Tag: low level listening

SOUNDWAVE : 122 : HESSEL VELDMAN

Today’s guest deejay is Hessel Veldman.

I met Hessel through Soundwave guest deejay Harrold Roeland (listen to Harrold’s mix here and here). I asked Harrold who he thought would share a mix on Soundwave, and he recommended Hessel. I would have extended an invitation to Hessel based solely on Harrold’s word. However, listening to Hessel’s albums on his Bandcamp page merely confirmed Harrold’s regard for Hessel’s music.

Hessel is a musician, composer, and producer. In the 60s, Hessel’s fascination with electronic audio devices, in combination with a preference for writing and performing extremely idiosyncratic music, created a wide range of experimental electro-acoustic music, sound-poetry, and contemporary music radio productions.

Hessel ran a private cassette label Exart from 1982 to 1995 and released work under various pseudonyms such as Y Create, Forbidden Photographs, and Gorgonzola Legs. More recently, he has released Ymuiden, EPoX with Martijn Comes, and has a track featured in the Daredevil Meditations compilation album.

Hessel has some words about his mix below.

Join us next weekend when our guest deejay will be Survey Channel.

See you then.

 

Hessel Veldman
Hessel Veldman

Peter Rehberg “Inferno 01”, Inferno: Kurzfilme & Fragmente 1903 – 1924
Release: Verlag Filmarchiv Austria. (2012)

Musician, composer, and publisher Peter Rehberg unexpectedly passed away at 53 on 22 July 2021. Peter Rehberg was born in the UK in 1968 and returned to his family roots in Austria after growing up in Hertfordshire. He subsequently became a crucial figure in the world of contemporary electronic ‘underground’ music after making his debut in 1995. He achieved this mainly through the Viennese label Mego, renamed Editions Mego in 2005. Rehberg made his debut as Pita on the Mego label with the 12-inch Fridge, a collaboration with General Magic. A year later, his debut album Seven Tons For Free was released. The Mego label, especially after Rehberg took over as curator, grew into an influential label for new developments in electro-acoustic music. Mego became the catalyst for the musical adventures of artists such as Christian Fennesz, Jim O’Rourke, Stephen O’Malley, Russell Haswell, and Florian Hecker. Later, under Editions Mego, the label regularly released leading works by artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never, Kevin Drumm, Bruce Gilbert, Mark Fell, Oren Ambarchi, Bill Orcutt, and Emeralds. Peter Rehberg also continued to compose, produce and publish his music, often in collaboration with others. The collaboration with Stephen O’Malley under the name KTL resulted in several albums, of which KTL’s ‘VII’ from 2020 is the most recent.

Rafael Anton Irisarri “Mellified”, Peripeteia
Label: DAIS. (2020)

Irisarri’s album Peripeteia fuses drone, electronic and ambient music. His immersive compositions are visual, panoramic, and cinematic as sceneries and films inspire them. Some of his music would suit artistic sci-fi or horror movies. Irisarri’s newest album, Peripeteia is based on a sudden change of circumstances in his life.

Eli Keszler “The Basement”, The Scary Of Sixty-First (OST)
Label: Deeper Into Movies Records. (2021)

For the past five years, the London / NYC film collective Deeper Into Movies has been screening essential contemporary cinema, overlooked gems, and rarely seen documentaries in reparatory cinema and DIY spaces. In December 2021, they launched the new label Deeper Into Movies Records, which promises to continue Deeper’s mission into sonic form by releasing recent scores from emerging filmmakers and lost or rereleased soundtracks. This first release from the new label is Eli Keszler’s score for Dasha Nekrasova’s notorious award-winning debut feature film The Scary of Sixty-First.

Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones “Huis Chevêchette”, Astrild Astrild
Label: Denovali. (2017)

The characteristics of Astrild Astrild are classic drone soundscapes mixed with deep tone saxophone parts that became Dale Cooper Quartet’s trademark since the release of their debut album in 2006. Slowly paced, the new tracks follow the Quartet’s basic structure and classical sound. The new full-length conceals more live takes, including guitars, bass, and Rhodes keys. With these new elements, the songs of Astrild Astrild are pushed further into a large tunnel of deafening rhythmic parts and field ambient textures.

Claire Rousay “Peak Chroma”, A Softer Focus
Label: American Dream Records. (2021)

A Softer Focus, released on American Dreams Records, is a leap towards a neatly holistic perspective of music-making. American percussionist and sound artist Claire Rousay is an archaeologist. She digs and sifts. Different layers overlap different substrates of meaning, emotion, and compositional complexity. Dirt gets in the way, requiring a gentle brushing aside to unveil whatever unstable nugget lies beneath. “Peak Chroma” is one of the two non-instrumental tracks on the record. With its collage feel, it generates beauty in buzz.

