Touch Newsletter #192


Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #192. We are now taking pre-orders for Howlround’s “The Debatable Lands” vinyl LP [Touch # TO:108], which is out on 21st December 2018. Six extra download tracks are available with the vinyl when purchasing on the TouchShop only.

We are also pleased to link to another vinyl record with a composition by Claire M Singer as one of three tracks, “tús” for Nomad Records.

Michael Esposito and Carl Michael von Hausswolff have combined to produce a USB memory stick chock full of works, audio and visual, by Friedrich Jürgenson, available now.

Vanity Publishing – the sublabel of The Tapeworm’s sublabel The Wormhole – has two new releases from Luke Lund and Dale Cornish for sale on their Bandcamp page.




TO:108 | Howlround “The Debatable Lands”

LP - 4 tracks - 33 minutes
Six extra download tracks with vinyl only available when purchasing in the TouchShop.

Cut by Jason @ Transition
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft



Track listing:
A1. Threip 11:53
A2. The Black Path 5:21
B1. Talkin Tarn 8:23
B2. Moat 7:22


In December 2017, Howlround (Robin the Fog) was invited to perform at “The Winter Solstice Soundscapes” event for the recently opened record store “Vinyl Café” in his home town of Carlisle, Cumbria. Inspired by the reception to his first ever performance in the great border city, he covered his parent’s dining room table with the same equipment, stretched loops of tape around his mum’s seasonal candlesticks when she wasn’t looking… and this LP is the result. The only equipment used on the album is two 1/4” reel-to-reel tape machines and one microphone. The sounds created are entirely at the discretion of the machines (much of them derived from ‘closed-input’ recordings) and all tracks were produced in a single take. There are no edits, no overdubs and no additional effects.

This marks a new, heavier direction for Howlround, a project better known for more ambient work. Described as “Tapeloop Techno”, thick knotty tangles of dense, pulsating bass are an echo of Robin’s early days making bad dance music, while the abrasive snarls of feedback swirling around these tracks point to his more recent embrace of indeterminacy and chance composition. Previous vinyl releases on Psyché Tropes, The Wormhole, A Year in the Country and Front & Follow as well as his own label The Fog Signals have shown a deep understanding of the possibilities of tape manipulation. On The Debatable Lands Howlround eschews the usual field recordings in favour of exploring the interior world of the machines themselves.


Pre-order in the Touch Shop – includes six bonus download tracks
www.howlround.co.uk




PARC3v.2 | Friedrich Jurgenson “From the Studio for Audioscopic Research”

Memory stick in leather wallet - now available, price includes worldwide shipping

Cut by Jason @ Transition
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft



Contents:

2 x Folders:

1 NOTES - for your research
2 PARC 3 2 - containing 10 folders:

0. Content - Michael Esposito | Ken Hollings | Sven Schlijper
1. PARC CD3 - Jurgenson audio files
2. Jurgenson CD Booklet etc.
3. The Studio for Audioscopic Research Hoor - Photographs
4. Voice Transmission with the Deceased 1981 - Book contents
5. Photos - Carl Michael von Hausswolff | Michael Esposito | Friedrich Jurgenson
6. Film - Interviews etc. with Friedrich Jurgenson
7. Art - The Friedrich Jurgenson Foundation Collection
8. Hoor 3.7.1980 - Friedrich Jurgenson Seance 1980
9. Notes - Images of USB stick & wallet


Jürgenson was born in Odessa, February 8th 1903. His mother was Swedish and his father, who practiced as a doctor in the Ukrainian was Danish. In his youth, Jürgenson trained in both painting and classical vocals chiefly opera. In 1925, the family moved to Estonia and from there Jürgenson went to Berlin where he studied with the Jewish bassist Tito Scipa. When Scipa fled to Palestine in 1932, Jürgenson followed as an accompanist and stayed there for six years. In 1938 he left Palestine for Milan and five years later, he moved to Sweden where he married and became a Swedish citizen. By this time he also gave up his music career and chose to focus on painting. He painted portraits of aristocratic Swedes and, in 1938, during a stay in Italy, were he worked as a Vatican archeologist, Friedrich was commissioned to paint several portraits of Pope Pius XII. Nearly 20 years later, in 1957, he received another request from the Vatican City, this time to portray Pope Paul VI. For a total of four portraits.

In 1957 Jürgenson purchased a reel to reel tape recorder originally to record his own singing. He started to notice a strange fading in and out on the recordings, later assessing it as telepathic messages and abstract visions. Jürgenson and his then wife Monica went to visit their country house on June 12, 1959. Friedrich originally brought his tape recorder to record wild bird song especially the Chaffinch. But listening back to the tape he heard a noise that vibrated like a storm nearly drowning out the bird's chirping. “My first thought that maybe some of the tubes had been damaged. Again I heard this particular noise and the distant chirping. Then I heard a trumpet solo, kind of a signal for attention. Stunned, I continued to listen when suddenly a man's voice began to speak in Norwegian. Even though the voice was quite low I could clearly hear and understand the words. The man spoke about 'nightly bird voices' and I perceived a row of piping, splashing and rattling sounds. Suddenly the choir of birds and the vibrating noise stopped. In the next moment the chirping of a Chaffinch was heard and you could hear the Tits singing at a distance - the machine worked perfectly!" Originally Jürgenson thought the voice were from our "friends from outer space", but later believed they were voices of the dead or voices from the other side.

"I was outside with the tape recorder, recording bird songs. When I listen through the tape, a voice was heard to say: 'Friedel, can you hear me it's mammy…" It was my dead mother's voice. 'Friedel' was her special nickname for me."


