Since its first release in 1982, Touch has created sonic and visual productions that combine innovation with a level of care and attention that has made it the most enduring of any independent music company of its time.
The first period up to the digitization of music in the mid-80s saw releases of several cassette magazines, where sounds by luminaries such as New Order, Cabaret Voltaire and The Residents were paralleled by visual work and writing by Neville Brody, Jon Savage, Joseph Beuys
and many others. As the industry went through its usual elaborate cycles of self-annihilation and rebirth, Touch adapted to incorporate new technologies with the old, underscoring the power and necessity of editing and presentation to bring the best out of each production.
Now working extensively with Fennesz, Chris Watson, Philip Jeck, Biosphere, Ryoji Ikeda, BJNilsen and many others, Touch celebrated its 26th year in 2007!
The transitions from analog to digital, from camera-ready artwork to broadband file-sharing and from 1/4Ó masters to web site downloads are only the surface manifestations of the great changes that have taken place in recorded music over the last 25 years. Touch has been at the
forefront of these changes, and will continue to be.
A brief history of the label can be found here:
http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/history_of_touch.html
http://www.touchmusic.org.uk
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TONE 070LP
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Simon Scott on "Red Square": "Field recordings captured during a day under Moscow's Red Square in the underground metro in 2015. It has a narrative of motion as my microphones move with me through a vast sounding environment. The space reveals the aural diversity of the people moving beneath the Russian city of Moscow, the complex acoustics, and complex rhythms mixed together in a subterranean space. These communitive sonic events transformed my perception of space and time as reverberant boundaries led my ear into unknown acoustic destinations." Simon Scott on "Murmurations": "Recorded in March 2018 at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen in, Norfolk, UK using DPA 4061 microphones. I was showing Australian sound artist Lawrence English around the Fens of East Anglia, when he requested we head to Buckenham to find a flock of crows roosting. I recorded the spectacular murmurations of thousands of crows, rooks, and jackdaws, as the spring sun slowly set at dusk, and deer ran across the marshes. The field recordings are accompanied by a gradually shifting modular synth tone, that musically represents the slow change colors, until the light fell off the horizon. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. Vinyl mastered at SPS Mastering; cut by Jason @ Transition. Edition of 300.
Simon Scott is a British composer, mastering engineer, and sound artist from The Fens in Cambridgeshire, England. His albums: Soundings (TO 112CD, 2019), FloodLines (TONE 053CD, 2016), Between (12k, 2012), Insomni (ASH 11-4CD, 2015), and Below Sea Level (12k/TouchLine, 2012). His work explores creative methodologies of field recording, the process of active listening, the implications of recording the natural world using technology and the manipulation of natural sounds used for musical composition. He has recently collaborated with artists Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer (Between), Fennesz, Claire M Singer, Philip Jeck, James Blackshaw, Rafael Anton Irisarri (Orcas, The Sight Below), Nils Frahm, and many more. He is also in UK group Slowdive.
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TO 114LP
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Following Slow Fade for Hard Sync (2009) and Location Momentum (2010), Living Space is Eleh's third physical release for Touch. Seven years in the making, this new release consolidates the artist's parallel narrative between a series of vinyl and CD releases for Important Records -- where the emphasis is on a minimalist aesthetic -- to a visual counterpoint that hints at the cinematic and painterly qualities of the music. Sound, as a healing force, is an idea as old as the medium itself. Inspired by the legacy and above all the spirit of John Coltrane, Living Space features five new compositions that seek to express the beauty of slow change, not only through the microtonal shifts in sound that Eleh navigates but moving with the atmospheric and shape-shifting conditions that the music creates as it interacts with the listening space, whether bedroom or concert hall, each one of them unique. If the ambition of Living Space is to reflect both personal and collective growth cycles, the experience of its audition has the effect of stopping time. Melodic and harmonic progressions are implied and not stated obviously, to enable listeners to apply their own emotions and feelings to the music. Using modular and analog synthesizers, piano, organ, bass, and symphonic chimes, Living Space stresses the promise of the albm's final track -- "Lighter Touch" -- forsaking the forceful hand for an approach that mirrors the slower and softer exposures of plant life and leaf formations, slow moving waters, not flash floods nor forest fires. In counterpoint to the music, the 64-minute album is presented in a gatefold sleeve with Jon Wozencroft's water photography extending the meditational pull of these new compositions. For those for whom Eleh needs no introduction, see if you agree. Anyone who has yet to experience the artist's sonic alchemy, Living Space is the perfect starting point.
