Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #158. The Tapeworm has three new releases available for pre-order, shipping from the TouchShop in early December. Mark Fell’s “Focal Music #3, #4, #5a, #5b” features performances by Laura Cannell, Sandro Mussida and Aby Vulliamy. The performers followed as accurately as possible a pattern consisting of a single percussive sound, to see what happened at the moments when the pattern changed…
Le Forbici di Manitù’s is an Italian ensemble, loosely based in Reggio Emilia, exploring music and sound since 1983. They have consistently been on the margins of any acknowledged movement or trend, almost systematically going against the zeitgeist and into obscurity. “Saliva Calda” was first issued by Rosa Luxemburg Corporation in 1990.
Biting Tongues were formed in 1978 to improvise a soundtrack to an experimental film at Tony Wilson’s original Factory Club in Manchester. A core membership was soon established: Howard Walmsley (sax) Ken Hollings (texts), Eddie Sherwood (drums,) Colin Seddon (bass) and Graham Massey (guitar and noise). Their performances, an unpredictable “post-punk avant-funk” mix of spoken word, percussion, random tapes, films and freeform soloing, were mostly confined at this time to clubs in Manchester and London. “Still On Hawaiian Time” features two live recordings of the band from 1982 and 1983.
Mike Harding’s “Long Wave” radio show returns to Dublab this Friday, with an interview with Claire M Singer – details below.
Yann Novak is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. His debut CD for Touch, “Ornamentation”, is released on Friday.
Touch now has an Instagram account – follow us @toucharchive.
TTW#89 | Mark Fell “Focal Music #3, #4, #5a, #5b”
Cassette only – limited edition of 150 copies
Featuring Laura Cannell, Sandro Mussida and Aby Vulliamy.
Track List
A1: Focal Music #4 with Aby Vulliamy, Viola, Leeds 2015, 11:14
A2: Focal Music #3 with Laura Cannell, Overbowed Violin, Newcastle 2015, 20:41
B1: Focal Music #5a with Sandro Mussida, Piano, Karlsruhe 2016, 15:32
B2: Focal Music #5b with Sandro Mussida, Piano, Karlsruhe 2016, 15:20
Mark Fell writes: “The series of works on this cassette began in 2011 when I attended a workshop/residency programme led by the British sound artist, composer and performer Jan Hendrickse. During a workshop session I played a pattern generating system via headphones to a drummer, Patrik Jarlestam, who played a single snare drum. The basic premise of the work was that the performer should follow the pattern as accurately as possible, and to see what happened at the moments when the pattern changed – i.e. to foreground the performers attempts to follow the pattern and their ability to cope with the subtle yet unusual changes.
The pattern itself consists of a single percussive sound. The timing of the sound is determined by a list of five values ranging from one to 11 that represent timing intervals. These values are stepped through one at a time and multiplied by a base value, typically 80 milliseconds, to give the following possible timing intervals: 80, 160, 240, 320, 400, 480, 560, 640, 720, 800 and 880 milliseconds. A typical pattern might consist of something like 240, 240, 480, 320 and 320 which makes a total loop length of 1.6 seconds. If a single value is changed, for example element one becomes 560, the overall loop length extends to 1.92 seconds…” – …read Mark’s notes in full on The Tapeworm’s release page.
Buy Mark Fell “Focal Music #3, #4, #5a, #5b” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
TTW#90 | Le Forbici di Manitù “Saliva Calda”
Cassette only – limited edition of 75 copies
First issued by Rosa Luxemburg Corporation in 1990. Mastered for re-issue by Luca Roccatagliati at MarsLife Studio, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2016). Original cover by Massimo Pavarini and Gabriella Marconi.
Track List
A1: La Gengiva Superiore Di Dio
A2: La Mia Psicobanana
A3: La Gengiva Inferiore Di Dio
B1: Damento Tan Creppo
B2: Wild Childhood
B3: Saliva Calda
B4: Adelaide
Le Forbici di Manitù (Manitou’s Scissors) is an Italian ensemble, loosely based in Reggio Emilia, exploring music and sound since 1983. They have consistently been on the margins of any acknowledged movement or trend, almost systematically going against the zeitgeist and into obscurity.