• Spring 1960 - a voice told him to use the radio as a medium. Which he did eventually setting the receiving frequencies to around 1445 -1500 kHz. In fact 1485.0 kHz is now called the Jürgenson frequency. The voices he captured often spoke in a combination of different languages that Jürgenson spoke. He named this new mixture of languages 'Polyglot' or 'Polyglot Voices' meaning many tongues.

• 1964 - Jürgenson published 'The Voices From Space' (Rösterna Från Rymden, Saxon & Lindström Förlag publishing, Stockholm).

• 1967 - Friederich publishes his second book feeling his first to be rushed and inaccurate. “Voice Transmissions With The Deceased” (Sprechfunk Mit Verstorbenen, Verlag, Hermann, Bauer KG, Freiburg).

• 1968 - Friedrich publishes his third and final book in Swedish, “Radio and Microphone Contacts with the Dead” (Radio icy Mikrofonkontakt med de Döda, Nybloms, Uppsala).


Now labelling the work “Audioscopic Research”, he predicted we would soon be able to receive messages through the television as well. Over the years Jürgenson mastered no less than ten different languages.

Friederich Jürgenson died in Höör in October 1987 and left several hundred tapes of recorded material.


Buy in the Touch Shop




Galya Bisengalieva “EP ONE”

“EP ONE” out 30th November on NOMAD Music Productions. “EP ONE” was commissioned and curated by Galya Bisengalieva. She is an award winning Kazakh/British violinist making her own work as a soloist, improviser and collaborator with artists and composers of varied genres. EP ONE features solo violin and electronics using the instrument as a tool to create new and innovative sounds. All tracks are composed by UK based living artists.



Track 1 – “tùs” was written by Claire M Singer, a composer, producer and performer of acoustic and electronic music (cello and organ), film and installations. Her debut album “Solas” was released on Touch in June 2016, followed by “Fairge” in October 2017. She is also the Music Director of one of the most prestigious organs in the world, the 1877 (Father) Henry Willis organ at the Union Chapel, London. “Tùs” means “Beginnings” in Scottish Gaelic and was inspired by Glencoe a jaw-dropping glen of volcanic origin in the Highlands of Scotland. The looped and manipulated layers of violin create a textural journey across a vast landscape.

Track 2 – “Tulpar” was written by Galya. “Tulpar” is a winged horse in Kazakh mythology (corresponding to the Pegasus of the Greeks) which speaks to Galya’s roots. The track uses the violin as a rhythmic instrument to invoke the mythical creature of steppes life.

Track 3 – “Oparin” was composed by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch. She is signed to FatCat’s classical imprint 130701 for her solo work and was commissioned by the London Contemporary Orchestra to write a new piece for the BBC.


Available from galyabisengalieva.bandcamp.com




CARLY#05 | Dale Cornish “Temporal”

Cassette + download – limited edition of 100 copies.
Cassettes shipping mid-December.

Track List
A: Exigence (For Jack)
B1: Atlantico
B2: Intersection
B3: Repose

















‘Temporal’ is an album of contrasts and contradictions.

‘Exigence’ was written for Jack Adams (Mumdance) for a 12 hour flight. ‘Atlantico’ was not, but we recommend drinking a Fanta Passionfruit* and looking into the middle distance during listening. ‘Intersection’ is not a homage to the Morton Feldman piece of the same name, but does share the single use space of that piece. “Someone’s read a book once/who’s getting a fee for this?”, etc. ‘Repose’ was commissioned for Tempting Failure 18 by Dr Thomas John Bacon for playback in Croydon Council Chamber as part of an installation for escape, rest and contemplation in support of the mental health charity SANE.

Obligatory blurb ends.

*Other stimulants are available.


Buy Dale Cornish “Temporal” via vanitypublishing.bandcamp.com




CARLY#06 | Luke Lund “Ei Sanottavaa (Nothing to Say)”

Cassette + download – limited edition of 60 copies.
Cassettes shipping mid-December.

Track List
A1: Ääretön (Endless)
A2: Toivo (Hope)
B1: Valo (Light)
B2: Olen Poissa (I Am Absent)
B3: Taakka (Toil)
















Vanity Publishing presents five hazy minimalist pieces by Luke Lund, turning focus on semantic satiation and phonaesthetics. Drawing references from dada sound poetry with the sole help of vocal repetition and audio processing, words are dismantled and reshaped into metaphoric iconographs made of evocative sonic textures that take form in a rich array of dynamics and rhythm.

From the suffocating existential dread of ‘Ääretön (Endless)’ to the frail return of the stretched-out ‘Valo (Light)’ or the sparkling hope of — well — ‘Toivo (Hope)’, Lund's newest is a proper treat that'll reward you through its explorations into possibilities of the human voice beyond the limits of language.

Reflecting on present day societal discourse, loss of meaning and semantics are put under spotlight here as well. Sonically speaking, most importantly considering the medium: if ever there was an EP for those confused, late/early zoning out hours, this would be it...

‘It's just words.’


Buy Luke Lund “Ei Sanottavaa (Nothing to Say)” via vanitypublishing.bandcamp.com




Touch presents… | 6th December @ Coaxial, Los Angeles

Touch presents…

Kid606
Geneva Skeen
Byron Westbrook
Zachary Paul
Jasmin Blasco & Franz Kirmann

Coaxial 1815 S Main St
Los Angeles CA 90015




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. We are well into the 3rd year and have just posted episode 78…


Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com




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