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Strafe Für Rebellion, or Strafe F.R., is a long-term collaboration between the artists Bernd Kastner and Siegfried M. Syniuga, which started in 1979. This release follows 2018's The Bird Was Stolen and sees them reemerge after a long period of hibernation. There are four tracks, four different windows to look out from our studio in Düsseldorf into the street and their different layers of sound. Four horizons, four spy holes in the door, four eyes, four shopping windows. Four landscapes. Witness the electric city and the power house. Strafe F.R. is sitting inside the fuse box. The electric chirp of the night. The socket in which we sleep. The dog comes, in order to devour Strafe F.R. First, he eats the rebellion and next he bites the Strafe. The house and the body, both are earthed and the veins are vibrating. Between the third and the fourth hour of the morning we enter the realm of insomnia. You fly by not using an airplane. An old woman is cleaning the door bells with her own spittle. The old man is distilling schnapps in his back garden. The swimmers are gliding through the day on top of a greasy film. The reception is a flare into seconds until it fades away into noise again. The kettle drum gives the rhythm of breathing, the bass determines the time. You stumble forward, forward into the next day. From our window we see a public building where there exists a toilet, its porcelain shows the most beautiful craquelé fissures. There is an historic poster of Lenin. It is fixed on a garden fence in the landscape and the stinging nettles grow over it softly swinging in the wind. There are shadows but there is also brightness, this means there are complementary colors and contrasts, movements, and reflection until there is stillness. We see the back-breeding of cattle in the Neanderthal age and at the same time we look into the large heating room of an art museum, where we observe tubes and their upstream pressure regulators.
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The Heat Equation is a 100pp book and CD set showcasing a new portfolio of photography work by Joséphine Michel alongside a live recording of Mika Vainio's final performance in the UK, featuring all new material intended for his latest solo CD for Touch. Following their previous collaboration on the 2015 release Halfway to White, Michel and Vainio had been planning a follow-up production, and in March 2017, Michel visited Vainio in Oslo to show him the first examples of the photographs she had been taking with this in mind. Shortly before Mika's untimely death in April 2017, the project took a turn. The new Touch recordings were nearing completion but his hard disk had crashed and the project would need to be restarted. The collaboration turned into a parallel narrative between Michel's perusal of quasi-scientific imagery, captured from museum collections and locations in France, Japan and Peru, and the legacy of Vainio's musical vision, the tension between its heat and its icy precision. Included in the book is a postcard of Michel's tender portrait of Mika Vainio taken at this Oslo meeting. If 'Halfway to White' was an exploration of Michel's notion of sonic photography, this new book presents a vision of a world on the edge of discovery ? whether it be born of science, medicine, space travel ? with 'The Heat Equation' hinting at the transformation of feelings and matter. In August 2016 Vainio performed a blinding set at the Contra Pop festival in Ramsgate, which was recorded off the desk for the purposes of the festival's annual compilation CD. With Contra Pop on hiatus in 2017, it wasn't until June 2018 that the festival organisers contacted Touch to introduce the idea of the compilation. At which point, as if miraculously, Vainio's counterpoint to Michel's work rematerialised in the form of this live festival recording. Remastered by Russell Haswell, Mika Vainio's new music is the equal of anything he released in his lifetime. Bound in a linen cover with foil blocking, Michel's photography is expertly printed on 200gsm Arctic Silk. Accompanied by an introductory text by artist Jeremy Millar, "The Devouring Drop", art directed by Jon Wozencroft and the latest development in Touch's new series of "ear books". Edition of 750.
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TO 114CD
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Following Slow Fade for Hard Sync (2009) and Location Momentum (2010), Living Space is Eleh's third physical release for Touch. Seven years in the making, this new release consolidates the artist's parallel narrative between a series of vinyl and CD releases for Important Records -- where the emphasis is on a minimalist aesthetic -- to a visual counterpoint that hints at the cinematic and painterly qualities of the music. Sound, as a healing force, is an idea as old as the medium itself. Inspired by the legacy and above all the spirit of John Coltrane, Living Space features five new compositions that seek to express the beauty of slow change, not only through the microtonal shifts in sound that Eleh navigates but moving with the atmospheric and shape-shifting conditions that the music creates as it interacts with the listening space, whether bedroom or concert hall, each one of them unique. If the ambition of Living Space is to reflect both personal and collective growth cycles, the experience of its audition has the effect of stopping time. Melodic and harmonic progressions are implied and not stated obviously, to enable listeners to apply their own emotions and feelings to the music. Using modular and analog synthesizers, piano, organ, bass, and symphonic chimes, Living Space stresses the promise of the CD's final track -- "Lighter Touch" -- forsaking the forceful hand for an approach that mirrors the slower and softer exposures of plant life and leaf formations, slow moving waters, not flash floods nor forest fires. In counterpoint to the music, the 60-minute CD is presented with a six-panel digi-file with Jon Wozencroft's water photography extending the meditational pull of these new compositions. For those for whom Eleh needs no introduction, see if you agree. Anyone who has yet to experience the artist's sonic alchemy, Living Space is the perfect starting point.
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TO 111LP
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A double-LP vinyl version of Claire M Singer's previous two CDs: Solas excluding the piece "The Molendinar" (TO 101CD, 2016) and Fairge (TONE 059CD, 2017). Gatefold sleeve.
Sides 1, 2, and 3: Solas. Solas ("Light" in Gaelic) is Claire M Singer's debut album, spanning 14 years of her work in acoustic and electronic composition. In recent years she has focused on writing and performing a mix of organ, cello, and electronics with regular performances at Union Chapel, where, as Music Director, she runs a diverse program of concerts and educational workshops around the chapel's organ, which was built by Henry Willis in 1877. Solas comprises seven works for various combinations of organ, cello, and electronics, including "Eilean," which is an electronic work derived from recordings of cello, piano, and violin. "Solas" and "Wrangham" were recorded by Iain Berryman at Union Chapel, London, February 26-27th, 2016 on the organ built by Henry Willis in 1877 Mixed at Bennachie Studios, Aberdeen and EMS Goldsmiths, London. Violin extracts on "Eilean" from Land of the Standing Stones composed and performed by Paul Anderson. "Eilean" was commissioned by Aberdeenshire Council.
