya: one slow and fluttery at 6:15 am, one hot and thick with noise at 9:30 pm, when Watson feared a hippo attack." [Douglas Wolk]
Wired (UK):
"Taking ambient to its logical conclusion is Chris Watson, whose Stepping into the Dark (Touch) is a collection of recordings of places. Hear birdsong, cicadas, sea and wind. Absolutely no fill-in synth washes or new-age cheesery whatsoever. Music with the music taken out - radical!"
The Wire [UK]:
"Chris Watson's Stepping into the Dark makes a collection of environmental recordings positively eventful by comparison (ed.: to Dark Continent). This is a kind of National Geographic supersession: the siskins and song thrushes of the Kielder Forest trade licks with the fishing boats of Venezuela, while the dolphins of the Moray Firth seem like they're auditioning for back-up roles on the next Björk album. It's easy to scoff like this, but the purple prosody of the liner notes does give rise to the feeling that Mother Nature is just another musical virtuoso, all ready to tune up and howl "Let's rock" for the likes of Watson and those who buy his records (and there must be buyers). But fair's fair: Watson's recordings of the River Mara in Kenya by night are of a sonic intensity that beggar's belief, and his tape of the change in environment with the sunrise in a Costa Rican rainforest is little short of poetic. Of its kind, then, this is a decent (if a tad overlong) disc, comparable with Alan Lamb's telegraph-wire recordings on Dorobo. But next time, Chris - give those rhesus monkeys some solo space in the mix." [Paul Stump]
On (UK):
"Armed with a tape recorder and a history that includes a stint as sound recordist for the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, Watson delivers eleven scapes from around the world - from Kielderside to Kenya - in a triumph of recording techniques that veers sharply away from any kind of new age relaxation agenda. The rooks roosting in the churchyard at Embleton, Northumberland are as in-yer-face as any hardstep and the heat and wall of sound in Kenya is startling in its own way too. If you're too busy to escape Islington or canna afford to quit Balham, book a sonic away-day with Chris Watson. Vibin!" [Wild Weazel]
Magic Feet (UK):
"As Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys once said, "Relax, everything is done for you." How seriously you take all this Virtual Reality Cyber Culture stuff is largely down to how much you've allowed yourself to be duped by it. Meshing neatly with the Western preference for stored over immediate experience, Chris Watson has delivered an album of field recordings from Europe, Africa and South America. So you get a cacophony of rooks from a remote Northumberland graveyard, dolphins communicating under the Moray Firth and the rising hum of a Costa Rican jungle at dawn. Sure enough, there are patterns and cyclical loops to be followed just like any music. It's all very tastefully done, from the packaging to the genuinely enthusiastic sleeve notes emphasising that this is a truly candid aural view of nature which manages to "avoid background noise, human disturbance and editing". But surely the whole point about nature is that it just is, and is there for the dwindling numbers of humans not tied to a VDU screen to just go out and drink in first hand. Maybe its a touch paranoid, but its not too difficult to imagine families of the future sat around sound machines in air-conditioned rooms using recordings such as this to learn about nature. Maybe Chris Watson could enjoy no greater punch line for his work than such a scenario. Or maybe we should all literally get out more." [Andy McCall-Smith]
"A BBC sound recordist and previously a collaborator with Andrew M. McKenzie in the Hafler Trio, Watson has assembled some favourite fragments of international environment recordings on this CD. Not only do they convey a sense of place, hinting at the physicality of different terrain, but contain emotional echoes of shared experiences. The electrical hum of insects, bird calls awakening the forest of Bosque Seco in Costa Rico, reminded me of dragonflies low over the water of a quiet lake one Scandinavian summer, an experience I'd long forgotten. Seasonal dates and times are included with beautiful photographs in a booklet, together with precise latitude and longitude measurements for those eager to take the adventure themselves." [DKH]
"After leaving Cabaret Voltaire and the Hafler Trio, Chris Watson found work as a sound-recordist, working for example for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I'm pleased to see that his belated return to the "music" industry isn't with a music album, but with a collection of location recordings, covering the wilds of Britain (Cumbria, Scotland, Northumberland) and overseas (Germany, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Kenya). Watson suggests that these recordings are not simply documentary, but concerned with capturing the intangible spirit of each location. Clear recording and a total absence of human sounds invite meditation, but it's also interesting to try and divine any musical qualities in the birdsong or dolphin clicks that occur. There's an integrity to Watson's straightforward approach that just about sets Stepping into the Dark apart from "Forest Moods" type location- sound recordings, and which ensures I'll be listening to it again." [BD]
Alternative Press (US):
"French conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp once predicted that the artist of the future would point at what already exists and it would become art. Many sound artists have taken a philosophically similar outlook, using found sound, plagiarism and media manipulation. Former Hafler Trio and Cabaret Voltaire collaborator Chris Watson takes a different approach to this aesthetic, preferring to let the world around us do its own talking.
Stepping is an engaging collection of field recordings made at exotic locales while Watson was doing location sound for various documentaries. He presents a rich variety of environments ranging from flies near the Mara River in Kenya, to nesting rooks in an old churchyard, to fishing bats in Venezuela.
Animals and the elements take center stage throughout the disc. It seems strange to have any human's name on the sleeve at all. Watson has wisely chosen to leave these sounds raw and realistic, making this about as close as most of us will get to a world tour. Use your ears and drift. [Joseph Cross]]]>
In Spring 2009, I find myself by chance just a few hours by boat from Japan's last frontier, the island of Iriomote, but I had no way to get there. Not enough time. Total frustration. The southern most island of Japan is 90% covered with rainforest and mangrove and home to many local species including not only insects, frogs and birds, but also Ryukyu flying foxes and the famous cat-leopard called Yamaneko, which was only discovered in 1965.
I make a promise to myself to return, even for short time, but with my recording equipment.
Finally this year it was possible. I went back this Summer with the help of the Tropical Biosphere Research Center University of the Ryukyus and the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris, I spent a week on the island recording with a four channel microphone setup. Sadly I didn't have the chance to see the neko this time…
Unmastered field recording featuring amongst others: Elegant scops owl, Ryukyu flying fox, Yaeyama harpist frog, Ryukyu ruddy kingfisher, cicadas, Ryukyu green pigeon, Ryukyu crow, white breasted waterhen…
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play "Dusk, night, day, dawn"
Cut by Jason at Transition
Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft
Track listing:
Side A
1. Strokur
2. Frá
3. Birting
4. Heyr Himnasmiður
5. Bær
Side B
6. Heima
7. Í hring
8. Rennur upp
9. Til baka
10. Líður
11. Þoka
"...a spirit both somber and generous" (New York Times)
"Wistful melodies and ominous passages abound, beauty and darkness drawn perfectly in equal measure. This is not just music to be listened to - this is to be taken in and felt." (Bleep)
This album is about resonance: on "Saman", which means "Together", Hildur melts her voice with her cello, connecting the two instruments together. The result is a highly involving and moving album, recorded, mixed and mastered in Berlin. Hildur's sylph-like vocals contrast beautifully with rich cello tones, resolving the tension between light and dark to produce a unique listening experience.
Renowned bassist Skúli Sverrisson guests on "Heima".
This is Hildur's 4th album for Touch, after "Without Sinking", "Mount A" and "Leyfðu Ljósinu".
