Touch Newsletter #256
Welcome to the Touch Newsletter #256. Announcing “Station Chapelle”, Chris Watson’s contribution to Touch: Displacing. Also, video singles by Cleared and Claire M Singer. Mike Harding’s next Long Wave radio broadcast on Dublab is on 8th January 2021 at 2PM PST – all sounds are from Bana Haffar’s recent trip to Lebanon…
“Touch: Displacing”
V33:50
Following Touch: Isolation which covered the first lockdown period in the UK, Touch: Displacing is a new subscription project where the focus falls on longer-form compositions, released on a monthly basis over the coming year and featuring artists for whom duration is a key feature of their work. Contributors thus far: Sohrab, Olivia Block, Bana Haffar…
Chris Watson
“Station Chapelle”
The international passengers edge slowly towards Bruxelles Midi, their faces pressed against the train windows as they pass Station Chapelle, not knowing whether they are there yet. Is this where we get off? No. This is a ghost station, so the engine staggers onward, wheels grinding, stop/start, giving way at signals to the faster traffic coming in the opposite direction.
Hearing not so much the sound of the suburbs but the unvoiced anxiety of those who fear they might miss their onward connections, to Paris, Antwerp, maybe beyond even Amsterdam, passengers reach up for their luggage…
Feeling that they’ve mislaid something, they look around, above and below but cannot work out what it is maybe they have lost. Something’s been taken away, leaving uncertainty or worse, but most shrug and start the next phase of their journey. Things have to be done.
We start the New Year…
Next is Chris Watson’s contribution to Touch: Displacing, the continuing annual subscription designed to reflect and describe our current state and raise funds for the contributing artists. Chris Watson's contribution is an extension of his ongoing exploration of mechanical sounds, a forward momentum from the “Deepcar” recording on “Touch Movements” (Folio 002, 2017) and an echo of his earlier work with Cabaret Voltaire.
Chris writes: “Bruxelles Nord, Central et Sud, a ghost station on busy tracks with no departures. Long past electromagnetic bell pulses signal the transit of nocturnal freight, the wagons battering a loaded beat through the underpass. Thalys, TGV and ICE, displaced international passengers on empty platforms, voices searching for an urban fox or lost human soul.”
Recorded in Brussels 2018. Produced in Newcastle upon Tyne November 2020
Subscribe to Touch: Displacing
Cleared
“Breathing Ring”
TouchLine 10
Video Single - 1 track - 7:23. Buy “Breathing Ring” on Bandcamp. Film by Michael Vallera. Artwork by Jon Wozencroft.
All sound by Steven Hess and Michael Vallera
Recorded by Greg Norman
Arranged and mixed by Michael Vallera
Mastered by Matthew Barnhart, December 2020
Buy “Breathing Ring” on Bandcamp
Claire M Singer
“Forrig”
TO:121VS
Promo Video Single - 1 track - 8:33. Watch “Forrig” on YouTube. Mastered by Denis Blackham. Filmed and edited by Jay Richardson. Design by Jon Wozencroft.
Claire M Singer has recorded a new piece in the candlelight of Union Chapel as a small gift during what was a very different Christmas. “Forrig” will feature on Claire‘s new album out in 2021.
Written and performed by Claire M Singer. Recorded at Union Chapel, London, 12th December 2020 on the organ built by Father Henry Willis 1877.
Watch “Forrig” on YouTube
Guerrilla Audio
Guerrilla Audio is a 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 fifth year and have just posted episode 131…
Guerrilla Audio
www.simonfisherturner.com
Twitter, Instagram and Facebook
Twitter - @touchmusic | @ash10_3 |
@the_tapeworm
Instagram - @toucharchive |
@the.tapeworm
Touch on Facebook |
The Tapeworm on Facebook
TAPP 01 | Touch app for iOS
Download the free Touch iOS app at the iTunes App Store
Click here to unsubscribe
The previous Touch NewsLetter can be found here