Side 4: Fairge. Fairge, meaning "the ocean" or "the sea" in Scottish Gaelic, is a single 21-minute piece for organ, cello, and electronics, composed, performed and produced by Singer. It is very much a companion work to the title track on her debut album Solas. Commissioned by Amsterdam's oldest building and parish church Oude Kerk, Fairge premiered at the church in February 2017. Claire M Singer's performance on the Ahrend and Bunzema organ, cello, and electronics is truly captivating. The work very much encapsulates her signature style of expansive soundscapes full of intricate textures, rich overtones, and powerful swells, emotionally resonating from beginning to end. Recorded by Clare Gallagher at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, June 12th, 2017 on the transept organ built by Ahrend & Brunzema (1965).
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TO 033-1LP
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For one week in every five years, two thousand singers, dancers, and musicians along with fifty thousand spectators make their way to the small town of Gjirokastra in southern Albania for the Festivali Folkloric Kombelar. In the great castle overlooking the town, they participate in the incredible National Folk Festival of Albania, hoping to attain the highest level of interpretation and win one of the many awards available the festival... the banner, even. Considering the comparatively small size of the country (just over three million inhabitants), the range of instruments, styles, and costumes seen at the festival is exceptional, sustaining a folk tradition that dates back to ancient Illyria. The works presented here in volume one are all live recordings made at the Gjirokastra Festival, taken from six of the 26 participating districts: Vlora, Gjirokastra, and Lorca from the south, and Shkodra, Debra, and Tropoja from the north. The original compact disc, released in 1990, was a collaboration between The Institute of Popular Culture, Tirana, The Albanian Shop Ltd., and Touch. Edited from the original ¼" tapes, mastered and produced by Touch. Compiled by Mike Harding, Liam McDowall, and Jon Wozencroft. Features Drita Metushi & Pretash Nikaj, Fatmir Dandlli & Endri Fifo, Eli Fara & Luiza Míça, Sofika Babliku & Ferit Shkëmbi, Folk Orchestra Of Korca, Myfterim Kupa & Fatmir Duka, Ibrahim Muça & Islam Mustafa, and unknown artists. Notes revised by Mike Harding, May 2018. Edition of 300.
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TO 115LP
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2020 repress. Agora is Christian Fennesz's first solo album since Mahler Remix (TONE 052LP, 2014) and Bécs (EMEGO 165CD/LP, 2014). Fennesz writes: "It's a simple story. I had temporarily lost a proper studio workspace and had to move all my gear back to a small bedroom in my flat where I recorded this album. It was all done on headphones, which was rather a frustrating situation at first but later on it felt like back in the day when I produced my first records in the 1990s. In the end it was inspiring. I used very minimal equipment; I didn't even have the courage to plug in all the gear and instruments which were at my disposal. I just used what was at hand." Fennesz uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. His lush and luminous compositions are anything but sterile computer experiments. They resemble sensitive, telescopic recordings of rainforest insect life or natural atmospheric occurrences, an inherent naturalism permeating each piece. He lives and works in Vienna. Recorded at Kaiserstudios, Vienna, August, September 2018. "Rainfall": vocals by Katharina Caecilia Fennesz; "Agora": field recordings Manfred Neuwirth, vocals Mira Waldmann. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye. Full color inner and outer sleeve. "Imagine the electric guitar severed from cliché and all of its physical limitations, shaping a bold new musical language." --City Newspaper
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A lifelong expatriate, Bana Haffar was born in Saudi Arabia in 1987 and spent much of her childhood in the GCC. Through her switch from ten years of electric bass, preceded by classical violin, to modular synthesizers in 2014, Bana is attempting to dismantle years of institutional conditioning in traditional systems of music theory and performance. She is interested in exploring sonic disintegration and coalescence into new forms and synthesized experiences. Bana lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Instruments used on Genera: Live at AB Salon, Brussels: Eurorack modular: Make Noise René 2, Make Noise Tempi, Make Noise WoggleBug, Make Noise Morphagene, Make Noise QMMG, Make Noise tELHARMONIC, Make Noise Maths, Serge Resonant EQ, Mutable Instruments Shades, Mutable Instrument Clouds Non-modular. Field recordings made using a Zoom H6 and LOM mikroUsi microphones, GE 35383 Micro Cassette Recorder.
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TO 113LP
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Has there ever been a better time to fuck off to the stars? Is a prison breakout "escapism"? Crisis carve some wound-space to let the dreams back in. In nights we turn to fire, in flight you burst into stone, where are the exits in this theater of the damned? Strict luggage allocations -- guitar (D. Knight), saxophone (S. Thrower) -- and all the electronics your thoughts can carry. Headspin echoes, round and around, tilt wind-sails at a dark horizon, cut a stutter through the distance barrier. In to be out through the structure of the eye, encrusted with rotor-slime, pushing on through border erosions as everything melts into smoke, burning objects may be closer than they appear. Nebulae dazzle the shadows, tunnel through memories and the pulp-mass of neurons, forwards heading backwards, end of tether snapped, slide into the earth like ancient worms and breathe. UnicaZürn's core instrumentation blends analog synthesizer, mellotron, and electric piano with electric guitar and saxophone. Knight is renowned for his pioneering multi-textured fretwork with Danielle Dax and Shock-Headed Peters, and his ambient guitar settings for Lydia Lunch, while Thrower's reed playing provided rage and melancholy in Coil and turns to electro-acoustic texture in Cyclobe.