All tracks composed, performed and recorded by Hildur Guðnadóttir in Berlin, except Heyr Himnasmiður (track 4), composed by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, lyrics by Kolbeinn Tumason.
Track 6, bass by Skúli Sverrisson
Tracks 1, 4 and 6 recorded by Francesco Donadello
All tracks mixed by Francesco Donadello and Hildur Guðnadóttir at Vox-Ton Studio, Berlin.
Buy Hildur Gudnadottir "Saman" [LP] in the TouchShop
Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye
Vinyl cut by Jason @ Transition
This album is about resonance: on "Saman", which means "Together", Hildur melts her voice with her cello, connecting the two instruments together. The result is a highly involving and moving album, recorded, mixed and mastered in Berlin. Hildur's sylph-like vocals contrast beautifully with rich cello tones, resolving the tension between light and dark to produce a unique listening experience.
LP Track listing:
Side A
1. Strokur
2. Frá
3. Birting
4. Heyr Himnasmiður
5. Bær
Side B
6. Heima
7. Í hring
8. Rennur upp
9. Til baka
10. Líður
11. Þoka
All tracks composed, performed and recorded by Hildur Guðnadóttir in Berlin, except Heyr Himnasmiður (track 4), composed by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, lyrics by Kolbeinn Tumason. Cello made by David Wiebe in 1991. [Cello nr 49]
Track 6, bass by Skúli Sverrisson, string fretted cello built by Hans Jóhannsson, resonated through two grand pianos.
Tracks 1, 4 and 6 recorded by Francesco Donadello.
All tracks mixed by Francesco Donadello and Hildur Guðnadóttir at Vox-Ton Studio, Berlin.
www.hildurness.com]]> Reviews:
Norman Records (UK):
Out of all the modern classical practitioners, Hildur Guðnadóttir is probably my favourite. That she shares her surname with a certain international superstar from the same country is quite fitting. Hildur's music gives me goosebumps every time. If she hadn't have grinned so sweetly at me from the digipak of her 'Mount A' album a few years ago I might never have become so smitten with this elegiac cello-drenched world of hers. Also her work with Hauschka on the incredible 'Pan/Tone' is arguably the finest release that the visionary Sonic Pieces imprint ever put out. That album is a dream from beginning to end. Like all her work. Yes, I've a major crush. Leave me alone!
I won't harp on at length over this latest exquisitely-housed collection. Her cello drones are deep, low and emotionally penetrating, not to mention highly suspenseful, all setting your mind in a richly enticing chamber-like embrace. Then her beautiful ethereal voice joins the party a few tracks in causing me to melt into my chair with a creeping smile spreading over my fizzgog. This is sparse, powerful and stirring music with real pathos, resonance and integrity. By 'Heima' we've a different vibe emerging. Underpinned by thrumming, hypnotic bass cycles, this is a deliciously eerie piece with lost pixie lullaby vocals near-whispered in that gorgeous Icelandic tongue. The atmosphere of this song is so electric, so intimate that you could curl up and go to sleep inside of it. I'll leave you to discover the subsequent half of the album in peace. Mark my words, you'll thank me.
Another treasure from our Hildur on the ever rewarding Touch. Another one also for the collection methinks..... [Brian]
New York Times (UK):
An Icelandic cellist with a deep, singing tone, Hildur Gudnadottir has worked in settings spanning art-rock, new music and experimental-folk, but her solo output inhabits its own unnamable space. It's a calm, echoing space, and on "Saman" (Touch) she makes it feel as still and sacred as a cathedral. On some pieces she sings in a faintly medieval mode, blending her high voice with her instrument's overtones. She seems to be after a kind of enlightened solitude — only one track, "Heima," features an additional musician, the bassist Skuli Sverrisson — and she often finds it, with a spirit both somber and generous.
A Closer Listen (USA):
Saman, which the liner notes indicate is Icelandic for "together", grounds itself on a subtle form of melancholy, as if the listener was looking at a landscape where something cherished used to stand a long time ago. The 'togetherness' surely alludes to cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir's singing, in the sense that she's incorporated her voice to an expression mostly based on the string instrument. However, there is another aspect to it, suggested perhaps by the album's cover in its dislocation of conventional perspective: the sky in the water, the trees on a horizontal line, the plants that seem to compose a shore but in reality are another part of the river or lake… the mirror image seems to compose a life that knows no bounds, that weaves a whole in which everything flows into a rational form and yet is also deeply driven by emotionality. The voice and cello, like the sky and the water's surface, grow into each other, shifting the perspective just enough to suggest the listener to think about that landscape where times meet, where it is no longer possible to know the place in separation of a memory of it, and the warmth of the sun mingles with the cold of the wind.
This is not to say, of course, that they become one, but that there is a playful degree of both in each, the voice flowing into the cello and vice versa, inviting us to hear the harmony as a companionship instead of as a balance, a coming together that treats the cello's lament as a vocal one and the song's uplifting melodies as the tones of strings. They do not attempt to define the landscape, to anchor it as irredeemably a memorial expression or a fact of nature, but to make the inner (the quiet, modern singing, the contemplative, long strikes of the bow) coincide with the outer (the quicker pulls and strikes, the choir-like medieval style of certain phrases) in an act of friendship – while the voice is not pervasive, it certainly seems to be meant to linger, to accompany the cello as it expresses the landscape into being. This composition of an organic whole leads the listener through a paradoxical movement that is simultaneously still, as the music intensely evokes a sadness that is carried for miles and miles by streams that nurture all sorts of life on the shores, life that, in drinking all that melancholy and looking up at the radiant sun finds an unspeakable joy, an understanding that the choice between one or the other has always been false.
Against other kinds of solo albums, Guðnadóttir's playing is restrained, non-virtuosic, passionately modern in its affirmation that every piece, every note, is equal under harmony, that every moment of tears shed is as important as every smile and laughter. Together, the voice and cello work towards a multiplicity of goals, a great variety of feelings that is far from a unity, developing into an album that remains constantly open to re-interpretation, that treads on shape-shifter territory that is haunting and fulfilling, always at the same time, never at the same time. This is what makes Saman special, and it invites constant engagement as much as constant re-articulation: take it with you, change place, be alone or in the company of others, and it will nevertheless later seem to recreate the exact same memory in different ways. So go ahead, look at your surroundings, remember how they've changed, and let yourself become part of it not as its center but as its companion. [David Murrieta]
The Quietus (UK):
Icelandic cellist, Hildur Gudnadottir's latest album, Saman, also somehow bears both lush and sparse qualities, but her sound is coloured a deep, rich russet compared to Jacaszek's growing greenery. About two-thirds of her album's 12 short pieces are reverent yet optimistic dances delivered on just one or two layers of solo cello, where additional elements would risk disguising the outstanding natural beauty they pose. On four of the tracks, however, Gudnadottir tentatively introduces an angelic voice to harmonise with the bowed textures to arrive at an irresistible interzone of Pärt-like hymn and European folk song.
