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LP
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RM 4107LP
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LP version. Australian born, Sweden-based John Chantler returns to Room40 with his fifth solo edition. Tomorrow Is Too Late was commissioned by INA GRM for their Présences Électronique festival in 2018 and sees Chantler expand the horizons of his acoustic palette. Moving from subtle microtonal movements to passages of intense harmonic saturation, Tomorrow Is Too Late is his most dynamic work to date, a powerhouse of reductive intensity that bears witness to Chantler's uncompromising sonic articulations. John Chantler's recorded works for electronics are a dichotomy. Each of his editions, whilst entirely refined and composed, maintains a distinct sense of experimentation. Chantler's willingness to forgo the familiar in favor of the unknown or the unexpected has become a recurrent methodology which has resulted in a body of work that is simultaneously united and sprawling; Tomorrow Is Too Late typifies this dichotomy. Across each of the long-form pieces, he brings together unexpectedly vibrant sonic materials that converge and occupy attention with a dynamic intensity that exceeds all of his previous offerings. Rather than considering dynamics purely in terms of amplitude, Chantler uses frequency as means for creating elegant moments where stability is removed and we, as listeners, are left to find our own way amidst the towering, complex patterns he devises. The record also maintains a surrealist sensibility; audio hallucinations manifest, buried within the acoustic substrata. Voices, submerged within electronics hint at some imagined place. They bubble away at the very threshold of audibility. Similarly, stacked oscillating tones create hazy acoustic visions that suggest concrète landscapes, a nod to the storied history of the INA GRM studio. Tomorrow Is Too Late resolves a great many of John Chantler's interrogations into sound. It also opens a new chapter for his work, an aesthetic deepening that is sure to sustain him for many years to come. Chantler works with synthesizers and electronics to create unpredictable, highly dynamic music where passages of spare, alien beauty bridge distorted washes of masses harmonics. Originally from Australia, he spent a decade in London before moving to Sweden where he directs a small festival His work has been commissioned by Borealis Festival for Experimental Music in Bergen, Norway; Organ for the Senses, San Diego, USA; ElbPhilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany and Tectonics, Glasgow, UK. Chantler has also been artist-in-residence at the ZKM center for media arts in Karlsruhe, Germany and NOTAM in Oslo, Norway.
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CD
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RM 4107CD
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Australian born, Sweden-based John Chantler returns to Room40 with his fifth solo edition. Tomorrow Is Too Late was commissioned by INA GRM for their Présences Électronique festival in 2018 and sees Chantler expand the horizons of his acoustic palette. Moving from subtle microtonal movements to passages of intense harmonic saturation, Tomorrow Is Too Late is his most dynamic work to date, a powerhouse of reductive intensity that bears witness to Chantler's uncompromising sonic articulations. John Chantler's recorded works for electronics are a dichotomy. Each of his editions, whilst entirely refined and composed, maintains a distinct sense of experimentation. Chantler's willingness to forgo the familiar in favor of the unknown or the unexpected has become a recurrent methodology which has resulted in a body of work that is simultaneously united and sprawling; Tomorrow Is Too Late typifies this dichotomy. Across each of the long-form pieces, he brings together unexpectedly vibrant sonic materials that converge and occupy attention with a dynamic intensity that exceeds all of his previous offerings. Rather than considering dynamics purely in terms of amplitude, Chantler uses frequency as means for creating elegant moments where stability is removed and we, as listeners, are left to find our own way amidst the towering, complex patterns he devises. The record also maintains a surrealist sensibility; audio hallucinations manifest, buried within the acoustic substrata. Voices, submerged within electronics hint at some imagined place. They bubble away at the very threshold of audibility. Similarly, stacked oscillating tones create hazy acoustic visions that suggest concrète landscapes, a nod to the storied history of the INA GRM studio. Tomorrow Is Too Late resolves a great many of John Chantler's interrogations into sound. It also opens a new chapter for his work, an aesthetic deepening that is sure to sustain him for many years to come. Chantler works with synthesizers and electronics to create unpredictable, highly dynamic music where passages of spare, alien beauty bridge distorted washes of masses harmonics. Originally from Australia, he spent a decade in London before moving to Sweden where he directs a small festival His work has been commissioned by Borealis Festival for Experimental Music in Bergen, Norway; Organ for the Senses, San Diego, USA; ElbPhilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany and Tectonics, Glasgow, UK. Chantler has also been artist-in-residence at the ZKM center for media arts in Karlsruhe, Germany and NOTAM in Oslo, Norway.
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LP
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RM 463LP
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Includes download code. Which Way To Leave? is the latest record by Stockholm based musician John Chantler. The self-reflexive sequencing that tracks the sub-harmonic series in the opening blast of "Falling Forward" positions the record as Chantler's most explicitly melodic. These melodies however do not exist in a mono-dimensional vacuum, rather they co-exist in a meshed framework of dynamic layers of timbre. The record's abrupt cuts, deft variations of density and unexpected diversions are happily explored with head-long dives into ravishing texture and extended stretches of surface stasis. The music draws on a domestic reimagining of the traditions of studio based electronic music/musique concrete and 20th century minimalism and delivers this with brash revitalized energy. Born out of his relocation to Stockholm, following an extended period in London, Which Way To Leave? bares the marks of senses attuned to new environments and spaces. Recorded for the most part at Chantler's home studio, additional material was recorded at Elektronmusikstudion (EMS). It features guest appearances by Carina Thorén (For Barry Ray) and cellist Okkyung Lee. Still Light, Outside his fourth LP released in 2015 is an extended suite that combines passages of stark minimalism centered at the bodily invasive extremes of the pipe organ's register with striking explosions of color; massed chords shot through with heavy distortion and electronics that operate according to their own dream logic. It was described as "strikingly beautiful" by The Guardian. Chantler's three previous LPs were all released on Room40. Even Clean Hands Damage the Work (RM 459LP, 2014) included the first output from his time at EMS. It followed The Luminous Ground - released in 2011 and was included in The Wire magazine's top releases of that year. The Luminous Ground was his first LP release focusing on the modular synthesizer system he first explored as part of the trio LP with Lawrence English and Tujiko Noriko, 2008's U.
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LP
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RM 459LP
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Even Clean Hands Damage the Work is the new LP from UK-based artist John Chantler. Following on from The Luminous Ground, his critically-acclaimed album from 2011, Even Clean Hands Damage the Work sees Chantler delve ever deeper into the inner zones of audible electricity. Like its predecessor, this is an album generous in texture and dimension, but moreover it is a record of incendiary dynamic force; shifting and arcing with a relentless ferocity. Recorded across a range of studios including Stockholm's hallowed EMS (Elektronmusikstudion) using their classic Buchla 200 and Serge systems, the album's composition bears the marks of over two years of refinement. At times intensely fierce and brutal in its sonic character, Even Clean Hands Damage the Work is at its heart an expression of the power of dynamics. The LP throws huge blocks of massed harmonics into suspension, sometimes smearing them into distorted half phrases and twisted variations through spectral and time domain processing. At other times it freezes them in a way that appears to deconstruct time without ever being overtly rhythmic. The pieces slow down to rest around beds of beating tones and difference frequencies that affect a tripping acceleration via momentary interventions. It also relies less on recognizable melodic motifs and though they're hidden across the record's duration, Even Clean Hands Damage the Work is more readily characterized by variations of timbre and apparent repetition. The five discrete movements of the LP are compiled as two continuous side-long suites, each one constantly straining to find moments of balance between an uneasy sea of swarming, voltage-controlled electronics.
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