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TONE 067CD
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Zachary Paul's debut album for Touch, A Meditation On Discord, compiles two live recordings from 2018 and a short film score, showcasing his expressive range and unique playing style. Both live recordings -- "Premonition" and "Slow Ascent" -- were fully improvised on his violin ("The Duke," 1878), with a minimal assortment of pedals (Earthquaker Afterneath, Diamond Memory Lane Jr, and Boss RC-30) and looped vocals. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering; artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Edition of 500.
"'Premonition' (October 12, 2018) was recorded on the first day of Desert Daze music festival. For this performance I tuned my violin in open G (G-D-G-D) for the very first time. The afternoon was warm and bright, but storm clouds, yet to be seen at the time of this recording, loomed on the horizon.* My improvisation began in the present moment, reflecting the vibrations of the sun. Once locked in with these higher frequencies, the instrument took control and painted the evening. This performance was both a premonition of night and an astral projection towards the clouds crawling towards the festival grounds, catalyzed by an instrument resonating with the frequencies of the earth. 'Slow Ascent' (February 23, 2018) was recorded at Human Resources, Los Angeles, for an event celebrating the release of Yann Novak's second album. This performance was an inverted guided group meditation. In front of my biggest audience to date, I was extremely anxious. Rather than letting my nerves lead the way**, I fed off of the energies of the audience, letting their patience, calm and warmth guide the instrument. 'A Person With Feelings' is a score for a short abstract film to be released in 2019. A modern trance film, the piece follows a young actor's internal journey. The soundscape reflects the arc of the film and showcases the textural range of my instrument." --Zachary Paul
*Later that night, the headline act was forced to leave the stage and the festival was shut down after intense lightning and rain storms.
**My anxiety, manifesting as physical tremors in my arm, can be heard in the jagged bow stroke that opens the piece.
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TO 115CD
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Agora is Christian Fennesz's first solo album since Mahler Remix (TONE 052LP, 2014) and Bécs (EMEGO 165CD/LP, 2014). Fennesz writes: "It's a simple story. I had temporarily lost a proper studio workspace and had to move all my gear back to a small bedroom in my flat where I recorded this album. It was all done on headphones, which was rather a frustrating situation at first but later on it felt like back in the day when I produced my first records in the 1990s. In the end it was inspiring. I used very minimal equipment; I didn't even have the courage to plug in all the gear and instruments which were at my disposal. I just used what was at hand." Fennesz uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. His lush and luminous compositions are anything but sterile computer experiments. They resemble sensitive, telescopic recordings of rainforest insect life or natural atmospheric occurrences, an inherent naturalism permeating each piece. He lives and works in Vienna. Recorded at Kaiserstudios, Vienna, August, September 2018. "Rainfall": vocals by Katharina Caecilia Fennesz; "Agora": field recordings Manfred Neuwirth, vocals Mira Waldmann. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye. Extended digipak. "Imagine the electric guitar severed from cliché and all of its physical limitations, shaping a bold new musical language." --City Newspaper
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TO 112CD
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Soundings, Simon Scott's debut studio album for Touch finds the composer and sound ecologist using field recordings from various cities around the globe; modular synthesizer treatments; live strings and laptop electronics to create an album of transition and shifting time zones. The recordings were edited and composed in hotels rooms across the world as Scott was constantly on tour as the drummer for Slowdive, who successfully reformed in 2014. "Hodos", the album opener, begins with 85 mph Storm Barney recordings, ending with the fading sounds of bellbirds and cicadas recorded in Brisbane 2018. "I took a home recording I made of Storm Barney in Cambridge, listening to it on repeat when I was flying from continent to continent. I wanted this to be the starting point of the process of musically documenting how much travelling I was doing". This album was created from the US to Asia, South America to Europe and the Arctic Circle back to the UK via California. "Working in hotel rooms and on flights, listening to and editing the recordings I'd made from all of these distant cities formed the basis of the album. It's the soundtrack to four years of my life in flux with constant change, jet lag, excitement and the seeming perpetual motion of travelling". Scott has previously released the live album FloodLines in 2016 (TONE 053CD) and reissued Below Sea Level in 2017.