Gudnadottir's more wayward explorations are often found when invited to join the deceptively named duo, Angel, formed by ex Pan Sonic Ilpo Väisänen and Schneider™'s Dirk Dresselhaus. Recently released by Editions Mego, Terra Null., their seventh album, displays the vivid, natural results of her plucks and bows as they thread through the electronic arcs and tunnels of Väisänen and Dresselhaus' oscillators. Apparently bearing a narrative based around notions on the "cultural darwinism" of colonialism, the results sound literally like a battle between electricity and nature, whose communion is perhaps found in the electrical synaptic activity of our brains. [Russell Cuzner]
Bleep (UK):
Icelandic cellist and vocalist Hildur Gudnadottir releases Saman, her fourth album for the long-running UK label Touch. Its title translates as Together, and reflects the harmony created by Gudnadottir's own other-worldly vocals and the deftly rendered instrumentation of her cello playing. There is much space here, deeply felt silences balanced against the drawn-out passages of strings swept with true feeling. Wistful melodies and ominous passages abound, beauty and darkness drawn perfectly in equal measure. This is not just music to be listened to - this is to be taken in and felt.
kindamuzik (Netherlands):
Saman betekent zoveel als "samen": dat zat er met slechts een letter verschil wel in. Al had het voor hetzelfde geld een Noorse godheid kunnen zijn die zich naar mythologie verluidt ophoudt in onherbergzame gebieden in IJsland. Het "samen" dat Hildur Guðnadóttir hier bedoelt, ligt in de versmelting van haar cello en stem. Ook overdrachtelijk vormt het album een samenkomen van paden die zij in de voorbije jaren en op eerdere platen bewandeld heft.
In de Engelse taal bestaat de uitdrukking "fully realised and most accomplished." Die uitdrukking gaat volledig op voor Saman. Guðnadóttir klinkt alsof ze alle losse eindjes, die ze soms rafelend verkend heeft, bijeen weet te binden. Saman is af. Het beroemde: "niks meer aan doen, strikje eromheen, koesteren." En dat terwijl de nog jonge celliste/componiste van het bouwjaar 1982 eigenlijk niet eens zo gek veel anders doet dan je van haar gewend bent.
Saman is tegelijk ijl en verdicht, reflecterend en resonant, uitgesponnen en to-the-point, klassiek en eigentijds, traditioneel en avant-garde, licht en donker, expansief en intiem. En dat alles met vrijwel niets meer dan cello en stem. Ja, die ken je al van Guðnadóttir, maar ze sleepte er vaak zo veel andere instrumenten of geloopte lagen bij. Nu spreekt de IJslandse veel directer; met weglating.
Kunstenaar Carl Andre legde een rij platen lood op de grond. Wanneer je dit werk van een afstand benadert, voel je dat de suggestie van een muur wordt gewekt terwijl deze er niet is. Erop staand, een must bij Andre's werken, waan je je in een zuil van niets die tot aan de hemel (of naar beneden) rijkt. Zo'n suggestie wekt Guðnadóttir ook; die ervaring is even intens persoonlijk. En net als Andre is Guðnadóttir zeker niet ontdaan van een hang naar het grote(re), het meer- of meestomvattende: een transcendentie ergens van het minimale naar het monumentale. De kunst ligt daar waar dit niet naast of uit het werk komt, maar waar het ook en vooral erin besloten is. Daar vind je de verbijsterende zeggingskracht van het samen van Saman. [Sven Schlijper]
non pop (Germany):
Musiker aus Island müssen sich seit jeher mit dem Klischee auseinandersetzen, dass ihre Musik zwangsläufig eine akustische Verarbeitung überwältigender Naturgewalten sei. Banales erwarten wir nicht aus Island und wenn es dann doch einmal so kommt, dann hat es nicht einmal beim ESC eine Chance. Vielmehr wollen wir psychedelische Gitarren und verzweifelte Schreie wie von SOLSTAFIR, die über einen herfallen wie ein eisiger Sturm oder die tongewordene Winternachtsmelancholie von HILMAR ÖRN HILMARSSON oder das Weltfremde und Bizarre von BJÖRK. Wer dies ähnlich sieht, der dürfte auch unweigerlich grenzenlose Freude (falls das in dem Kontext der richtig Ausdruck ist) am musikalischen Schaffen der isländischen Cellistin HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR haben, die mit "Saman" nun ihr viertes Solo-Album vorlegt. Was ist zu HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR zuvor zu sagen? Studierte Cellistin, in Reykjavik und Berlin schaffend, im Umfeld von THE KNIFE/FEVER RAY aktiv und auch zusammenarbeitend mit den reformierten THROBBING GRISTLE.
Der Titel, der soviel wie "Resonanz" bedeutet, gibt dann auch gleich das Konzept des Albums wieder: Cello und Stimme in Reaktion aufeinander. Das dabei keine Songs im herkömmlichen Sinne entstehen, ist naheliegend. Es entstehen vielmehr Stimmungsbilder und Klanglandschaften; HILDURs ätherische Stimme, die in der Presseinformation nicht umsonst als sylphenhaft beschrieben wird, thront weltfern – und fremd über den meist melancholischen Melodiebögen des Cellos. Will man populäre Musik als Vergleich heranziehen um das Einordnen leichter zu gestalten, so würden sich zweifelsohne die Landsmänner von SIGUR RÓS anbieten, auch wenn HILDURs Musik minimalistischer daherkommt. Tatsächlich zeichnet sie für alles selbst verantwortlich, sieht man einzig und allein von einem Gastbassisten bei dem Stück "Heima" ab. Und so ist diese CD auch nichts, was sich schnell erschließen lässt. Die Musik fordert Zeit und Aufmerksamkeit, Ruhe und Rückzug ein. Wenn man dem nachkommt, gewinnt sie dafür umso mehr. Schließt man die Augen und lässt sich darauf ein, dann schwebt man, begleitet von fragilen Klängen durch die – und jetzt wird wieder das eingangs erwähnte Klischee bemüht – eisigen Weiten und Gletscher Islands. Wie ein Soundtrack für Naturstimmungen kommt diese CD daher... "Rennur Upp" verfügt über Rhythmik und eine dezent bedrohliche Stimmung, gleich der Ankündigung eines drohenden Unwetters... Mich hat dieses Stück ein wenig an die mongolischen Musiker von HOSOO und ihre Pferdegeigen erinnert. Auch bei HOSOO ist die Natur der primäre Impulsgeber für die Musik...
"Baer" hingegen ist voller Melancholie, das Cello mitunter kaum noch von einer Geige zu unterscheiden. Aber es fällt schwer, hier einzelne Stücke aus dem Gesamtwerk herauszunehmen, denn man hört aus einem solchen Album keine einzelnen Stücke. "Saman" hört man von Anfang bis Ende durch, man spielt nicht ein bestimmtes Stück an. Eine solche Herangehensweise ist in unserer Zeit natürlich immer ein Wagnis und ein kommerzieller Suizid, aber das dürfte eine Künstlerin mit ernsten Ambitionen kaum stören. Und so bleibt mir nur, allen Freunden der musikalischen Naturmalerei dieses Album wärmstens zu empfehlen. "Saman" ist ein tiefgründiges und bewegendes Werk, das Zeit fordert, aber den Hörer dann auch entsprechend belohnt.
