ponedjeljak, 25. kolovoza 2014.

Collectress - Mondegreen (2014)




Srednjovjekovni glasovi, zvukovi igračaka i pogrešno prevedeni pucnji za gudače.

peelerrecords.bandcamp.com/

http://collectress.co.uk/listen
collectress.co.uk/mondegreen



Described as a cross between the Elysian Quartet and possessed Brontë sisters teasing an unsuspecting dinner party (Foxy Digitalis), Collectress are a quartet of long-term multi-instrumentalist collaborators from London and Brighton.
Making both composed and improvised music, Collectress utilise voice, toy instruments and found sound samples alongside layers of more traditional, often romantic, strings, keys and woodwind - violin, viola, cello, flute, piano and guitar.
With a collective biography of collaborations which includes the likes of Bat For Lashes, Patrick Wolf, Philip Selway (Radiohead) and Penguin Café Orchestra, the four members of Collectress come together to craft music both daring and unique, but also compellingly familiar and filmic.



Coined by Sylvia Wright in an essay in Harper’s Magazine in Nov 1954, a Mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as result of a near homophony, in a way that gives it new meaning.
Likewise, we find fruit in mishearings and happy accidents recognising that paths through are sometimes oblique or followed without intention; they flow intuitively from improvisations where the outcome can’t be known but is often far more beautiful than could ever have been planned.
Music is a form of recycling where every new player, every new listener, makes new, unique and often very personal meaning from essentially the same set of notes or sounds. This record has been made with four sets of ears making four sets of collaborative hearings and mishearings, and shaping together the paths that flow from them.
"Collectress are a band of musicians who make beautiful music, beautifullyThe album is a sumptuous treat for your ears and minds’ eye” - Rob Batchelor, Roobla

"The most exciting thing to happen to string instruments in years… Submit yourself to this musical spell, you shall not regret it." Was ist das?

"Their music is both … dazzling and enveloping, made using conventional instruments and other unusual sources and found sounds.  We were immediately conquered…" Cast the Dice

"The idiosyncratric Mondegreen is a very self-possessed first release. The free thinking with which Collectress write and improvise is informed by their own sensitive absorption of surroundings … Collectress play chamber music without constraint.” Chris Jones, The Line of Best Fit
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"Shadowy and slightly unsettling … It’s a gripper." Ian Anderson, fRoots
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”[Mondegreen] boasts the kind of rich sense of space where the cello bowing seems to have pulled dust motes form narrow sunbeams and flute timbres are bathed in long, deep shadow …” Abi Bliss, The Wire
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"Listening to them play I realized how music is present in so many objects and natural settings that we very rarely find the time to stop and appreciate it." http://journal.splitgigs.com/
Mondegreen could be the soundtrack to a film … but no cinema was required, Collectress worked their magic, wove their tales, cast their musical spell and we were enchanted.” Elizabeth Hughes, The Argus
"With a mingling of the masterfully fine tuned and improvisation they manage to tread the line between the intricate and organic with apparent ease. They’re the soundtrack to a mystical journey through the chambers of your heart and mind, not failing to highlight any knotty detail with a passing and directive glance." http://www.heymouser.com

"Hamilton is joined towards the end of his set by support Collectress who were simply superb. The quartet of multi-instrumentalists on flute, cello, violin, piano and occasional vocals, painting pictures of ’60s supernatural horror films featuring spooky toy makers, results in something very different to a solo Hamilton, maybe even preferable." Gemma Hampson, Clash Music