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TO 108LP
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In December 2017, Howlround (Robin the Fog) was invited to perform at "The Winter Solstice Soundscapes" for the recently opened record store "Vinyl Café" in his home town of Carlisle, Cumbria. Inspired by the reception to his first ever performance in the great border city, he covered his parent's dining room table with the same equipment, stretched loops of tape around his mum's seasonal candlesticks when she wasn't looking... and this LP is the result. The only equipment used on the album is two 1/4" reel-to-reel tape machines and one microphone. The sounds created are entirely at the discretion of the machines (much of them derived from "closed-input" recordings) and all tracks were produced in a single take. There are no edits, no overdubs and no additional effects. This marks a new, heavier direction for Howlround, a project better known for more ambient work. Described as "Tapeloop Techno", thick knotty tangles of dense, pulsating bass are an echo of Robin's early days making bad dance music, while the abrasive snarls of feedback swirling around these tracks point to his more recent embrace of indeterminacy and chance composition. Previous vinyl releases on Psyché Tropes, The Wormhole, A Year in the Country, and Front & Follow as well as his own label The Fog Signals have shown a deep understanding of the possibilities of tape manipulation. On The Debatable Lands, Howlround eschews the usual field recordings in favor of exploring the interior world of the machines themselves.
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TONE 065CD
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2020 repress. Touch issues Jana Winderen's Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone. The marginal ice zone is the dynamic border between the open sea and the sea ice, which is ecologically extremely vulnerable. The phytoplankton present in the sea produces half of the oxygen on the planet. During spring, this zone is the most important CO2 sink in our biosphere. On Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone the sounds of the living creatures become a voice in the current political debate concerning the official definition of the location of the ice edge. The listener experiences the bloom of plankton, the shifting and crackling sea ice in the Barents Sea around Spitsbergen, towards the North Pole, and the underwater sounds made by bearded seals, migrating species such as humpbacks and orcas, and the sound made by hunting saithe, crustaceans and spawning cod, all depending on the spring bloom. Spring Bloom In The Marginal Ice Zone is a Sonic Acts and Dark Ecology commission, first shown as a seven-channel installation at the Sonic Acts festival (Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, 2017). Includes booklet.
Jana Winderen is an artist educated in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London with a background in mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology from the University of Oslo. Jana focuses on audio environments and ecosystems which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally. Amongst her activities are immersive multi-channel sound installations and concerts which have been performed internationally in major institutions and public spaces in America, Europe and Asia. Winderen lives and works in Oslo.
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TO 106CD
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Ipek Gorgun's Ecce Homo explores the lighter and darker shades of the human psyche, behavior, and existence, and humanity's ability to create beauty and destruction. What lies in the essence of such complexity has become a core idea for the album, while Gorgun seeks to figure out if there is a true meaning to being human, and human being. Starting with "Neroli" as a human fascination with nature and finalizing with "To Cross Great Rivers"; a never-ending, hopeless dream of the mankind to conquer and control the world, the album reflects the contemplations of a spectator being exposed to the human civilization, and witnessing human activity, including his/her own. Trying to acquire a glimpse of the multiple layers of such narrative, the sound of the album aims to present a diversity of the sonic spectrum, with tracks varying between ambient and noisy landscapes. Ipek Gorgun is an electronic music composer currently enrolled in the doctoral program of Sonic Arts at Istanbul Technical University's Center for Advanced Studies in Music. After graduating from Bilkent University with a degree in political science, she completed her Master's degree studies in philosophy at Galatasaray University. As a bass player and vocalist for projects and bands such as Bedroomdrunk and Vector Hugo between 2001-2013, she also performed in an opening gig for Jennifer Finch from L7 and Simon Scott from Slowdive, as well as performing live with David Brown from Brazzaville. Besides group projects and solo performances, she also composed the soundtrack for the documentary Yok Anasinin Soyadi (Mrs. His Name) directed by Hande Cayir in 2012, portraying Turkish women's struggle for keeping their original surnames after marriage. Her debut album Aphelion was self-released in February, 2016. In 2017, she released a collaborative album from Halocline Trance, with Canadian producer Ceramic TL (aka Egyptrixx) entitled Perfect Lung (HTRA 007LP). Ipek Gorgun also practices performance, street, and abstract photography.
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TO 107CD
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Ozmotic is a multidisciplinary artistic project, deeply fascinated by the dynamics of contemporary society, by architecture, cities, and vast uncontaminated spaces. Ozmotic creates world sounds characterized by an intense tonal variety and a refined rhythmic research. The interaction between electronic music and digital visual art in real time is an essential trait of Ozmotic's aesthetic. Having previously collaborated with Fennesz, Murcof, Bretschnider, and Senking, Elusive Balance is their third album, following AirEffect in 2015, and Liquid Times in 2016 (both for FolkWisdom). Ozmotic now release their debut album for Touch, Elusive Balance. Elusive Balance explores the relationship between humans and nature, as well as the search for balance between these two great entities. The theme of equilibrium and its precariousness, and its natural tendency to achieve relative stability connects all living things. Equilibrium is also a junction point and evolutionary engine -- unstable and elusive, ready to deteriorate and to start a new reaction mechanism bringing organisms to a new harmony. "Beauty is a rare and fleeting thing; it often corresponds to those phases where we can grasp that unstable equilibrium which exists between us and the world at large." Musically the album seeks resolution of sound contrasts, in a continuous search for an emotional component that gives simultaneously a feeling of tension and stillness. There is a duality between the "organic" components (represented by soprano sax and percussion) and their interaction with machines and computers. In Elusive Balance, Ozmotic investigate the essence of their sound to expand its emotional and compositional potential. Each track contains a search for a synthesis between sound elements apparently distant from each other, but in reality, they create a new balance -- as poetic as it is musical. The album's seven tracks draw a sonic flow in which the melodic aspects are countered by glitches and angular sounds, and the ambient passages are subjected to heavy rains of rhythm, leaving space for dreamlike moments.
