Welcome to the 119th Touch Newsletter.
Many congrats to Jóhann Jóhannsson for his Golden Globe award and his Oscar nomination for the soundtrack to “The Theory of Everything”… Apart from releasing the two albums “Englabörn” and “Virthulegu Forsetar”, it was Jóhann who recommended Hildur Guðnadóttir to Touch, so there is a strong affinity…
Jóhann's soundtrack with BJNilsen for the film “I Am Here” is just out on vinyl (with free download). Benny recorded a new Touch Radio, “NYE Berlin-Schöneberg 31.12.2014”. Touch Radio 109 also now broadcasting: Before Surgery’s “Potlatch”.
“Spire Live - Fundamentalis” is now available again via Bandcamp. It was previously only available on double vinyl (the vinyl edition is now sold out).
In January, Touch presents live in LA: Hazard, Mark Van Hoen and Pinkcourtesyphone. In February at London’s Café Oto, an enthralling double-bill featuring electronic musician Michał Jacaszek in collaboration with Polish ensemble, Kwartludium, plus a solo set from Icelandic cellist and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. Details on both concerts below.
Black Spirituals (Zachary James Watkins and Marshall Trammell) join Earth on their European tour, starting 22nd January in Amsterdam. The Tapeworm has made a tape with them, to be first available at these shows. Full details of this edition in our next newsletter. Also coming soon, Biosphere Deathprod “Stator”, to be released on CD and download 30th March… Vinyl to follow…
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Touch and Ash International now have their own YouTube channels, where you can stream audio (and the occasional video) of many selections from the Touch catalogue, including some previously unavailable in any digital format. Please subscribe to Touch here and to Ash International here.
Touch presents… | Live in Los Angeles 21st January 2015
Hazard
Mark Van Hoen
Pinkcourtesyphone
(presented by Mike Harding)
January 21, 2015, 8:00PM, $10 advanced, $15 at the door
VOLUME is please to present an evening of performances by Touch related artists curated by Mike Harding.
Buy Tickets – www.eventbrite.com
Live at Café Oto | 24th February 2015
Jacaszek & Kwartludium Perform "Catalogue Des Arbres", plus
Hildur Guðnadóttir.
Enthralling double-bill featuring electronic musician Michał Jacaszek in collaboration with Polish ensemble, Kwartludium, plus a solo set from Icelandic cellist and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir.
Jacaszek's collaboration with Kwartludium evokes the sounds of trees and feel of the forest; and in doing so they use a whole host of classical and modern techniques. In keeping with a lot of modern classical there is a direct link with the past masters, and here the link to Messiaen's Catalogue d'Oiseaux can’t be a coincidence.
“… and the trees, like earth’s wistful sighs to the sky” – K. Janiszewska
Jacaszek and Kwartludium's album “Catalogue des Arbres” and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s “Saman” were both released summer 2014
Buy Tickets at www.cafeoto.co.uk
Ash 11.1 | Jóhann Jóhannsson & BJNilsen “I Am Here”
Many congrats to Jóhann Jóhannsson for his Golden Globe Award for the soundtrack to “The Theory of Everything”… Jóhann's soundtrack with BJNilsen for the film “I Am Here” is just out on vinyl (with free download).
Limited edition vinyl LP + WAV download
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.
You will receive a full digital download WAV version of the tracks plus a bonus track which does not appear on the final album when you place your order - the link to your download is contained in your email receipt.
Buy Jóhann Jóhannssen & BJNilsen “I Am Here” [LP + WAV download] from the TouchShop
www.johannjohannsson.com
www.bjnilsen.com
www.ashinternational.com
Tone 28D | "Spire Live - Fundamentalis"
Download, available on the Spire Bandcamp page
Art Direction & Design by Jon Wozencroft
Spire Live - Fundamentalis is a collection of live tracks recorded at various Spire events held throughout 2005 and 2006. Originally released in association with US label, Autofact, Touch presents a selection of tracks performed by the main performers of Spire: Fennesz | Philip Jeck | BJNilsen | Charles Matthews | Marcus Davidson. Improvised pieces from Fennesz, BJNilsen and Philip Jeck contrast with a performance by Charles Matthews of a scored composition by Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, 'In Nomine Lucis', and Marcus Davidson's self-penned 'Standing Wave'. Mastered to preserve and enhance the bottom end frequencies, Fundamentalis is not merely a document; the tension between and within the individual pieces is palpable. Fennesz's set "...evokes the rolling centuries in all their pain and beauty, leaving us at once becalmed and energised, but never oppressed under the weight of time." Electronics breathe new life not only into the organ, but also into the setting. But successor does not mean replacement. Ultimately, it's the majestic sound of the organ, so steeped in centuries of tradition, that one remembers above all else.
Spire is one of the most innovative projects around, drawing on the full canon of organ works, from the very first annotation in the Robertsbridge Codex from the 14th Century, to Max MSP patches and software sampling... With several releases and 9 performances in cathedrals and churches throughout Europe, Spire remains a potent live force in harnessing the sounds of the ages.
