engraved glass eg.p018

new release available as a high quality CDr or BandCamp digital download

five spring chorus field recordings, made in the early hours of the morning in natural wilderness environments in Estonia. Simplicity, clarity and the richness of the sonic landscapes documented make this release a fascinating listen.

1. Ööküll forest house, small pond with frogs. Recorded June 28th, 2010 at around 1:30 am
2. Water insect and beaver territory, Räpina Polder. Recorded May 29th, 2011 at around 1:30 am
3. Diverse calls of the Emajõe Suursoo (Ema River delta). Recorded May 15th, 2011 at around 3:00 am
4. Quiet field with Corn Crakes on the road from Rasina. Recorded June 28th, 2010 at around 2:30 am
5. Noisy island on Meelva lake with Cuckoo chorus. Recorded May 21st, 2011 at around 3:30 am

Preview

available as a limited edition taiyo yuden disc, mounted on an A5 art card with accompanying A6 postcard and as a digital download.

A fine collection of sound works more or less based on field recordings, by Matthieu Ruhlmann, Yannick Dauby, Michael Northam, Eric La Casa and Cedric Peyronnet, John Grzinich, Francisco Lopez, Jeph Jerman, Ralf Wehowsky, Christopher McFall, Murmer.

Compilation CD : 78  min
(digisleeve with 24pp booklet)
Nitkie # patch two

Distributed by Monochrome Vision

Tracklist

1. Mathieu Ruhlmann – Tranquille (5:55)
2. Yannick Dauby – Neuf Aout Deux Mille Dix (6:44)
3. Michael Northam – A Fabric Of Moments Among The Rolling Of Thoughts (5:27)
4. Eric La Casa & Cédric Peyronnet – Liége Short Cuts (5:14)
5. John Grzinich – Field Mix: Tape, Wire, Wind, Rain (6:58)
6. Francisco López – Untitled # 247 (10:49)
7. Jeph Jerman – Desert Windmill (9:55)
8. Ralf Wehowsky – Dmitry Speaking (10:01)
9. Christopher McFall – An Arc Casting The Stitch (8:50)
10. Murmer – Strata (8:18)

Первый в серии сборников, посвящённых саунд-арту, ”Range” представляет ряд работ талантливых музыкантов, чьё мировоззрение и методы чрезвычайно интересны и разнообразны. Термин ”звуковая экология” в данном случае не имеет никакого отношения к любым организованным движениям и сообществам, это всего лишь метафора для творчества, освежающего взгляд на современный мир, загрязнённый потребительским отношением к искусству. Кроме того, это платформа для дискуссий, обмена мнениями и опытом, приглашение к обсуждению всех связанных с этим вопросов – и, конечно же, возможность открыть для себя музыкальный мир, который часто окружает нас в реальной жизни, но остаётся незаметным для большинства людей. Желание следовать за музыкантами, обладающими удивительной способностью открыть этот мир и транслировать его в аудиторию, стало основным стимулом для составителей сборника, которые надеются на продолжение выбранного пути и привлечение к проекту всех заинтересованных музыкантов и единомышленников. С участием: Mathieu Ruhlmann, Yannick Dauby, Michael Northam, John Grzinich, Francisco Lopez, Jeph Jerman, Ralf Wehowsky, Murmer, Christopher McFall, Eric La Casa и Cedric Peyronnet. Лимитированное издание в дигифайле с 24-страничным буклетом, тираж – 500 копий.

Discogs link

semperflorens 05 CD (Russia, 2011)

TRACKS

01. planar migration (22:35)
02. skew symmetry (20:02)

format: CD in DVDbox  ed. 500

INFO

surface scripts was composed from field recordings, site-specific actions, environmental installations and wire instrument sounds recorded from 2008-2010. the title refers to my interest in the time-worn processes of nature and the effects this has on various materials such as stone, metal or wood. much of the sounds we hear around us are the acoustic effects of these processes taking place while the visual patterns are written as ancient scripts. a set of small lines carved into a stone by water may have taken thousands of years, yet the sounds heard from this process are momentary.

copies can be ordered directly from me.