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TO 110CD
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Based in Düsseldorf, Germany, Strafe Für Rebellion, or Strafe F.R., is a long-term collaboration between the artists Bernd Kastner and Siegfried M. Syniuga, which started in 1979. After a long period of hibernation, The Bird Was Stolen marks their return to Touch following four previous releases in the '80s and early '90s. From their early connection with the local scene, centered around the Ratinger Hof in Düsseldorf, Strafe went on to develop a unique and influential form of sound sculpture that pioneered the use of field recordings alongside home-made instruments and the use of the studio as a performance space. A new track, "Virgin", which appeared on the recent Touch Movements CD/book (FOLIO 002CD, 2017), gave an early indication that they are back at the peak of their powers. The Bird Was Stolen presents 14 new compositions that push the signature sound of Strafe F.R. All songs recorded by Strafe F.R. in 2017 at STRAFE Studio, Düsseldorf, Germany. Features vocals by Caterina De Re and Strafe F.R. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham.
Strafe F.R. explain the recording:
"1. We have a piano that is somehow completely bare-boned as if a butcher had been at work. The piano is lying on its back -- we can climb into its corpse. The piano strings are easy to access and we prepare them with anything that influences a possible recording. Loudspeakers are installed. Inside the piano we play bass and guitar to use the resonance of the strings of the piano. 'Pianosmoke' was recorded in this way.
2. Sound sources are often 'accidents'. We were recording with our old Uher Portable Tape Recorder -- all of a sudden the machine developed a strange malfunction: the Uher had problems with its engine. Himmelgeist was born. The recorder began to 'scratch' like a vinyl record, but it was the recorder doing everything itself; we could also manipulate the speed with our hands. This was magnificent. Strange rhythms just happened, the tape recorder did it... We are thankful that we managed to record all of this.
3. We often amplify sounds quite loudly, that actually have a very low natural dynamic. This is interesting when recording guitar, piano and the human voice... To reduce the normal recording level by an extreme and amplify the soft, low sounds."
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TO 104CD
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Mark Van Hoen on Invisible Threads: "In mid-2016 I did a brief tour of the west coast with Philip Jeck, Simon Scott, Daniel Mensche, Lee Bannon, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Pye Corner Audio, and Marcus Fischer. The music of all these great artists and the experience of playing these shows with them all informed what would become Invisible Threads which was primarily composed and recorded in the latter half of 2016. I had not played live at dates in such a dense cluster for many years, and the exposure to so much great music and the artists was inspiring. Other Touch artists were also an influence here -- Claire M Singer, Jana Winderen, and as ever Chris Watson (who has been an enduring influence from the moment I first heard Cabaret Voltaire in 1979), along with my project drøne with Mike Harding, the collaborative aspect of drøne brought up a few new paths in itself. During the time I was recording the album I was editing audio and sound design for films -- this too went some way to defining the structure and sound of Invisible Threads. At the time of recording several of the titles on the album, I had re-read The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839), a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, and in some ways this record is a soundtrack to that. The title Invisible Threads refers to the intangible connection between all of the musical and personal influences that brought this record into being." Instrumentation/sound sources: Modular synthesizer notably using modules manufactured by Make Noise, The Harvestman & Mutable Audio Software -- Ableton Live, Pro Tools and many plugins -- heavily used were Max, Soundhack, and Native Instruments' Reaktor & Kontakt Sound libraries from Spitfire Audio; Fender Rhodes piano, Fender Jaguar guitar; Farfisa Organ, Vox continental; Notably no analogue synthesizers were used on this album - probably the first time I've made a record without them since Aurobindo: Involution in 1994. A few field recordings made on my very modest Zoom H4n recorder (mainly domestic sounds) made it onto the record Some 'found' sources also are present, mainly from vinyl records and YouTube." Photography & design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham.
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SPIRE 007CD
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Semper Liber consists of a series of duets featuring Marcus Davidson, Hildur Gudnadottir, Mike Harding, Charles Matthews, Clare M Singer, Maia Urstad, and Anna von Hausswolff and are drawn from recordings made at Spire events since 2009. Mixed by its curator, Mike Harding, at the Völlhaus, and mastered by Mark Van Hoen, this powerful four track collection -- to be played as one piece -- explores the sonics of the mighty organ in all its thundering glory. Warning!: Extremely low frequencies (bass) may cause distortion on headphones/computer speakers! Performed on the 1893 Schlag & Söhne organ at Johanneskirken, Bergen; the 1967 Karl Ludwig Schuke organ at Passionskirche, Berlin; the Peter Bares organ, inaugurated in 2004, at Kunststation St Peter, Cologne; the 1885 "Father" Henry Willis organ at Lincoln Cathedral; the 1877 "Father" Henry Willis organ at Union Chapel, London; the Rieger organ at St. Stephan's Church, Mautern & the 1897 Johnson & Son organ at St. Saviour's Anglican Church, Riga between 2009 and 2016. The four colour plates by the art historian and author Sydney Russell show cave art from four-to-six thousand years ago. Taken in Brazil on one of several expeditions she made around the world, these highly emotional works reveal the sophistication and ageless quality of the imagination of the peoples who were expressing themselves at this time; they have been slow to reveal their beauty to us, having survived all weathers; their acoustic soundtrack unfolds slowly, submersive and involving. Sydney Russell writes: "These photographs were taken in 1976 in Brazil. We eventually obtained minimum radio carbon datings for levels covering the paintings from approximately 3750-2500 BCE. They originate from the rock shelter sites of Sucupira, (Lagoa Santa) and Lapa do Cipo (Santana do Riacho), near Minas Gerais and Quadrillas (Montalvania), Bahia. Please refer to the website for more information." Photography by Sydney Russell. Artwork by Philip Marshall. Mixed at the Völlhaus; Mastered by Mark Van Hoen.