Collected Materials

Using found sound, samples and vocals, long time collaborators Quinta, Caroline Weeks, Rebecca Waterworth and Alice Eldredge might defy the popular definition of a chamber group, but if you prefer Goethe's description of chamber music as a musical conversation, then Collectress will no doubt inspire and delight. Themselves informed and inspired by living performance, Collectress fight the modern instinct to flock towards the safety of the studio. The Brighton-based four prefer to live their music through live performance, only recently committing their passion to a recording with their debut album Mondegreen on Peeler Records. The experimental chamber quartet, have worked across many mediums including film, dance and installations with the National Portrait Gallery, Penguin Cafe, Philip Selway, Partick Wolf and Secret Cinema and continue to explore and expand their repertoire to include all the facets of creative expression.
When did you start writing/producing music - and what or who were your early passions and influences?
We’ve all played and made music since childhood in various forms but we met in 2000, at quite a heady time in Brighton’s music scene, and immediately began to make music in the intuitive, improvisatory way we do today. This approach came very naturally and without any particular planning. I think it’s fair to say that our environment and a shared passion for making and exploring was more of an inspiration than any particular artist or idea. Keeping the music vital was very important to us; each show we played saw us adapting our music, improvising, creating new for both ourselves and our audiences.  We rarely played the same set twice.
What do you personally consider to be the incisive moments in your artistic work and/or career?
Well, our first serendipitous meeting, but since then there are a few miles stones of note. In 2009, galvanised by a few exciting commissions, we formed what is now Collectress. In 2013, we were delighted to receive a PRSF Women Make Music award, a moment of recognition which not only helped financially but gave us a great sense of forward momentum and confidence. The following year, we decided that it was time to bring together a collection of material and produce an album; Mondegreen was made.
What are currently your main compositional- and production-challenges?
These are probably divided into the practical and the artistic. For a band like ours, finding adequate space and time can sometimes present significant challenges. We’ll certainly be neither the first nor the only musicians to crave a dedicated studio space filled with our own instruments, red-light-ready, with enough time to make the most of it. Though each of us has busy lives outside the group which can be a bit of a challenging juggling act, we like to think it’s this very thing, this flexibility, this space to wander and come back, that enriches what we make when we do meet.
We’d like to expand the visual side of our performances, which can be tough without a proper budget. But according to the old necessity and invention chestnut, we usually find a way and enjoy that it makes us become more resourceful and creative!
Compositionally, we are at a very interesting point, having just released Mondegreen. Launching music formally into public space like this can turn a mirror onto your process; make you interrogate what you’re trying to say in different ways; make you see yourself from the outside. An album starts a conversation, and with that, somehow, comes responsibility. We always try and stretch ourselves musically, and releasing records feels like a good way of doing that; it makes you move from the half-finished to the complete and makes you say ‘this is me’.
What do you usually start with when working on a new piece?
Practically, a cup of tea! More seriously, we work quite collaboratively and it is this process of collective development which is perhaps our defining principle. Some pieces come from playing freely or with an idea as a group. Others are spawned by each of us individually - in a moment of procrastination, a way of thinking through something else in life, or a very conscious, musical reaction to balance existing material – and then brought along in various stages of development – from a full printed score to a line drawing and everything in between. But no matter what the origin, we start and continue to develop things by playing together!
How strictly do you separate improvising and composing?
There is generally no premeditated division, more a response to the material itself. Sometimes you can will a finished, structured, composed form, which just doesn’t sit right and grows much more effectively with a freer improvisatory approach; at other times an idea which emerges in improvisation becomes reified in a structured composition later. Maybe it is useful to think of it as a continuum: some composition takes place days, weeks, months or years in advance of a performance or recording, and some take place instantly.
How do you see the relationship between sound, space and composition?
Intimate. Although ideas for pieces and even whole compositions might originate in the abstract, the real work happens in the particular space and time of performance. Paraphrasing Evan Parker, there are things you can control (your choice of strings, technical practice, plans to play particular notes etc.), but this is the starting point. Once you actually sit down and play, it’s about listening and responding to the sounds emanating from your own instrument and others as they bounce around the room. In a small group like ours, the effect of any particular space is amplified to the point where major changes can occur. This might just mean playing something badly, at worst, or inspiring 20 minutes of previously unimagined music, at best.
Do you feel it important that an audience is able to deduct the processes and ideas behind a work purely on the basis of the music? If so, how do you make them transparent?
While we’re prepared at the least to be suggestive about our music-making process, we have in general let the music largely speak for itself during performances. How an audience member perceives what they hear is unique and depends on so many things, most of which are beyond our control. If it means something to a listener to understand compositional processes or musical structures, they’ll likely find a way or have the skills to access those things. For another listener, it could be the narrative or pictorial quality which engages them, and they’ll find themselves on a different tack. Just as context affects each of our performances, a listener will bring a set of feelings, experiences, observations, specific to that moment. We like it that way. You can’t make people find meaning in something unless they’re moved to be invested in it somehow, and we hope we make music that permits that, that lets audiences in. Probably there is a quality to acoustic instruments and to music made through collective improvisation that is open, live, generous, even exposing, and there is certainly a sense of transparency in this on its own, with no need for us to shout about it.
In how much, do you feel, are creative decisions shaped by cultural differences – and in how much, vice versa, is the perception of sound influenced by cultural differences?
Each of us will necessarily hear music according to our own experiences and judge it according to our own tastes. Musical perception is unique, and dependent upon how we’ve individually processed what surrounds us culturally. Inasmuch as these judgements are contingent on our own specific pasts, our creative decisions are also shaped by them. Certainly, the Venn diagram of our musical tastes, influences, and knowledge, finds lots of overlap! We have different points of view artistically, but lots of common ground and we trust each other’s instincts. - 15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-interview-collectress/page-1/

nima - See Feel Reel (2014)

 
Eklektični transcendentalci vs. religiozni kromanjonci.