Gemastert wurde das Album übrigens von keinem geringeren als DENIS BLACKHAM, der wohl bis in alle Ewigkeit als Hausproduzent von WORLD SERPENT in Erinnerung bleiben wird. [Thomas L]
Evadidos (Spain):
Ha llegado el verano, con sus verbenas y su hedonismo al sol, ¿verdad? Pues nada de eso, aquí les vengo yo con todo lo contrario. Y no se quejen, que el tiempo en la calle tampoco está como para despelotarse y ponerse a rodar anuncios de cerveza. El caso es que esta chica de la foto, la que les ha hecho girar la cabeza noventa grados, es la islandesa Hildur Guðnadóttir (y pocas cosas me gustan más, por cierto, que copiapegar palabras en las que aparezca la bonita letra eth islandesa). Hildur es una chelista de formación clásica conocida, sobre todo, por tocar con sus compatriotas múm, aunque también ha colaborado con otros ilustres como Jóhann Jóhannsson, Pan Sonic, Hauschka, The Knife o Throbbing Gristle. Ahora acaba de editar su cuarto álbum en solitario, Saman, una sucesión de piezas contemplativas y melancólicas que sugieren desolados paisajes, exteriores o interiores: el título significa Juntos y alude a la combinación del chelo con la voz de Hildur, que va apareciendo en varias ocasiones a lo largo del viaje sonoro. Soy consciente de que a algunos les puede exasperar tanta lentitud, y de que a otros tal vez se les antoje demasiado bonito el conjunto, pero a mí me cautiva y me recompone la mente esta música en la que resuenan ecos de folclore nórdico y música antigua. Si buscan un refugio del verano, fresco y sombrío, aquí lo tienen en una cómoda playlist de doce vídeos… [Carlos Benito]
VITAL (Netherlands):
Hildur Guðnadóttir is one of those stable artists on Touch, and obviously you know this Icelandic cello player, who also uses her voice. 'Saman' means 'together' and that's about her using both instruments. Not always at the same time, as the cello seems to be the main instrument. I think I wouldn't mind if she would use her voice a bit more. She plays the cello beautifully, but perhaps after a while you know what it sounds like. Guðnadóttir plays the instrument in a traditional way - a lover of classical music would as easily recognize this instrument. What is gone, or at least pushed to a background, is the use of a looper device. It's there; it's used but kept to a strict minimum. It marks time, sometimes. But by and large it's the cello solo that plays here. Once her voice comes in, high, the interaction between cello and voice is great. Very spacious, angelic, but also sounding a more intense. Whereas the cello solo pieces sound nice, the true tension appears when both are used. I would strongly recommend an album in which she would explore both on a more equal level. Don't get me wrong: this is a great album, but not entirely fulfilling my expectations, I guess. [FdeW]
hhv (Germany):
Stille Einkehr: Nachdem es auf Hildur Gudnadottirs vorletztem Album »Leyfdu Ljósinu« zum Teil zu heftigen Klangmassierungen gekommen war, die die isländische Cellistin bloß mit ihrem Instrument und ihrer Stimme – unter Zuhilfenahme eines Delays – erzeugt hatte, wirkt »Saman« wie ein bewusstes Kontrastprogramm. Statt eines langgedehnten Brockens gibt es diesmal eine Reihe kürzerer Stücke, in denen Gesang und Cello in beinahe roher Form präsentiert werden. Gudnadottir geht es auf »Saman« (»zusammen«) in erster Linie um das Miteinander der beiden Instrumente. Das musikalische Vokabular erscheint deutlich schlichter, volksliedhafter, so als säße jemand in der (einigermaßen nachhallenden) Stube und singe im Familienkreis – selbst wenn auch die eine oder andere Spur bei den Aufnahmen übereinander gelegt wurde und sich in einer Nummer ein Kontrabass hinzugesellt. Doch der Raum wird nie mit Schwingungen vollgestellt, vielmehr schwingt der Raum als solcher mit, gibt den Resonanzen reichlich Gelegenheit, als gestalterisches Element zum Einsatz zu kommen. Mit Ausnahme der isländischen Hymne »Heyr Himnasmidur« stammen sämtliche Stücke von Gudnadottir selbst. So klar und aufgeräumt wie hier klang sie als Solokünstlerin noch nie. [Tim Caspar Boehme]
Music won't save you (Italy):
Dai paesaggi nebbiosi e risuonanti dell'evocativo "Without Sinking" all'universo in forma espansa catturato in presa diretta in "Leyfðu Ljósinu", Hildur Guðnadóttir non ha mai smesso di esplorare le potenzialità del suo violoncello, ampliandone le dinamiche a fonti di suggestioni molteplici e a una dimensione di autosufficienza espressiva ai limiti del pensabile.
Il quarto album dell'artista islandese, prosegue e anzi amplifica tale matrice concettuale, fino a fare del violoncello uno strumento di accompagnamento della voce. È proprio l'inedita associazione dell'elemento vocale la principale novità di "Saman" (che non a caso significa "insieme"), non solo sotto forma di ulteriore etereo complemento di un soundscaping al tempo stesso austero e arioso ma anche di fragile texture per diafane canzoni in forma di ninnananne ("Heima") ed evocazioni estatiche e vagamente gotiche ("Líður").
Tra le dodici tracce che connotano il lavoro con l'ulteriore elemento della concisione, non mancano tuttavia le abituali modulazioni di risonanze e vibrazioni prolungate di corde, che spaziano dalla solennità cameristica dell'iniziale "Strokur" alle fiorite sospensioni di "Bær" e "Til baka". A sorprendere, tanto negli strumentali quanto nei brani cantati, è come l'utilizzo del violoncello da parte dell'artista islandese sia tanto espressivo quanto disadorno, in totale assenza di filtraggi elettronici e sovrastrutture produttive.
Molto più classicista dal punto di vista della strumentazione rispetto ai precedenti lavori della Guðnadóttir, eppure proprio per questo tale da evidenziarne la versatile abilità esecutiva, "Saman" rispecchia appieno il suo titolo, risultando una fusione maestosa e coinvolgente di linguaggi e formati in apparenza distanti. Come terra e cielo si sfiorano sulla linea dei cristallini orizzonti della sua terra e si confondono nell'emblematica immagine di copertina, così nel corso del disco non è solo la voce a unirsi al violoncello, ma è una rigorosa essenzialità neoclassica a scolorare in attitudine sperimentale, esaltando la sensibilità di un'artista sempre più curiosa di rinnovare senza sosta i propri orizzonti creative.
Playground (Spain):
Lo primero que llamó la atención de la islandesa Hildur Gudnadóttir cuando empezó a asomar su nombre, primero como colaboradora en discos de múm, Pan Sonic, Ben Frost y Nico Muhly, y más tarde en solitario cuando planchó el excelente Without Sinking (2009) en el sello Touch, fue su manera de tocar el violonchelo. Rodeándolo principalmente de silencio y acompañándose oportunamente de su voz, Hildur creaba una confortable sensación de espacio por la que sobrevolaban las notas graves del instrumento, creando un eco cálido, una resonancia emocional honesta. Su lenguaje no era especialmente sorprendente -más bien se adaptaba formalmente a esa manera nórdica de fusionar el lenguaje del ambient con el de la composición contemporánea, persiguiendo una expresión tranquila, espiritual, casi ascética-, pero tanto en aquel álbum como en su primero, Mount A (2006, y reeditado en 2010), la recompensa era grande si se escuchaban de manera reposada y dejando que la música atravesara el cuerpo como si fueran neutrinos, sin notar apenas su circulación, sin sentir como penetraban la piel y la carne, pero reconociendo minutos más tarde una huella emocional intensa. En cierta manera, su tercer disco, Leydou Ljósinu (2012), intentó avanzar por ese camino y acabó perdiéndose en su propio laberinto: eran 40 minutos ininterrumpidos de frases repetitivas que iban creciendo en intensidad sin acabar de llegar a ninguna parte.
