Touch Newsletter #163


Welcome to Touch Newsletter #163. TouchLine 9 – Ipek Gorgun’s “Aphelion” – is now available as a digital release from all good download stores

A new episode of TouchRadio is now broadcasting – Geneva Skeen & Sarah Rara “Live in Los Angeles”. For the closing of Yann Novak’s exhibition Repose, Novak invited Skeen and Rara to perform inside/alongside his installation. Each artist’s performance was accompanied by the sound of Novak’s installation demonstrated here via a room-recording from the event.

The Tapeworm’s next two tapes, to be released in early April, are available to pre-order in the TouchShop and on Bandcamp.

Norwegian sound artists Alexander Rishaug and Lasse Marhaug have worked together as a duo for almost 20 years. In this time they have produced one album, 2004’s “Feel Free At Home”. Now, the pair are ready with their follow-up, on The Tapeworm: “Corneal Clouds”.

Pinkcourtesyphone is a continuing project by Los Angeles-based sound artist Richard Chartier. He is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist sound art which has been termed both microsound and Neo-Modernist. Pinkcourtesyphone is a more emotional, dare one say musical side of his work. His Tapeworm tape, “Something You Are Or Something You Do” is also available in a sub-edition of 50 hot pink copies, available only on Bandcamp.

Ken Hollings’ “Works For Magnetic Tape” has been repressed in a special edition of 50 copies. More info can be found here.

Coming in May… Richard Chartier returns with his “Removed” CD/download on Ash International, plus a Touch debut for Robert Crouch with his limited, CD-only “Sublunar” release. More news on both of these editions on our next newsletter.




TTW#94 | Rishaug Marhaug “Corneal Clouds”

Cassette only – limited edition of 125 copies
Illustration – SavX

Track List
A1: Seeing Eye Dog
A2: Subjective Refraction Error
B1: Gentle But Willing
B2: Dogs for the Blind

Norwegian sound artists Alexander Rishaug and Lasse Marhaug have worked together as a duo for almost 20 years. In this time they have produced one album, 2004’s “Feel Free At Home”.

Now, the pair are ready with their follow-up: “Corneal Clouds”. The music was recorded in 2012, then put through an extensive and meticulous fermentation process of five years until now – at last – it is ready for the public. Rishaug Marhaug promotes positive thinking through their unique brand of electronic music.


Pre-order Rishaug Marhaug “Corneal Clouds” in the TouchShop
Pre-order Rishaug Marhaug “Corneal Clouds” on Bandcamp
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
www.arishaug.com
www.lassemarhaug.no




TTW#95 | Pinkcourtesyphone “Something You Are Or Something You Do”

Cassette only – limited edition of 100 copies, plus a special Bandcamp edition of 50 hot pink copies

Track List
A: But It Felt/In Other Dreams
B: She Who Controls

Formed from plastics and particulars by Richard Chartier, 2015 – “I am lonely, yet I feel wonderful…”

Pinkcourtesyphone is a continuing project by Los Angeles-based sound artist Richard Chartier. He is considered one of the key figures in the current of reductionist sound art which has been termed both microsound and Neo-Modernist. Chartier’s minimalist digital work explores the inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception and the act of listening itself.

Pinkcourtesyphone is a more emotional, dare one say musical side of his work. Pinkcourtesyphone is dark but not arch, with a slight hint of humor. Pinkcourtesyphone is amorphous, changing, and slipping in and out of consciousness. Pinkcourtesyphone operates like a syrup-y dream and strives to be both elegant and detached.

Pinkcourtesyphone has collaborated with the likes of Cosey Fanni Tutti, Kid Congo Powers, harpist Gwyneth Wentink, AGF, William Basinski, and Evelina Domnitch. Pinkcourtesyphone’s work has been released internationally on labels including: Editions MEGO (Austria), Room40 (Australia), LINE (US), Important Records (US), Dragon’s Eye Recordings (US), Farmacia901 (IT), Champion Version (UK), Boomkat (UK), and IO Sound (Canada).

Chartier’s sound works/installations have been presented in galleries and museums internationally and he has performed his work live across Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America at digital art/electronic music festivals and exhibits. In 2000 he formed the recording label LINE and has since curated its continuing documentation of compositional and installation work by international sound artists/composers exploring the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism.


Pre-order Pinkcourtesyphone “Something You Are Or Something You Do” in the TouchShop
Pre-order Pinkcourtesyphone “Something You Are Or Something You Do” + hot pink edition on Bandcamp
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
www.pinkcourtesyphone.com




Touch Radio 128 | Geneva Skeen & Sarah Rara

23.03.17 - Geneva Skeen & Sarah Rara “Live in Los Angeles” - 37:03 – 320 kbps

Live at Human Resources, Los Angeles, February 18, 2017

1. Geneva Skeen – Pop Song 16:48
2. Sarah Rara – Separating the Air 20:12

For the closing of Yann Novak’s exhibition Repose, Novak invited Geneva Skeen and Sarah Rara to perform inside/alongside his installation. Each artist’s performance was accompanied by the sound of Novak’s installation demonstrated here via a room-recording from the event.

