Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #159. Philip Corner is an American composer, musician and visual artist. His teachers include Henry Cowell and Olivier Messiaen. A founder member of Fluxus, Corner has performed with George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik. His wide-ranging output includes numerous works for gongs, bells, metal percussion and gamelan orchestra. The Wormhole is honoured to be releasing “Gong/Ear: Shaman” – an important addition to his Gong/Ear: Dancer series – in a CD edition of 250 copies only.
A special limited edition by Jana Winderen is now on pre-sale in the TouchShop. “The Listener” is a sound composition created from hydrophone recordings in the River Orne in Normandy. A 6 channel sound installation made for the exhibition 'Second Nature' is part of a 3 year investigation into the health of the river. It is presented in a brown paper envelope containing a USB stick (4 GB) holding .wav and quad .wav files. 50 copies only.
UnicaZürn (David Knight and Stephen Thrower) will release their Touch debut in January 2017. Details and pre-order links to follow. The duo will make a rare live outing at Café Oto on Wednesday 25th January. Tickets are now on sale at www.cafeoto.co.uk
Touch now has an Instagram account – follow us @toucharchive.
WHO#09 | Philip Corner “Gong/Ear: Shaman”
CD – limited edition of 250 copies
Mastered for release in September 2016 by Jacques Beloeil
Collages by D.M. Nagu, October 2016
Track List:
1: Schloß Elmau, June 20, 1988 – 12m50s
2: Trento, July 2, 1988 – 17m27s
3: New York, April 22, 1989 – 35m15s
Philip Corner (b. 1933) is an American composer, musician and visual artist. His teachers include Henry Cowell and Olivier Messiaen. While on military duty in Korea in 1960-1961 he studied calligraphy with Ki-sung Kim and many of his works have calligraphic scores. A founder member of Fluxus, Corner has performed with George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik. From 1967 to 1970 he taught the course in Experimental Composition at the New School for Social Research, which John Cage initiated in 1956. He was a member of Judson Dance Theater as both dancer and composer and has written scores for dance pieces by James Waring, Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs and Elaine Summers among many others. He lives in Reggio nell’Emilia with his wife and performing partner, the dancer and choreographer Phoebe Neville. His wide-ranging output includes numerous works for gongs, bells, metal percussion and gamelan orchestra.
Philip Corner writes… ‘Hiah Park – new age shaman, then living in California (where else?). My Korea connexion interest led me to a workshop she gave in New York; more sessions continued until the opportunity of really working together at the proposed seminar ‘Art and the Invisible Reality’ to be held in Bavaria. I revisited my old practice of ‘metal meditations’ specially reinterpreted to go with performance/dance derived from traditional shamanic practices (of which she a certified practitioner). Then done in Trento in front of the cathedral where we joked about when they burnd witches. After the two performances in Europe our association came to an end.
Sin Cha Hong, a great friend in New York and a fabulous dancer and choreographer. Truly profound and intense body-incorporated physicality serving a spiritual content in no need of official status. Her Korean-American company she called Laughing Stone (with its implicit antipod-olarity so seeming compatible with my own expression thru music); she used my anklung (Javanese bamboo rattles) quartet gamelan Adagio onstage for one of her solos.
For many years now she has been back in the Orient. We did reconnect in 1993, performing together in the festival ‘The Seoul of Fluxus’. This recording I made alone in the New York loft with my ‘familiar’ – the large Paiste tam-tam: while holding her in my mind.
The dancer/shamans are, as their names show, from Korea – the country par excellence for this ancient form of religion incarnate. I have had a long a long continuing and most appreciative relationship to that country’s culture, from 1960 when shipped as a trombonesman to the American occupying forces there and and turned on each afternoon listening to ‘National (Kuk Ahk) Music Hour’ their theme song ‘Su Je Chun’ – the most ancient piece from the court repertoire which I have never stopped hearing as the most beautiful music ever made. That, and the breakthrough composition ‘Sang-Teh/Situations’ which written and performed in Seoul in 1961, made this meeting and working with a genuine Korean shaman a spectacular amplification of my rapport.
It was the beginning of the years-long improvisation-meditation practice shared with many other dancers, including most notably Phœbe Neville, soon to become my wife, and still is.’ – Philip Corner, Reggio nell’Emilia, 1st September, 2016.
Buy Philip Corner “Gong/Ear: Shaman” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
Ash 12.5 | Jana Winderen “The Listener”
USB stick (4 GB) + .wav/.quad .wav/.jpg in envelope
Limited edition of 50 copies. All copies are numbered by the artist
Price includes shipping
Illustration by Jana Winderen
Designed by Philip Marshall
Track List:
1. The Listener
Freshwater biologists count underwater insects and use this data as an indicator of the water's health. If one identifies the sound of specific underwater insects with their varying ability to survive forms of pollution, one can possibly, through focused listening, reach an understanding of the health of the river. Underwater insects use stridulation to produce sound, such as Corixa, the lesser water boatman, which lives its whole life underwater. It also uses an air bubble carried on its abdomen as a physical lung, where oxygen flows from the water into the bubble. This bubble might also be amplifying the sound they make.
The Listener is a sound composition created from hydrophone recordings in the River Orne in Normandy. A 6 channel sound installation made for the exhibition 'Second Nature' is part of a 3 year investigation into the health of the river.
Buy Jana Winderen “The Listener” in the TouchShop
www.janawinderen.com
www.ashinternational.com
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” 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” 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#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
Focal Music #4: performed with Aby Vulliamy at The Leeds Library (Leeds, 2015) at "Peter Gidal/Mark Fell: Film/Sound" organised by Pavilion and curated by Will Rose. Focal Music #3: performed with Laura Cannell at Baltic 39 (Newcastle, 2015) for "Broken Telephone", an event which formed part of Peter J. Evans’ exhibition "Across Islands, Divides". “Focal Music #5a” and “Focal Music #5b”: recorded with Sandro Mussida at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe, 2016) in the Kubus studio. All tracks mastered for this tape at lunchtime by Phil Julian.
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. “Saliva Calda” (“Warm Saliva”, Rosa Luxemburg Corporation, 1990) was their first long-form outing. 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.
Buy Biting Tongues “Still On Hawaiian Time” 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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