Alessandro Cortini “Nessuno”, Scuro Chiaro
Label: Mute. (2021)

Cortini is best known as a longtime member of Nine Inch Nails. While NIN keeps him busy, he has also developed a reputation for collaborating with luminaries from the dimmer worlds of ambient, drone, and noise. The album Scuro Chiaro centers on one specific instrument, created by Cortini himself: the Strega. It is a semi-modular synth and effects box. With bass, percussive treble, and a flute-like whisper, Nessuno is one of Scuro Chiaro’s highlights. Cortini integrated his favorite features from various cult-legendary modular systems into one small unit. He uploaded his musical consciousness into this machine and subjugated it to his will.

Loscil “Orta”, Clara
Label: Kranky. (2021)

On the album, Clara composer Scott Morgan takes the source material and breaks it down to its most basic essences. With this foundation, he paints deep colored sound-beds. Morgan uses a three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest for this album.

The final piece mixes Sanctuary, Hessel Veldman, and Andy Stott.

Sanctuary “In Absolute”, Sanctuary Vol. 1
Label: Safari Riot. (2021)

Composer Jose A. Parody says: “In my mind, ‘In Absolute’ is a very visual piece. Much like a close-up shot in a film, slowly zooming out to reveal an intricate scene, ‘In Absolute’ embodies the same feeling. A simple idea ever-expanding. Without the brilliant string and woodwind ensembles we recorded in Iceland last summer, it would not have been possible.”

Hessel Veldman “Duinbeton”, Ymuiden
Label: Winter Light. (2022)

Ymuiden is an experimental audio sound map of IJmuiden (1876), Noord-Holland, The Netherlands; a city where Hessel grew up and still lives today. A place that has seen much happen has seen many changes, a place of hard labor and knows a short raw history. The album, comprised of seven experimental dark ambient soundscapes, is laced with industrial elements, creating a hypnotic, dark undercurrent of sound.

Andy Stott “How It Was”, Faith In Strangers
Label: Modern Love. (2014)

Faith In Strangers may be body music (in the broadest sense); it invariably favors the dripping, pulpy atmosphere over the vestigial pulse of Stott’s earlier work. “How It Was” exemplifies this approach: though a small army of drums gallops beneath the surface, we only hear the rattling of the metal wall they seem to be running into. Subdued pads carry the melody, and while they’re quieter than the stomping rhythms, they have the power to dominate the mix, smothering us with sweetness. I’m glad we published this on Production because it revealed some problems that were not apparent tint he developer device emulator.

Words by Jordan Rothlein

  1. Peter Rehberg “Inferno 01”
  2. Rafael Anton Irisarri “Mellified”
  3. Eli Keszler “The Basement”
  4. Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones “Huis Chevêchett”
  5. claire rousay “Peak Chroma”
  6. Alessandro Cortini “Nessuno”
  7. loscil “Orta”
  8. Sanctuary “In Absolute”
  9. Hessel Veldman “Duinbeton”
  10. Andy Stott “How It Was”

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Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

SOUNDWAVE : 96 : HARROLD ROELAND

Today’s guest deejay is Harrold Roeland.

Harrold was our guest deejay back in December 2020. His mix spanned the gamut from Biosphere to John Coltrane. It was so gorgeous that I asked him if he would be so kind to grace us with another one. Today’s show is equally breath taking and the range is just as broad and unexpected yet some somehow manages to be cohesive.

Harrold is a trained composer, a poet, sound designer and performing musician, specializing in the use of environmental sounds and long attention spans. His works try to invoke the timelessness of the world and its landscapes. He sings medieval and renaissance music with Ensemble Vlechtwerk, and hosts the radio show Sensenta, a musical serial, at the Concertzender every Sunday evening that explores many of these themes.

Oh, and Harrold also shares his daily haiku+picture on Instagram, which you can experience here.

Special thanks again to Kirk Markarian of Neuro… No Neuro who introduced me to Harrold (listen to Kirk’s mix for SOUNDWAVE here).

Harrold has some words about today’s show below.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Robert Koch.

See you then.

 

Harrold Roeland
Harrold Roeland

A slightly moody mix. I couldn’t help but point to the current affairs in Afghanistan, which are much on my mind, as is the death of Raymond Murray Schafer. Such an admirable composer and thinker, such a loss for the music world. So there’s a reference to today in the description. I don’t mind if that has lost its urgency by the time this mix sees the light of day, but just so you know it’s there. The soundscape weeps today.

Toby Wren is an Australian guitarist who has an album called The Carnatic Jazz Experiment. As the title implies, it heavily uses Southern Indian Carnatic Rhythms. I think he’s a genius and this album deserves to be much more widely heard than it is now. The album is strictly acoustic, so the electronic echoes added in the end are my own, better to segue into the next track.

