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, Claire M Singer, Bana Haffar, ELEH, Jana Winderen, and many others, Touch celebrated its 40th year in 2022! The transitions from analog to digital, from camera-ready artwork to broadband file-sharing and from 1/4? masters to web site downloads and the arrival of social media disinformation are only the surface manifestations of the great changes that have taken place in recorded music over the last generation. Touch has been at the forefront of these changes, and will continue to be.
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TO 125CD
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2025 repress! This is Fennesz's most reflective album to date. Composed and recorded at the end of 2023 and completed in the summer of 2024, Fennesz set up a new studio space, the third one in four years. He had no immediate concept, this time starting from scratch, with a strict working routine. He got up early in the morning, worked until midday then had a break and worked again until evening. At first, just collecting ideas, experimenting, improvising. Then composing, mixing and correcting. Yet the title came early, Mosaic, which mirrored this process of putting an element into place one at a time to build the full picture, an ancient technique of making an image, before pixels did it in a flash. This "9 to 5" working routine had already been developed on Agora. All the other albums before were done differently; a few weeks work, then months in between and another few days or weeks of work. Mosaic was done from beginning to end without a break. Packaged in the now familiar DVD-style case with artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft, there is an echo to Venice but 20 years later the division between the land, the horizon and the deep blue sea is more extreme. Fennesz experiments with unusual time signatures. It's not obvious, but "Love and the Framed Insects" is in 7/4. "Personare" is somehow influenced by West African pop music from the 1980s. "Goniorizon" originally consisted of six hard rock guitar riffs mixed on top of one another. Then it became this "thing" that somehow opened possibilities for new things to come -- all this adds up to a filmic, highly involving and beautiful score of diverse influences and multiple possibilities to be explored by the listener. Recorded by Christian Fennesz at Seven Fountains/Vienna between January and May 2024. Mastered by Denis Blackham. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft.
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TONE 086CD
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Repressed. With rpm, Touch wanted to join some of the dots of Philip Jeck's life and involve many other collaborators, early and more recent. Fennesz was a friend and kindred spirit on the same label. Claire M Singer formed a new chemistry and partnership and although their plans must now take a different form, Mary found some sketches Philip had laid out using Claire's organ recordings, for further development. Faith Coloccia and Philip had already released "Stardust" on Touch in 2021. Their live performance together at 2220arts + archives, Los Angeles in March 2022 celebrating Touch's 40th anniversary had to be shelved. And in September of that year Iklectik hosted a memorable tribute night with live work from Chris Watson, Liverpool Improvisation Collective, Claire M Singer, and others -- most of all a dedicated audience who knew and felt that this was a future event and not the end of the story. A work in progress at the time of Philip's death, Oxmardyke, a project with Chris Watson, saw the light of day as Touch Tone 83 in early 2023 -- working on recordings Chris had sent, Philip with laptop perched on hospital bed, almost to the end. There were other artists who wanted to actively contribute further, whether in performance or contributing to this album: Jana Winderen had already sent Philip her recordings of pilot whales and the track you hear was finished in March 2022. Cris Cheek was in Slant with Philip and Sianed Jones, who also sadly passed away that same year -- their work together predates Philip's with Touch. Philip owed much in his early years of composing and playing to his collaboration with dancers, theatre and film makers -- in particular, a ten-year working and performing partnership with Laurie Booth, Yip Yip Mix, and the 20th Century, which toured widely during the 1980s and early '90s. An early audio-visual work, Vinyl Requiem (1993) was created with visual artist Lol Sargent, using 180 record players, nine slide projectors and two 16mm projectors producing a live performance on a huge scale. Vinyl Requiem wasn't exactly about the end of vinyl, but the dawn of something else regarding sound recording and music. It was never a final statement but a testament to the work to come. Also featuring Gavin Bryars, Rosy Parlane, Cris Cheek, Faith Coloccia, David Sylvian & Hildur Guðnadóttir, Jah Wobble & Deep Space, Drums Off Chaos, Chandra Shukla, and Jana Winderen.