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TO 105CD
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The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past is the latest album by Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist and composer Yann Novak, and his second for Touch. It considers the relationships between memory, time, and context through four vibrantly constructed tracks that push Novak's work in a new direction while simultaneously exploring his sonic past. The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past is composed as a sonata -- a single gesture broken into four parts -- that meditates on the inevitable progression of time. The album's conceptual roots stem from The Archaic Revival (1991) by American ethnobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna. In it, McKenna theorizes that when a culture becomes dysfunctional it attempts to revert back to a saner moment in its own history. He suggested that abstract expressionism, body piercing and tattooing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, and rave culture were proof of this default to a more primal time. The text's idealism was influential to Novak in the '90s, but the theory bears a darkly-veiled resemblance to the modern rise of nostalgia-driven nationalism. Novak on the release: "For this album I was interested in expanding into a more emotive compositional style and palette. In doing so, I was reminded that this was territory I had covered early on in my career -- the whole process became a way to reconnect with my own past and history." The album's four tracks dynamically shift and surge, where time is rendered as material and momentum compels it into movement. Subtle distortion throughout the album ties the tracks together and echoes techniques explored in Novak's Meadowsweet (2006). Tension gives way to a halcyon vision of place in "Radical Transparency", immediately followed by the austere swells of "The Inertia of Time", a piece that captures the twin impulse of generating optimistic beauty in harshly muted tones. Both tracks introduce subtle bass swells and stabs reminiscent of In Residence (2008). From there, the album grows darker with "Casting Ourselves Back into the Past" and "Nothing Ever Transcends its Immediate Environment", two icier tracks that preserve the album's core. The latter introduces a processed vocal sample of Geneva Skeen, similar to Novak's collaborative work with Marc Manning on Pairings (2007). The album is a study in perception and alteration, manipulation, and awareness, effectively capturing Novak's command of emotional texturing. Artwork & photography: Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Lawrence English. Edition of 500.
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FOLIO 002CD
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In a 24/7 world, there is no greater challenge than "to be in command of one's own time". Is it true that the ability to download anything, at any moment, constitutes freedom? Has the '"value" of music, art and design been stripped bare? "I Google, therefore I am"... Touch Movements has been compiled over the course of three years. It is a response to many requests for Touch to publish a fuller account of Jon Wozencroft's photography for the cover art of the project. The book follows the music, which was compiled step-by-step, like a jigsaw; there was not an "open call" to the artists, rather a sequential development which gives the CD a special narrative quality. And since their last Touch 30 compilation in 2012 (TONE 033CD/LP), the accuracy of the music has grown and rises to the challenge of what sound can do to transform perceptions about the immediate emotion of musical work and its more difficult, longer term evolution. Following Halfway to White in 2015 (FOLIO 001BK), the Touch Folio series is a dedication to finding new ways of audiovisual publishing, somewhere between the twin peaks of a jewel-cased CD and a lavish box-set. The two elements of sound and the visual work in parallel to create the idea of an "Ear-book" whose interdependency reveals itself over time, and allows the richest of listening and viewing experiences. The music and the photography is fully annotated, alongside a rarely-seen manifesto by the surrealist film-maker Jan Svankmajer which celebrates the spirit of the creative act. Features: Mika Vainio, AER¸Bethan Kellough, Wire, Carl Michael Von Hausswolff, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Claire M Singer, Hildur Gudnadottir, Three 20, Philip Jeck, Simon Scott¸ Eleh, Russell Haswell, Heitor Alvelos, Johann Johannsson, Mark Van Hoen, Fennesz, Sohrab, Strafe FR, Jim O'Rourke, Situation Stabilised / BJ Nilsen, Peter Rehberg, and Oren Ambarchi. 79-minute CD; 76 pp book in full color. Art Direction, photography, text: Jon Wozencroft.
