Moss, by Moss

MOSS is a project from four accomplished sound artists: Molly Berg, Olivia Block, Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello which was originally released on 12k in 2011. MOSS (Recur) celebrates the 10th anniversary with a re-release on cassette that contains a recording of a very unique live performance rehearsal on its B-side.

The rehearsal catches the artists in a candid atmosphere going through their sound setups, listening to themselves, listening to each other. Snippets of conversations and laughter woven throughout make for a private peek into what was to become a stellar performance and a sonic highlight from the 12k catalog. Just the right amount of these vignettes find their way in and around the beautifully performed rehearsal, adding to the story of the captured moment.

[ THE ORIGINAL PRESS RELEASE FROM MOSS, 12K2020)

Moss, is a live recording from a unique collaboration by sound artists/musicians Molly Berg, Olivia Block, Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello. This was a midnight concert at the beautiful Trinity Cathedral in San Jose, CA which was part of the 01SJ Biennial. Olivia and Steve had performed solo sets on the previous nights. The final night was meant to be a duo with Molly and Stephen but the opportunity to play with musicians/friends who we admire so much called out for an invitation to play together. As the set was entirely improvised, the billing really changed in our minds from being a duo with guests to becoming a quartet. The church itself was certainly inspiring, it’s dark wood and clean dry acoustics. There was a very small but dedicated audience. No one slept and the church crew were able to, amazingly, quiet the rowdy revelers on the street for the duration of their set.

Anyone familiar with any of the four musicians involved in this recording will know the level of craftsmanship and attention to sonic tactility that can be found within. They each exercise such incredible restraint, a feat difficult to pull off in an impromptu improvised session where musicians are often found competing for space, and allow for a sense of place to work its way through the quiet recording. “Moss” breathes like a living being lying down to sleep — a delicate wave of hushed field recordings, tape tracks and subtle electronics provides a bed for which Molly Berg’s clarinet and voice (joined at times by Steve Roden) ebb and sway, allowed center- stage, in movements across the piece’s 24+ minutes. Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello provide guitar (lap steel and electric, respectively) while Olivia Block manipulates the tapes, field recordings and electronics.

Moss is a perfect example of how four like-minded friends and musicians can come together at a moment’s notice and create, unrehearsed, a captivating and beautiful sonic landscape. The connection between them as artists is completely evident while at the same time disappearing into the background to allow the piece move like a singular body. 

credits

Released March 30, 2021

Molly Berg: clarinet and voice
Olivia Block: field recordings, tapes and electronics
Steve Roden: lap steel guitar, harmonica, voice
Stephen Vitiello: guitar, field recordings

Midnight concert, recorded live at Trinity Cathedral, San José, CA, September 28, 2010 as part of the 2010 01SJ Biennial

Recorded by Stephen Vitiello
Mix engineer: Taj Leahey
Mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12k
Cover photograph by Taylor Deupree

Feather, by Scorn

Some nice, dark techno drones & drifts here . . .

7 years of silence. 7 years waiting.

The master of dark simplicity: beat, bass, drift, drone – Mick Harris has re-engaged with his longest running, primary artist identity, SCORN. His first salvo upon return, the “Feather” EP is anything but light. It is the darkest possible bassweight, a vortex of low frequency into which all light is subsumed.

The 3 entirely separate versions of the title track plumb unknown depths with harried atmospheres, reminiscent of Scorn’s earlier days, a time before bass music became a popular movement and Harris was the absolute pioneer in the genre. Bass weight, dub production technique with multiple delay channels, time and phrase morphology and erupting samples keep all 3 variations differing as they decompose. The final track tells a truth of life: “Whatever Is Touched Turns” and lays it out with pounding multiple basslines and the most punishing kick drum in any Scorn track ever.

Feather is a return to arms for the one referred to as the Dark Lord of Bass. Scorn lives again.

Released June 7, 2019

Created by Mick Mongoose Harris
2019 in The Lads Old Room B14

o u t p o s t

o u t p o s t | Experimental/Ambient/Glitch/Minimal/Noise | 77:37

Music & atmospheres for l-o-n-g distance lone travelers & ambient warriors stationed on remote base-camps (real or imagined), inter-planetary sub-stations, or other, similarly isolated, environs.

Best listened to via ear-buds/headphones.