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TO 126CD
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"Cleared, the duo of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera has re-emerged with Hexa, their sixth release and third for the Touch label. Steven Hess recorded sessions in the group's practice space, handing them over to Vallera, who in turn added his home recordings, mixing and manipulating them. The final product provides only the barest of hints to any instrumental points of origin, such is the extent of their intermixture. Hexa brings the listener interiority and depth, beginning with the slow build of the title track, where chiming details prompt a cycling drone. The 'Magnetic Bloom' pulsations give way to granulated smears, while the well-named 'Time in Return' plays with repetition and layering. The density in the tracks relents with '53S,' a recording from a train station contributed by the field recordist Chris Watson. The spatial sensations brought by the clanking and creaking offer a respite of sorts before the accretion of processed magnetics resume on the aptly entitled 'Sunsickness.' Clouds of static overwhelm the initial melodies of 'Ash.' Pulses, bursts, and points of electronics breach the layered blankets and sheets of sound, as with the concluding track, 'Oval Waters.' If you need to identify a genre locale, put Hexa on the side of the street where current electronic music lives. However you categorize the album, it is an absorbing listen front-to-back. Each track emerges with layers peeling and/or accreting and new details revealing themselves." --Bruce Adams, 2024
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TO 117LP
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"Gardenia is an existing land located at the Limpopo province of South Africa, right at the border with Botswana. The place's real name is Mmabolela and it's a private nature reserve covering 6500ha of subtropical savanna and part of Limpopo River. In November 2019 I had a chance to visit the location and participate in an annual residency for composers and sound artists called 'Sonic Mmabolela,' initiated and curated by Francisco López. We lived in an isolated property in the middle of savanna having a unique opportunity to exist in undisturbed touch with the African wilderness. All the natural sounds later used to create Gardenia were captured there -- during longtime recording sessions over the virgin interior of Mmabolela Reserve. The album's field recording content was selected from several hours of birdsong, calls of frogs, insect noises, sounds of trees, bushes, grass as well as non-living natural elements like stones or shells. These field recordings were later digitally processed and used as part of nine musical arrangements. However the recording sources and the location of Gardenia is defined, it was not my intention to document a South African natural soundscape nor create any other kind of strict concept album. All I do in my work is an affirmation of beauty hidden in various aspects of the Creation." --MJ
Recorded, composed and produced by Michał Jacaszek. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft. Mastered by Francisco López.
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TO 5320CD
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The 20th anniversary re-issue of Fennesz's best-selling Venice, originally released in 2004, is now available as a deluxe version remastered by Denis Blackham, with new and extra tracks not on the previous CD or vinyl versions. Included in the DVD-format edition is a booklet with texts by Fennesz himself, Denis Blackham, and Jon Wozencroft, with unseen photographs from the original 2004 sessions. The booklet also reproduces David Sylvian's original handwritten lyrics for "Transit." This "stunning" collaboration with David Sylvian continues where their fantastic duo track on Sylvian's album Blemish left off. Situated directly in the middle of a mostly subdued listening experience, "Transit" literally bursts out of the speakers accentuating the album's more pop-like characteristics as well as its more restrained moments.
Denis Blackham: "Fast forward to 2024 and here I am again with the same original master mixes I used in 2003 to make a new and expanded version of the album -- Venice 20. A little over twenty years later, technology in audio production, recording and mastering has improved substantially, so I was excited to return to this album and give my 2024 treatment."
Christian Fennesz: "Over months, I collected material for the album: short recordings of acoustic and electric guitars, experiments with newly introduced soft synths and samplers, and field recordings, sometimes done on the go and directly in Venice, where I stayed for several weeks. The sound and acoustics of the city fascinated me. From my room, you could clearly hear conversations at night with the window open, but it was uncertain whether they came from the neighboring house or several blocks away, as if the sound waves in Venice followed their own rules. It was during this time that the idea for Venice as an album title came to me, as a suggestive description of a dignified decline, decay, death, and rebirth. David Sylvian's lyrics and vocal performance for "Transit" perfectly encapsulated this idea for me. The piece remains a highlight of a wonderful, ongoing collaboration."