nima.bandcamp.com/album/see-feel-reel


Here we are just a couple of months after the release of Emotional Suspect, a warped but sincere writ of demented seduction by Fit of Body, a.k.a. Harsh Riddims’ proprietor Ryan Parks, the Atlanta-based label is back with a new tape of equally charming pop that’s frayed around the edges like a hand-sewn rug ditched in the middle of a freeway. Titled See Feel Reel, this new set features Oakland-bedroom savant Nima perpetuating a sullen mix of art-pop that carries the decaying and dimly lighted torch previously helmed “trip hop” progenitors Portishead or Bowery Electric, updated with a modern ear for bizarre sampling and edits. “New City Grip” and “Safe Haven” elusively float through space in a shambolic shimmer of synths and errant textures. Tracks like “No Speech Sensuality” and “If Stoic Pleases” revel in largely negative space disarming in expansive but claustrophobic spaces. See Feel Reel is set to drop 7/20/14 and is available to pre-order now directly via Harsh Riddims’ Bandcamp. - www.secretdecoder.net/blog/2014/07/17/nima-see-feel-reel/


“Labels and imagery prior to or accompanying acoustics can reflect the waves of attention, details weaving in and out of constructed awareness… We are consciously intersecting with all and any we willfully recognize, one diamond facet at a time.” – nima

Aside from this quote on her Bandcamp (which comes from a press release for her 2013 album spirit sign), enigmatic Oakland artist nima appropriately doesn’t offer much context regarding her music, leaving its own constructions up for interpretation. Yet nima doesn’t seem too concerned with semiotics; she doesn’t give a shit whether we can “properly” locate her sounds within some sort of historicized context. As billowy opener “Found You” materializes into a spirited yet scuffed groove, its close acoustics and economical instrumentation (a Casiotone MT-68 and a Boss DD-20 Giga Delay pedal) exhibit that See Feel Reel is a bedroom recording in form, yet nima’s electrically-charged vocal vibrations pierce through these swells of both diegetic and fabricated noise with velocity and intentionality, suggesting that they’re aimed at a window (or at least a door) rather than at a pillow.
Setting — a bedroom in this case — is another potentially relevant critical point of reference, especially for music made outside of or pushed against conventional structures (most albums we award EUREKA!), yet here it doesn’t seem like a structuring point in and of itself. Nima isn’t mapping out her own profane surroundings (at least not as an exploratory exercise); she’s sending signals from them, waiting for which ones bounce back. Her often second-person lyrics (“What are you waiting for?/ Don’t fucking humor me”) and perpetually disruptive sonic pulses show how See Feel Reel isn’t simply a bedside confessional nor is it merely an experimental sound-collage; it’s part of a dynamic and ongoing conversation.

As a writer for Tiny Mix Tapes, there is a certain perspective that — no matter how much I interrogate it — structures how I receive and make sense of sounds. When, in between fricative pop songs, I hear patient, voiceless tracks like “New Dance ft. clownshoes” — its deliberate, vitalic tones meditatively metered-out like a controlled heart rate — or “Luv’s Infinite Cinema” — its delicately interlaced instrumental motifs weaving a quilt worn of memory — I also hear echoes of Grouper; when I listen to “New City Grip,” I hear how it picks up copeland’s empowering, sanguine vibes like a magnet, lending it an unstoppable energy as it snags on and subsequently snaps synthetic string flourishes like clotheslines; and with “Safe Haven,” a track that revs with modulated feedback before inconspicuously melding into a syncopated, airy pop song, I’m reminded of Grimes’ Visions.
Of course, these are comparisons that I bring with me as I pick up nima’s diverse sounds and engage with them within my current framework. What is so remarkable about See Feel Reel’s sonic diversity, however, is that its meaning is not bound by my awareness, even though it is through it that I continually relate with See Feel Reel. nima’s eclecticism then isn’t objectively an amalgamation of things that I or anybody else notices, because it is us who habitually amalgamate ostensibly fragmented noises in certain ways and accordingly assign clumsily aggregated meanings. On nima’s part, however, by arranging these various sounds like arbitrary phonemes into perpetually collapsing structures, she dislodges her own music from these temporal limitations and labels, and as much as she offers space for her music to sink in and settle into our own constructed ecologies, her own fierce feedback assures that our epistemological questions are never quite satisfied.
nima tags her music as “devotional,” a curious yet perfect description for this dynamic exchange between artist and listener. In a religious context (again, a context that I bring with me), devotional relationships are powerful because they are transformative, and See Feel Reel transforms (itself and perceptions of it) with every listen. See Feel Reel transcends its own perceived context too, as these transformations last beyond a period of constructed listening, lending ever-fresh yet perishable perspectives on other noises that now remind me of nima. Also, in case none of this translates well into your own understanding of See Feel Reel (it is totally probable that I have confused more than illuminated), it is also real-ly good, in its own right. -





bay connected (2014)

nima.bandcamp.com/album/bay-connected

Spirit Sign (2013)

nima.bandcamp.com/album/spirit-sign


  • ALPHA 2011
  • Column One - La Source De La Citation N'Est Pas Connue (2003)