REVIEWS

” …Returning to my claim that this work deals successfully in creating sound objects, John Grzinich manages here to produce something resembling a large self generating musical machine which later turns into an oil tanker being bowed. Various bumpings and metallic bell sounds with side dishes of scrapings come to dominate the field, a relational field enhanced by a series of crescendi and accelerandi, or, perhaps better, waves with ever larger leading edges.

All of which took me out of myself and far beyond mere technical listening, which is a welcome change from what I find myself having to do with less successful work. Sometimes, very simply at one level, two things ‘happen’, a background and foreground. But on closer listening both these things are one thing, the totality and complexity of the entire sonic field which strengthens my initial claim that this music is first and foremost an investigation of complexity.”

read the full review on The Field Reporter

‘revenant : zeltini’ 01:05:07

unfathomless 05 CD

site-specific session with: Eamon Sprod (Tarab), Max Shentelevs, John Grzinich, Kaspars Kalninsh and Felicity Mangan

recorded November 15, 2008 at Zeltini, Latvia

mixed the following months from 4 synchronized binaural recordings (or ‘multi-naural’ as I refer to it).

‘revenant‘ is an ongoing project with open membership that focuses on site-specific acoustic actions. All sounds originate from materials found in-situ, and from interactions with the space itself.

Zelitini is a former Soviet military base located in the forests of Northeastern Latvia which is now abandoned. This particular base housed missiles from the Soviet nuclear arsenal that needed to be stored in large horizontal bunkers. On this visit we arrived rather late and found that most of the bunkers had been locked up. As it grew dark and cold we decided to set up in the last open bunker to record as we new it would be our only chance to collaborate in this unique space.

Reviews

An ongoing project with open membership, that is what Revenant is about. On their second (?) CD, we find John Grzinich again, but with four new members, Maksims Shentelevs, Eamon Sprod, Kaspars Kalninsh and Felicity Mangan. The five of them went to Zeltini, a former Soviet army base in Latvia and they looked for some stuff to create music with, as this is another angle of Revenant. Find material on the site, and play that as it were instruments, using the space as its concert space or studio. Again we are not told how this was recorded or edited, but for about fifty plus minutes we hear these five persons moving through the bunker space, toying around with the various objects they found in this space, like glass, stones and metal. This is done in a musical manner, through means of improvisation. Not a random scattering of debris, but listening and interacting with each other and creating music with non-musical objects. There are overtones to be found here, which are hard to place (wind? somebody blowing a pipe?), which add a nice textural tone to the proceedings. Maybe like the previous one, this is the natural element that is being used here. I am not entirely sure. The only reference I could think of is the recent work of Jeph Jerman – closely miked acoustic objects being played, but then in the large resonating bunker in Latvia. Not the most easy listening one around, but surely some great music has been captured here. (Frans de Waard on Vital Weekly)

Revenant (I can’t help but think of some especially powerful and frightening figures from Doom) on this occasion, November 2008 in Latvia, consisted of Maksims Shentelevs, Eamon Sprod, John Grzinich, kaspars Kalninsh and Felicity Mangan (though Grzinich writes: “‘revenant’ is an ongoing project with open membership”). No instrumentation is mentioned and, further, there’s a notation on the sleeve stating, “Final piece edited from 4 synchronized binaural recordings”.
Perhaps it’s the cover imagery, maybe the former-SSR setting, but it’s quite tempting to hear this dark, brooding music as inhabiting a Stalker-like environment. There’s an oppressiveness, a dank aspect wherein one thinks of cold, clammy surfaces, algae-covered wall, ancient heavy machinery. The two overriding sounds areas are a blurred, metallic kind of drone, as though there’s a sputtering engine at work somewhere down the dark corridor and the clanking of light metal objects, linked like chains, skittering across the foreground. Small rhythms emerge: soft-mallet taps with a vaguely gamelan feel, as though at least one of the devices lying around still functions. Some faint voices then, rather surprisingly, a jew’s harp, strumming away in a loose rhythm, verging on a melodic fragment, a hapless fellow traveler in the sewers. This continues for the final 10+ minutes of the work, some increasingly violent clatter alongside, until the sounds skid to a conclusion among the chirps of mechanical beetles and sloshing water.
The work is almost static, in a sense, minor events drifting in and out of focus; again, one thinks of the lengthy water-covered floor shot of Tarkovsky, though the focus here isn’t quite so sharp. (Brian Olewnick on Just Outside)