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When KMRU relocated to Berlin from Nairobi, he was immediately fascinated by the German capital's relative silence. Back home, he was surrounded by sound: the omnipresent churr of birds and insects, the chatter of passers-by, and the electrical smog belched out by criss-crossing power lines and roaring transformers. In Berlin, this noise was muzzled; pedestrians wandered the streets with headphones in, barely communicating, while electrical cables were hidden away underground, and wildlife retreated from the imposing, concrete jungle. KMRU compares this observation with his visual experiences. Acclimatizing to life in Western Europe, he realized that night, a dusky blue-black lit up by streetlights and shops, offered little contrast with day. Nighttime in Kenya felt more tangible, somehow. After 6PM, when the sun sets, even the dim glow of a screen can dazzle the eyes, which must quickly adapt to the conditions. And as anyone who's closed their eyes while listening to music will know, the ears also adjust when visibility is impaired, enhancing even the tiniest sounds. So KMRU used this phenomenon to inform Natur, a billowing long-form narrative that blurs the audible spectrum with an imperceptible sonic universe, contrasting cacophonous electromagnetic soundscapes with more familiar and grounding natural sounds. The piece was composed in 2022, and since then KMRU has made it a live staple, tweaking and reshaping it as he performed on tour with Fennesz, and with the London Contemporary Orchestra at Southbank Centre. The experience allowed KMRU to sculpt not only the album's crucial dynamics, but its philosophy. Natur is KMRU's most uncompromising work to date, crackling to life from dense clouds of static and intimidating, dissonant drones. Using electromagnetic microphones, he uncloaks the commotion hidden by the digital era's ambiguous stillness, juxtaposing roaring, mechanical growls with microscopic glitches and tranquil, electrical wails. When environmental recordings do appear, they're used as transitions between the thickets of harsh noise; sometimes hard to identify, they subconsciously remind the listener that behind the wall of sound there's a natural world in constant communication, continually adapting to the fluctuating ecosystem. KMRU sees Natur as a way to reconsider what technology actually is and how it changes perceptions of reality. On Natur, KMRU allows listeners to visualize a concealed landscape, one that's teeming with life and in dialog with mechanization.
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TO 124CD
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For over a quarter of a century, sound artist and composer Richard Chartier has interrogated an ever-deepening thread of minimalist sound that meshes questions of stasis, pulse and timbre. The result of this work is some of the most quietly intense compositions of this century. His is a music of subtle variation, unwavering concentration, and also patience. This five-part work created between 2020 and 2022 is dedicated to his friend and fellow sound artist Steve Roden. Mastered by Denis Blackham. Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft.
"I first became friends with Steve Roden (and later his wife, Sari) back in 1998 when my first album direct.incidental.consequential was released. He was one of the first group of artists to whom I sent the album. Almost instantly he had been there on the other side of the phone (or email) and ever since. His way of listening and attention to details (no matter how small) was inspirational -- the clarity and complexity of his understated and only seemingly simple compositions, engaging... I worked on the compositions included on this album as Steve gradually slipped away from communication. He was not in my life like he had been before. During this time, it became apparent that these pieces were for Steve. A reflection of his ability to find beauty in the most minute details. Even when finally reviewing the final masters after his passing, I tried to think about how Steve would listen. What would Steve hear in the details? His effect on this album is strong... the accumulation of influence and inspiration. This album feels organic and warm and was developed during a time when his absence in my life increased." --Richard Chartier, February 2024
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TO 121CD
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Claire M. Singer presents the first release in a triptych of albums. Saor (pronounced Sieur: meaning "free" in Scottish Gaelic) perfectly encapsulates Claire's experimental approach to the pipe organ, exploring rich harmonic textures and complex overtones which create ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns, conjuring visions of the Scottish dramatic landscapes which inspire her. Much of the album was written or recorded in Claire's home county, at Forgue Kirk in Aberdeenshire. A church she hadn't discovered before, in a remote spot, up a slight hill near a small cluster of houses. A friend recommended the organ to her and she later found out from her mother that many of her ancestors were buried there. Across the album, tracks flutter, pulse and build into and imposing mass. Some suggest texture and weather, using electronic processing and distortion. Others rely on the organ itself for heady atmospheres, while Saor's title track goes even further; recorded at Orgelpark, Amsterdam, an international concert hall for organists, it uses five instruments in layers that span four centuries. Claire also plays cello, mellotron and harmonium on the album, and there are contributions from strings (Patsy Reid), trumpet (Brian Shook), clarinets (Yann Ghiro), and French horn (Andy Saunders). Saor is an adventure bringing the same sense of elation as the journeys Claire made on foot to the summit. Saor is generously supported by Arts Council England, PRS Foundation's Composers' Fund in partnership with Jerwood Arts, the Friends of Forgue Kirk, the Richard Thomas Foundation and Orgelpark, Amsterdam.