Skeen’s Pop Song is a temporal response to Novak’s drone work, and a cultural response to our times. In harmonizing with Novak’s loop – divided into 3-4 minute segments (the average acceptable length of a pop song) – Skeen’s Pop Song acknowledges that populist times call for populist measures, but refuses populist comfort, acceptance, and pale standards of beauty as means of resistance.

Rara’s Separating the Air: games of listening and learning between voice and computer at the boundary between music and speech. Each part is a device to punctuate silence, divide time, move the air.

Photo: Christopher Wormald


Subscribe to the TouchPod podcast of TouchRadio via the iTunes Music Store
Play Geneva Skeen & Sarah Rara “Live in Los Angeles”
www.soundcloud.com/geneeeeves
www.sarahrara.com
www.touchradio.org.uk




TouchLine 9 | Ipek Gorgun – “Aphelion”

Ipek Gorgun’s TouchLine release, “Aphelion”, is now available from all good download stores and with ‘Kairos’ video by Noetic Works via TouchLine.


Track List:
1. Kairos 5:28
2. Fata Morgana 4:42
3. Bloodbenchers 8:54
4. Lethe 2:54
5. Martyrs 8:22
6. Dendrite 4:20
7. Nightingale 9:20
8. Troubling Speech 3:50 [bonus track]


PDF photo book: Ipek Gorgun
Recording and Mixing: Ipek Gorgun
Mastering: Barkin Engin

“The dictionary describes aphelion as “the point in the path of a celestial body (as a planet) that is farthest from the sun”, which i reckon is a suitable title since it reminded me of the night time, when I recorded and edited the majority of this work.

The night makes me think about openness and gathering. To me, it is a state of togetherness in which things are allowed to keep their own identity, yet they are covered under the veil of darkness. From time to time we may recognise such things as they are, but the night also evokes the so- called luxury of intuition, helping us become aware of their existence without using our sense of sight.

One might feel that the night has a disturbing, chaotic and uncontrollable character. I can relate to that since it becomes harder to see; our ocularcentric modern ways of living are being challenged. Contrary to the sunlight that helps us divide, analyze and govern, the night tends to reveal our most primitive selves, as well as uncovering our deepest thoughts, untold dreams and memories. In addition, in such state of openness, the lack of light provides more space for the activation of other senses.

This is when hearing becomes so acute – as well as touching and smelling. I still think about smell, but hearing can also be associated with touch, since we are literally touched by sound in the form of waves through space, and they become audible in the range between 20Hz. and 20kHz. The night makes this contact even more obvious.

Such communication is the most intimate that two complete strangers (who will probably not meet again) can be. And I’m once again grateful for my own personal aphelion (2:44 AM, GMT+2) at the moment for helping me write this to you, beloved listener.”


Buy Ipek Gorgun “Aphelion” in the TouchShop
www.ipekgorgun.com
www.touch33.net/touchline




TTW#81 | Ken Hollings “Works For Magnetic Tape”

Cassette only – limited repress of 50 copies with black shell
Illustration – SavX

Track listing
A: There Must Be Something Wrong With This, Sally
B1: Ideas Are One Thing, And What Happens Is Another
B2: Parasitic Infestation

Ken Hollings is a writer based in London. He is the author of the books “Destroy All Monsters” (Marion Boyars), “Welcome to Mars” and “The Bright Labyrinth” (both available from Strange Attractor Press); and his work has appeared in numerous journals, catalogues and anthologies. He has written and presented critically acclaimed programmes for BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, and Resonance 104.4 FM. He has presented work at the Royal Institution, Tate Britain, Wellcome Institute, the Berlin Akademie der Künste and the Venice Biennale.

The three tracks that make up his “Works for Magnetic Tape” audiocassette release reflect his interest in how written text differs from spoken word. What makes them so distinct from each other – and what happens when one is translated into the other?

The text for “There Must Be Something Wrong With This, Sally” first appeared in volume 19 issue 4 of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac. This version features electronic backgrounds and interludes by Mark O. Pilkington. “Ideas Are One Thing, And What Happens Is Another” was commissioned in 2012 to celebrate the centenary of John Cage’s birth. It contains personal memories of Hollings’ time with Cage, its title being a line from one of his early lectures. Graham Massey of 808 State supplied the backgrounds for this reading as well producing and editing the final mix. The readings for both of these tracks were recorded by Simon James of the Simonsound at the old BBC radio studios in Brighton. “Parasitic Infestation” was written as an introduction to The Art of Worms, documenting the cover art for The Tapeworm’s first twenty-five audiocassette releases. The book was launched at a special event “Worm Eats Bear” in 2011 at the Bear Pit in London, where this reading of his essay was recorded live.


Buy Ken Hollings “Works For Magnetic Tape” in the TouchShop
Buy Ken Hollings “Works For Magnetic Tape” on Bandcamp
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
Read the “Parasitic Infestation” essay
kenhollings.blogspot.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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