Revenant is an open-membership project carried on by a number of specialists of location recording, in this occasion the quintet of Maksims Shentelevs, Eamon Sprod, John Grzinich, Kaspars Kalninsh and Felicity Mangan. The environment inspiring this release is an abandoned Soviet military base in a Latvian forest, comprising large horizontal bunkers where missiles were once stored. One of them – the only that hasn’t been shut yet – was used for a semi-transcendental experience in which the participants spread around the place in almost total darkness, “feeling my way through the space by hand and by ear” as noted by Sprod. As always in this sort of venture, we have to divide things. On a side, the value of the product as a document of a unique event, obviously higher for those who lived it. On the other, audiences at home trying to find elements of interest in something that risks sounding as a thousand of products of comparable origin. In this case, the professionalism of the people involved and their ability of determining the building’s responsiveness and its inherent musicality made the difference and – although I wouldn’t say that the album is really special – a good part of the resounding materials is sufficiently evocative to justify the need of spinning the disc several times to look for additional details and psychological hints. At any rate, let me be very explicit: in this house, stretched frequency auras and baffling resonances will forever be preferred to rustling noises and “scrape, rattle ‘n’ roll” incidents, of which there’s no shortage here. (Massimo Ricci on Touching Extremes)

This is a short composition I produced for the Atlantic Waves festival double CD compilation distributed with subscriber copies of The Wire magazine. In November 2007 I was invited by SIRR records to perform in a label showcase at the ICA in London. Thanks to Paulo for finding a copy that I seem to have lost.

This piece uses mainly field recordings from South Estonia around lake Peipsi. The hissing sound is from underwater insects found along the shore in June.

MYSTERY SEA 51 CD (Belgium, 2009)

TRACKS

01. dispersion trajectory
02. membrane formation
03. spectral remnants

INFO

Three tracks of moderate fluctuations of sound in temporal space, infected by the occasional far from equilibrium interventions to diversify the stasis. Research notes: Most structural compositions of phase inversion have focused on slow shifts in macrotonal formations, while the rich microstructure has received little independent attention. Presented here is a mystified and emotive soundscape of possible microstructures formed on the basis of margin transformations, kinetic ties, and spatial considerations. Special attention is given to the microstructural features resulting from a three-stage phase separation. Subsequently, these considerations are extended to the microstructure of the inner ear and that of its corresponding neurocellular boundaries. Finally, the features of actual phase inversion structures are heard, imagined and hence interpreted. Phase inversion can be regarded as a form of the instability in the composer, the stability of the process being least at the point of mental projection. On the other hand, knowledge of the phase inversion point is essential in the preparation of dispersions in order to obtain the desired listening effect. The fundamental difficulty in understanding phase inversion lies in the problem of conceptualising the actual mechanism behind the process. Various recording and sound assembly methods are used to generate a trajectory in phase space, which samples from a chosen array of possibilities. This constitutes the random motion of the sounds within the dispersion lattice.