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TO 033-22CD
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Written and performed by Youmna Saba. Recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut. Produced by Youmna Saba and Fadi Tabbal. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu. Wishah ("Veil" in Arabic) is a composition in five stages, written by Youmna Saba between 2021 and 2022, for voice, oud and electronics. Following her previous solo works Njoum (2014) and Arb'een (40) (2017), this album marks a significant turning point in Saba's journey. Created after leaving Beirut and settling in Paris, Wishah reveals a profound shift in her musical expression, informed by rigorous research in the sonic properties of sung Arabic phonemes and their role in shaping synthesized electronic sounds. The album employs a digital extension for the oud, a concept developed by Saba in her research project Taïma'. This device enhances the oud's sonic range, seamlessly integrating synthesized electronics. It also amplifies subtle, often overlooked sounds generated during playing, such as resonances and fingerboard friction. The composition is organized into five distinct stages, each contributing to a process of gradual revelation. As the tracks unfold, they strip away layers of constructed emotions and perceptions that have been intricately woven over time, to expose a space that no longer exists. Wishah is a farewell to home. The oud digital extension used on this record was developed by Nicolas Canot, and produced by Césaré -- Centre National de Création Musicale. Youmna Saba is a Lebanese musician, composer and musicologist. Her current research focuses on instrument and space resonances in different sonic and musical contexts. With four albums to this date, she has collaborated with musicians of different musical expressions such as Kamilya Jubran, Floy Krouchi, Mike Cooper and the Neue Vocalsolisten Ensemble, and has taken part in numerous artist residencies.
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TONE 078LP
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Jana Winderen's practice focuses on sound and knowledge production as she seeks to raise awareness of the environmental issues we face as a society. Audemars Piguet Contemporary collaborated with Winderen on two new sound installations compositions. The first, "Du Petit Risoud aux Profondeurs du Lac de Joux", was developed during two field trips to Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux, at the heart of the Swiss Jura, where Audemars Piguet has been based since 1875. On these trips, Winderen captured sounds in the waters of the Lac de Joux and in the Risoud forest. When Audemars Piguet Contemporary invited the artist to present a second composition for exhibition in Miami Beach, Winderen proposed a site-specific sound environment. For "The Art of Listening: Under Water", Winderen used sounds recorded in the Atlantic Ocean in the Miami area, as well as sounds from the Barents Sea around the North Pole and the Tropical Oceans to expose the constant underwater presence of human-created sound today. In both pieces, the artist offers a unique opportunity to listen closely to the underwater inhabitants of a specific region and to reflect on how human activity interacts and interferes with aquatic and also terrestrial life in a seemingly beautiful and visually calm environment. Jana Winderen often draws the fish, amphibians and plankton she meets. This release also consists of a drawing of two fish that probably would never meet; the pike from the freshwater Lac de Joux in the Jura Mountains and the snapper from the saltwater environment by Miami.
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TO 122CD
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Travelogue [Bali] is the second in an ongoing series of collected international audio diaries (Travelogue [Nepal] (TO 118CD) was released by Touch in 2020). The premise is quite simple: the two meet at a mutually agreed upon destination along with the facilitation of something to record audio of these experiences on. The intent is to capture and augment these sonic documentaries of their travels which then are sculpted into soundtracks. This is done by sourcing the culture, environment, persons, or events that make their voices available. In February 2020, CM von Hausswolff and Chandra Shukla met in Bali, Indonesia, over the course of nine days. Recordings were made at Pandawa Beach, Green Bowl Beach, Melasti Beach Ungasan, Uluwatu Temple, Pasar Senggol Gianyar, Pengosekan Kaja Ubud, Badung Market, Kintamani and Mt. Batur, Puri Saren Agung Ubud, Mandala Suci Wenara Wana (Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary) Ubud, Pura Tirta Empul Tampaksiring, Pandan Beach, and Kelingking Beach Nusa Penida. Mastered by Denis Blackham; Photography and design by Jon Wozencroft; Recorded February 6-16 2020 in Uluwatu, Ubud, Badung, Mount Batur and other locations in Bali, Indonesia. Composed and mixed at the Castle in Stockholm, Sweden and at Dissimulata in Asheville, NC USA, 2022.
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TO 123LP
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Intimaa' ("belonging" in Arabic), is a documentation of pieces composed for Touch's 40th anniversary celebrations in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz in the Spring of 2022. Pulling from ongoing research in weaving and textiles, the pieces are informed by the interchangeability of the weaver's process with the sequencing of sound -- from sourcing and preparing materials to be woven (recording, editing, and formatting samples), preparing the loom (programming the sequencer), and finally, weaving the cloth (playing back, manipulating, and recording the sequence). In contrast to her previous work with modular synthesizers, Intimaa' was composed on a music tracker sequencer.