Listen on Mixcloud:

01 AES DANA – Period 10, Evocatory
02 Fuantei – Live@音音1
03 ulla straus – Seed v.1 (edit)
04 Fabio Perletta – 9_23+10_52
05 Robert Fripp – Pastorale (Madison 10 Nov 2007)
06 Andrew Tasselmyer – Nightfall in Taroko
07 Riverrun – Hamworthy Common I
08 A Produce – Visions
09 Alessandro Cortini & Lawrence English – Immediate Horizon 2
10 Iluiteq – Earth Melting In New Shapes
11 Seren Ffordd – Strange Attractor
(interpolating Fabio Perletta & Luigi Turra; Ma, pt 2)
12 Jon Hassell – Unknown Wish
13 J.Peter Schwalm & Arve Henriksen – Unzeit
14 David Torn – But Not Remote

SUMMER SYNTHESIS 1978, by Drew Schlesinger & David Torn

An album of unique, all analog electronica created and recorded in the summer of 1978 on 4-Track reel to reel tape. Our compositional approach was semi-spontaneous, with some songs being fully composed and others reflecting numerous improvised parts over predefined backing tracks. Each individual track within a song is a single “take”, meaning it was performed and recorded as played, without any editing.

This album features various keyboards, synthesizers and guitar synthesizer to create some distinctive electronic textures, including a Micromoog, Oberheim Expander Module, Yamaha CS-50, Fender Rhodes, Gibson Organ and piano along with David’s extensive playing on the ARP Avatar Guitar Synthesizer, the first of its kind.

The songs are presented exactly as they were recorded and mixed back in 1978 and were remastered by DT at his home studio in early 2020. We hope you enjoy it.

credits

released February 7, 2020

Drew Schlesinger: synthesizers, programming, keyboards, treatments
David Torn: ARP Avatar guitar synthesizer, processed guitar
[James Twomey: bass (tr3), Geoffrey Gordon: tabla (tr13)]

℗ Synthetic Productions Music / BMI
℗ Torn Music / BMI
© 2020 Synthetic Productions Music

DREW SCHLESINGER:
www.facebook.com/drewschlesinger1
instagram.com/drewschlesinger

DAVID TORN:
www.davidtornmusic.com

Crystal, by Music For Sleep

Crystal has been extracted from found sounds of improvised studio session recordings – archive.

Released December 10, 2020

Music by Andrea Porcu
Recorded in October 2020 (Sardinia – Italy)
Original photography by Mark Byzewski

Seven Signals In The Sky, by Sonmi451

All tracks written & produced by Bernard Zwijzen/Sonmi451.

Equipment : Moog Mother 32, Elektron Octatrack, Instruo Arbhar, Make Noise Morphagene, Happy Nerding FX Aid. Plugins by Applied Acoustics, Native Instruments, Arturia and U-He. Additional production, sequencing and mixing in Ableton Live.

Mastered by Taylor Deupree
Artwork by Stéphane Mahé
Design by Sprflxgrfzm

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“Bernard likes to thank Mathias for his wonderful work on the LAAPS project and for the opportunity to participate. Thanks also to friends & places for inspiration”

Kaze ga kanjō o hakobu. Subete ga kawarudarou, by Fuantei

“Sparse, textured, nuanced & . . . wonderful! We’ve used every single track within a mix podcast”
~Ambient Landscape
______________________________________________

“Kaze ga kanjō o hakobu. Subete ga kawarudarou” is Tokyo-based musician Fuantei’s debut and first album for 901 Editions. The music describes ephemeral, everyday moments that evoke deep and suspended emotional states. A frivolous and trivial time fragment made memory, the embrace and realisation of change, the reverberating lights of a habitual sunset.

風が感情を運ぶ。すべてが変わるだろう
Kaze ga kanjō o hakobu. Subete ga kawarudarou
The wind carries emotions. Everything will change

Credits

Released March 23, 2021
Created 2017—2020 in Tokyo. Tracks 4 and 6 recorded at Otooto. Field recordings collected in Yutenji.

Not Guitar: Touch Guitarists Markus Reuter & Trey Gunn Conjure Cosmic Tones & Soundscapes from Helix

Trey Gunn and Markus Reuter (Live at SeaProg 2019)

by Barry Cleveland
Reposted courtesy of Model Citizens, the Line 6 blog

Touch guitarists Markus Reuter and Trey Gunn are singular artists who play extended-range instruments that encompass both the guitar and bass registers, and which are played by tapping the strings with both hands, much like the Chapman Stick (from which they were derived conceptually). Reuter and Gunn also deftly deploy Helix amp and effects processors when crafting their idiosyncratic tones and expansive soundscapes.