REVIEWS

For Mystery Sea, John Grzinich has plunged deep into its own creative process to come back with “phase inversion”, an haunting & soothing thorough sound litany… Sinking slowly within, oscillating slightly, in a continuous imperturbable movement at the heart of an unseen core lies a point of entry, a source of multiple diffractions… Rubbings, vesperal sighs, microcollisions, metallic asperities, elemental debris, tiny fragments recombine in a wordless score… “phase inversion” turns things upside down, makes Below becoming the Above, draws a precise, refined outline where each detail is like the echo of a new path… a cognitive retraction… > Daniel of MS

Review by Brian Olewnick, from Just Outside

John Grzinich’s Phase Inversion is a giant murmuring, always on the verge of blooming, though largely because it seems always to be fading, growing darker the deeper it dives, where steel scrapes and gray glitches break its surface and paradoxically makes the cold, barren atmosphere more intimate. If the climate of three works here is somewhat cryptic, it is a good deal more inescapable. Pieces pass with an incessant, circular motion, but it’s a motion done on the spot, heading nowhere. The first selection is the strongest. A solemn undertow spaded with placid tones hovers in the distance. A deceptively mischievous manner appears to hold it in place, though steadily it encroaches, not so much transforming as revealing a network of growling mechanical distortions occasionally pocked with echoing synthetic pings. The closing pair of works are hewn from the same dark matter, but their rubbings are more feint, corroded, as though they now stood at a certain distance from themselves. As fine as they are, there is a sense in which they aren’t quite heavy enough to fully make good on the potential of the albums initial stirrings. This remains, still, a fine example of Grzinich’s never overwhelming, but far from benevolent, rattling streams of sonic distillation.
Max Schaefer http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/blog/?p=3213

jgrzinich is a name that’s been hovering around the edges of my attention for quite some time now but it took the ever wonderful Mystery Sea label to finally wave him in front of me. Phase Inversion is a set of three contrasting compositions. The first, ‘Dispersion Trajectory’, is a long undulating drone marked by the addition of skitteringly amorphous insectile sounds. The second, ‘Membrane Formation’, is a melding of washing tone and drone with clattering and sawing instrumentation and the third, ‘Spectral Remnants’, is a short, gentle set of gong-like tonal ripples. I found the first to be a little too cold and remote for my tastes the slow addition of the scuttling extra sounds helps open the track up but I prefer a little more warmth in my music. The second is easily my favourite track here. It seems fairly minimal in it’s strategies but there’s a humanity to it’s composition that envelops the listener. The final track offers a small coda to the album that’s perfectly formed and full of interest but is a little too brief to fully immerse oneself in. If I have seemed a little negative towards this album then I apologise. It’s fair to say that Phase Inversion isn’t my favourite album this month as, for the most part, it all feels a little too clinical for my tastes and I struggling to hear the composers personality but, it is extremely well made and most definitely a worthwhile listen as are all Mystery Sea releases.
- Ian Holloway from Wonderful Wooden Reasons

Among the genuine masters of this game, acquired Estonian John Grzinich gives a showing of his strength with a gorgeous accumulation of drones and found objects, the latter mostly verging on the softly metallic/distantly clattering side of concreteness. The record presents exactly what was expected, this commentator well acquainted with a good number of the artist’s past releases (published on the best labels in this field, from Cut to Sirr, to Elevator Bath – you name it, he’s been there); yet there’s something distinguishing his work which is called class. I don’t know how to explain it, this has probably to do with a deeper perception of the vibrating particles of a particular source, or the shape of a chosen environment, or maybe just comes from a highly developed inner ear. A Jgrzinich drone sounds dissimilar from a regular buzzing hum: it appears more like the layering of a thousand desolate murmurs bathed in amniotic liquid.

The static façade hides hundreds of inherent movements, muted throbs, sub-harmonic changes that nevertheless make the whole sound as an immobile stifled choir, silently spreading resonances which, in conjunction with the dissipating energies represented by those faraway rattles and clangs, represent a memento of how to behave ourselves in front of the vague, a symbol of the unconcern we should always demonstrate when the worst is approaching, be it the fear of an uncertain future or the sheer notion of death. Perhaps a record like Phase Inversion could help someone to get in touch with that inside dimension which is inevitably left aside when one is intent in “living” by filling the brain with figments of imagination and innumerable illusions, only to be given a final bill at the end, still ill-equipped and even more frightened.