Bana Haffar is an electronic music composer working with the materiality of sound. Through research-creation, she works with sound design and sample-based music sequencing as they relate to various non-musical systems. In 2014, Bana, together with Eric Cheslak, founded Modular on the Spot in Los Angeles and in 2021 she co-founded the Beirut Synthesizer Center in Lebanon. She is part of the ongoing Touch Mentorship programme.
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TONE 083CD
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With thanks to Mary Prestidge, who writes: "At the end of January 2022, Philip was taken to A&E at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital suffering from severe back pain and was admitted for investigations. In the hospital ward, with some strong pain relief, he could more comfortably rest, mostly horizontally. During the day he could be angled slightly toward a sitting position. Over the following days, aiming to make sense of his current predicament, Philip regained a tiny level of normality. With his laptop in place, he tapped into familiar territory and, when finding the most favorable times, listened to and worked with the sound files that Chris Watson had sent him. During these brief, intense spells Philip gave all to his ear and heart to guide and shape the music forming at his fingertips. Oxmardyke is the album which resulted from this collaboration."
Chris Watson (August 2022): "Philip's laugh was infectious. Our conversations would usually begin with exchanges around the enthusiasm we had for each other's work and the respect we shared for other Touch artists. However, as we were most likely to have met over drinks at the Philharmonic Dining Rooms in Liverpool the evening would gradually dissolve into convivial disarray. What did emerge from these soirées over recent years was a desire to find ways and means for us to collaborate at a place where our ideas converged. In 2017, I was recording along the north bank of the Humber estuary and one morning driving back from Faxfleet I was stopped at the Oxmardyke rail crossing. The gates were down. After setting up a microphone array by the tracks for a passing freight train the signalman shouted an invitation to climb up into the gate box to make some more recordings. Over the following weeks I made several return trips to Oxmardyke and gathered a broad palette of recordings. I discussed the sounds, stories and history of the site with Philip after a show and we were both excited by the potential of making a work together. Philip was drawn to the ancient history of the area from 6th century Anglo-Saxon times to the Knights Templar and how the sounds, rhythms and textures from those periods may still inhabit the contemporary landscape. My thoughts took inspiration from 'The Signalman' by Charles Dickens and the painting 'Rain, Steam and Speed' by Joseph Mallord William Turner. We agreed to share ideas and exchange tracks. Oxmardyke gate box has now passed into history. I hope my contributions may frame Philip's exceptional work."
Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering; Photography by Chris Watson; Cover design: Jon Wozencroft.
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TO 033-21CD
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Antony Moore: "Touch.40 live at Iklectik. I received an invitation to perform at the 40th anniversary gathering, June 2022. Previous works for the label, 'Arithmetic in the Dark' and 'Isoladrone2020' illuminated the landing strip for a new work. It should be continuous -- a further play on moving and remaining. I wanted to balance the digital output of a CSound orchestra with an analog instrument and chose the Turkish saz, a sound I've loved and lived with for the last six decades. I prepared the ground for the live performance with a graphical interface for CSound and an EBow for the saz (along with some short pre-recordings of picking and strumming). Then, a few days before the concert, I got Covid. On the suggestion of Jon and Mike I recorded a live performance-for-one, (myself at home) which was played back at Iklectik. Unedited, unchanged, here it is."
Three pairs of thin, wire strings on the Turkish saz are struck, and the resulting sound is harmonized, filtered and then sustained in an infinite but gradually shifting chord of harmonics. In addition, an EBow is used to excite the strings in real time. This sound is natural, untreated, and adds layers to the sustained chord. Subsequently, two Csound programs running in parallel are "fed" the natural sound of the saz and the output is heavily affected with filters, resonators, vocoders etc. These sonic gestures are allowed to take over as the original chord fades to leave the more transparent sounds of the Csound outputs. The organum returns with much warmer low end. The saz transformations thin out to leave a keening call. And finally, the last minutes are filled with a deep chord which fades to silence.
Anthony Moore (b. August 1948) is a composer/musician, now based in the UK, formerly professor in Cologne for sound art and music working on the social and technical history of sound. He operates across many genres; ambient drone, musique concrète, electroacoustic, songwriting, and immersive, multi-channel sound installations. He continues to compose, perform and release work on various labels such as Touch, Drag City (Chicago), P-Vine (Tokyo) and others. Anthony Moore conducted a lengthy interview with Julian Cowley for The Wire, which appeared in October 2022 edition.
