Touch Newsletter #129


Welcome to the 129th Touch Newsletter.

Saturn and the Sun is a new duo for electronic and psychic tension made up by Gothenburg residents Joachim Nordwall and Henrik Rylander. Their debut release is for The Tapeworm and is on sale in the TouchShop now.

On the evening of 14th July at Echo Bücher in Berlin, Stefan Goldmann and Stefan Fähler present their two new Bookworm books. Fähler’s artwork will be on the shop’s walls, and Goldmann will be in conversation with The Tapeworm. More info about the two books can be found below.

Two new Touch Radio episodes are now broadcasting, by Pascal Wyse and Mike Harding with Mark Van Hoen. Details below.




Twitter and Facebook

twitter.com/touchmusic | twitter.com/ash10_3 | twitter.com/the_tapeworm
Touch on Facebook | The Tapeworm on Facebook




TAPP 01 | Touch app for iOS and Android

Download the free Touch iOS app at the iTunes App Store
Download the free Touch Android app on Google Play




YouTube

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.




TTW#78 | Saturn and the Sun “Harsh Realities, Broken Bones and Skull Tones”

Cassette only – limited edition of 100 copies
Illustration – SavX

Four untitled tracks, 38mins

Saturn and the Sun is a new duo for electronic and psychic tension comprising Gothenburg residents Joachim Nordwall and Henrik Rylander. As core members of ritual rock band The Skull Defekts, they have toured the world during the past years and have released a hot line of records. As Saturn and the Sun, their common interest in harsh electronic music and deep drones is their focus.

Nordwall has run the iDEAL Recordings label since 1998 and can also be found collaborating with people like Mika Vainio, Mats Gustafsson and Mark Wastell (as Oceans of Silver & Blood).

Rylander is a crime scene photographer, conceptual artist and used to be the beat of dangerous garage rock group Union Carbide Productions.


Buy Saturn and the Sun “Harsh Realities, Broken Bones and Skull Tones” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
Saturn and the Sun on Facebook




Touch Radio 114 | Pascal Wyse

01.06.15 - Pascal Wyse - Any Port in a Storm - 09:34 - 320 kbps

To call this field recording would be crediting the situation with more adventure than it deserves. At five in the morning, with a hangover starting to percolate, the ideal conditions are surely to just roll over, hit record and go back to sleep – and that is pretty much what happened here. End of disclaimer.

Boats, whether out at sea or in harbour, have a particular vocabulary of sounds. On the water, they are masked by the white noise of the ocean, in which – as many sailors have reported – you can hear almost any sound imaginable. Moored up, where things are quieter, the water laps and slaps the hull while the wind plays aeolian harp on the mast.

That rigging sound is often a chorus of tapping lines against masts, but this particular boat – a cruising yacht with a Bermuda rig, moored at Yarmouth after a day’s sailing – had an unusually musical voice, sounding clear notes as the wind passed through its structure. At sea this was a contented hum, but at night it felt much more ominous.

The tones in this piece were recorded in one of the sleeping cabins in the stern, a little resonant box. Of course, there has been some processing – mainly to remove the snoring of sailors.


Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play Pascal Wyse “Any Port in a Storm”
www.pascalwyse.net
www.touchradio.org.uk




Touch Radio 115 | Vault!

25.06.15 - Vault! - 25:43 - 320 kbps

"Mark [Van Hoen] and I visited the tunnels underneath downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday. Many miles of these tunnels are closed to the public, but a section underneath the city archive collection is open. We recorded using an iPhone 6 and a Zoom H6. One of the signs had been adapted to read: "SOUNDs HORNy".


Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play “Vault!”
www.touchradio.org.uk




TBW#02 | Stefan Goldmann “Presets – Digital Shortcuts to Sound”

220pp paperback book, 110mm x 171mm
First edition: industrially-sized…

Produced between 13.vi.2014 and 1.iv.2015 in London and Berlin by The Tapeworm.

Copy editor: Gerard Forde. Thanks to Sandra Jasper and Finn Johannsen. Typeset in Antwerp by Allon Kaye using Aldine 401, Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk and Miso.

Cover illustration by Michael Kummermehr, pixelated by SG.

Take a look inside the book…








For his first book, “Presets – Digital Shortcuts to Sound”, Stefan Goldmann has talked to industry leaders, programmers, producers, musicians and fine artists to collect a comprehensive description of the world of preset audio: from synthesis to sample libraries, from instrument emulations and gear cloning to automated composition and performance – short cuts in electronic music, classical and traditional musics, guitar rock & fine arts are covered. Disruptive gear and iconic presets, their background and impact – from Korg’s M1, Yamaha’s DX7 and Roland’s 909 to Ableton Live, Native Instruments Reaktor, Sidechain compression and Auto-Tune – are discussed with unprecedented depth and clarity.

Featuring interviews with:

Robert Henke a.k.a. Monolake
musician, lecturer & co-founder Ableton, Berlin

Mike Daliot
former senior audio developer Native Instruments & lecturer at Universität der Künste, Berlin

Michael Wagener
multi-platinum music producer & engineer, Nashville

Cory Arcangel
fine artist, New York

Dinis Schemann
pianist, Munich

Members of the Korg M1 product development team:
Tomoko Itoh & Junichi Ikeuchi, Inagi

Tony Stevanovski
arranger, Sofia

Dimitar Kotev
musician, Sandanski

+ introductory essay and glossary by Stefan Goldmann.