In actual fact, life itself is a phase inversion. On the contrary, many people are convinced of giving lessons to others, not realizing that what they believe to have “invented” is just the chewed-up remnant of a truth that everybody sees in a wholly individual way – all of them completely wrong – and that will finally rape everyone’s abstruse beliefs concerning human evolution and a presumed afterlife – not to mention reincarnation – except for the obvious transformation of the corporal matter into food for worms (or ash, if you’re sophisticated enough) and energy into some substance that might be useful or less, according to the quintessence of that erstwhile “being”.
- Massimo Ricci

If the staunch trajectory of Phase Inversion is a testament to anything, it is that John Grzinich cares about the environments that he is so evidently finely tuned into. I can picture him traversing Estonia where he now resides, painstakingly seeking out freshly discarded materials, ransacking through a post-industrial squat for objects to clang together, testing the acoustic parameters of a newly discovered sonic environment. And in all honesty, if he were to call you up one day to partake in an organic matter and sheet metal jam within the walls of a hollowed out geodesic dome… you’d be foolish to refuse. Like all his work, nicely done. -Adrian Dziewanski of Sacrapyard Forecast

prele records has released a CD of revenant : topoló along with 12 page booklet of texts by the artists. Available from December 2008.

revenant : topoló took place on October 19th, 2006 in a forest near the border of Italy and Slovenia. participants in this action were yannick dauby, olivier feraud, john grzinich, hitoshi kojo and patrick mcginley (aka murmer).

revenant : põdra has been released as a free MP3 by Compost and Height and involved Yannick Dauby,  Maksims Shentelevs and myself. This live unedited recording was made on the evening of June 13th, 2007 in southeastern Estonia.

revenant : pődra (13:33, 192k mp3): revenant : pődra

What is revenant?

‘revenant’ is an ongoing project with open membership that focuses on site-specific acoustic actions. all sounds originate from materials found in-situ, and from interactions with the space itself.

‘resonant embers’ is a compilation CD featuring Paul Bradley, Maile Colbert, irr. app. (ext.), jgrzinich, Andrew Liles, Colin Potter and Ubeboet who have all previously been released through our parent label Twenty Hertz.

Here we have seven artists presenting seven tracks of drones both stoically austere and uplifting melodic, haunting melodies, beautifully evocative vocals, engaging field recordings and disorientating environments.

There are many things that link these artists together but it is their differences that are more interesting. There is a fundamental contrast in approach and execution with each channeling their creativity in differing ways from drones and soundscapes, through melodic instrumental pieces to environmental recordings and opera. The artists presented here have created individual works that display a unique voice and emotion, all the while creating a collectively involving work that is rewarded with repeated listens.

‘edition sonoro’ are very pleased and indeed darn right proud to be bringing these artists together on ‘resonant embers’ and hope that listeners will enjoy the unique and emotional journey they have created.

Track listing:
1. irr. app. (ext.) – Whickering mechanical parapropalaehoplophorus
2. jgrzinich – Animate structures No.1
3. Ubeboet – Agone
4. Colin Potter – Bella (direct current)
5. Paul Bradley – Kaleidoscope
6. Maile Colbert with Tellemake – Day of Anger act five; A fluid dawn
7. Andrew Liles – The relentlessly banal landscape

Copies are £10 plus postage available from www.editionsonoro.com or www.twentyhertz.co.uk

—–

Reviews:

AUDIO VERITÉ

Resonant Embers compiles Paul Bradley and accomplices previously released through parent label, Twenty Hertz. Seven artists linked by a shared aesthetic (let’s call it “experimental”) with differing takes: a harder outside of sound art and austere ambience with a soft centre of post-Romanticist melodic drones.