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TO 076V-LP
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Black Sea was Fennesz's follow-up album to Venice (Touch, 2004), and was originally released in 2008; Stylus Magazine's Nick Southall wrote: "Fennesz does with sound what Stan Brakhage did with film, altering its very fabric and texture, employing disorder and error as forms of communication and expression. He forces you to learn a different method of perception and interpretation, to look beneath the chaos that seems to govern the movements of life and find the patterns beneath." Fennesz's career has come a long way since Instrument, his debut for Mego in 1995, and his first solo album Hotel Paral.lel which followed in 1998. Endless Summer (2001) brought him to a much wider audience and Venice underlined his mastery of melody and dissonance. His songs usually embody the skillful application and manipulation of dense sonic textures with a genuine feel for the live, and real-time. Black Sea features guitars that rarely sound like guitars; the instrument is transformed into an orchestra. Fennesz lists the elements used to make the compositions: "Acoustic and electric guitars, synthesizers, electronics, computers and live-improvising software lloopp." On "Glide," Fennesz duets with New Zealand's Rosy Parlane, whose work is also released on Touch. Fennesz also teams up with eMego artist Anthony Pateras whose prepared piano features on "The Colour of Three." Fennesz pushes his work into a more classical domain, preferring the slow reveal to Venice's and Endless Summer's more song- based structures. Jon Wozencroft's artwork makes visible this carefully hidden world resting beneath the surface of "the first impression." A series of shots, taken in quick succession as the tide recedes, reveals a world of specific activity only visible at a particular time and place, histories appearing and disappearing.
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TO 119CD
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"Cleared is the longstanding project of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera, based in Chicago, Illinois. Of Endless Light was recorded by Jeremy Lemos at Electrical Audio in Chicago and mastered by Denis Blackham. The six tracks complete the longest release to date by the duo, who were resolute in utilizing the maximum time available on the compact disc format. Cleared has produced a series of critically recognized recordings since its self-titled debut in 2011. Working with the Touch label on The Key (recorded in spring 2019, released in October 2020, TO 116CD) was a leap forward, prompting remixed tracks by Philp Jeck, Fennesz, Bethan Kellough, and Olivia Block. Of Endless Light is noctambulant, a walk through formal sonic spaces and colors beginning with the cascading, bell-like tones of the opening track, 'First Sleep.' The husks of a city's industrial past are summoned: warehouses hollowed out for condominiums, dust-covered factory floors, a distant grind of machining, clouds of metallic particles, and the persistent background hum of traffic. These remnants contrast with hints of the sterile present of a city no less cruel than its industrial past. 'Dawn' opens with a grey drone and scattered electronic rhythms as wiring, and extended guitar lines suggest the opening of another cycle of the day into evening. 'Pulse' offers a hypnotic pattern that suggests the movement of people through the city's core, slowly overlain with cymbals evoking the shimmer of sunlight cleaving off the windows of distant buildings. The album appropriately concludes with 'Walking Field,' methodically moving forward via a cloud of meditative clicks and looping melodies. Of Endless Light is a patient listen, distilled into a sonic environment specific to Hess and Vallera's lens. Cleared created its crepuscular moods using the core methodology of their previous records while expanding their music's range, artistry, and subtlety. Deploying careful instrumentation, sampling, and mixing to experiment with tone and atmosphere, Of Endless Light breathes and drifts through layers of sound that veil, reveal, and intrigue. The result gives a listener much to discover, examine, experience, and consider -- as well as the incentive to return again and again." -- Bruce Adams, 2022
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TO 109USB
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R.I.P. Phill Niblock (1933-2024). USB card format in digipak; 11 films, three hours 55 minutes. Films includes: Praised Fan, for bassoon (2016, 17 min) Dafne Vicente-Sandoval, bassoon. Commissioned for the Adelaide Festival, Australia, by Ilan Volkov. Material recorded at Marcus Schmickler's P I E T H O P R A X I S studio in Koln, Germany. First Out, for guitar (2015, 22:14) David First, guitar. Completed in November 2015 in Hong Kong. Premiered on Czech Radio in Prague, Czech Republic, Nov. 27 2015. Material recorded at Berklee School of Music, Boston, MA; DreGliss (2015, 19:15) Erik Drescher, glissando flute. Material recorded at Marcus Schmickler's P I E T H O P R A X I S studio in Koln, Germany; V&LSG (2015, 21:20) Lore Lixenberg, voice, Guy De Bievre, lap steel guitar. Material recorded at Johan Vandermaelen's studio in Aaigem, Belgium. Bag (Sept 2014, 21 minutes) David Watson, bagpipe. Material recorded at Berklee School of Music, Boston, MA; A Rooks Pun (2014, 21 min) Ulrich Krieger, soprano saxophone. Material recorded at The California Institute for the Arts, Valencia, CA; Ronet (2014, 21:08) Neil Leonard, tenor saxophone. Material recorded at Berklee School of Music, Boston, MA; Octavio Perc (2014, 20:45) Julien Ottavi, percussion. Material recorded at APO33, Nantes, France; Vlada BC (Nov 7, 2013, 20:00) Elisabeth Smalt, viola d'amore. Material recorded at Marcus Schmickler's P I E T H O P R A X I S studio in Koln, Germany. Euph (Nov 2013, 23:40) Melvyn Poore, two-belled euphonium. Material recorded in the Ensemble Musikfabrik studios in Koln Germany; Unipolar Dance (Oct 2 2013, 25:04) Pauline Kim and Conrad Harris, violins and violas (for two violins and two violas, recorded in stereo). Material recorded in Robert Poss's Trace Elements studio in NYC, NY. The music is eleven minutes longer than the film length, so the last music piece is faded at the end of the film, but is complete in the music files which are on the USB memory stick in 24 bit, 44.1.
