Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #152. Bethan Kellough’s debut for Touch, “Aven”, is now on sale in the TouchShop. Bethan Kellough creates sound worlds that weave together instrumental materials, sound design and ambisonic field recordings. Her composition ‘Aven' is based on a recording made in Iceland in 2015, which features the booming sound of underground geothermal activity escaping to the surface through a small shaft. Details below.
The next Spire event occurs 8th October at London’s Union Chapel, as part of their new three-day “Organ Reframed” festival. In performance: Charles Matthews, Fennesz, Philip Jeck, Simon Scott, Claire M Singer, John Beaumont and The Eternal Chord. Further details below. Tickets available at www.unionchapel.org.uk
Now available via The Wormhole, two 7" EPs + WAVs in editions of 123 copies each. “Laughing Out” by Dale Cornish and Phil Julian, and “Fallen to Earth” by Paul H Williams.
Coming soon on Touch – Lustmord’s “Dark Matter”. Read more at lustmord.com – full details following on our next newsletter…
Touch now has an Instagram account – follow us @toucharchive.
Tone 54 | Bethan Kellough “Aven”
Compact disc in slip case - 5 tracks - 27:54.
Limited edition of 500 copies
Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Track List:
Descent
Vision
An Opening
Canopy
Low
Live at Volume, Los Angeles, 30th April 2016 as part of Touch Conference.
The word ‘Aven' refers to an underground shaft that leads upward from the roof of a cave passage.
Recorded with SoundField SPS200 & JrF C-Series contact microphones, Sennheiser ME64, Sound Devices 788T, Elektron Monomachine, RME Fireface UCX, and Cockos Reaper. Field recordings from Iceland, June 2015 and South Africa, November 2015.
Strings performed by Bethan Kellough.
Bethan Kellough creates sound worlds that weave together instrumental materials, sound design and ambisonic field recordings. Her composition ‘Aven' is based on a recording made in Iceland in 2015, which features the booming sound of underground geothermal activity escaping to the surface through a small shaft. “Looking down into the darkness, there was a sense that a whole world existed in an unknown space beneath. The sound world of Aven is a journey through such an imagined environment.” The composition is driven by this sonic encounter, but enters the imagined worlds beneath through the instrumental material developed throughout the work. These melodic passages predominantly feature violin, which Bethan has played since childhood exploring traditional Scottish music, rock violin, free improvisation and classical studies. The field recordings used in Aven were made in Iceland during the Wildeye sound recording workshop with Chris Watson and Jez riley French, and in South Africa during the Sonic Mmabolela residency with Francisco Lopez and James Webb. Each of the recordings explore a world of sound beneath a surface, reflecting upon the initial recording environment at the geothermal site. In South Africa, an approaching storm was heralded by wind blowing through bushes in the savanna, underneath which was hidden a Soundfield microphone. A contact microphone on a fence in South Iceland revealed the tones of the wind contained inside the wires, and in an Icelandic nature reserve the wind was also captured by microphones buried underneath a layer of grass – a miniature world sheltered by the strands of dry straw.
Bethan Kellough (formerly Bethan Parkes) is a sound artist and composer. Her work spans across ambisonic composition, field recording, sound design and multichannel sound installation practices, drawing a focus on sonic spatial experience. Her works are designed to open out spaces with sound, exploring spatial aesthetics and the interactions between sonically and visually articulated spaces. The immersive sound-worlds she creates inhabit the boundaries between music and sound design, weaving together instrumental materials, sound design and ambisonic field recordings.
She holds a PhD in Sonic Arts from the University of Glasgow. In 2015 she joined the Touch Mentorship Programme.
Her works have been exhibited and performed internationally, including at Touch Conference, Los Angeles, USA; Gallery of Russian Art and Design, London, UK; Resonant Forms Festival, Los Angeles, USA; Borealis Festival, Bergen, Norway; Jardins Efemeros Festival, Viseu, Portugal; Spazio Bocciofila, Venice, Italy; The Global Composition International Conference, Dieburg, Germany; Symposium on Acoustic Ecology, University of Kent, UK; Sound Thought Festival, Glasgow, UK.
Order Bethan Kellough's “Aven” [CD] in the TouchShop
www.bethankellough.com
8th October 2016 | Spire at the Union Chapel, London
The 17th Spire will take place at Union Chapel, London on 8th October 2016 as part of the Organ Reframed Festival (7-9 October 2016).
