Saturday 23 January 2010

new releases via Mystery sea / unfathomless

Terje Paulsen "Horisont"

Norwegian visual & sound artist Terje Paulsen lives in Kristiansand, a port city close to wild nature & fjords...This immediate environment as well as his own home are Terje's main sources of inspiration...Despite a serious pedigree in music based on years of practice, he asserted himself into the sphere of experimental music(acoustic, electroacoustic, electronic) where the use of field recordings, and manipulation of found objects play a great role...To that he mixes real instruments (bass, acoustic guitar, flute, mouth organ...).Usually his compositions follow from patient observation of his nearby and daily surroundings, and become sound meditations stemming from intense impro sessions which are then edited and reassembled...So far his studies have been generously distributed either via netlabels (Homophoni, TecnoNucleo, Q-Tone, Resting Bell, Rain Music, Con-v...), labels (Q-tone...) self-releases, and appeared also on quite a few compilations (Trente Oiseaux, Mandorla, Ripples, etc...)

This first MS release (a sequel is scheduled) shows a keen sense of reverence for the invisible elemental forces at work in his vicinity, an emphasis on their indelible imprint on our lives... another reading of the Great Mystery...-Bordering this jagged shorevast rolling plains caress the distancestones roll, stirring the opaque waters...We look at the sea, seeing a giant mirror& seeking for improbable answers...

"Horisont" stretches out before uslike a silent continuation, a place of multiples echoes...sucking us inexorably in, in an ultimate embrace...

Absorbing vanishing point, imaginary reservoir...between worlds, "Horisont" enables a slip into the Untold,a drift propitious to lucidity and transcendence...

MS58cd-r ltd to 100 numbered copies
artwork+design by Daniel Crokaert - mood based on photos by Terje Paulsen

track listing
1. horisont 45:34

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Mathieu Ruhlmann - 'tsukubai' (u01)

format : CD
ltd to 200 copies
length : 34′27

Approached for elaborating an audio-gift on the occasion of close friends’ marriage, and being given a few of their specific interests (of whom, mainly Japanese culture), Mathieu opted for the Nitobe memorial garden in Vancouver as the place to investigate and collect some sound material…Not very frequented, that garden epitomizes some typical zen values, each element of its scenography/design being symbolic of an idealized conception/representation of Nature…Spanning a period of two years, and paraphrasing its theme of temporality, passage through time, and the ambiguous question of choice, “tsukubai“, through its different versions seeped gradually further into the bowels of the place, literally catching the “kami“, which can be translated as the spirit residing in all surrounding natural objects…this is especially true since Mathieu wanted the final version to be a reflection of his current craze for hydrophone recordings, a most appropriate way of sneaking in, under the surface of things…“tsukubai“ is a Japanese word for a stone container filled with water strategically placed in front of temples or ritual spaces – literally, “the basin where you lean over”, used for purifying ablutions before performing the tea ceremony… probably an apt metaphor for sharpening perception of an evasive reality…

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Luigi Turra & Christopher McFall - 'tactile.surface' (u02)

format : CD
ltd to 250 copies
length : 42′00

“tactile.surface” is the sound presentation of a virtual place, an imaginary environment born from the alchemy of recordings between two different but real places, far apart geographically, yet close in time and spirit.On one side, are the sounds captured in the intimacy of my living room in the small city of Schio (North of Italy),mainly those reflecting its silence, and also some caught from the windows in the early hours of morning,enhanced with some discreet short recordings of shakuhachi flutes ;On the other side, lies the open space of Kansas City urban context, and the sound/views absorbed during a long travel to Colorado by Christopher McFall.The two different sound places have been blended into a new one, rich of memory and keeping intact the physical perception of the surfaces, and their tactile, material aspects. (Luigi Turra)

Almost 2 years ago, I travelled home to see my mother in Colorado. This was no simple journey as I had to drive for 12 hours from Kansas City into the western lands of Kansas & Colorado. Tactile.surface really takes me back to that particular journey, because I was listening to the tracks we were compiling for it as I drove the length of the journey.Desolate : is the only word I can think of describing Western Kansas and its snow covered expanses.there is to be found there the most abrasive wind patterns, a generalized sense of absence, and an undeniable confrontation with absolute sky (there’s only one topography here, and it’s completely flattened as the sky becomes your envelope).

battered snowlines will outfit our drudgery
we sweetened the deal to touch in cold January
where roads give way the elemental trajectory
sunlit eyes were seeding the alchemy

This work traverses many surfaces and covers so much terrain. Many of the parts were extracted from manipulated recordings that originated from treated audio tape. Many of the “broken” low-ended sounds that served as base primer for the piece came from that side of things. The more “crisp” overlay sounds are derived from Luigi’s workings.The experience of it all was much the equivalent of weaving a tapestry of surfaces which resulted in a composite abstract topography (Christopher McFall)

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