I’m very happy to announce the release of a project I did this summer called Tekuchesti, (a transliteration of текучести, which is a Russian word meaning “fluidity”), a piece in shuffle time for listeners and improvisers.
Download the entire work, and remember to listen on shuffle. Weird request you say? Read the liner notes below for more detail…
Please also visit the release page at Constanta and check out the other artists on this new boutique netlabel, which features some unique approaches to the microsound/glitch/experimental/drone genres; beauty through subtlety and simplicity. I personally enjoy op.cit.’s and To4ka.Dna’s most recent releases.
Here is my description and instructions for performance (these notes are also available in Russian through Constanta):
In tectonics, slices of the earth can be reduced bit by bit to their constituents, all in motion consistent with the plate. Below these fractured mantle pieces is a thick world of geology: elemental chemical reactions, intense temperature changes, varying strata of materials. There may be violent upheaval or capitulation of forces, or just still and silent veins of metal. If we could travel as a massless beings through the earth to the antipodal, each layer of Hell opens not a Dantean dream, but a surreal tour of random pockets describing the origin of the solar system.
Tekuchesti represents “fluidity” in physics, describing instability or fluid states. The piece consists of constructions mostly taken from free electro-acoustic improvisations, first recorded to create large elemental plates of experience, and secondly edited and combined into subdivisions of space. There were no structural or material limitations placed on the recording or editing of the improvisations, they simply happened.
Just as there are myriad structures and surprise events, there are the lack of these events, represented by the isochrons; dating scatterplots of history, constructions made from the lack of material to represent that which has passed on. The sonic architecture of each isochron in this piece is taken from relationships found in the five Platonic (or “perfect”) solids, found everywhere in nature, above and below the crust.
This piece is meant to be played in random order, where the slices intermingle anew each time to create an emergent form. Playing it in order will reveal some of the underlying structure, and is a perfectly acceptable way of listening – the shapes of the plates become much more clear, but it is an altogether different listening experience. Improvisers are encouraged to play along as well, but if done in a live context, it must be played on shuffle, as this will give the improvisers less expectation of what sounds will appear.
The work also ties in an immediate tectonic experience: I live only 10 miles from the epicenter of the 5.4 magnitude earthquake which hit the LA area on July 29, just shortly before the album was finalized. It also represents the “solid ground” – both as shared vision and literal Earth – between me and the constanta-label.ru headquarters in Perm, Russia.
Constanta on the web: http://constanta-label.ru
Constanta on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/constantalabel
Originally from Craque: “Tekuchesti” out now on Constanta
In 2001 the debut 12″ for Craque titled Trolling for Olives EP was released on Metatron Press, and now it’s available for free on last.fm.
All five tracks are both streamable and downloadable, I figured I’d do them all since the original is still available for purchase on vinyl and it’s got some dope tracks!
And I don’t know how many of my fans actually read this, but here’s the first hint that you can expect several new releases coming up in the coming months. At least three different labels will be hosting new Craque albums, so keep yer ears open!
Originally from Craque: “Trolling for Olives” now free download
Yesterday at 4:15PM (Pacific) I took a break from the chaos of networks and enjoyed a ceremonial oneness to honor the victims of Hiroshima in a gesture of world-wide harmony.
hiro1615080508shima starts about a minute before I rang in concert with many others across the globe for the Hiroshimia Peace Memorial Ceremony.
The recording was done in our garden walkway among our tropicals and succulents, you can hear the neighbor’s roof-top AC droning in the background, accompanied by our other neighbor’s dog. I love how the sound of the singing bowl (pictured here!) blends back into the surrounding drone.
Originally from Bell Rung for Hiroshima
Having moved to the LA area little over five years ago, it wasn’t until today that I experienced a significantly violent earthquake in our hometown of Fullerton – just across the freeway from the epicenter of the 5.4 quake in Chino Hills today.
I was talking on the phone in my studio for work, when suddenly it all started moving.