Track Listing:
Philip Jeck - Live in St. Michel & St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels
[as part of Les Nuits Botaniques] 7th May 2006
16:36
Charles Matthews - Live in St. Michel & St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels
[as part of Les Nuits Botaniques] - plays Giacinto Scelsi: In Nomine Lucis 7th May 2006
11:29
Marcus Davidson - Live in Masthuggs Church, Göteborg
[as part of the GAS Festival] - Standing Wave 4th October 2005
9:11
BJNilsen - Live in Masthuggs Church, Göteborg
[as part of the GAS Festival] 4th October 2005
19:36
Fennesz - Live in St. Michel & St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels
[as part of Les Nuits Botaniques] 7th May 2006
16:02
Compiled and edited by Mike Harding October/November 2006
Cut by Jason at Transition, London, on a Neumann VSM 70 March 2007
Download “Spire Live - Fundamentalis” at Bandcamp
www.spire.org.uk
Touch Radio 108 | BJNilsen
31.12.14 - BJNilsen - NYE Berlin-Schöneberg 31.12.2014 - 38:26 - 320 kbps
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play "NYE Berlin-Schöneberg 31.12.2014"
www.bjnilsen.com
www.touchradio.org.uk
Touch Radio 109 | Before Surgery
04.01.15 - Before Surgery - Potlatch - 16:19 - 320 kbps
Field recording of fireworks on Saint John's Night, June 23, 2014, the local pagan inheritor celebration of the Summer Solstice. Recording by Heitor Alvelos on Bruce Geduldig and Bernadette Martou's balcony, Porto, Portugal. The vantage point, overlooking the tail end of the Douro river from a considerable height, allows the acoustic experience to become as impressive as the visual: the sound of the fireworks travels back and forth through the valley in considerable detail.
Recent trends in mass entertainment have dictated the expectation for further ingredients of sensory input, i.e. the "pure" experience of the explosives shall not be enough. Cue the arrival of pop anthems as an added sound layer that, as far as acoustics go, can only be experienced as a distraction. This is the main reason for the dramatic pitch shift in the present recording: the sound fabric is brought down to the point where pop pap no longer hurts. In the meantime, a different landscape emerges, austere and foreboding.
Edited by Heitor Alvelos in Suçães, August 2014: the recording has been left unaltered save for a pitch shift of -77%.
Mastered by Anselmo Canha in Porto, September 2014. Assisted at various times by José Maria Lopes, Teresa Serôdio, José Canha, Antifluffy.
Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play "Potlatch"
www.beforesurgery.org
www.touchradio.org.uk
TTW#75 | Television Set “Emma Hauck’s Letters”
Cassette only – edition of 150 copies.
Illustration – Beth Arzy
Track Listing
A1: Drawings On A Bus
A2: Demo 40
A3: North Atlantic Defense Coalition
A4: Plans And Maps
B1: Instructions To Shunters
B2: Lampada Annuale
B3: Trajectories
B4: Disused Stations
Television Set is Roger Semsroth aka Sleeparchive/Skanfrom.
“TV as eyes. TV eye on you. Television, the drug of the nation. The ultimate seduction, the realm etc. Control, by them…
This Television Set, however, is just a television set. No abyss you gaze into, with the known consequences. It’s a mere nocturnal distraction. Pastime, but no paradise. Refusal, and no participation. A light in your room. It is a translation of observational notes into sound. You have not lost control again.
Roger Semsroth is an artist of many guises, and this is one of his finest. Music written for the loneliest boys in town, who get the girl in the end. Or vice versa. And there are no references either – none! Trip the switch.” – Finn Johannsen, Berlin, 10th November 2014
Buy Television Set “Emma Hauck’s Letters” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
www.sleeparchive.de
TTW#76 | Paul H Williams “Aeroforms”
Cassette only – edition of 150 copies.
Track Listing
A: Aeroforms 2
B: Aeroforms 1
Paul H Williams writes: “Aeroforms 1 and 2 were made around 1984/85 using a BBC Microcomputer with a Music 500 outboard synthesiser and Ample music software. This release has been mastered from that original cassette recording.
I developed a generative music programme that created sound pieces within a set of boundaries. Tones were produced within a range of sound qualities, frequencies, periods and start times. Once the parameters were selected randomisation was used so that the programme “chose” which tones to play, how to play them, when and for how long.
The parameters used made for completely different sonic experiences. Aeroforms 2 is a meditative drone piece. Aeroforms 1 is an ambient backdrop that doesn't even require the listener - like a piece of audio furniture. Side one is for deep listening. Side two is for not-even-listening…
Every time the programme was run a different performance would occur. The recordings feature the first 45 minutes of each piece which are eternal in length…” – Paul H Williams, London, 13th November 2014.
Buy Paul H Williams “Aeroforms” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
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The previous Touch NewsLetter can be found here.