Para Hildur, por tanto, Saman es como dar un paso atrás para volver a recuperar la senda antes de extraviarse. Como Mount A, pero sobre todo como Without Sinking, es una colección de piezas breves que, unidas bajo el significado de la palabra islandesa 'saman' -que quiere decir 'juntos'-, no se conforman con un único lenguaje. Aquí hay desde ejercicios de armonía como la primera composición, Strokur, que tiene un lenguaje casi barroco, reconocible como pariente lejano de los andantes de las suites de violonchelo de Bach, a la recuperación del ambient gélido de antaño en Fra y la relación íntima con su propia voz en Liour, dos momentos en los que Hildur se reencuentra consigo misma en su afán por detectar un lenguaje común para la música contemporánea y el pop. De todos modos, en este momento de su carrera estos ejemplos son sólo concesiones nostálgicas, puesto que el grueso de Saman va por otro camino.
Básicamente, por el apuntado en el primer corte: el violonchelo suena más solitario que otras veces, sin apenas intromisiones del eco -lo hay en Birting, en abundancia, mientras que en Rennur Upp lo que hace básicamente es dejar que el sonido de la cuerda frotada cree un campo de espacio a su alrededor, una resonancia natural muy gratificante-. De este modo, Saman acaba sonando como un ejercicio de ambient acústico, tan básico en apariencia que, más que a la música del siglo XXI, remite a la del primer Renacimiento, a composiciones de capilla que, cuando quieren ser pop, acaban sonando más bien trovadorescas (Heima, con la compañía de Skuli Sverrisson, tiene lo que parece un punteo de guitarra, aunque en realidad es el sonido de otro chelo tocado por Hans Jóhannsson y amplificado por la caja de resonancia de dos pianos) o directamente se confunden con las formas del antiguo madrigal del siglo XVI (Heyr Himnasmiaur, con voces de soprano que se elevan hacia las bóvedas celestes). Aunque más allá de los tecnicismos, que sirven para situar su trabajo y entender en cierto modo sus intenciones, Saman se puede y se debe escuchar como una rodaja de música atemporal: su título hace referencia a la unión (que puede ser física, espiritual, sincrética o colectiva; sea como fuere, transmite una idea positiva en tiempos de conflicto) y su estética apela a lo más básico, lo más profundo y lo más receptivo del espíritu. Aunque no ha encontrado una dirección nueva todavía, al menos Hildur ha enderezado el camino que nos atrajo tanto en un primer momento: ese que diseña un sonido amplio y frágil para escuchar y sentir desde lo más hondo. [Javier Blánquez]
Neural (Italy):
Signo360 (Spain):
Hildur Gudnaðóttir (Islandia, 1982) es una violonchelista, cantante y compositora quien, fiel al estilo colaborativo de los artistas del siglo XXI, ha participado con bandas de perfil indie que van desde el pop electrónico hasta la experimentación contemporánea como Múm, Angel, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Pan Sonic y Skúli Sverrison; con este último fue parte del proyecto Sería (2006), que ganó en Islandia el premio a mejor álbum del año, y con quien vuelve a trabajar en este disco.
El 30 de junio se publicó Saman, su cuarta producción como solista, después de Mount A (2006), Without Sinking (2009) y Leyfðu Ljósinu (2011), todos los discos publicados con Touch. En islandés «saman» significa «juntos». La propuesta del disco es reunir los dos instrumentos con los que Gudnaðóttir se comunica artísticamente: la voz y el violonchelo. Se trata de armonizar la articulación de sonidos que van formando significados –palabras– y la pulsación de las cuerdas que esculpen el viento con ondas sonoras.
La parte vocal se ubica en lo poético, es decir, en la palabra que va más allá del sentido y despliega información sonora, la voz como canto del ser humano en la naturaleza. De ahí que se incluya uno de los cantos nacionales de Islandia, "Heyr Himnasmiður", poema escrito por Kolbeinn Tumason en su lecho de muerte, hacia el año 1208. El texto es anterior incluso a la Edda menor, de Snorri Sturlson, una de las fuentes principales de la mitología nórdica; lo cual menciono para dimensionar la fuerza histórica del verbo, la tradición del lenguaje islandés y su musicalidad hoy, 806 años después, con toda la intensidad de un sonido que viene de siglos atrás.
Paréntesis: Es común que los músicos islandeses recurran a cantos antiguos, es una forma de mantenerlos vigentes, es un modo de pensar en presente sus raíces (históricas, mitológicas y artísticas). Solo por mencionar algunos casos, Sigur Rós recuperó un texto sobre los cuervos de Odín en Raven's Odin Magic, y junto a Steindór Andersen grabaron un disco de poemas épicos, Rímur (nombre con que se conocen este tipo de textos).
El espectro sonoro de Saman va desde un tono íntimo y personal, hasta un complejo mapa de matices y colores que pasan de lo ambiental a lo atmosférico, del pasaje oscuro al paisaje casi épico. Así como el sueño en el que caemos es una reminiscencia de nuestros antepasados que dormían en las ramas de los árboles y temían caer porque eso representaba la muerte, la música de Hildur tiene la facultad de despertar nuestra memoria genética y hacernos recordar las noches previas al descubrimiento del fuego.
Saman es, para mí, un viaje intenso a través de estados emotivos que parecen recaer en la naturaleza: la lejanía de los barcos que se pierden entre la niebla, la soledad en un camino de montañas, la aparición del hogar como un refugio de sol en la tormenta, el silencio que flota detrás de cada pieza como una sombra de lo que solo se dice con la memoria, y la resonancia de un espejo en el que el tiempo, al fin, puede mirar su propio cuerpo. [Moisés Villaseñor]
Ondarock (Italy):
In islandese, la parola saman significa insieme, e stando alle note che accompagnano l'album in questione, si riferisce a un elemento non poi così nuovo per Hildur Guðnadóttir. Il duello-unisono tra i suoi limpidi e paradisiaci vocalizzi e le oscure tessiture del suo violoncello si era infatti già mostrato in tutta la sua capacità suggestiva in quel piccolo capolavoro dato alle stampe un paio di anni fa. Ma "Saman" è, nelle parole della sua autrice, un album che parla in primis di risonanza: un concetto teorico, per certi versi accademico, da studiare nel dettaglio con un metodo scientifico e meticoloso. Tutto il contrario dell'approccio a cui la discepola dei Múm ci ha abituato nei cinque anni - tanto è trascorso dal primo "Without Sinking" - del suo percorso solista.
E la differenza, sin dal primo ascolto, traspare inesorabile. "Saman" è un disco dall'eleganza e dalla classe sopraffina, un disco dalla bellezza decadente, oscura, sinistra. Ma è anche un disco studiato al millimetro, calcolato in ogni sua nota. Un disco di singoli componimenti che, a differenza di quanto avveniva in passato, non si riscoprono momenti distinti di un'unica sinfonia, ma si consumano all'interno del loro piccolo mondo. Un disco che mette volutamente la tecnica e la ricerca davanti alla suggestione. E perdendo quest'ultima in dose cospicua, perde anche la gran parte del fascino unico e personalissimo che le precedenti prove di questa lungimirante artista, tutte collocabili a livelli diversi del grado di eccellenza, avevano puntualmente sfoggiato.