First up, NWW collaborator, Matthew Waldron, re-cranks his irr. app. (ext.) vehicle for an discomfiting drive fuelled by a wierd mixture of dissonant effluvia. Inside “Whickering Mechanical Parapropalaehoplophorus” a slowly modulating sound hovers behind an up-close rattle and hum. Twisted moans and a buzz rendered with slapback echo (airplanes? Insect buzz?) infest the sound field. There ensues a woozy stagger attended by an ineffable feeling of fascinated discomfort. There are more corroded metal shapes and post-Industrial wastelands on “Animate structures No.1″, over which environmental collagist jgrzinich scatters a windblown array of field recordings of high tension wires and rummagings from the blasted post-Soviet heath of his adoptive Estonia. His piece sounds less like electronic music than the inarticulate speech of nature’s dark heart.

More palatable musical soundscapery comes from Miguel Tolosa and project manager Bradley. Tolosa’s project Ubeboet offers in “Agone” an ecstasy of haunting ethereality, smartly smudged. Strings at a remove and sub-aqueous operatics whisper forth from within a carpet of delicate pads, a euphonic shimmer of drone guilded by a ghost violin. Tone-poetry in motion. The unjustly unsung Bradley seems lately to have gradually removed the acousmatic veils from his sounds to reveal their guitar-generated nature. He spools out an electraglide in blue of weaving guitar strata not far removed from Aidan Baker, current doyenne of drone-guitarscapism. “Kaleidoscope” is admittedly more synthetic, less gritty, but still imbued with textural detail cycling across the stereofield, further tones being twirled into a mix of pristine steel lightly blurred at the edges. In between, veteran Colin Potter in “Bella (direct current)” alchemises liquid drones from base metal (bells, actually), sounds swelling and relenting, hypnotically heaving. Bradley protegé, Maile Colbert, and mysterious accomplice Tellemake, spins her voice through a series of looping devices and VLF recordings, in a style somewhere twixt a less woozed-up Grouper and a more corporeal version of the vox-spectres from Akira Rabelais’ Spellewauerynsherde.

A mournful closure comes via doleful occasional black humorist, Andrew Liles, who plays it straight here; the breathy lilt of a violin steeped in Balkan noir emerges from some doom-laden low end-of-pianisms to unravel through ominous tolling. Liles’ “The Relentlessly Banal Landscape” strikes as a rather spare and sad affair, and fails to sound the right endnote for what proves to be a curate’s egg of a collection.
- ALAN LOCKETT, e/i magazine

‘ferric’ is a piece that came out of a series of recordings in 2005 that focused on metal objects and abandoned metal structures found around the village where I live in Estonia. An occasional soundscape recording can be heard as well as a windharp I built. Some of the structures were found some were built in a loose way to be affected by natural forces (wind and rain).

below are some photos from the ‘ferric’ recording locations.

maaheli editions is a platform for releasing personal or collaborative experimental productions of maaheli studio. These releases are not subject to any medium, schedule or plan.

maaheli is my own compound creation made from two other Estonian words, maa (land, earth, country) and heli (sound). It means sound of the earth or sound of the land and refers to my environment based artistic activities.

The following projects have been completed. Some are available as a release, while others serve as documents for personal use and/or presentations:

mh01 – mimema, mp3 release

mh02 – time’s arrow landing, mp3 release

mh03 – location sound films 2006, DVD

mh04 – location sound films 2007, DVD

jgrzinich / Seth Nehil – ‘confluence’

CD Intransitive Recordings US (2002)

1. Pneuma
2. The Distant Edge
3. Lohme

Seth Nehil / jgrzinich – ‘stria’

CD erewhon Belgium (2002)

1. Tome Gather [20:00]
2. Arboreal [8:30]
3. The Mirrored Corner [16:15]

info

The works, “Confluence” and “Stria”) are the result of a continual two-year collaboration and exchange between Seth Nehil and jgrzinich. Significant not only as final compositions, these pieces are nearly complete documents of our individual and collective output relating to sound experimentation, recording and composition from1999-2002. Although the listener in the end is left to experience the acoustic presence created by these works, a survey of the elements that comprise what one hears along with some general information concerning our purpose and intent is presented here.