    Električna zadovoljstva u sf-filmovima (tisuću metara ispod zemlje).

    www.column-one.de/





    COLUMN ONE - ELECTRIC PLEASURE (excerpts 8 tracks) Released: 2001
    Electric Pleasure (2000)



    Formed in Berlin in 1991, René Lamp and Robert Schalinski were working together on short-film projects and decided to expand their scope to include audio and multi-media projects among their repertoire. The next thing you know, Column One was born.
    On this highly detailed and wonderfully crafted CD (their fourth), the band have dragged the look and feel of 1950s American science-fiction films deep into their underground laboratory, flicked a few switches and have mutated them into an absolute monster of a release, bringing to life a world of Kraftwerkian rhythms and Forbidden Planet background ambience all cohesively joined by an interesting narrative structure; the tracks ebb and flow into one another not as separate entities but as an entire parable of technology overpowering humanity.
    On tracks like Re-Start To Move, the low-bitrate hip-hop tracks bounce along with a curious intent, just as a determined robot would as it seeks its next human prey, while on MZ4, the mood is much more melancholy, clearly showing the more human side to the mechanical creatures contained therein.
    The band here have clearly done their homework both in terms of studying classic 80s electro as well as the sounds that brought those tracks to life. The bands label, 90% Wasser is also based in Berlin and is a self described non-profit artist label for electro-acoustic-minimal-spoken-digital-ideological-tonal & atonal-electronic-music plus video-releases, writings & picture-art. It may be a mouthful but this suits the release perfectly as both Column One and their parent label go way beyond the typical concept CD or multimedia project.
    Column One have come up with a really classy and incredibly detailed release that deserves repeated listening not only because it will make you dance, but to fully appreciate the narrative content. Electric Pleasure works well on its own, but combined with a live audio/visual experience, the band could very well be unstoppable. Just like the robots contained therein. Highly recommended. - Olli Siebelt 2002

     
     

     




      
       

      TWO FLOWERS FOR THE TRAVEL VIDEO  
     
    ASPHODELOS/TWO FLOWERS... MC
     
     
    WORLD TRANSMISSION I MC
     
           
         
           
     
    VARIOUS DREAMDANCES 2xMC
     
     
    R.K.CHILDREN/COINCIDENTIA..MC
     
     
    WORLD-TRANSMISSION II LP+7"
     
     
    THREE SMALL FACES MC
     
           
         
           
     
    DREAM BOX EXPERIENCE LP
     
      LABYRINTH 7"  
           
         
           
      THE INDIVIDUAL BOX MC
     
    VIS SPEI with Genesis P-Orridge CD
      THE EXCELLENT LISTENER V.A. CD
         
       
         
      CLASSIC CHILL OUT RHYTHMS CD
      ODYSSEE 10"
     
    YOU ARE LIMITED...
     
    FREEDOM IS A SICKNESS CD
           
       
           
     
    KRIEGSSCHAUPLÄTZE (live) LP
     
      LIVE IM HYBRIDRAUM 2xMC
      DOUBT CD
      E-LUSIVE FEAT. PSYCHIC TV CD
     
    RE-MIND LIVE CDR SERIES, Poland CDR
         
       
         
      THX 1138 12"
      THE LAST ONE IS DEAD LP
      CLASSIC CHILL OUT RHYTHMS II 2xCD
      FAREWELL 7"  
           
         
           
      WHITE ERRORS PART I CD
      SIMULATION 2x12"
      UNREALIZER LP
     
    THIS IS MY DREAM with ZSG 7"
         
       
         
      LIVE IM HYBRIDRAUM CDR
      SAD FINGER 7"
      ELECTRIC PLEASURE - LIMITED EDITION LP
           
         
           
      WORLD TRANSMISSION III+IV 2xLP  
      ELECTRIC PLEASURE CD
      ELECTRIC LIGHT CD
         
       
         
      BRAUNSERVER VIDEO
      WAS SONST MIR VERBORGEN 5"
      DIE TRUHE IM FLUSS LP
      THE AUDIENCE IS SLEEPING… CD
      RECORDS CDR
           
         
           
     
    LA SOURCE DE LA CITATION... LP
     
         
       
         
      PRESET TRAINING 10"
         
       
         
      SOMETIMES 7"
      DREAM TIME CD
     
    DREAM TIME – SPECIAL ED. CD+CDR+LP
         
       
         
      LOVE IS IN THE AIR 7"
      COLUMN ONE & SOCIETY SUCKERS 7"  
      DIE SIBIRISCHE ZELLE 2xDVD  
         
       
         
      FELDAUFNAHMEN CD
      DER FLUSS IN DER TRUHE LP