Bastano e avanzano i sette minuti del biglietto da visita di "Strokur" per capire il significato di queste parole: mai il violoncello era sembrato così intento a dialogare unicamente con sé stesso, alla ricerca dell'eco perfetta, della dilatazione più ampia possibile, così lontano da qualsiasi sfera emotiva. Nella più melancolica "Rennur Upp" cambiano i suoni, più languidi, e la prospettiva, ma non l'attitudine all'auto-contemplazione. In "Í Hring" quest'ultima arriva addirittura a farsi alienazione pura, avvinghiandosi sui suoi flussi, in una sorta di morsa suicida fatta di dissonanze e note basse. E non basta qualche frammento d'umanità nascosto sotto un impenetrabile strato di ghiaccio a cambiare i connotati di "Bær" e "Til Baka".
Qualche traccia della sensibilità del passato affiora invece con maggior convinzione nella romantica "Birting", nell'inquieta "Torrek", nella bella liturgia di "Heyr Himnasmiður" e soprattutto in "Heima", parentesi anomala dove la musicista si reinventa cantautrice pizzicando delicatamente le corde del suo violoncello. Il breve canto funebre di "Frá" e il crescendo rapido di "Líður" stanno però a dimostrare che la voce non può, da sola, sostituire il cuore. Non si può certo dire che Hildur non raggiunga per l'ennesima volta il suo scopo, dando sfoggio probabilmente ancor più che in passato di un'impressionante padronanza della materia musicale. Ma alla complessità dell'accademia ci sentiamo di preferire, di gran lunga, la "semplicità" del trasmettere emozioni. [Matteo Meda]
Brainwashed (USA):
The Touch label's extensive roster only has a few artists who would be considered classical in the traditional sense, and Hildur Gudnadottir is one of those. With instrumentation consisting only of her cello and her voice on some of these pieces, and guest musician Skuli Sverrisson on bass for one of them, Saman is a stripped down affair that excels at what it intends to do, but does not step out of that comfort zone either.
The best pieces on this album are the ones in which Hildur pairs her voice with the cello, rather than just focusing on the instrument only. "Heyr Himnasmiður," for example, sparingly uses both the strings and her voice, but the dramatic shifts in dynamic from near silence to pure, rich tone is brilliant. This excellent use of silence to magnify the sound appears again on "Líður," immediately leading off with multi-tracked vocals and cello, but returning into silence throughout the composition.
"Heima," featuring Skuli on bass, benefits from the inclusion of the additional instrumentation, with plucked strings and additional reverb (the cello playing being resonated through two grand pianos) adding a bit more complexity. The piece is soft, but a bit too busy to be peaceful, which keeps it interesting and helps it to stand out. The final composition, "Þoka," is the odd one out, with a heavier sound and buzzy, less clean sounding strings, but is all the more memorable for that difference.
Shifting dynamics work extremely well on "Strokur" too, with forceful and deliberate swells of cello that go from loud to quiet and back, with high and low register notes that encompass the full sonic spectrum. Hildur maintains a slow pace on "Birting," filling out the mix with some subtle layering and looping, for the most part the only overt processing used on this album. On "Í hring," however, she pairs the low register drone that a cello can do so well with lighter, more melodic sounds a bit further in the mix. The dynamic does not shift drastically, but remains light and spacious throughout.
Saman is an album rich with Hildur Gudnadottir's subtle cello and hushed voice, that delicately lingers for the 40 minute duration. It accomplishes this very well, but I wish there would have been a few more experimental or challenging moments that would stand out. The pieces where her voice is prominent, or a less traditional approach is used in the performance are the ones that are the most memorable. The other moments are pleasant, but are not quite as effectively captivating. [Creaig Dunton]
The New Noise (Italy):
Quarto album in studio – sempre per la britannica Touch – per la graziosa e brava violoncellista islandese Hildur Guðnadóttir. Basta con l'inglese, questa volta la musicista decide di espellere definitivamente le proprie emozioni attraverso la lingua madre, come testimoniano i titoli delle dodici brevi tracce, nonché il titolo, "Saman", che tradotto significa insieme.
Crepuscolare e infarcito di chiaroscuri (in verità più scuri che chiari), Saman forse racchiude e vuole raccontare una storia d'amore finita male, cercando disperatamente di scrostarsela di dosso. Per certi versi il violoncello suonato in questa maniera potrebbe ricordare alcuni passaggi inquieti stile Haxan Cloak del primo disco omonimo o Hermann Kopp, anche se in questi casi è il violino a farla da padrone. Per questo motivo a tratti suona tremendamente noir e lugubre ("Í Hring"), mettendo ansia e terrore, ma sono le struggenti parti vocali – "Heima" (casa) su tutte – a riportarlo sui binari più consoni, vale a dire lacrimevoli. Poesie leopardiane, cartoline sbiadite e nebbiose ("Þoka", ovverosia nebbia), paesaggi autunnali, pioggia battente che somiglia a lacrime color sangue, marce foglie di salici piangenti che si staccano dalle pareti interne del cuore come fossero pezzetti di racconti tristi da seppellire, e petali di rose rosse che, trasportate dai sospiri, si adagiano dolcemente nel profondo dell'animo per lì rimanere in eterno.
Non ci va molto a capirlo, ci sono malinconia e tristezza da vendere in questo disco. È commovente e profondo, insomma, quei tipici suoni caldi che da queste parti etichettiamo con la solita frase: l'inquieto che quieta. [Massimiliano Mercurio]
Tiny Mix Tapes (USA):
Hildur Guðnadóttir is from Iceland, a country I understand to be populated only by musicians. She is classically trained and highly accomplished, having composed scores for plays and films, winning the Icelandic Theater Award in 2011 for scoring King Lear. In addition to collaborating with an abundance of groups — Pan Sonic, Throbbing Gristle, múm — she was also a member of polyphonic psych-folk group Stórsveit Nix Noltes, whose record Orkideur Hawai won me over after a friend randomly picked it up from a record store years ago.