What’s interesting to me now is that though I remember the specific feeling of the earthquake, the adrenaline rush of anticipating when it will end, the cycles of disbelief and acceptance and small notions of what the edge of panic feels like… of all this, I remember the sounds the most.
We keep our glasses on a wire shelving unit, which began disposing victims to the kitchen floor. Not many perished, but the crashing and rattling of glass was enough to know. We also have a lot of wind chimes in various forms around different places in the house – most of which live on the front deck. The ones in my studio joined them in exultant songs of the earth! It was nothing less than enlightening, as the high timbers met the rumble of crust.
With little broken but a lot shaken (especially our cats, the breaking glass and shaking house wasn’t their idea of a good time – though our outside cats both napped straight through), it became a sort of coming-of-age moment, as the exhilaration of an enormous power much greater than I could immediately conceive finally welcomed me to California.
Originally from The quake song
LISTEN/VISION 02
Friday, March 21st. 2008, 7-9pm
San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall
800 Chestnut St. San Francisco, CA 94133
$5 Public, Free for SFAI Students.
LISTEN/VISION is a unique series exploring the art of perception that includes *unreleased* sound and visual recordings from an international pool of acclaimed contemporary artists.
Featuring : GREGG KOWALSKY, DAVID KWAN, CHIKA and I8U, SAWAKO.
Curated and co-presented by Volume Projects & Overlap
Overlap.org and Volume present:
LISTEN/VISION 02
LISTEN/VISION is a unique series exploring the art of perception. It is a place and time for a shared experience of sound and light and space. Overlap.org and Volume have partnered to commission new and *unreleased* sound and video recordings from an international pool of acclaimed contemporary artists. These exclusive pieces, not to be found anywhere on the web or a CD, are presented in a collective listening environment.
Featured Artists :
GREGG KOWALSKY – “Rosebud for Red Magus” – 2006 – 18:17 mins.
Gregg Kowalsky resides in Oakland, California where he completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Electronic Music and Recording Media at Mills College. Kowalsky’s compositions range from drone and noise pieces to the psychedelic, which are highly influenced by the thick, humid air of South Florida where Gregg lived for most of his life. He is interested in filling the spaces his music occupies through dense, live
mixes. He has composed for film, dance, acoustic ensembles and sound installations. Gregg’s debut full-length album, Through The Cardial Window was released on the Kranky label in Spring 2006.
http://ossobucco.net
DAVID KWAN – SOLARIS – 2006 – 10:07
Sound-generated video projections; dimensions and running time variable; video projection with sound. Kwan has presented work at the Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Headlands Center for the Arts, Artist Television Access, The Lab, and Mission 17 in San Francisco; Jack Straw New Media Gallery in Seattle; Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart; and Baracke am Deustchen Theater in Berlin. He received a BA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Electronic Music from Mills College, where he has been teaching in music, art and intermedia.
http://www.meridiangallery.org/davidkwan2003.htm
CHIKA and I8U – Infinity02 – 2008 – 30:38
Unlimited or unmeasurable in extent of space, duration of time: the infinite nature of the fabric of space. CHiKA uses minimal objects in two-dimensional space to create a video work invoking the feeling of the unlimited possibilities, approaching the unmeasureable nature of the infinite. I8u’s soundscapes inspired by the concept of string theory mirror our limited understanding and imagination of these strings as they slip in and out of the dimensions we are aware of. The audio and visual moves from a closed world with perspective as its corresponding symbolic form.
http://www.imagima.com
SAWAKO – “untitled” – 2006 – 15:18 mins
Sawako is a Tokyo/NYC-based sound sculptor who understands the value of dynamics and the power of silence. After beginning in video art, Sawako shifted her focus from the video camera to sound. Once through the processor named Sawako, sounds in everyday life – field recordings, instruments, voice and electronic sounds – float in space vividly with a digital yet organic texture. Her unique sonic world has been called “post romantic sound” by Boston’s Weekly Dig.
http://www.12k.com/sawako.html