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TO 103LP
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Conceptualized (2010-2013), composed and produced (2014-2017) by Carl Michael von Hausswolff in Palma (Majorca) and Stockholm. Still Life - Requiem is a musical piece consists only of sounds emitted and extracted from physical matter using emission spectroscopy as the sole basic technology. Acknowledgements to Linköping University (IFM), Sweden. Still Life - Requiem consists of one piece with the same title and is divided up into two to fit the LP format. The piece is, as the title suggests, a requiem and its contents are solely composed by sounds captured from a specific physical solid state material. The composer has used a technique called "emission spectroscopy" whereby the frequencies generated from the material was analyzed and transferred into, for humans, a listenable pitch (between 15 and 14000Hz). This captured organic sound material has been stretched, looped, equalized, and composed to produce the recording. A requiem is a piece of music dedicated to certain sole or several restless souls that wander our worlds looking for a place to call home. A requiem radiates calm, peace and perhaps comfort for tormented spiritual beings -- it's a piece dedicated to promote and insert tranquility and transcendence. This requiem also provides the listener with a certain feeling of connection -- perhaps a connection with the unknown and with the energy field clusters and mental abilities of post-mortem life forms that would be the incorporeal essence of a living being. Carl Michael von Hausswolff (born 1956 in Linköping , Sweden) has a long history within the communities of contemporary music and visual art. His first records were released in early '80s while the most recent saw the light just a few years ago. In recent years, he has been collaborating with Leslie Winer -- (1) (MONO 005LP, 2015) -- and Hans-Joachim Roedelius -- Nordlicht (2017). He has also instigated and curated the collective sound-installation "freq_out" during 2003-2017, which includes artists such as Jana Winderen, JG Thirlwell, Finnbogi Petursson, Christine Ödlund, and others. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft and Carl Michael von Hausswolff. Mastered by Jason at Transition.
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TONE 059CD
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2019 repress. Following Scottish artist Claire M Singer's debut album, Solas (TO 101CD, 2016), comes the release of the beautiful and intriguing Fairge, meaning "the ocean" or "the sea" in Scottish Gaelic. Fairge is a single 21-minute piece for organ, cello, and electronics, composed, performed and produced by Claire and is very much a companion work to the title track on her debut album Solas. Commissioned by Amsterdam's oldest building and parish church Oude Kerk, Fairge premiered at the church in February 2017. Claire M Singer's performance on the Ahrend and Bunzema organ, cello, and electronics is truly captivating. The work very much encapsulates her signature style of expansive soundscapes full of intricate textures, rich overtones, and powerful swells, emotionally resonating from beginning to end. Fairge was written specifically for the Ahered and Bunzema organ and explores the precise control of wind through the pipes using mechanical stop action. This creates a lush harmonic backdrop against the harmonics and melody of the haunting cello. Singer on the piece: "Oude Kerk were very generous in letting me have time to explore and really get to know the instrument. The work was developed over many visits sitting in the church until the very wee hours over the winter months, which was incredibly magical and inspiring. When working with mechanical stops and precisely controlling the amount of air that passes through the pipes it requires a lot of practice and exploration to learn each incremental sound the organ can make and what the quirks of the instrument can be. As every organ is unique, the piece will differ on other organs but that's what makes writing and working with the organ so fascinating. The tuning is mean-tone temperament, which I have not worked with previously. With Fairge I really wanted to show how special this relatively small organ is and the beautiful pallet of sound it can produce." Singer's work has been widely commissioned, exhibited, and performed throughout Europe and North America. This includes acoustic and electronic composition, fixed media, multi-media, installations and live electronics. Claire is also Music Director of the organ at Union Chapel and Artistic Director of the Organ Reframed festival. In June 2017, she was a recipient of the inaugural Oram Awards from the PRS Foundation and New BBC Radiophonic Workshop for her innovation in sound and music. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye.
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TONE 058CD
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The sixth in the series of limited edition compact disc live recordings -- following releases in the series by Thomas Köner & Jana Winderen (TONE 051CD), Simon Scott (TONE 053CD), Bethan Kellough (TONE 054CD), Yann Novak (TONE 055CD), Robert Crouch (TONE 056CD) -- offers a recording of Philip Jeck live at Iklectik, London. Philip Jeck studied visual arts at Dartington College of Arts in the 1970s and has been creating sound with record-players since the early '80s. He has worked with many dance and theatre companies and played with musicians/composers such as Jah Wobble, Steve Lacy, Gavin Bryars, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, Sidsel Endresen, and Bernhard Lang. He has released eleven solo albums, the most recent Cardinal, a double vinyl release on Touch (TO 098LP, 2015). Suite, another vinyl-only release, won a Distinction at The Prix Ars Electronica, and a cassette release on The Tapeworm, Spool (2009), sees him playing only bass guitar. His CD Sand (TO 067CD, 2008) was second in The Wire's top 50 of the year. His largest work made with Lol Sargent, Vinyl Requiem was for 180 record-players, nine slide-projectors, and two 16mm movie-projectors. It received a Time Out Performance Award. Vinyl Coda I-III, a commission from Bavarian Radio in 1999 won the Karl Sczuka Foderpreis for Radio Art. Philip also still works as a visual artist, usually incorporating sound and has shown installations at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, Hayward Gallery, London, The Hamburger Bahnhof Gallery, Berlin, ZKM in Karlsruhe, and The Shanghai and Liverpool Bienalles. Philip Jeck has won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers 2009. A presentation ceremony took place at The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, on November 9th, 2009. He has toured in an Opera North production playing live to the silent movie Pandora's Box (composed by Hildur Gudnadottir and Johann Johannson). He has also worked again with Gavin Bryars on a composition "Pneuma" for a ballet choreographed by Carolyn Carlson for The Opera de Bordeaux and has recently made and performed the sound for The Ballad Of Ray & Julie at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool. Recorded and mastered by Jeff Ardron of St. Austral Sound. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. CD comes in a slipcase; Edition of 500.
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