Saman is Hildur's fourth solo record, and like her collaborations and past material, it's modest but crafted with care. It's a delicate record of balances and obfuscations, consisting of sparse instrumentals composed of arrangements for cello and voice, the pairing of which form the dyad that represents togetherness — thus, Saman, which is Icelandic for "together." The album subsists wholly on Hildur's clarity of form, an insular composing style that neglects context and choreographs an unwitnessed journey with myriad shifts in mood and setting throughout each piece. But it's not really a sad or happy album. It's more transportive, malleable, adaptable. Some songs possess a romantic simplicity with little to no adornment, like "Heima," which meanders from melancholy to peaceful in a strummed swing; others are lacquered with reverb to create a flowing drone, like the angelic/psychedelic choir of "Fra." It's an album that rewards, rather than demands, your attention. [Adam Devlin]
RifRaf (France):
RifRaf (Netherlands):
Rockerilla (Italy):
Skug (Austria):
Eine Frau und ihr Cello, Kapitel 17, Überschrift: »Der Tag der Grashalme«. Es entsteht tatsächlich eine eher gegenständliche Stimmung, wenn man sich in diese meditative CD versenkt. Man wähnt sich in einem sehr langsamen Film oder einem entsprechend episch angelegten Roman, der irgendwann im Mittelalter spielt, könnte aber auch ein futuristisches Mittelalter sein, nach dem Untergang aller Zivilisation. Die Wiesen sind verwildert, der Wind weht über kniehohes Gras, in der Ferne hört man Frauen lachen, man weiß aber nicht recht, sind es Frauen oder Elfen oder gar bloß Geister. Wer jemals Andrej Rubljow von Andrej Tarkowskij gesehen hat: die Stelle mit dem haidnischen Frühlingsfest passt hier perfekt, als wär's ein nachgereichter Soundtrack. Wir hören fast ausschließlich ein karges, wehmütiges Cello, zu dem sich fallweise der Gesang von Frau Gudnadottir gesellt, mal nymphenhaft-ätherisch, mal lose an gregorianische Gesänge angelehnt, mal mit zaghaftem Pop-Appeal. Das ist so unspektakulär wie schön, so wohlgefällig wie konsequent, auf jeden Fall eine Klasse für sich. [Curt Cuisine]
I watched a documentary on quantum physics yesterday. One particularly baffling aspect is that of "entanglement", which says that the behaviour of two particles can be intrinsically linked in spite of any vast distance between them. I find myself returning to this as I listen to Guðnadóttir's cello and voice navigating harmonic space; they are strong and independent when taken in isolation, and yet beautifully aware of how their angles and lines intersect. It's like a mirror reflection liberated into free will and yet loyal to its original purpose, tracing the movements of the original while forever deviating. There is a triangle of attention and response between the cello, the voice and I, and during the points where Saman falls to its most delicate hush, I like to think that the instruments are responding to my presence as much as they respond to eachother.
What has always allured me is Guðnadóttir's relationship with orientation and axis. Her movements – pendulum swoops, lingers of gravity and momentum in equilibrium – appear to be tethered to an invisible point in the audio space, around which she glides and swings as though tracing a circle circumference. On "Í hring", I find myself rolling upon wave crests and turning green with seasickness; a toy of the ocean, tumbling between azure palms. On "Líður", I stand precariously balanced on one leg upon a piano note in octave, as pillows of choral harmony hold me upright on either side. I am buoyed into balance by clouds of human breath, or perhaps something more divine – an energy smiling in the empty acoustic space. The absence and echo in each of these pieces is vast, and if I listen hard enough I can hear the dust catching the light of a stained glass window, or the twirl of a sunlight shaft as it showers through a hole in a factory ceiling. Guðnadóttir seems to rouse emptiness into life again, her cello a dawn chorus for walls and floors that have long between without warmth and touch. [Jack Chuter]
STINT (France):
Hildur a encore frappé. La sirène islandaise sort ici son quatrième album pour Touch. "saman" signifie "ensemble" en islandais et ce n'est pas anodin. On constate rapidement que le nombre de morceaux chantés (ou susurrés) augmente par rapport à ses précédentes productions. En exagérant, je dirais presque que c'est de la pop. Le mélange de cette jolie voix haut perchée et le timbre mélancolique de son instrument favori qu'est le violoncelle est un véritable travail d'orfèvre. La chaleur des couleurs, la puissance du bois, la dextérité, la finesse des sens et un certain sens de la solitude sont les principales caractéristiques de sa musique. Ne cherchez pas la virtuosité chez Hildur, elle préfère créer des climats et peser de tout son poids sur l'archet quand il passe sur l'épaisse corde de Sol. La musique de Hildur Guðnadóttir est une musique profonde, située aux confins du classique, de l'expérimental, de la pop new age, de la new wave et qui prend soin de shunter tout signe de modernité si l'on omet quelques boucles de cordes ici ou là ("ihring") pour tenter l'esprit à s'éparpiller et vagabonder. Intemporelle, je pense que sa musique l'est, surtout quand je l'écoute à la bougie ou dans un fog épais et automnal. Si l'envie d'un voyage au grand Nord vous tente, je suis certain que cet esprit là saura vous emporter. Favori.
Cyclic Defrost (Australia):
This, Hildur Guðnadóttir's fourth album on Touch, sees the cellist blending her layered instrumentation with delicately evocative vocals. Aptly named Saman, which according to Touch, means 'together', the union of the instruments is a successful one, with each part resting on thoughtful progressions and restrained delivery to produce a cohesive, but perhaps slightly underdeveloped, album.
The timbre of the solo cello lends itself to the introspective and even sombre emotions at play here, accentuated by the spacious, not quite sparse, arrangement. While Saman does not rely on studio trickery or grandiose virtuosity to propel the experience, it is nonetheless a cinematic production that both captures the intimacy of the deft enunciation of the cello, while at the same creating the august yet ethereal soundstage in which the often uneasy compositions reside.
Saman opens with the long bowed notes of 'Strokur', effectively introducing the emotional landscape of the album. It is an invitation to listen closely, with the rich harmonics of the instrument demanding the ear's attention. There is no promise of an easy experience though, with this track's contrasting dynamics and plaintive melodies being underpinned by a finely developed structural arrangement, highlighting it as one of the album's finest pieces.
Acoustic drones envelop a fleeting vocal melody, and the second track, Frá, is gone as quickly as it came. This brevity is a feature of this album, with six of the 12 tracks clocking in at under three minutes. Frá is served well by this concise approach, but elsewhere tracks are left like snippets of an overheard conversation, leaving me quite wisftul for how the composition could have developed.
Elsewhere the dreamy arpeggiations of 'Heima' are accentuated by Hildur's breathy, somewhat quivering vocals, combining to great effect. The arrangement shapes to great effect the sense of unease afforded by a sublimely structured chromatic vocal melody that is in equal parts light and dark. The shade is certainly stronger in the following track, though – 'Í Hring' utilises a descending ostinato to develop the tension to almost breaking point, and its release into the opening of 'Rennur upp' is surely the thematic crescendo of the album.
Saman's sub 40 min playing length does not allow the listening experience to outstay its welcome, however its succinctness tends to accentuate the brevity of some of the tracks contained therein. There is a lack of resolution present throughout, in which the silence between the pieces is filled with the slight unease of things not yet finished. Nonetheless Saman is an intriguing album that rewards the listener by being as engaging intellectually as it is emotionally, and marks another fine release from Touch and Hildur Guðnadóttir. [Oliver Keefe]
SWQW (France):
"Sound itself is nothing but movement." (Hildur Guðnadóttir)
Mouvements qui s'élancent, se rétractent, assiègent et pénètrent le corps. L'islandaise façonne les oscillations de sa matière sonore, ses boucles et ses tourbillons, sa grâce. Les résonances viscérales de son violoncelle sont de celles qui, inlassablement, cisaillent doucement la chair.
Avec Mount A, Without Sinking et Leyfðu Ljósinu (tous parus chez Touch), Hildur Guðnadóttir a offert des albums splendides, dont on ne remonte jamais vraiment la surface. Ses collaborations foisonnantes nous amènent à la retrouver aux côtés d'Hauschka sur le merveilleux Pan Tone, ou sur certains d'albums tels que Theory Of Machines, de Ben Frost, ou The Short Night, de BJ Nilsen, pour ne citer qu'eux.
