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TAG ARCHIVES: Soundwalk Editions

Machinefabriek | Editions – Issue #5

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Artist:         Machinefabriek | Rutger Zuydervelt
Title:           The Breathing Bridge, part 2  | ©
Date:          2010
Duration:    10′01

EDITINOS_ISSUE5_FABRIEK

photo by: Rutger Zuydervelt

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THE SOUND

Composed for the International Film Festival Rotterdam, this piece is created using recordings made at the famous Rotterdam Erasmus Bridge.  It’s a sonic portrait and one of two sound-works that attempts to capture the bridge as a living creature while revealing the aural dynamics of everything that happens on and under it.  The first section of the piece focuses on the bridge itself and the second part is mostly constructed using recordings of the Nieuwe Maas river that runs beneath the bridge.

Both pieces were played in a darkened theater.

THE ARTIST

Born on 28 July 1978 in Apeldoorn (The Netherlands), now living in Rotterdam, Rutger Zuydervelt started working as Machinefabriek in 2004.  Machinefabriek’s music combines elements of ambient, modern classical, drone, noise and field recordings, to create ‘films without image’. He released on labels like Type, 12K, Dekorder, Digitalis and Staalplaat. Gigs were played in countries all over the globe, including Russia, Israel, Canada, Switserland, Spain, Chech Republic, Germany, England, and -obviously- The Netherlands.  Rutger collaborated (on record, or live) with artists like Ralph Steinbrüchel, Aaron Martin, Peter Broderick, Frans de Waard, Wouter van Veldhoven, Simon Nabatov, Xela, Simon Scott, Gareth Hardwick, Stephen Vitiello and Tim Catlin amongst others.

links: www.machinefabriek.nu

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Aaron Ximm | Editions – Issue#5

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Artist:         Aaron Ximm | Quiet American
Title:           Lassitude  | ©
Date:          2010
Duration:    10′12

EDITIONS_ISSUE5_XIMM_1

photo by: Aaron Ximm

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THE SOUND

If in the city of Kashi all things are sanctified; to drown in the city of light one is to walk home upon the water. Take care what you drink, we heard, for the chai is made of river water, and the river is veiled in light but full of death. Take care for the lassi is full of bhang, and the bhang is full of light and darkness in unknown measure. Drop off the ghats and into the river if you dare. The afternoon is gone and the ears are full of night.

On our honeymoon my wife and I spent several weeks in Varanasi, India.  As a city sacred to Shiva one may, even as a western tourist, partake, with discretion, of bhang in many preparations, including the moderately infamous bhang lassi. Opium from the government bhang shop amplified a gold and pastel afternoon; but denser in the memory is the city I entered through the trapdoor of bhang: the plunge into deep water where the sacred city of ritual and the filthy city of junkies became indistinguishable.

Lassitude was constructed with field recordings made during those few weeks, including a long nightwalk home along the ghats, during which we witnessed the idle torment of a scavenging dog; the snuffling of a sacred cow in a private courtyard; the chant of “Ram’s name is truth” as a passing body is taken down to the river to be cremated; and devotional music echoing in the atrium of New Vishwanatha chapel at Banares Hindu University.

Best heard with headphones.

THE ARTIST

Aaron Ximm is a San Francisco-based field recordist and sound artist.  He is best known for his composition, installation, and performance work as Quiet American. From 2001 to 2005, Aaron curated and hosted the Field Effects concert series, which, like his own work, sought to showcase the quiet, fragile, and lovely side of sound art, particularly that working with found sound and field recordings. Recently he has become increasingly interested in taking as his subject the problems and limitations of documentation itself.

links: http://quietamerican.org |  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quiet-American/134809495529

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INVISIBLE TO THE EYE, VISCERAL TO THE EAR: NICK SOWERS ON HIS FEATURE WITH SOUNDWALK EDITIONS

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

bunker
photo by: Nick Sowers

In its Editions #3, Soundwalk featured Nick Sowers’ Audio Cemetery at Omaha Beach, an aural memorial to the thousands of German and American soldiers who died on this coastline. “Invisible to the eye, visceral to the ear,” Sowers’ work draws  upon sound’s evocative nature to give the listener a haunting feeling of immersion in this eerie landscape. On his blog, Soundscrapers, Sowers has written about Soundwalk’s feature of his work and explained the creative process behind the project.  ”In my piece, I am looking to create something at Omaha Beach, Normandy, that I feel is essential to the reading of the landscape,” he says. “I am seeking in sound what cannot be found in visual space.”

“Nick Sowers is practicing the construction of space with sound and 2×4s in the SF Bay area. He is finishing an M.Arch at UC Berkeley this May after a year of traveling around the world studying militarized landscapes, bunkers, US bases, memorials, and more.” His Soundscrapers work was also named by XLR8R magazine as one of the top audio installations of 2009.

Head to his site to read about his artistic process and his work with Soundwalk Editions, and check out his Flickr set for recent renderings of his other sound installation projects.

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