ONE SOUND EACH DAY: MARCH 30 March 31, 2009

www.12k.com/onesoundeachday

MARCH 30
Pound Ridge, NY, 11:56am

microphones hanging in a budding forsythia bush, recording leaves skittering around.

ONE SOUND EACH DAY: MARCH 28+29 March 30, 2009

www.12k.com/onesoundeachday

MARCH 28
Pound Ridge, NY, 11pm

a dirty recording of delay feedback from an Access Virus TI synth.

MARCH 29
Pound Ridge, NY, 8:20pm

i had recorded earlier today in a parking garage… but around 8pm a thunder and lightning storm rolled in… and by around 8:15 heavy hail was falling, beating heavily on the house. i grabbed my recorded and ran outside and caught the tail end of the hailstorm.

ONE SOUND EACH DAY: MARCH 27 March 27, 2009

www.12k.com/onesoundeachday

MARCH 27
Pound Ridge, NY, 7pm

one of my favorite days of the year is the first day the tree frogs come out and start chirping. across the street from the house is a huge nature preserve and this is where they start. recording them in the distant trees. one of my favorite sounds.

ONE SOUND EACH DAY: MARCH 23-26 March 27, 2009

www.12k.com/onesoundeachday

MARCH 23
Pound Ridge, NY, sometime in the afternoon

a really rough tape loop made on my Fostex reel-to-reel tape recorder. the source was of some ambient guitar tones, but after repeated handlings, and general experimentation with how to make tape loops on this machine, the final product bears little resemblance to the input sound.

MARCH 24
Pound Ridge, NY, 11:22pm

scratching the strings of an acoustic guitar and sending it through a reverb bank on an Eventide H3000. recorded with microphone sitting on desk below speakers.

MARCH 25
Pound Ridge, NY, 3:34pm

walking up my driveway. i liked the popping sounds of the microphones (on wires) bouncing around. reminds me of vinyl record noise.

MARCH 26
Pound Ridge, NY, 6:20pm

rain hitting a small metal watering can.

BOOMKAT ON SEAWORTHY March 27, 2009

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=170707

This current wave of 12k releases arrives with an Antipodean theme – in addition to Lawrence English’s A Colour For Autumn disc, this week also sees the sophomore 12k album from Seaworthy, a group who stood out from the label’s roster first time around for having embraced organic, guitar-generated tones. This second full-length goes down a similar route, for the most part presenting Cameron Webb’s guitar in all its natural glory during ‘Ammunition 2’ and the epic ‘Ammunition 3’. One of the biggest contributing elements to the album is the veil of natural reverberation cast over the instrumentation; instead of relying on electronic treatments many of the compositions here are coloured by the recording location itself, a decommissioned ammunition bunker in Newington, Australia. The guitar pieces seem to share a firm grasp on melancholy, and each recording might be comparable to a less bluesy Loren Connors. When electronic sounds do arrive they take the form of lulling electroacoustics like ‘Ammunition 6’ which combines an endlessly sustaining tone with a whole soundscape of natural world activity, complete with birdsong, flowing water and other such tried and tested components of acousmatic microsound. While the Seaworthy sound doesn’t stray too far out of the ordinary, it does come with its own distinct sonic signature, boasting a very organic, tangible sense of location and an approach to recording the electric guitar that’s far ‘truer’ than the more customary cold, digital inertness you might hear from less discerning artists in the field. Highly recommended.