Il y a deux ans de cela, Hildur Guðnadóttir nous avait laissé avec une pièce live se démarquant quelque peu de ses albums précédent, mais dont le poids s'est progressivement révélé capital dans sa discographie. Penchant du côté du drone, avec un final à la tension extrême, Leyfðu Ljósinu est un disque profondément intime, qui avait notamment accordé une place toute particulière au chant de la jeune femme.
Cette voix fragile qui se perdait dans les boucles pour en devenir quasiment indistincte, on la retrouve sur Saman, cette fois beaucoup plus présente. Une trajectoire qu'a voulu donner la violoncelliste à ce nouvel opus, toute entière contenue dans le titre de l'album, signifiant "ensemble" en islandais.
Silences, dialogues éthérés. L'une dans l'autre, l'une avec l'autre, les voix du violoncelle et d'Hildur Guðnadóttir prennent ainsi la mesure de l'espace, y déroulant un rythme lent fait à la fois d'attente et de calme, d'inquiétude et de retenue. Dans cette manière d'être au monde, la clarté et le dépouillement du chant se revêtent d'une part de sacré. En y regardant de plus près, on remarquera d'ailleurs que Heyr Himnasmiður n'est autre que la reprise d'un hymne liturgique islandais.
Sur Líður, où le piano est également présent, l'enchevêtrement des voix, des cordes et des silences porte des nuances de timbres et de hauteurs qui donnent tout leur sens à la recherche d'Hildur Guðnadóttir. A l'image de l'artwork, c'est ici un jeu de miroirs où les reflets s'échangent. On lui retrouve ce vacillement si caractéristique, semblable au mouvement d'une balançoire élargissant insensiblement un territoire d'ombre et de lumière pris entre le sol et le ciel.
On regrettera toutefois qu'elle n'aille pas totalement au bout de sa démarche, puisque sa voix s'absente d'un certain nombre de titres. Ajoutons à cela la présence de certains titres dispensables, qui n'en font pas l'album le plus captivant de sa discographie. L'occasion quand même, de se replonger dans un univers absolument somptueux. [Aurélie S.]
Sonic Seducer (Germany):
Gonzo Circus (Netherlands)
Soundofmusic (Sweden):
Den isländska cellisten Hildur Gudnadottir kommer till festivalen Sound of Stockholm i början av november. Hon är dessutom aktuell med två nya cd-skivor, soloskivan Saman och Terra Null där hon gästar gruppen Angel.
På Saman är det den klassiskt skolade cellisten som träder fram, precis som på skivorna Without Sinking från 2009 och Leyfdu Ljosinu från 2012. Men Gudnadottir har en förmåga att förflytta de melankoliska celloklangerna i sidled. Kanske handlar det framförallt om att hennes attityd tycks skilja sig från den man ofta finner hos den komponerade klassiska musiken. Bakgrunden i populärmusiken, såsom medverkan i grupper och spel med artister som Múm, Johann Johannsson, Throbbing Gristle, ligger där och påverkar, även om den inte alltid är så tydlig. Vilket är bra! Min känsla är att hon tar in olika influenser, bearbetar dem och skapar något nytt och eget. I den bemärkelsen är hon det goda exemplet på hur den tidigare så hypade postklassiska scenen fortfarande har ett liv. Då, när det begav sig på 00-talet, byggdes ju dessvärre många luftslott, även om det fanns en hel del bra också, såsom exempelvis Murcofs ljudliga katedraler.
Saman är en mycket vacker skiva. Melankolin är finstämd och Hildur Gudnadottir använder rösten i betydligt större utsträckning än tidigare. Ofta tillför den en sakral känsla till musiken som jag gillar. Hon är en fantastisk cellist, men glider sällan ut i tekniska konststycken, snarare är hon tydlig och distinkt. Även om dronen ofta ligger nära till hands. Fram träder tolv ganska korta kompositioner som delvis går mot olika håll även om en stämning håller samman. På låtarna som lutar mot en mer "klassisk" känsla är klangerna mer utdragna, stråken dra fram dem stämningsfullt, medan "poplåtarna" är mer vertikala, såsom "Rennur upp" och "Heima". Det är kortare klanger, ofta frambringade med fingerspel. På "Heima" spelar dessutom Skúli Sverrison bas. [Magnus Nygren]
Revue et Corrigé (France):
Freistil (Austria):
Als extrem melodiös, ernst, ruhig und zugleich expressiv entpuppt sich diese Solo-Veröffentlichung der isländischen Cellistin Hildur Gudnadottir. Über allem schwebt ein Gestus neoromantischer Filmmusik, der sich bei zu intensivem Genuss schon mal schwer auf die Seele legen kann. Also Achtung, außer man ist ein Freund melodiöser Cellomusik mit Hang zu dunkler Naturromantik. Saman bedeutet auf Isländisch so viel wie "Zusammen" und versinnbildlicht das ineinandergreifende Spiel von Stimme und Cello, denn zwischen den dunklen Cellolinien taucht dann und wann Gudnadottirs elfenhafter Gesang auf. Die zwölf Tracks wirken wie Fragmente, lose aneinandergereiht, die zu einem innerlichen Durchstreifen der eigenen Seelenlandschaft nur so einladen. Spätestens mit dem letzten Track des Albums, Poka, kommt man dann wieder an und bemerkt erschrocken, wie unbewusst man sich – trotz anfänglicher Vorbehalte – dem Gehörten hingegeben hat. Musik mit hinterlistiger Sogwirkung. [kat]]]>
Cut by Jason at Transition
Track listing:
1. L'Inertie Polaire
2. Rasender Stillstand
3. Accelerated Standstill
This release is dedicated to Paul Virilio
An assembling for locked grooves. Collected and performed since 1997, recorded live in 2013 as part of "Touch presents…" at Café Oto, London; Ausland, Berlin; the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, and the Centre for Arts and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe. This record can be played at all speeds, but the recommended speed is 33 rpm.
Accelerated Standstill is an assembling of locked grooves found on customary vinyl records. The records have been collected and performed live between 1997 and 2013. Locked grooves normally functioning as a 'barrier', avoiding the needle coming into contact with the label at the centre of the record. All grooves sound different, depending on how dust has effected and transformed the soft surface of the vinyl.
By using a triple vinyl deck set-up this (analytic auditory observations of) ending grooves are mixed live thus composing a "music that lies hidden in the medium itself". The tiny dust particles inside the vinyl groove convert into a 'sound sculpture' - an important syntactical parameter (of the apparatus) is formed by the turntables themselves. The speed of their rotation is not limited to 33 or 45 rpm, but expanded between 1 and 150 rounds per minute thus determining the loops and the rhythm.
Achim Mohné started working with record players, cassette recorders and other sound-media-apparatus in the mid 1990s. He experiments with the space and time intervals of sound-media and is especially interested in the "music that lies hidden in the medium itself". His method is to subject the support material to a forensic autopsy. His most recent project analyses the transfer data of a Wi-Fi router called Fritz Box/Fritz Kiste (cf TouchRadio). His further work features sound tracks for film and theatre performances (with Yoshie Shibahara) as well as collaboration with classical musicians (such as violinist Ayumi Paul).
Buy Achim Mohné "Accelerated Standstill" [LP + Download] in the TouchShop