reviews

“John Grzinich and Seth Nehil have been asking a lot of questions about the nature of sound, about patterns in their groupings, about the dynamics of listening, about the resonance which hangs in the air. In 1998 they made a series of recordings involving a group of people making a great many sounds, all at once, with a variety of found objects. Perhaps they found in the behaviours of sounds, when grouped and performed in this way, an analogy with the behaviours of people, in a social environment, when grouped with others of dissenting opinion, or of common cause, in any given situation, commonplace or pivotal, artistic or political, professional or casual. In any case, they continued to work on their ideas over the years, developing methods of experimentation and exploration, all the while exchanging questions and findings about their work, corresponding across continents. Stria and Confluence are companion discs that have been released simultaneously on the Erewhon and Intransitive labels, respectively, and represent the culmination of their collaborations from 1998 through 2002. Stria is perhaps the more ‘ambient’ of the two records, with three long pieces of deep resonances, multilayered drones and long, gradual progressions. These drones push their way through any distractions and come face to face with the listener who attempts to discern patterns in the waves, in the layers, in the long and droning resonance plates. Confluence is a very different sort of record, and for me is much more demanding as an immediate and commanding presence. ‘Pneuma’ climaxes in a din of metallic scrapings, multilayered, high-pitched and shrieking sounds, only to be carried suddenly on the momentum of its own resonance, as a bird which, frantically beating its wings against the current of the wind, finally finds flight and is able to course through the air with ease, wings reaching out steadily on either side, gliding on the surface of the winds in a gesture at once beautiful and serene. ‘The Distant Edge’ captures the tension of a gathering of dissonant elements, and if the previous track directs the listener’s gaze skyward, this one returns him to the unceasing activity on the ground. Recordings from a demonstration in Belgrade were used for this piece, dominated by a feeling of claustrophobia, of chaos, of being lost in the noise, in the movements, the tensions, in the anger of one’s surroundings. ‘Lohme,’ the third and final piece, takes a step back from the madding crowd, yet maintains a sense of urgency, of cluttered spaces, of conflict and agreement, but finally finds a place to rest, to slow down and drift slowly away, back into a recess of silence, from which all this beautiful noise was born.”
- from Richard di Santo on www.incursion.org

Beautiful music from these two sound poets who will make their organic drones resonate at the margins of an immobile time. Like thick currents of matter slow motions of these sounds offer strained and strangely serene landscapes made from creaking, gratings, broad waves and sparkling resonance majestically uncovering their gracious surroundings in the time. You penetrate into this heavy flow like a gigantic animal, taking its ease, letting yourself being taken away by the current, leaving a certain heaviness for another, more subtle. The current takes us into obscure cavities, in the open gigantic pools other echoes appear, inhabited by the phantoms. With this dense music of shifting the titanic masses you stop shy, observe and in the end you are not deceived by the voyage.
- Manu Holterbach, revue&corrigée no 54, december 2002 (France)
(translated from French by Meta Stular)

“Released at the same time as JGrzinich and Seth Nehil’s “Stria” (that one on the Belgian label Erewhon), “Confluence presents three more electro-acoustic pieces resulting from their collaborations between 1998 and 2000. Their stated intent was to “study evolutionary patterns of sound dynamics through various methods of live generation and recorded mediums that focus on multiplications and groupings.” In other words, the interaction and resonance taking place between smaller parts of a greater whole — a sound organism of sorts. These pieces involved a long process of gathering sound sources which included the use of group recording participants reacting to sounds played to them by playing themselves (on small percussion instruments and objects like bowls). This is an interesting concept, but you can choose to ignore it all and just listen. Each piece contains layer upon layer of sounds moving at different paces, creating rich but not too dense textures that allow you to focus on a different “region” of the sonic space each time you press the play button. Somewhere between musique concrète and very detailed drones, the music opens up and sucks you in. Both artists collected the material, but Jgrzinich composed “Pneuma” and “Lohme,” two 20-minute pieces, leaving the 5-minute “The Distant Edge” as Nehil’s sole contribution (the situation is reversed on Stria). The latter piece features car horns and other street sounds that make it sound more aggressive than the other two, so it works as a kind of interlude between JGrzinich’s quasi-ambient pieces. In its last minutes, “Lohme” threatens to turn into one of Francisco Lopez’s sound constructions. Recommended”.
— François Couture, All-Music Guide.