Reuter has been a member of Stick Men (alongside Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto) for more than a decade, as well as performing solo and with a variety other adventurous ensembles, including Centrozoon and Tuner. He has released eight albums as a leader; collaborated on recordings with Ian Boddy, Robert Rich, Stephan Thelen, and other artists; and appeared as a guest on dozens of additional recordings. He is also an educator and hosts the video program Living the Dream. Reuter primarily plays 8- and 10-string Touch Guitars, which he designed, and currently relies on Helix Floor and HX Stomp processors to generate nearly all of his extraordinary sounds.

Gunn was a member of King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, as well as recording and performing with dozens of other luminaries, such as David Sylvian, Vernon Reid, Brian Eno, John Paul Jones, Steven Wilson, and Robert Fripp. He is a member of TU, KTU, 3Below, Quodia, and The Security Project, and has released 14 solo albums. Gunn also composes music for film and television, teaches, and runs the 7d Media label. His principal instrument is the 10-string Warr Guitar, which he developed with Mark Warr, and he has incorporated Helix Native into his live and recording rigs.

Both musicians studied Guitar Craft with Robert Fripp for a number of years and were active in the associated community in various roles.

When did you first begin using Line 6 processors?

Trey: I began using the original red POD back in 1999 or 2000. I can’t remember exactly why I was drawn to it, other than that it was the first amp-simulation device and there was nothing else like it at the time. That was also about the time that Tony Levin and I were both playing around with using distortion on the bass and we were trying to figure out how to do it without losing the bottom end. So, I ran the dry signal parallel to the distorted POD signal, using a giant rig with 16 audio loops, which is ridiculous by today’s standards, when you can do the same thing within Helix. And I actually used two PODs, one for each side of the instrument, as there are individual outputs for the guitar and bass sides. The PODs were mounted on a shelf with zip ties.

Markus: Stick Men has been touring the world for the past decade and I have used Line 6 gear for nearly the entire time, beginning with the POD HD500 on the second or third tour. It had that small display, but at least you could modify the signal path a little bit, and I liked the way it sounded. For me, all the concerns about “authentic” tones are really irrelevant, as when I plug my instrument into a modeler, it isn’t going to sound like anything else anyway. So, with that I was able to find my own sounds, including synth sounds, as there was an onboard monophonic string synth that was very useful for doing soundscape stuff. I also liked the distortions, as they were grittier and more raw-sounding than those in other processors, in a way that really worked for me. But even back then, I was already dreaming about something very much like Helix, so when it appeared it was literally a dream come true. The inserts, the four effects loops, the multiple outputs, Snapshots—all those things. And the ease of use is still unmatched. I could go on and on, because I really love that thing!

(Read more)

scènes, by France Jobin

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Canadian sound artist France Jobin returns for her third album on LINE. Scènes is a touching and elegant tribute dedicated to her dear friend, Finnish musician Mika Vainio who passed away on April 12, 2017 at the age of 53.

the significance of transitions are immutable

under the constraints of linear time

infinity will bring solace

Released November 17, 2017

All sounds recorded at various locations in Europe and at EMS (Stockholm) using the Serge and the Buchla 200 modular synthesizers as well as the Nord Modular.

Thank you Marco de Leonibus for playing guitar when I ventured into Museolaboratorio one evening to check my email. (processed guitar recordings on scène 2 and 4).

images : Mark Hogben

Special thanks to: Richard Chartier and Mark Hogben for their constant support.

elements_f u s e

elements_fuse | Avant Garde Jazz/Ether Jazz/Ambient Noise | 78:13

A powder keg of refractive, multidimensional Jazz-ish din (and cacophonous aural calamity), gathered from disheveled locations across a fractured internet. This edition focuses on the New Wave of Jazz record label. Additional info here.

Mixed May, 2021. Got a match? Light with care . . !

Listen via Mixcloud

01 Fabio Perletta – 9_23_(excerpt)
02 Asmus Tietchens & Dirk Serries – Air Akkordeon
03 Goncalo Almeida – Monólogos a Dois I
04 Pierre Gerard – En Plein Rose D’un Bois Lisse
05 Serries-Vanderstraeten-Verhoeven – Stasis
06 Benedict Taylor & Anton Mobin – Minimal Muck
07 Dirk Serries – Factor
08 Arvind Gang & Riccardo Marogna – The Limp Leaves Waited for Rain,
……While the Black Clouds Gathered, far Distant, over Himavant
09 Alan Wilkinson & Dirk Serries – HYG 2
10 Kodian Trio – II, 4