Wednesday 31 March 2010

Gilles Aubry & Stephane Montavon


les écoutis le caire Gilles Aubry & Stéphane Montavon
Gruen 061 Audio CD
MP3 & FLAC

les écoutis le caire’ is a dual work that comprises a sound composition by Gilles Aubry and a poetic text in French by Stéphane Montavon. Materials for both elements were collected during a six-week residency in Cairo in February and March 2007.

The sound piece is based on the principle of ‘indirect listening’ to a busy city soundscape. It features recordings of several enclosed spaces chosen for their resonant properties and predominantly silent contexts : a bathroom, a market hall, a basilica, a courtyard, a refrigerator and a parking house. Throughout the piece the identification of the sound sources remains uncertain, as the distant hubbub of life in the streets diffuses inside the recorded spaces. Such ambiguity – further extended through the editing process – requires that the listener pay closer attention, and at the same time allows for a more intense musical experience.

The textual counterpart to the audio work is presented as a large wordmap that drifts through the various recording locations, as well as other places in Cairo. Rendering the rhythmical confrontations of diverse urban situations, the text focuses on their audiovisual discrepancies. In its fragmentary way, the poem sketches some of the city’s acoustical configurations, also taking aural snapshots of characters and scenes. These singular encounters are woven into a partial word-tapestry of gestures, images and sounds, providing a complementary glimpse into another indirect, though equally voyeuristic, form of listening to the city.

Monday 22 March 2010

new label - new release


a fine new label '3leaves' has just issued a very nice cd by Lasse-Marc Riek. Listening to this subtle & quiet work reminds one of the simplicity with which nature creates such detailed and inspiring music for us to explore. I can strongly recommend this disc:


Lasse-Marc Riek / HABITATS


150 copies, CD-R, 3L002, 2010


The work at hand, "Habitats", deals with habitats, areas and living spaces. In this particular case, these spaces were created from a pool of acoustic field recordings I realised while in Finland in Spring of 2007. Over the course of the past year, I have, for various reasons, increasingly been absorbed by the sounds emited by nature. The piece researches the interplay between natural elements on the one hand and passages I arranged at a later stage on the other. It deals with directional hearing and of course with the vast array of bird voices - as well as the silence one can detect in between all of these different sound sources.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

chiayi sound blog

the excellent Chiayi sound blog focuses on field recording in an area of Taiwan & is well worth checking out....click here to visit.