ponedjeljak, 10. studenoga 2014.

Andrew Leslie Hooker - In Emptiness There Is Truth (Call No Man Happy Until He Is Dead) (2013)




U praznini se skriva crkva u kojoj istina ljubi mrtve, ali svi misle da je to privid itd.



 


Seijiro Murayama: voice; Stefano Pilia: voice recording engineer and EQ; John Duncan: original stereo mix; Andrew Leslie Hooker: all other sounds, recording, editing and mixing

If you take a conscientious look at these notes, the conceptual ramifications underlying this music will unquestionably be better deepened than contenting yourselves with a mere review’s synthetic account. Personally speaking, it is a curious coincidence that the city hosting this site-specific composition in 2010 was Ravello (in the Italian region of Campania), where your reporter was literally stunned by the place’s dizzy heights many years ago (the local vistas on the sea are absolutely breathtaking). A similar type of mental suspension reappeared after subjecting myself to sequential listens of In Emptiness There Is Truth, which in essence consists of 45 minutes shaped by an extremely ductile “ghost overtone choir” replete with feedback signals and what the composer calls “lower-case sonics” (I didn’t understand if actual voices, perhaps treated, live in the mix). Amidst the wrinkles of this psychically influencing substratum, Murayama emerges with a series of hagridden vocalizations halfway through a silently strained gargle and the gasping of someone in dire need of oxygen. The whole creates a state of floating anguish, underlined by a sense of aural instability not too distant from certain metamorphic environments typical of Roland Kayn’s cybernetic creatures, though definitely more “minimalist” in its asphyxiating reiterative traits. Circumstances of the very John Duncan’s aesthetic are not irrelevant to this recording, either; not only in the gist of the sound, but also as far as complex human implications are concerned. Ultimately, a statement born for an external environment whose acoustic validity is confirmed in a home listening scene. But several attempts are required to really get into the core of the matter. - Massimo Ricci

Incredibly dense and haunting single 45 minute piece processing voice and harrowing drones with banshee-like overtones and anguished gargles. Not for the faint hearted. Edition of 200 copies** "A soundwork commissioned for the 2010 edition of the Ravello Festival, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Stefania Miscetti and Gianluca Ranzi. Voice: Seijiro Murayama; Voice recording engineer and EQ: Stefanio Pilia; Original Stereo mix: John Duncan; All other sounds, recording, editing and mixing by ALH. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. “In relation to this soundwork, the extended overtones created by the clashing frequencies of the ‘ghost chorus’ could indeed be read as faint glimmerings of a sublime imperative. This imperative, brought into harmonic relief by means of the intervallic ‘beatings’ of voice and ‘voices’, admits the possibility of a transfiguration of the criminal void by means of a deliberate intensification of those glimmerings into an immaterial, abstract reality completely removed from any form of social/political/temporal control. It is almost as if by charging a terrifying, ‘physical’ emptiness with an implicative, narcissistic terror, the means of negotiating the far greater terror of a ‘metaphysical’ infinity, i.e. non-existence, is manifested as a form of rhapsodic contemplation aimed towards interiorising and indeed occupying the void, leading ultimately, and of course theoretically, to non-action.”- boomkat

A work designed for the Italian Ravello Festival, this is a recording that begs to be experienced in situ. Hooker, via a large array of recorders, tapes, computers and mics, constructs a ghostly swirl of winds and disembodied voices--too stereotypically ghostly, perhaps--that one can imagine flowing across and through a large interior space. Within this, Seijiro Murayama contributes vocalizations--hoarse croaks, frail whinnies, etc. It's all very much of a piece; what variation is found comes courtesy of Murayama and that's minimal enough. You really want to be able to walk around amidst all this, probably in the dark, to perhaps have those croaks emitted from various points--could be spooky enough. Much less immersive, necessarily, when experienced via speakers in the comfort of one's home. [an aside: shortly after listening to the Hooker disc for the last time, Jeph Jerman's "Lithiary" happened to surface on my shuffle, 46 minutes of the "same" sound, small stones being gently tossed about on a moving shelf. But so much not the same! Something, perhaps, to be said on the virtues of acoustic sameness versus the electronic variety] - olewnick.blogspot.com/2013/08/entracte-seems-to-have-departed-from.html

A soundwork commissioned for the 2010 edition
of the Ravello Festival, curated by Achille Bonito
Oliva, Stefania Miscetti and Gianluca Ranzi.
Voice: Seijiro Murayama
Voice recording engineer and EQ: Stefano Pilia
Original stereo mix: John Duncan
All other sounds, recording, editing and mixing
by ALH

“In relation to this soundwork, the extended overtones
created by the clashing frequencies of the ‘ghost chorus’
could indeed be read as faint glimmerings of a sublime
imperative. This imperative, brought into harmonic relief
by means of the intervallic ‘beatings’ of voice and ‘voices’,
admits the possibility of a transfiguration of the criminal
void by means of a deliberate intensification of those
glimmerings into an immaterial, abstract reality completely
removed from any form of social/political/temporal control.
It is almost as if by charging a terrifying, ‘physical’ empti-
ness with an implicative, narcissistic terror, the means
of negotiating the far greater terror of a ‘metaphysical’
infinity, i.e. non-existence, is manifested as a form of
rhapsodic contemplation aimed towards interiorising and
indeed occupying the void, leading ultimately, and of
course theoretically, to non-action.”
— Excerpt from La Follia Dell’ Arte   Full text [PDF]


Blind Jesus (2010)

  
Blind Jesus by Andrew L. Hooker and Stefano Pilia debuts with a record that, according to this writer, is one of the best works of avant-rock heard recently: unravelled stuttering in the vein of Storm & Stress fall from crumbling gorges of tape loops, caracoling flights in the foreground interrupted with improvised retro-folk, wanton porno-concrète jokes arm-in-arm with strained ecstatic drones, followed by melancholic acoustic crackling, industrial creaking, soulful moans, obstacular Supreme Dicks style songs... The duo's language is to some extent recognizable "in the style of", but these five tracks improvised with tapes, guitar, samples and effects are sewn together and assembled with a rare sense of fantasy. (7/8)  - Valerio Mattioli, BLOW-UP

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