“Saliva Calda” (“Warm Saliva”, Rosa Luxemburg Corporation, 1990) was their first long-form outing. It is the culmination of a phase in which Le Forbici droned on privately, in long improvised marathons. At the time, Le Forbici di Manitù were Manitù Rossi, Satana Cianciulli and Alberto Ferrari. The trio used as a textual source for “Saliva Calda” the lyrics of Luca Criscuoli, that were written independently and that the group appropriated as an external structure to the work, deliberately intended as an imposition of form on spontaneous sound material (although the form is somewhat unusual). In the Italian book “Solchi Sperimentali Italia” (Crac Edizioni, 2015), a history of “other” musics in Italy, Antonello Cresti writes about “Saliva Calda”: “Brilliant debut that is enough to propel us in an absurd no man’s land, with pieces that nonchalantly pile up Residents-like electronica, rock distortions, medieval music shards, a gory touch and surrealism galore. Pure madness, which doesn’t use as paradigms other delusional underground adventures, but since its inception is able to define its own space of action and syntax, that surprises and fascinates even today”, twenty-five years later.
Buy Le Forbici di Manitù “Saliva Calda” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
TTW#91 | Biting Tongues “Still On Hawaiian Time”
Cassette only – limited edition of 150 copies
Illustration: “Monstergod” – Alma McMillan
Track List
A: “Library Theatre, Manchester 16.6.1983” – 43m40s
B: “Riverside Studios, London 5.6.1982” – 44m02s
Biting Tongues were formed in 1978 to improvise a soundtrack to the screening of a 16mm experimental film of the same name at Tony Wilson’s original Factory Club in Manchester. A core membership was soon established that was to last until 1984: Howard Walmsley (sax) Ken Hollings (texts), Eddie Sherwood (drums,) Colin Seddon (bass) and Graham Massey (guitar and noise). Their performances, an unpredictable “post-punk avant-funk” mix of spoken word, percussion, random tapes, films and freeform soloing, were mostly confined at this time to clubs in Manchester and London. The release of their first three albums “Don’t Heal”, “Live It” and “Libreville” between 1981 and 1983 widened their audience, and Biting Tongues found themselves performing more and more in theatres, arts venues and galleries.
“Still On Hawaiian Time” captures two Biting Tongues performances from this later period. The Library Theatre in the centre of Manchester was a large seated venue with an even larger stage, meaning that the group members could spread out more and incorporate additional percussion, tapes and electronic devices. It also shows Biting Tongues cutting up and rearranging themes from different recordings, allowing for the free play of existing material – the performance also anticipates their work on “Feverhouse”: their full-length experimental feature film released in 1984 by Factory Records’ video offshoot IKON, together with a soundtrack album as FAC 105.
“Feverhouse” had its first London screening at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith as part of Factory’s residency there in the summer of 1984. Biting Tongues had played the same venue three years previously at a time when they were beginning to expand and broaden their sound. The improved facilities available in a theatre venue, including greater space, better acoustics and more time for a sound check, meant that Biting Tongues could concentrate on the performance, producing some of their most aggressive and demanding work.
During the early 1980s Biting Tongues excelled as a live band, always seeking to challenge both themselves and their audiences. These two recordings are fascinating documents that convey some of the immediacy and commitment of their performances – something that can still be felt in these old tapes some thirty years after they were first recorded.
Buy Biting Tongues “Still On Hawaiian Time” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
11th November 2016 | “Long Wave” on Dublab
Friday 11th November 2016
(2-4pm PCT Los Angeles)
Long Wave presented by Mike Harding. In the studio with Claire M Singer discussing all things aeolian. Her debut album, Solas, was released in June 2016 and can be previewed on Bandcamp.
Long Wave: suspending time and immersing the listener in a widescreen of sound
Further information at mscharding.net
Tune in at dublab.com
Tone 55 | Yann Novak “Ornamentation”
Limited edition CD + DL.
Photography by Jon Wozencroft.
Mastered By Lawrence English at 158.
Track List
1. Ornamentation 49:00
Presented live in Los Angeles at a small, private event. Source material includes field recordings captured throughout the United States and Canada from 2006 - 2016 and modular synthesizer recordings, all digitally altered.
Yann Novak is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. “Ornamentation” is Novak’s first physical release on Touch and continues his investigations of presence, stillness and mindfulness through the construction of immersive spaces, both literal and figurative. On “Ornamentation” Novak resists modernism’s problematic relationship to race, class and labour, and attempts to decouple contemporary minimalist sound work from this historical precedent.
Order Yann Novak “Ornamentation” in the TouchShop
www.yannnovak.com
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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