"Phill Niblock's music and films contravene the drive of local memory and anticipation integral to much musical and cinematic experience, the sense that each moment is conditioned by what directly preceded it and what came before that, while simultaneously pointing forward to resolutions or further complications, driving toward closure, always toward the sense of an ending in which all threads are tied, all paths satisfactorily closed. This conception of temporality is fundamental especially to pre-20th century Western music, and basic to both conventional narrative cinema and even advanced artists' moving image works . . . The films, I suggest, require a suspension of expectation, the viewer opening himself/herself up to an experience of delight in color, in scale, rhythm, in the unfamiliar; in the visual arrangement of shaded planes on a flat screen surface that simultaneously depicts figures in recessive space. The films demand an embrace of a continuous presence, with future and past fading into irrelevance as they recede from and come into being. Only the present has import. Conventional cinematic concepts like closure, montage, and development are out of play. It is the joy of the moment based on the hypnotic magic of the recording of motion, of sound, of time -- relatively recent achievements in the long history of human technology." --Grahame Weinbren
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CD
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TO 118CD
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Travelogue [Nepal] is the first in a series of collected international audio diaries. The premise is quite simple: the two gallivant the globe with field-, EVP- and phone recorders and other devices where they record the essence of everything from the tiniest microcosms of nature on up to the polluted, diesel-fuelled roars of postmodern globalization. What surfaced are soundtracks that act as sonic documentaries of their travels. In September 2019, CM von Hausswolff and Chandra Shukla met in Kathmandu, Nepal, over the course of seven days. Recordings were made at the Bagh Bhairav Temple and Chilancho Stupa (Kirtipur), Durbar Square, Boudhanath Stupa, Swayambhunath Stupa and Shri Pashupatinath Temple (Kathmandu) and at The World Peace Pagoda, The Shiva Cave, Devi Falls and Phewa Tal Lake (Pokhara). Chandra Shukla is a multi-instrumentalist musician specializing in found sound, synthesis, guitars, tablas and sitar with a heavy dose of processing and effects. His main project XAMBUCA appears to be mostly electronic, yet actually includes varying degrees in the aforementioned pedigree of instrumentation. As a solo artist, his goal is to achieve through listening more and playing less. Carl Michael von Hausswolff is a composer, visual artist and curator that has always hailed from Stockholm, Sweden with recordings dating back to the late 1970s. His main tools are recording devices (camera, tape deck, radar, sonar, EVP machines) used in an ongoing investigation of electricity, frequency, architectural space, and paranormal electronic interference. His range of creative integrity knows no bounds while his lists of works in all areas of art continues to lengthen; whether solo, collaborative, installed, curated, live or recorded. Travelogue (Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Chandra Shukla) is a project with an intended investigation into the present moment: Irrespective of locale, political borders and time elapsing at its slowest whilst documenting happenstance, the accidental and that which is unpredictably serendipitous. Travelogue is truly a sonic travel diary when the handheld recorder was left on where the sun never sets. Limited edition in DVD case.