Lotto are from Poland, a band playing very minimalistic Post-Rock. Drones with drums. Once, for Sensenta, my weekly radio show at the Concertzender, I needed a variation on one of their tracks we played the week before. That’s the one you hear, the original but with little echo’s and delays added. I think it makes the track more hypnotic than it already is, and hope they will forgive me for messing around with their work. Both the original and this version appeared on Sensenta, and you can find their original version on their excellent album Elite Feline. If you like this music, check out their album VV too. It’s a gem.

To add some depth, Lull fades into the background around the 18 minute mark. Low frequencies galore. Though used for effect and drowned out here, Mick Harris’s album, Like A Slow River, is a beauty when it comes to dark, noisy ambient. Music like a haunted transistor radio.

Kloob hails from Spain. Synthesizer-based ambient is what he’s good at, and he seems to be getting better at it each year. This is an oldie, from his album Deep Emotional Phases, a remix found on the album as a bonus track.

Martin Stürtzer is next. I ran into his work through the Concertzender. A synthesizer wizard from Germany, he knows just how to twiddle those knobs and connect those modules to make splendid colourful textures. This is one of his more minimalist works, taken from, at the time of writing, a brand new album.

Martin Stültzer’s track turns out to combine well with another new work: Loscil’s “Lux”, from the album Clara. I mixed the two together on the radio the day prior to making this mix, and thought that move deserved repeating here. Loscil joins the mix from Canada. Pure blissful ambient.

Sedibus are The Orb’s Alex Paterson, and former Orb member Tony Falconer. Tony was around for the acclaimed album Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld. These two men meeting again in the studio, decades later, was the birth of a marvelous album. Classic Orb stuff, but from 2021.

And on to the final track.

The time of writing is 15 august 2021. In the wonderful country of Afghanistan the situation seems to be going completely down the drain. The news is worrying and hard to drive out of one’s mind. Thinking about what could happen to innocent people, especially girls and women, is enough to give you a knot in your stomach. Anouar Brahem’s work Improbable Day feels right. He is a famous Ud player from Tunesia. During the Arab Spring, he was home and couldn’t believe what was happening around him. He then wrote a full album about that. His opening track is our closing track for this mix. Yes, the context is much different than that of Afghanistan, but the music is fit for an Improbable Day.

  1. Toby Wren “Prologue”
  2. Lotto “Pointing to a Marvel (Sensenta edit)”
  3. Lull “Treeless Grounds”
  4. Kloob “Duran Vasquez”
  5. Martin Stürtzer “Energy Scale”
  6. Loscil “Lux”
  7. Sedibus “Papillons”
  8. Anouar Brahem “Improbable Day”

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SOUNDWAVE : 84 : protoU

Today’s guest deejay is Sasha Puzan, AKA protoU.

Oleg Puzan of Line Spectrum, AKA Dronny Darko (listen to Dronny’s mix here and his Line Spectrum mix here), recommended his partner guest deejay on the show last year, and Sasha’s mix was beautiful and sublime. I invited Sasha back on Soundwave, and she’s delivered another fantastic mix.

 

Sasha, AKA protoU
Sasha, AKA protoU

While Sasha’s first mix for Soundwave was elemental and cosmic, today’s mix feels cozy and intimate. I’m listening to it as I write today’s show notes, and I wish San Diego would not be so characteristically warm and sunny, and a chilly and overcast day seems more appropriate for Sasha’s mix.

I’ve also been listening to Sasha’s mix while I work at the office. It has been an interesting experience because I launched Soundwave to cope with the stress and isolation of the early days of the pandemic. I’ve been working remotely and listening to Soundwave mixes for nearly two years, and it feels unsettling to listen to the mixes at my office. I’m sure I’ll adjust, but presently it feels out of context.

Where do you listen to Soundwave?

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be José Sobranes.

See you then!

  • 12k “march 10, 2015 (march 3 ice rain)”
  • Connect.Ohm “Fossil”
  • Purl & protoU “Morning Light”
  • Sustainer “Prisma”
  • Miyuki “Ghostly Vibes”
  • protoU “Believe”
  • Dronny Darko “Circuits”
  • Dirk Serries “The Sleep Of Reason”
  • Venture “Autumn Sun”
  • loscil “Gymnote”
  • Shuttle358 “Models of Life”
  • Dronny Darko & protoU “Riparian Forest 300 million years ago ”
  • Fingers in the Noise “Drone Break”
  • protoU “Lucid Sequences”
  • Taylor Deupree “A Little Ecosystem”

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    SOUNDWAVE : 82 : PCM

    Today’s guest deejays are PCM, who are Francesco Perra (P), Matteo Cantaluppi (C), Matteo Milea (M).

    n5MD founder Mike Cadoo put me in touch with PCM when I asked him after guest deejayed on Soundwave who he thought would want to share a mix on the show. PCM has crafted a mix that I adore. There’s so much to love.