“With the proliferation of amazing software packages and ever more powerful machines, making electronic music today is, in theory, easier than it ever has been, and the recent slew of unimpressive (to say the least) remix albums seems to be depressing proof that increased sophistication of resources has not always led to a corresponding raising of the stakes when it comes to quality. It’s comparatively rare to find composers of electronic music who are prepared to really take their time in working and reworking their sonic material, which makes these two exceptional companion albums by Seth Nehil and John Grzinich, one on the Belgian label Erewhon, the other on Howard Stelzer’s Boston-based Intransitive imprint even more worthy of your attention.
Using sound material sourced from various objects played (Nehil prefers the word “manipulated”) by large groups of people, the two composers “trade, treat and trade” sounds again until, as Nehil writes, “because of the very long composition time (more than two years) it becomes impossible to claim ownership.” Rather than trying to fit their material into a pre-conceived architecture, Nehil and Grzinich “allow the sounds to dictate the overall form,” and the end-product manages to combine a naturally breathing sense of form (in a manner not dissimilar to much electroacoustic improvisation) with a sound surface of extraordinary precision and complexity (“anywhere from one to over a thousand layers may coexist in any one moment”). Listening through headphones – recommended unless you happen to have a state-of-the-art stereo system and a listening space large enough to enjoy the music at the necessary volume – reveals the extraordinary lengths to which the composers go to interleave, crossmix and develop their sound material. At times the source sounds seem easily identifiable, but once the layers of crackles, rustles and clanging pots and dishes have been superimposed and set back into the middle distance of the mix through masterly and subtle panning, they assume different, multiple identities. What could start out as a gentle tap on a piece of wood ends up as distant thunder – or is it gunfire? The steady accumulation of sonic events inevitably recalls the stochastic pile-ups of Xenakis, who, you will recall, in his 1966 interview with Marc Blancpain (which accompanies the Fractal reissue of his “Persepolis” – not the shoddy job released by Asphodel last year), explained his interest in mass phenomena as a means to obtain “form, a completely new plastic sonority that no longer behaves according to polyphonic or tonal or serial rules, but rather a completely new concept that can be found in calculating probability, or in theories such as the Kinetic Theory of Gases which [..] plays an important role in astrophysics today.” Many composers today pay lip-service to Xenakis while apparently understanding neither the sheer difficulty and complexity of his music nor the compositional strategy behind it (I’m thinking particularly of those who participated in the disappointingly shallow above-mentioned Asphodel Persepolis remix project), but works such as Nehil and Grzinich’s “Pneuma” (on “Confluence”) and “Arboreal” (on “Stria”) are the authentic descendents of “Bohor” and “Concret PH”.
“The Distant Edge” (on “Confluence”) was sourced in recordings of a 1999 street demonstration in Belgrade, and superimposes recognisable sounds of mass protest – blaring car horns, chanted slogans and angry cries – to form a huge pulsing cloud of sound about an octave in range. If Xenakis comes to mind once more (and we should not forget that his experience of public uprising during the occupation of Greece during the war was a formative influence on his concept of mass sound), so at times does mid-period Ligeti (specifically a piece like “Clocks and Clouds”) – the music appears to drift by slowly until you focus your attention in on the detail and find it to be teeming with activity like a beehive. Simply put, these two albums contain some of the most technically accomplished and awesomely beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard, as infinitely complex and infinitely simple as light. Any self-respecting new music enthusiast can’t afford to pass them by.”
– Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic.