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LP
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RM 4175LP
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In late 2019 a volcanic system in southern Iceland, dormant since the 12th century, began to show signs of awakening. As swarms of earthquakes rattled through their home in Reykjavík Ben Frost and Francesco Fabris resolved to capture the sonic terrains of this part of the earth and document this moment of transformation. Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted on March 19, 2021 and the pair descended on the site within hours. Vakning is the condensation of their recordings, and charts an intensive and dynamic sound field that celebrates the profundity of field recording and its ability to explode the ways you think about sound existing in our immediate environments.
A note from Lawrence English on Vakning: "Nothing is fixed, nothing is permanent, nothing holds for anyone, any time or anything. As stable as we might choose to think it is, this planet is anything but that. A paper-thin crust, the zone in which we find ourselves, and mostly concern ourselves with, exists as a modest veil cloaking a dynamic seismic turbulence that is as powerful as it is unknowable. There are moments though where ruptures occur. The pressure from within carves its way to, and through, the surface of the planet simultaneously delivering destruction and virgin landscapes, as primordial as any we might care to imagine. It is here, in these places, where we can literally see the living planet, that geologic time is condensed and world building is made visible, and audible to us, in an unrestrained and provocative detail. These volcanic ruptures, such as those captured on Vakning by Francesco Fabris and Ben Frost, speak to the very living geology of Earth. These recordings, captured at close range, exist at a nexus where liquid rock becomes solid. They capture moments of transformation, of obliteration and of creation, often all at once. These are recordings of a living, material planet, dynamic and unrestrained."
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