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2x10"
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TONE 032LP
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2022 repress. Issued for the first time on vinyl, this classic album from 2007 was the first full-length pairing of these two maestros, before releasing Flumina in 2013 (TONE 046CD). Ryuichi Sakamoto and Christian Fennesz blend the unstructured and imaginative qualities of improvisation with the satisfying sculpture of composition. Sakamoto's piano, his style reminiscent of Debussy and Satie, perfectly complements Fennesz with his powerful blend of shimmering guitar and passionate electronics. Cendre was recorded between 2004 and 2006, Fennesz would send Sakamoto a guitar or electronic track and Sakamoto would compose his piano piece. Vice versa -- Sakamoto initiating a track with a piano composition and Fennesz responding. Meanwhile they met for live shows, or communicated via digital means to compare notes, swap ideas and develop themes. The cyclical process continued right up until they met up for the final mix in New York City February of 2006. Together they have combined to create 11 tracks of satisfying and challenging possibilities...
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CD
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TONE 079CD
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Stardust uses cassette recordings from 2015-2018. Some songs (in different form) appear on the Mára recording Here Behold Your Own. Remixed using dubplates of Faith Coloccia's mixes and additional recordings by Philip Jeck in Liverpool, UK, 2020. Mastered by Denis Blackham. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft.
Faith Coloccia is an American artist and composer based in Vashon, WA. She was born and raised in Palm Springs, CA, and attended Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles (BFA). Her work is focused on time deconstruction, inherited memory, indexical archives and how sound affects the body in space. Using voice, field recordings, visual scores and traditional instrumentation, she unites composition, spirituality and installation acoustics into a cohesive whole. She performs under the names of Mamiffer and Mára and has been commissioned by and performed at festivals such as Big Ears (US), Hopscotch (US) and Sacrum Profanum (PL). She has collaborated with artists such as Daniel Menche, Jon Mueller, Aaron Turner, Circle, and Eyvind Kang. Her work has been released on SIGE Records, Karlrecords. Room40, and Touch.
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 theater 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 11 solo albums. Suite, a vinyl-only release, won a Distinction at The Prix Ars Electronica, and a cassette release on The Tapeworm, "Spool", playing only bass guitar. 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 in Liverpool, London, Berlin. Philip Jeck has won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers 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).
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CD
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TO 116CD
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Cleared is the Chicago-based duo of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera formed in the latter part of 2009 as a project to focus on repetition and patience as central elements of composition. Hess and Vallera have previously worked in various contexts of improvisational, long-form and experimental music -- Hess contributed to Fennesz's Seven Stars, released on Touch in 2011 (TONE 044CD). Cleared is an effort to take the knowledge both have gained from these arenas in order to build hypnotic patterns of sound and rhythm. The Key was recorded in the spring of 2019 at Electrical Audio in Chicago Illinois with engineer Greg Norman. After a silence of several years, Cleared went into the studio with a set of drawings and notes describing the arcs of various systems for the creation of soundscapes and rhythmic patterns. There was no rehearsal, demo recordings or any other preparation besides theses diagrams which were designed by both Hess and Vallera in tandem. The logic behind this strategy was to erase the confines of previous releases and return to the origin of the project, which simply began as an open improvisation between the two musicians, centering a focus on slow, gradual changes and a meditative sensibility. The recordings were made with a specific attention to sonic detail and fidelity, resulting in hours of material that was arranged and mixed over the next year by Michael Vallera in his home studio. The resulting four tracks were further investigated and reimagined by Philip Jeck, Christian Fennesz, Bethan Kellough, and Olivia Block, adding another form of The Key as a collection of discreet and weighted sonic explorations. CD in DVD case.
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CD
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TO 117CD
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"Gardenia is an existing land located at the Limpopo province of South Africa, right at the border with Botswana. The place's real name is Mmabolela and it's a private nature reserve covering 6500ha of subtropical savanna and part of Limpopo River. In November 2019, I had a chance to visit the location and participate in an annual residency for composers and sound artists called 'Sonic Mmabolela', initiated and curated by Francisco López. We lived in an isolated property in the middle of savanna having a unique opportunity to exist in undisturbed touch with the African wilderness. All the natural sounds later used to create Gardenia were captured there -- during longtime recording sessions over the virgin interior of Mmabolela Reserve. The album's field recording content was selected from several hours of birdsong, calls of frogs, insect noises, sounds of trees, bushes, grass as well as non-living natural elements like stones or shells. These field recordings were later digitally processed and used as part of nine musical arrangements. However, the recording sources and the location of Gardenia is defined, it was not my intention to document a South African natural soundscape nor create any other kind of strict concept album. All I do in my work is an affirmation of beauty hidden in various aspects of the Creation." --Michał Jacaszek
Recorded, composed, and produced by Michał Jacaszek. Photography + design: Jon Wozencroft. DVD case.
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LP
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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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2LP
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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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LP
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TONE 068LP
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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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