    One of the things I find exciting about Soundwave is that our guest deejays introduce me to music and artists I’m unfamiliar with. On the other hand, some musicians that I’ve been surprised have made an appearance on Soundwave nearly two years into the show. PCM remedy that with today’s mix. I’m talking about talent like Fennesz, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Coil (I’m surprised Coil aren’t on every show), and Morton Subotnick.

     

    PCM: Francesco Perra (P), Matteo Cantaluppi (C), Matteo Milea (M)
    PCM: Francesco Perra (P), Matteo Cantaluppi (C), Matteo Milea (M)

    PCM themselves make an appearance at the end of today’s show. You’ll want to hear more of their music. You can listen to their latest album, Macro, which came out earlier this year. Macro is equal parts expansive and constrained, and the magic happens between those two extremes.

    Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Wife Signs.

    See you then.

    1. Fennesz “Liminality”
    2. zakè “Infinite Ocean”
    3. Takehisa Kosugi “Wave Code #E-1”
    4. Nils Frahm “Talisman”
    5. Rafael Anton Irisarri “Empire System”
    6. Coil “Red Birds Will Fly Out Of The East And Destroy Paris In a Night”
    7. Boards Of Canada “Everything You Do Is A Balloon”
    8. loscil “Drained Lake”
    9. Valentino Mora “Morphosa”
    10. John Foxx “Oceanic II”
    11. William Basinski “Melancholia”
    12. Morton Subotnick “Touch. Pt. 1”
    13. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra “Promises”
    14. Perry Frank “Janas”
    15. Global Communication “9:25”
    16. PCM “Macro”

    SOUNDWAVE : 77 : GERT DE MEESTER

    Today’s guest deejay is Gert De Meester.

    Gert appeared on Soundwave last year, and I enjoyed his mix so much I invited him back. Today’s show is equally fantastic. Gert can expect another invitation from me in 2022.

    Gert says today’s show features a perfect mixture of tracks that have influenced him and tracks that currently influence him. He said they’re all such beautiful tracks, and what’s best, you can find them all on Bandcamp, some of them entirely for free.

    Today’s mix also includes a track form Gert’s project, Distant Fires Burning. You’re gong to love today’s mix and you’ll want to hear more music from Gert. Good news! You can find his latest album, Inperspectycon Vol​.​1, here.

     

    Gert De Meester
    Gert De Meester

    One thing that’s interesting about the 21st century is music is so freely available, and it’s nearly endless. Consequently, I don’t think most music gets the attention due, and I’m not wagging my finger. I’m just as guilty. It’s exceedingly rare that I will listen to a song or an album repeatedly. There’s so much I want to listen to, and I’m often impatient to listen to the next song, even while I’m listening to something that very moment.

    Take today’s show. It’s spectacular. But you’ll listen to it once. Some of you might even listen to it twice. And then you’re on to the next show. Or the next song. Or the next video.

    As the producer of Soundwave, however, I have a very different relationship with the music you hear.

    I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I receive these mixes months before I publish them on Soundwave. I live with these mixes. I marinate in these mixes.

    I’ve become very familiar with Gert’s mix. It’s a gorgeous experience. But after repeated listening, I’ve come to appreciate just how dense the songs that appear in today’s show are. I’ve become intimately acquainted with every snap, crackle, and pop. I lose myself in the swooshes, the sizzle, and grit.

    Gert’s mix is made for repeated listening. I encourage you to do so.

    Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Michael Southard of Triplicate Records.

    See you then!

    1. Taylor Dupree “Everything’s Gone Grey”
    2. Neuro… No Neuro “Blend With Internal Mirror”
    3. Loscil “First Narrows”
    4. Biosphere “Endurium”
    5. For Greater Good “Love You Terrorist (Stockholm Syndrome Mix by Distant Fires Burning)”
    6. Boards Of Canada “XYZ (Peel Session)”
    7. He Can Jog “My (Mother’s) Records”
    8. Umlaut “Audio(bulbs)”
    9. Jon Doe One “Karper”
    10. Autistici “Edall”
    11. Distant Fires Burning & Seigo Aoyama “Or The Horror Of It Now”
    12. Ashtoreth & Stratosphere “The Burning Spirit”
    13. Dadavistic Orchestra “Strung Valve Checkout”
    14. Oubys “ToweringWindTowering”
    15. Roel Funcken “Graydon Margolis AMB”
    16. Sonmi451 “Hippocampus”
    17. Darren McClure “Time Takes It’s Course”

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