yannick dauby, john grzinich, murmer

“lind, raud, aastaajad”

ib005 – 2 cd set – 2012

edition of five hundred and nine

invisible birds is very proud to announce the release of lind, raud, aastaajad, a 2 cd set of estonian recordings from three masters : yannick dauby, john grzinich, and murmer. Order directly from the Invisible Birds website.

disc 1 – yannick dauby : lind, raud – songs of birds and metal, recorded in Estonia in 2007.

disc 2 – yannick daubyy, john grzinich, and murmer : aastaajad – field recordings by john grzinich and murmer, electronic sounds by yannick dauby. two tracks composed by john grzinich, two tracks composed by patrick mcginley (aka murmer).

Yannick Dauby mentions in his notes that, while in Estonia, John Grzinich guided him through some of his most favorite recording locations. It is in these locations where he feels the artist “becomes an instrument for the landscape”. The lind, raud, aastaajad recordings perfectly evoke the connection these three artists have to the landscape. In specified locations and seasons, they compose rich sounds from birds, metal, rain, snow, footsteps, melodious wind, water trickles, and more. The recordings subtly ensconce the listener in a sublime and poetic “view” of the landscape transforming itself.

Previews:

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Reviews:

If anything, the Estonian countryside is quiet. The clockwork schedule of the network of rural buses and the cackle of a black swan racing high above the trees is about all that you’ll hear. I (Jim) had the pleasure of experiencing this Estonian quietude a few years back, and I have to say that Yannick Dauby’s collection of field recordings is way more active than any i actually encountered. Estonia is known for its avian diversity, although when I was there during the brief transition from summer into winter (literally, three weeks!), the birds had all flown south… so Dauby must have been there in later spring or summertime as he does capture a number of chittering sounds from those birds passing through from Russia and Finland to Southern Europe and North Africa (or vice versa). Between these avian recordings, Dauby documents another common denizen of the Estonian countryside – the giant chunks of metal dumped unceremoniously by the Soviet agricultural industry. Even without much wind, these abandoned grain silos and oil tanks resonate with thick rumblings and subtle overtones, which Dauby dutifully records with contact microphones. These thrumming drones recall the Alan Lamb wire recordings as much as they do Thomas Koner’s deep gong recordings.

Disc one of this two disc set features Dauby’s “songs for birds and metal” while the second features reworkings of Dauby’s source material by John Grzinich and Murmer (aka Patrick McGingley), both of whom have exceptional catalogues of electro-organic compositions based often on phonography. Grzinich’s two lengthy pieces are quieter and more subtle, focusing on the patter of dripping water and melting ice with flickering drones and harmonics forming arctic halos around those aquatic textures. The two Murmer tracks intensify things comparatively against Grzinich’s lowercase work, with thick drones amassed around what sounds like somebody trekking through the deep snow. Those Coleclough / Koner drones manifest ominous black clouds and unsettled vibes, not heard elsewhere on the album and turning that Estonian quiet into something haunting. All in all, a magnificent piece of manipulated field recording and sound ecology.
- Jim Haynes for Aquarius Records catalog

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following last weeks yannick dauby, here is more from him. before moving to taipei, he was in estonia for a while, which made him friends with john grzinich and patrick mcginley, also known as murmer. if i understand this double CD right, then one side as field recordings by dauby, mostly consisting of birds and metal, while the second CD has two pieces each by grzinich and mcginely using their own field recordings and electronic sounds by dauby. what exactly was the reason to combine this, otherwise then the omni-presence of dauby, i am not sure. the first CD is quite nice, if not a bit long for it lasts just over an hour. throughout the pieces which just have birds sounds are bit shorter and the metal pieces are (considerable) longer. don’t except some neubauten like banging, but rather rusty objects floating neatly in the wind, calm and peaceful. nice but, as said, there is overlap in this sound material.

so the second CD might be a rework of the sound material from dauby, but perhaps also a mixture of their own sounds, along with electronic sounds delivered by dauby. perhaps if we look at this from a purely musical perspective this is the more interesting of the two CDs, unless of course you look for pure field recordings. the first CD is more like a great exercise in recording environmental sounds whereas on the second these pure field recordings are embedded in electronics, usually of a more lenghty and sustaining kind. of the two composers i think i preferred the two compositions by grzinich. murmer’s pieces are more simple, like layering various sound events together (water, walking, drones), but seem to miss out a bit on that added value. grzinich’s pieces have exactly that value, while it seems he either adds a fine amount of processing to the field recordings, or simply uses more layers of similar sounds to get more out of it. but throughout, overall, i think this whole package is one that is very nice. there is lots of explore here and no doubt even useful stuff for djs of a more experimental nature (pun intended).
~ Frans de Waard for Vital Weekly

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While this topic is only indirectly related to most of what gets posted here, I thought I would comment on it since it has come up in numerous discussions the past year. According to some people, 2007 is the year the music industry broke. But as Chris Anderson (proponent of “The Long Tail“) wisely asks, “Which music industry?”. According to his statistics everything like concerts, licensing and merchandise is up. The main thing that broke was CD sales (down 18%!). Unfortunately CDs are about 60% of the industry’s income.

What does this mean for the ‘niche’ zone of experimental music? Not very much except the inevitable. At some point we may face demise of the CD industry (not unlike what happened to vinyl). As the mainstream market for CDs dries up so will the market for CD reproduction, forcing everyone to follow suit and transition into whatever emerges (for now it looks like the internet download model). This is already happening for a number of indie labels, but for now, what seems to be an experimental venture (just because it works for Apple, doesn’t mean it may work for everyone). This also runs in parallel to the development of net-lables, or labels that operate solely as a download service. Will CDs disapear? Probably not, but they’ll fall into the margins of old media like vinyl, cassettes, film etc.

While these topics have been on my mind, I recently received an email announcement for Trivia Records (that’s ‘tri’, or 3 in Slovenian), a new web based “label”. But rather simply being a record label (how many “record labels” release records these days?), it is more a full fledged attempt at distributing, marketing and selling artistic “products”. As the project is run by several artists who do more than music there is a number of different products offered. The music side of it is run by Borut Savski, my old artistic collaborator friend from “transition” times in Slovenia (today is the first day of Schengen accession for both Slovenia and Estonia. Is the “transition” complete? ha!).

Some recordings from our collaborative project the Sound Biotope are being offered on the 3via site. I admire that the “product” that is available is slightly more than a free download item. Its also a potential item for trading or exchanging between artists, what they call a ‘Swap Deal’. What anyone can swap is up to the imagination. As not everyone produces their own music to trade others will have to offer something else. It could be photos, reviews, objects, cookies, broken chairs or whatever. The beauty here is that the creative aspect exists not only in the artistic production but in the exchange as well (which is more than what we can say about most music retailers). It will be interesting to see if people take advantage of this.

Is this the future of niche markets and artistic production? It is not terribly clear what will happen, but its good to see people trying things. When I asked Borut he said, ” as for the business side, it is very much experimental – a concept as in conceptual art. Yes, niche market…”, which I feel is very much the open experimental spirit of his own work.