Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #210. We are now taking pre-orders for a new CD album by ELEH, “Living Space”. Following “Slow Fade for Hard Sync” (2009) and “Location Momentum” (2010), “Living Space” is Eleh’s third physical release for Touch. Seven years in the making, this new release consolidates the artist’s parallel narrative between a series of vinyl and CD releases for Important Records – where the emphasis is on a minimalist aesthetic – to a visual counterpoint that hints at the cinematic and painterly qualities of the music. Vinyl for fetishists to follow in the new year – CD format (mastered by Denis Blackham) is how the artist wants it to sound…
This Saturday, 28 September “Touch presents… Live at Café Oto” will feature performances from Jana Winderen (a rare UK performance), Philip Jeck, Bill Thompson (making his debut) and Mark Van Hoen, freshly over from Los Angeles. Full details can be found on the Cafe OTO website. Further details below…
28.9.19 | Touch presents… Live at Cafe OTO
Philip Jeck
Bill Thompson
Mark Van Hoen
Jana Winderen
Saturday 28 September
Doors 7.30pm / £10 advance / £8 Cafe OTO members / £12 on the door
Buy tickets from cafeoto.co.uk
Touch is delighted to present live at Café Oto, London on 28 September 2019. In no particular order, playing live will be Jana Winderen (a rare UK performance), Philip Jeck, Bill Thompson (making his debut) and Mark Van Hoen, freshly over from Los Angeles. Full details can be found on the Cafe OTO website.
Further details and tickets at cafeoto.co.uk
TO:114 | ELEH “Living Space”
CD - 5 tracks - 64 mins + 20pp booklet (.pdf)
Mastered by Denis Blackham @ Skye
Photography and design: Jon Wozencroft
1: Living Space
2: Lo, Fr Ega
3: Collect Yourself/Well-Arranged
4: Overt Too
5: Lighter Touch
Following “Slow Fade for Hard Sync” (2009) and “Location Momentum” (2010), “Living Space” is Eleh’s third physical release for Touch. Seven years in the making, this new release consolidates the artist’s parallel narrative between a series of vinyl and CD releases for Important Records – where the emphasis is on a minimalist aesthetic – to a visual counterpoint that hints at the cinematic and painterly qualities of the music.
Sound, as a healing force, is an idea as old as the medium itself. Inspired by the legacy and above all the spirit of John Coltrane, “Living Space” features 5 new compositions that seek to express the beauty of slow change, not only through the microtonal shifts in sound that Eleh navigates but moving with the atmospheric and shape–shifting conditions that the music creates as it interacts with the listening space, whether bedroom or concert hall, each one of them unique.
If the ambition of “Living Space” is to reflect both personal and collective growth cycles, the experience of its audition has the effect of stopping time. Melodic and harmonic progressions are implied and not stated obviously, to enable listeners to apply their own emotions and feelings to the music.
Using modular and analogue synthesisers, piano, organ, bass and symphonic chimes, “Living Space” stresses the promise of the CD’s final track – “Lighter Touch” – forsaking the forceful hand for an approach that mirrors the slower and softer exposures of plant life and leaf formations, slow moving waters, not flash floods nor forest fires.
In counterpoint to the music, the 60 minute CD is presented with a 6-panel digifile with Jon Wozencroft’s water photography extending the meditational pull of these new compositions. The Touch Bandcamp page presents a fuller documentation of this photo–shoot (from Crete, 2018), with a 20pp .pdf free for download.
For those for whom Eleh needs no introduction, see if you agree. Anyone who has yet to experience the artist’s sonic alchemy, Living Space is the perfect starting point
Buy ELEH “Living Space” on Bandcamp
TO:111 | Claire M Singer “Trian”
2xLP, Gatefold Sleeve
Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft
Cut by Jason @ Transition, April 2018
The double vinyl edition is now available to pre-order.
Sides 1 to 3: “Solas” – Solas and Wrangham were recorded by Iain Berryman at Union Chapel, London, 26-27th February 2016 on the organ built by Henry Willis in 1877. Mixed at Bennachie Studios, Aberdeen and EMS Goldsmiths, London. Violin extracts on Eilean from “Land of the Standing Stones” composed and performed by Paul Anderson. Eilean was commissioned by Aberdeenshire Council. Special thanks to Union Chapel, University of Aberdeen and Goldsmiths College.
Side 4: “Fairge” – Recorded by Clare Gallagher at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, 12th June 2017 on the transept organ built by Ahrend & Brunzema (1965). Fairge was commissioned by Oude Kerk. Special thanks to Jacob Lekkerkerker and all at Oude Kerk.
Buy Claire M Singer “Trian” on Bandcamp
Mea028/Ash 12.8 | “The Memory Room”
CD in digipak with 28pp booklet, edition of 300 / DL
An Ash International/Meakusma co-production
Recorded at Hautes Fagnes Eifel Nature Park for Meakusma 2018, Eupen, Belgium by Steffen Bennemann, Jasmin Blasco, Peter Caeldries, Meike Effenberg, Mike Harding, Maxim Hoebreckx, Pepa Ivanova, Louise Le Du & Chris Watson, 7-9th September 2018
Mixed at The Dungeon, Los Angeles, October-November 2018. Design by Philip Marshall.
The region around Eupen, in the east of Belgium towards the border with Germany was once part of another country and was annexed after hostilities in 1919. It has the feel of both border territory and hinterland simultaneously, not seeming to belong to any one place or region. No hard border here. There are ghosts; the region was heavily fought over in both major western European conflicts of the twentieth century, but now it is a still place, thrown over to managed habitats for forestry and wildlife. It is here, in the Eifel Nature Park, that Meakusma commissioned Chris Watson and Mike Harding to organise and lead a field recording workshop and, in the given time, adopt a suitable approach to developing a ‘sound painting’ to describe the ambience of the area. Seven in the group with skills ranging from beginner to advanced were shown how to manifest the hidden sonic world available to them with contact microphones; how to patiently set up a recording zone within a smaller area and, most important of all, how to listen actively and simply be in that place. Sessions pre-dawn and post-sunset encouraged an unusual perspective. This is animal time: dark and strange, and sound carries. Under a flightpath from Liège airport the recordists were confronted with a familiar challenge; how to allow industrial noise (noise here defined as any unwanted sound) into our increasingly enclosed world of headphones and hush…
Eifel Nature Park is part of Natura 2000, stretching over 18% of the EU’s land area and almost 6% of its marine territory. It is the largest coordinated network of protected areas in the world, offering a rich haven to Europe’s most valuable and threatened species and habitats. Natura 2000 is a network of core breeding and nesting sites and some rare natural types of habitat which are protected in their own right. It stretches across all 28 EU countries, both on land and sea. The aim of the network is to ensure the long-term survival of Europe’s most valuable species and habitats which are listed under both the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive. Natura 2000 is not a system of strict nature reserves from which all human activity would be excluded; while it does include strictly protected nature reserves, most of the land remains in private ownership. The approach to conservation and sustainable use of the Natura 2000 areas is much wider, largely centred on people working with nature rather than against. However, EU Member States must ensure that the sites are managed in a sustainable manner, both ecologically and economically.
Buy “The Memory Room” on Bandcamp
Guerrilla Audio
Guerrilla Audio is a new series of audio raids by Simon Fisher Turner, 64 and still working.
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 101…
Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com
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