BOOMKAT ON LAWRENCE ENGLISH March 27, 2009

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=170712

Australian sound artist Lawrence English seems to be on a tour of electronic music’s most distinguished labels. Having already released via his own Room40 imprint, English contributed to the likes of Cronica and Grain Of Sound before last year arriving at Touch (for whom he released Kiri No Oto) and now in 2009, 12k. A Colour For Autumn follows on from English’s previous seasonally themed album, 2007’s For Varying Degrees Of Winter, interpreting the ‘feel’ of the natural cycle into a series of abstract microsound compositions. ‘Droplet’ instantly takes on a choral feel, and we can hear a falsetto male voice instantly dissolving into a swirling sea of sound. In addition to the ambiguous conglomeration of vocal sustain, unplaceable field recordings add texture to the mix, eventually taking on harsher, noisier shapes by the piece’s close. There’s a brassy quality to ‘Watching It Unfold’, taking on a warm, gradual, almost anthemic quality as chords change at a stately, glacial pace, but ‘The Surface Of Everything’ ushers in a more pronounced use of instrumentation – not to mention a contribution from Christian Fennesz, who brings a fresh electronic angle to the track’s guitar exchanges and droning strums. This textured approach adds an extra layer of depth to the album, and ‘The Surface Of Everything’ arguably occupies the broadest, most satisfying range of sonorities of anything on the album. ‘Galaxie Of Dust’ has more of a smudged feel, squishing together greyed sounds and quivering high frequency tones, only to lead into ‘Stillness In Motion’ and its Oren Ambarchi-like bass tones. While the low-end marks out a melody slippery, steely drones move back and forth leading into a beautiful final phase full of static noise and gentle feedback. Lovely, very approachable micro-drones from 12k.

NOW AVAILABLE: YVES DE MEY “LICHTUNG” March 25, 2009

YVES DE MEY “LICHTUNG”
LINE039 CD

available now

ONLINE SHOP

The sound work Lichtung is the original score for a dance solo by choreographers Antoine Effroy and Anne Rudelbach and performed by Catherine Jodoin. The performance premiered on March 26, 2008 at Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany.

The concept of the dance performance was to begin from a unique situation and sustain this physical state as long as possible. By adding unique and non-repetitive movements, the choreography slowly evolves, starting at the back of the stage and gradually moving towards the front, as if by zooming inward. The sound follows this evolution or curve, not necessarily in volume, but rather by changes in density and speed to accompany the performer’s phrase changes.

Lichtung was written and composed in Brussels, Belgium and Hamburg, Germany by Yves De Mey.
Photo: Yves De Mey, 2008.
Thank you: Anne and Antoine, Catherine, Peter Van Hoesen, Richard Chartier
Mastered by Bo Kondren at Calyx (Berlin)

Already at a very early age, Yves De Mey (born 1972) became interested in electronic and/or experimental music. After a few unsuccesful years in film school, he decided to turn his early interest into his profession and started working as sound engineer and sound designer. Very soon his work found its way into the field of contemporary theatre, dance and performance.

Essential to De Mey’s work is the dramaturgy of sound, often combined with research in change of perception through spatialized sound or music. His music has a strong focus on filmic qualities with the tendency to suggest a minimalist composition, allowing sounds to find their place and evolve over time. Every single bit of the composition organically changes throughout the layout by gentle analog and digital manipulation. In live situations, De Mey preferes to improvise, looking for happy accidents.

Besides his performing arts activities, he’s been releasing music on different labels, often in more accesible styles, but always based on a strong interest for non-conventional sounds. De Mey continues to work on a series of site-specific sound installations, investigating space and processes of technical and human decay.

Yves De Mey often works together live or in studio with Christoph De Boeck/Audiostore and Peter Van Hoesen. He shared stage with such noted artists as Kaffe Matthews, Christian Fennesz, Alex Waterman, and Bo Wiget.

De Mey lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

ONE SOUND EACH DAY: MARCH 18-22 March 22, 2009

www.12k.com/onesoundeachday

the other day i took ownership of a set of binaural microphones for my recorder and did a bit of experimenting this week. the sound quality is greatly improved and allows for some very close up and other-worldly experiences.

MARCH 18
Pound Ridge, NY, afternoon

the runout groove on the latest (and correct) test pressing of the “Weather & Worn” 7″

MARCH 19
Pound Ridge, NY, around 5pm

my son playing in a gym.

MARCH 20
Pound Ridge, NY, around 9pm

binaural microphones inside a half-empty margarita. (see post for pictures)

MARCH 21
Pound Ridge, NY, around 2pm

outdoors, i believe just on the driveway… recording birds.

MARCH 22
Pound Ridge, NY, ???

another close-up recording with clipped-on binaurals.. but i have totally forgotten what it is… but i find it’s closeness-of-sound to be fascinating.. textural.

ANOTHER WAY TO ENJOY A MARGARITA March 20, 2009

binaural mics on 1.5 oz Patron Silver, .5 oz cointreau and one fresh lime.

COMING THIS SPRING March 20, 2009