Touch Newsletter #187


Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #187. We are now taking pre-orders on Ipek Gorgun’s fabulous new album. “Ecce Homo” explores the lighter and darker shades of the human psyche, behaviour and existence, and humanity's ability to create beauty and destruction. What lies in the essence of such complexity has become a core idea for the album, while Gorgun seeks to figure out if there is a true meaning to being human, and human being.

In Turin, Philip Jeck and Simon Scott perform at Today’s Festival. Details below.

Jasmin Blasco made his Tapeworm debut last year with a track on the labels’ 100th tape, “A Can of Worms”. His new release for the imprint, “SKY-CHU /∫u/”, pairs audio from the installation of the same name at Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, with a live interpretation recorded on-site. See also his track on “Live at Human Resources” [Touch # Tone 60].




24/25 August 2018 | Today’s Festival, Turin, Italy

Today’s Festival opens tonight in Turin, Italy.

Friday 24th August
1900 Touch Movements
2300 Philip Jeck

Saturday 25th August
1900 Touch Movements
2300 Simon Scott

Location: PLARTWO


For further details: www.todaysfestival.com




TO:106 | Ipek Gorgun “Ecce Homo”

Release date: 7th September 2018
CD + full album download - 11 tracks - 47:06

Mastered by Denis Blackham @ Skye
Photography & design by Jon Wozencroft



Track listing:
1. Neroli – you can listen to this track by clicking here
2. Afterburner
3. Tserin Dopchut
4. Le Sacre l
5. Le Sacre ll
6. Bohemian Grove
7. Seneca
8. Knightscope K5
9. Reverance
10. Mileva
11. To Cross Great Rivers

All tracks recorded and mixed by Ipek Gorgun, Istanbul 2016 - 2018

Ecce Homo explores the lighter and darker shades of the human psyche, behaviour and existence, and humanity's ability to create beauty and destruction. What lies in the essence of such complexity has become a core idea for the album, while Gorgun seeks to figure out if there is a true meaning to being human, and human being.

Starting with “Neroli” as a human fascination with nature and finalising with “To Cross Great Rivers”; a never ending hopeless dream of the mankind to conquer and control the world, the album reflects the contemplations of a spectator being exposed to the human civilization, and witnessing human activity, including his/her own.

Trying to acquire a glimpse of the multiple layers of such narrative, the sound of the album aims to present a diversity of the sonic spectrum, with tracks varying between ambient and noisy landscapes.


Ipek Gorgun is an electronic music composer currently enrolled in the doctoral program of Sonic Arts at Istanbul Technical University's Center for Advanced Studies in Music. After graduating from Bilkent University with a degree in Political Science, she completed her Master's studies in Philosophy at Galatasaray University.

As one of the participants of the Red Bull Music Academy in 2014, she performed in Tokyo as an opening artist for Ryoji Ikeda’s “Test Pattern No: 6” and joined Otomo Yoshidide for a collective improvisation project.

As a bass player and vocalist for projects and bands such as Bedroomdrunk and Vector Hugo between 2001-2013, she also performed in an opening gig for Jennifer Finch from L7 and Simon Scott from Slowdive, as well as performing live with David Brown from Brazzaville. She has released two EPs with Bedroomdrunk, entitled “This is What Happened (2003)” and “Raw (2007)”.

Besides group projects and solo performances, she also composed the soundtrack for the documentary ‘Yok Anasinin Soyadi (Mrs. His Name) directed by Hande Cayir in 2012, portraying Turkish women’s struggle for keeping their original surnames after marriage.

Her debut album Aphelion was self-released in February, 2016 and is reissued by Touch in December, under the TOUCHLINE catalogue. In 2017 she released a collaborative album from Halocline Trance, with Canadian producer Ceramic TL (aka Egyptrixx) entitled “Perfect Lung”.

Aside from multiple performances following these albums, she also performed in Sonar Istanbul (2017), BBC Radio 3’s “Open Ear” at LSO St. Luke’s (2018) and opened for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Oggimusica Acousmonium with an electronic rework of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” (2018).

Ipek Gorgun also practices performance, street and abstract photography. She won the IPA honorable mention award in 2013-14 with her work entitled "Bubblegun Daydreamer" and in 2013, she worked as the advertisement photographer for Contemporary Istanbul Art fair.


Pre-order Ipek Gorgun “Ecce Homo” in the Touch Shop
www.ipekgorgun.com




TTW#106 | “SKY-CHU /∫u/”

Cassette only – limited edition of 75 copies.


A: SKY-CHU /∫u/ – audio from the installation “SKY-CHU /∫u/” at the Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, April 2018 by Jasmin Blasco and David Okum. With thanks to Jeremy Emery and Yuta Sasaki.

B: SKY-CHU Improv 1 – recorded live at Wilding Cran Gallery, 15.iv.2018. Jasmin Blasco: audio from the 5.1 installation. Jason Adams: cello. Derek Gaines: guitar. Zachary Paul: violin. Patrick Shiroishi: saxophone.








“The desert is hard to look at, it’s too subtle.” — Captain Beefheart

SKY-CHU is a live taping of a performance on April 15th, 2018, in which Patrick Shiroishi and Zachary Paul, with additional guests Derek Gaines on guitar and Jason Adams on cello, performed an improvised piece inside Jasmin Blasco and David Okum's sound sculpture SKY - CHU /∫u/, at Wilding Cran Gallery in downtown Los Angeles.

SKY-CHU /∫u/ demands that the listener become aware of the process of listening itself. For the April 15th performance, each viewer/performer was asked to reflect on the moments of transition between interior and exterior listening – listening to oneself vs. listening to the world. The performers were invited to improvise to Blasco’s original sound piece, dramatising the spontaneous occurrence of this process.

/∫u/– the Norwegian word for cloud, spelled “sky”, is pronounced “choo”.


Buy “SKY-CHU /∫u/” in the TouchShop
More information on www.tapeworm.org.uk
www.jasminblasco.com




Tone 64 | Simon Scott “Grace”

Digital-only – 1 track EP – 18:39
Photography by Jon Wozencroft



Track listing:
1. Grace


We are delighted to announce the release of this 18 minute EP from Simon Scott. Heralding his new album, “Soundings”, which will be released on Touch later this year, “Grace” features Charlie Campagna on ‘cello and Zachary Paul on viola and violin, the strings performed and recorded at Green House Studios, Glendale, California.

“Grace” begins with a 12 string acoustic guitar fed into a modular synthesiser that spits out beautiful grains of sound that rise and fall like the sun. Textures build up and then slip away leaving a pipe organ playing and the church room recordings sonically revealing passing cyclists, rainfall and Cambridge bus station. It shimmers like an oscillating river until the strings fade and the final third section slips in and a deep organ tone leads the tapestry of sound into field recordings, strings and processed instruments. The contact mics on the organ pipes are heard, floorboards and unidentified human sounds appear and the alarm call of a blackbird seeps into the piece.


Buy Simon Scott “Grace” on Bandcamp
www.simonscott.org




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 74…


Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com




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