Performers: Charles Matthews, Fennesz, Philip Jeck, Simon Scott, Claire M Singer, John Beaumont and The Eternal Chord.
Spire, an experimental music programme for organ and electronic works, pushes the envelope for which this most traditional of instruments is used. The organ has the greatest frequency range of any acoustic instrument, but this is rarely exploited; the unique sound of the mechanical organ has often been limited and controlled and Spire aims to liberate it from its history without denying that history.
The programme is carefully curated by Charles Matthews, organist, and Mike Harding, creative producer; combining organ works ancient (The Robertsbridge Codex) and modern. Other performers use the organ and organ works as a basis for their own compositions, using piano, voice, record players, samplers and other electronic devices.
Buy tickets at unionchapel.org.uk
www.spire.org.uk
WHO#07 | Dale Cornish and Phil Julian “Laughing Out”
7" Vinyl EP + WAV download – 3 tracks. Edition of 123 copies. Cut by Jason Goz.
Artwork – screenprint of a legendary double–act by Lukas Julius Keijser.
Track List:
A: Laughing Out
B1: For Vocal
B2: Palazzo
Dale Cornish: born, raised and current of London (south). Previously in No Bra (2004–6): co–wrote unexpected hit “Munchausen”. Terse humour and observations/worldly interests further evident with work of ecstatic noise trio Baraclough (2006–2012). Current focus is on solo recordings for labels including Entr’acte, The Tapeworm and Beartown Records, and collaborations with artists including Adam Asnan, Andie Brown, Powell and Phil Julian.
Phil Julian is a UK based composer and improviser active since the late 90s principally working with modular electronic devices and computers. Releases have appeared on labels including Entr’acte, Harbinger Sound, The Tapeworm and Beartown Records. Recent collaborations on recordings and performances with Dale Cornish, John Macedo, Kostis Kilymis, Jason Kahn and Angharad Davies. Regular live performances since 2004 in the UK, Europe and North America.
Buy Dale Cornish and Phil Julian “Laughing Out” [7" EP + WAVs] in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
Watch a video for “Laughing Out” directed by Dale Cornish
www.dalecornish.com
www.cmx.org.uk
WHO#08 | Paul H Williams “Fallen to Earth”
7" Vinyl EP + WAV download – 4 tracks. Edition of 123 copies. Cut by Jason Goz.
Cover image and text by Paul H Williams.
Track List:
A1: Part III
A2: Part IV
B1: Part I
B2: Part II
Industrial space rock recorded in a bedroom in Beckenham one weekend in the winter of 1981 on a hired Tascam Portastudio and Korg synth with borrowed guitar, bass and FX pedals.
Buy Paul H Williams “Fallen to Earth” [7" EP + WAVs] in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
Watch a video for “Fallen to Earth” (Part III) directed by Paul H Williams
TTW#85 | Lori E Allen “Tears Of The Material Vulture”
Cassette only – limited edition of 75 copies
Illustration – Deborah Wale
Track List
A: Part One – 41m25s
B: Part Two – 39m12s
Lori E Allen is an unemployed prehistoric archaeologist from middle America, b. 1975, now living and working between London and Berlin as an experimental composer and video artist.
In the early 90s while studying at NYU she met and began vaguely collaborating and cavorting with DJ Fat Pants, the obscure genome from which “Madame Chaos” was conceived. “Madame Chaos” was a public access television show, cablecast on Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Brooklyn Community Access Television in New York City from 1995 to 2005. Allen was involved until she was kicked out and describes the show, as it was seen on TV, as being “a re-digested type of media vomit which should comprise one the major vital food groups for growing children.”
“Tears of the Material Vulture” is a new composition which builds itself specifically upon three samples from two early “Madame Chaos” cassette releases – “MC Sampler” and “Creeping Eskimo Chong” – both dating from 1995, and resurrected here in memory of those creepy times…
Buy Lori E Allen “Tears Of The Material Vulture” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
Guerrilla Audio
Guerrilla Audio is a new series of audio raids by Simon Fisher Turner.
guer·ril·la
ɡəˈrilə/
noun
noun: guerilla
a member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces.
Each audio edit will be posted for 14 days and then removed from the site, although the information about each guerrilla activity will be archived, but without the audio. There will be two postings per month with the first (also featuring Klara Lewis & Rainier Lericolais) on 1st August 2015, so please check in regularly to listen to the latest offering.
Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com
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