Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #175. …and so to our annual roundup of the year, and what a bizarre, at times frightening and exhausting year it has been. 35 years since our first release and I cannot remember a more insane geopolitical situation. Reaching 60, as Jon and I are doing soon, we are more bewildered by the choices being made than we have ever been. But we started and finish in a very positive frame with UnicaZürn vinyl, still sounding as fresh as it did then, and close with Touch MOVEMENTS book & CD, with much inbetween (Robert Crouch, Philip Jeck, the “Cloître” reissue, Claire M Singer’s “Fairge” and Carl Michael von Hausswolff’s vinyl only “Still Life - Requiem”)…
Although Ash International had an intentional quiet year, The Tapeworm was as busy as ever celebrating its 100th release with “A Can of Worms” alongside editions from Christos Chondropoulos, Damo Suzuki, Jay Glass Dubs, Laura Agnusdei, Lightning in a Twilight Hour, Mamiffer, NYZ, Pharoah Chromium, Pinkcourtesyphone, Rishaug/Marhaug and Simon Scott.
2018 sees the long overdue new album by Mark Van Hoen and new releases by Yann Novak (who is also touring in Europe in March), Chris Watson, Fennesz, Ipek Gorgun, Phill Niblock, Simon Scott, Jana Winderen and others; we also welcome Strafe FR back into the fold, as well as a new version of the Touch iOS app and one or two other surprises… watch this space!
The Tapeworm starts the new year with tapes to be scheduled by Hanno Leichtmann, Orchestra of Constant Distress and The Dead Mauriacs; plus vinyls on The Wormhole from Howlround/Marta De Pascalis and Achim Mohné, alongside a compendium of Finn Johannsen’s interviews to be published by The Bookworm.
A big thank you to all of you who have supported us over the years. We cannot do this without you.
FOLIO002 | “Touch MOVEMENTS”
76pp full colour book + CD
33 tracks - 78:59
Limited edition of 1000
The 76pp book is a parallel narrative to the new works featured on the CD, consisting of almost entirely newly commissioned recordings, alongside a contemporary and historical documentation of Jon Wozencroft's photography for the Touch project.
***We are now taking pre-orders for this item. Price includes (ordinary) postage. If you wish your book to be sent by registered post, please email us to arrange cover for that service - touch@touch33.net. North American customers should order direct from Forced Exposure***
You can hear an audio-collage featuring Simon Scott, Mika Vainio & AER by clicking here
Music: Various artists, Touch
Art direction, photography, text: Jon Wozencroft
Printed by Optimal Media GmbH
ISBN 978-1-874104-02-5
Track listing
Into the Open
Mika Vainio – Behind the Radiators
AER – Just Before Dawn
Bethan Kellough – Twelve
Wire – A Year A Second [For BCG]
London in a Week
Carl Michael Von Hausswolff – Sine Missing One
Chris Watson – Deepcar
Jana Winderen – Bronx Tunnel
The Magical Land of the North
Claire M Singer – Storr
Hildur Gudnadottir – Death 200AD
Three 20 – Four Twelve
Philip Jeck – Deed of Gift
Walking on Water
Simon Scott – Storm of the Fens
Eleh – Overt One
The Love Train
Russell Haswell – Demons
Heitor Alvelos – Expectant
I’m a Schoolteacher on Holiday
Johann Johannsson – Mingyun
Mark Van Hoen – Prescient
Fennesz – Paint It Black (remastered)
Sohrab – JV Dream
It’s Enough to Make You Weep
Strafe FR – Virgin
Before The Sea @ Falasarna
Jim O’Rourke – Despite The Water Supply
Situation Stabilised / BJ Nilsen – Atom Mother
Peter Rehberg – Cinecom
Gateway to the Garden
Oren Ambarchi – Testify
The Sound of Eleven
In a 24/7 world there is no greater challenge than “to be in command of one’s own time”. Is it true that the ability to download anything, at any moment, constitutes freedom? Has the ‘Value’ of music, art and design been stripped bare? “I Google, therefore I am”...
Touch MOVEMENTS has been compiled over the course of 3 years. It is a response to many requests for Touch to publish a fuller account of Jon Wozencroft’s photography for the cover art of the project. The book follows the music, which was compiled step-by- step, like a jigsaw – there was not an “open call” to the artists, rather a sequential development which gives the CD a special narrative quality. And since our last Touch 30 compilation in 2012, the accuracy of the music has grown and rises to the challenge of what sound can do to transform perceptions about the immediate emotion of musical work and its more dif cult, longer term evolution.
Following Touch Folio 001 in 2015, this series is a dedication to finding new ways of audiovisual publishing, somewhere between the twin peaks of a jewel-cased CD and a lavish box-set. The two elements of sound and the visual work in parallel to create the idea of an “Ear-book”, whose interdependency reveals itself over time, and allows the richest of listening and viewing experiences. The music and the photography is fully annotated, alongside a rarely-seen manifesto by the Surrealist film-maker Jan Švankmajer which celebrates the spirit of the creative act.
Pre-order “Touch MOVEMENTS” in the TouchShop
2017 Roundup
A roundup of of 2017’s editions from Touch, Ash International and The Tapeworm, available in the TouchShop (if no longer available, they are not listed below).
You can purchase a Touch Subscription in the TouchShop and get a 10% discount on all purchases…
Touch
The Tapeworm
Ash International
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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The previous Touch NewsLetter can be found here.