Biography:

Stefan Goldmann is an electronic music artist and DJ. Together with Finn Johannsen he runs the Macro label, whose artists include Elektro Guzzi, KiNK and Peter Kruder. He also writes a column for the flyer program of Berlin's Berghain club and is a co-author of its upcoming book, “Berghain 10”. In 2014 he released “Industry”, an album based exclusively on presets.


Buy Stefan Goldmann “Presets – Digital Shortcuts to Sound” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
www.stefangoldmann.com




TBW#03 | Stefan Fähler “Zahntasia”

80pp paperback book, 110mm x 171mm
Limited edition of 150 copies

Produced between 05.vii.2012 and 1.vii.2013 in São Joao, São Paulo, Antwerp, Berlin and London by Stefan Fähler and The Tapeworm.

Stefan Fähler used pencils, nail polish remover, trashy Xerox machines and gold paint in the creation of this book.

Take a look inside the book…












The Bookworm presents – with a wide grin – the first book by Stefan Fähler. Its title, “Zahntasia”, inflects the name of Walt Disney’s 1940 animated masterpiece with the German word for “tooth” (“Zahn”), and accordingly, it depicts a psychedental journey starring an anthropomorphic molar who suddenly gets popped out of his daily grind. Across 80 black-and-white pages, our toothy protagonist is whisked into a world of sticky indulgence, sweet romance and confectionary hallucinations. Seeing as there’s no text, the plot welcomes the viewer’s own interpretation, but it seems that just like Dorothy, this displaced tooth finds the way back to his roots.

Stefan Fähler created the images during an artist residency in Brazil, as well as in Belgium and his home base of Berlin. To complement his pencil drawings – adding some extra texture where necessary – he also utilized nail polish remover and a rickety, nearly obsolete Xerox machine. Although the story is told purely in pictures, Fähler’s dentist has provided a written introduction emphasizing the importance of caring for your chompers. This book makes a charming addition to any waiting room, a trusty companion for your next acid trip or the perfect gift for that magical wingèd lady who leaves cash under your pillow.


Biography:

Stefan Fähler is a freelance art director and illustrator working primarily in the music and film industries. He has designed gig posters for performers like Ariel Pink, Baths, Death Grips, Lætitia Sadier, Merzbow, Mykki Blanco, Mogwai, Wolf Eyes, Shonen Knife and album artwork for Leslie Winer, Marina Gasolina and Damo Suzuki.

He painted the graphic titles for Oscar-nominated documentary about Sebastião Salgado, “The Salt of the Earth”, by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival, 2014. He has directed music videos for the likes of Mediengruppe Telekommander and Heatsick, for whom he won an award for “Best International Music Video” at Leeds International Film Festival, 2014.

Fähler’s work can be seen in publications, exhibitions and festivals around the globe including Berlin, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Cannes, Milan, Sydney, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile and Basel.


Buy Stefan Fähler “Zahntasia” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
www.stefanfaehler.com




TO:97 | Heitor Alvelos “Faith”

CD - 12 tracks - 40:20
Released 1st June 2015

Photography: Jon Wozencroft & Heitor Alvelos
Mastered by Denis Blackham

Track listing:
1. Errant
2. Exodus
3. Edict
4. Alluvion
5. Pseudoself
6. Vicarious Solace
7. The Way of Malamat
8. Peirasmos
9. The Other
10. Home, Elicited
11. The Hopeful Night
12. Dedication

“Faith” is the first full-length sound release by media researcher and curator Heitor Alvelos under his own name. Heitor Alvelos has been a long-time on/off collaborator of Touch, having on occasion provided photography and stage visuals for Biosphere, Fennesz, BJNilsen, Rafael Toral and Philip Jeck, as well as releasing sound pieces under the aliases Autodigest, Antifluffy and Before Surgery, on Ash International, TouchRadio and The Tapeworm.

“The essence of the present piece is autobiographical: therefore the use of my own name”, the author clarifies. “And yet it aims at being resonant to others”: in this context, resonance may be regarded as both semantic and visceral, as the sound frequencies on Faith are often of the kind that “rearrange one’s organs”, to quote the recently departed Bernadette Martou. A necessity in order to carry the gravitas inherent to the subject, a confessional confrontation with the zeitgeist.

All sources have been gathered, recorded and produced throughout five decades, all the way back to a recording by Francisco Alvelos in 1972 that closes the release. Elsewhere, sounds have been processed to various degrees, the bookends retaining their original contexts, others mutating into deep abstraction. Overall, they flow as one single composition, evocative and foreboding in equal measures.


Buy Heitor Alvelos "Faith" [CD] in the TouchShop
…also available as 24-bit WAV Download files
www.benevolentanger.org/faith






If you wish to unsubscribe from this newsletter, please send an email from the account to which you are subscribed to the Touch Newsletter, to unsubscribe@touch33.net, and we will unsubscribe you straight away.

The previous Touch NewsLetter can be found here.