phenomenology of electroacoustic music

[version]

Going through the Recollection GRM back cat. atm. Haven't listened to this stuff in a while, so it's currently very refreshing. There's so much space in it, so much texture to it. I thought it might start to congeal into one big mass, and it does a bit. Some of it sounds more synthetic, some more organic or like actual objects, but listening to it like this does impose a sense of continuity. It invents a vast landscape/soundscape/map/architecture.

The one I'm listening to atm's specifically to do with the four elements, although the accompanying notes tend to slip my mind once I'm listening. The first track's supposed to be modeled on Air and I could hear that immediately, but the second's Water and some of it sounds more like the inside of a cave or building.




The spatial metaphors have come up on here plenty of times and in all sorts of contexts, but this stuff really lends itself to them. Everything you hear sounds like an object or particular space or substance. You're listening to toothpicks and creaking doors, liquids and gases, tumbling stone, dripping water, twisting metal, cave networks. The unmoored raw materials of more or less everything contorting themselves into strange new shapes.

Got Marchetti's La grande vallée / Micro-climat on atm and it stands out for being darker and more unsettling than some of the others. Not uniformly dark, but it's got these flickering, whip-like tendrils and snatches of voice which conjure up images of Hellraiser and there are sections like night-walking the haunted woods of Twin Peaks. Breaths, twigs underfoot, animal calls, insect sounds, rustling bushes. Swear I could hear a baby crying in the distance at one point.

 

[wektor]

electroacoustic fuckery

 

[wektor]

imagine if "ambient jungle" sounded like this:

 

[version]

imagine if "ambient jungle" sounded like this:

 

[version]

« Labyrinthe ! » (2003), 56’41
Premiered on March 29th 2003, salle Olivier Messiaen de Radio France, Paris. Commissioned by Radio France.

An expedition in sound in 10 sequences: Enfoncement [Deep Sink], Gouffre circulaire [Circular Abyss], Noyau secret [Secret Core], Apesanteur [Weightlessness], Entrailles [Entrails], Four solaire [Solar Furnace], Fissures [Cracks], Mer intérieure [Inner Sea], Éruption [Eruption], Remontée [Ascension].

Labyrinthe ! is not only a very unique piece in Pierre Henry’s masterful repertoire, but also a remarkable demonstration of his compositional skills and musical singularity. Indeed, for this piece, Pierre Henry was deprived of his own, otherwise essential, sonic material. Here, the sounds, provided by GRM collaborators at the time, carry their own distinct stories, sensitivities and qualities. Yet, despite this discrepancy, Pierre Henry’s voice, the breath and dynamics of his own music, quickly appear. Through this sonic maze, a music arises, utterly focused on sounds, their development and their use, which Pierre Henry applies with extraordinary clarity and determination.

 

[wektor]

Labyrinthe ! is not only a very unique piece in Pierre Henry’s masterful repertoire, but also a remarkable demonstration of his compositional skills and musical singularity. Indeed, for this piece, Pierre Henry was deprived of his own, otherwise essential, sonic material. Here, the sounds, provided by GRM collaborators at the time, carry their own distinct stories, sensitivities and qualities. Yet, despite this discrepancy, Pierre Henry’s voice, the breath and dynamics of his own music, quickly appear. Through this sonic maze, a music arises, utterly focused on sounds, their development and their use, which Pierre Henry applies with extraordinary clarity and determination.

If I'm not wrong they diffused that piece during the concerts last Spring. There is a section that sounds like a woman fucking letting out all sorts of manipulated gasps, everyone sitting through it with stone faces. This made me realise, as the famous Boomkat review of Bathhouse Blues says, Who said the GRM was buttoned up?

 

[woops]

Labyrinthe ! is not only a very unique piece

what amateur translated this ?!

 

[version]

what amateur translated this ?!

François J. Bonnet.

 

[woops]

i figured it would be a Frenchman

 

[mvuent]

« Labyrinthe ! » (2003), 56’41
Premiered on March 29th 2003, salle Olivier Messiaen de Radio France, Paris. Commissioned by Radio France.

An expedition in sound in 10 sequences: Enfoncement [Deep Sink], Gouffre circulaire [Circular Abyss], Noyau secret [Secret Core], Apesanteur [Weightlessness], Entrailles [Entrails], Four solaire [Solar Furnace], Fissures [Cracks], Mer intérieure [Inner Sea], Éruption [Eruption], Remontée [Ascension].

Labyrinthe ! is not only a very unique piece in Pierre Henry’s masterful repertoire, but also a remarkable demonstration of his compositional skills and musical singularity. Indeed, for this piece, Pierre Henry was deprived of his own, otherwise essential, sonic material. Here, the sounds, provided by GRM collaborators at the time, carry their own distinct stories, sensitivities and qualities. Yet, despite this discrepancy, Pierre Henry’s voice, the breath and dynamics of his own music, quickly appear. Through this sonic maze, a music arises, utterly focused on sounds, their development and their use, which Pierre Henry applies with extraordinary clarity and determination.

kent - given your former identity as the Archivist, you can perhaps consult the hundreds of thousands of posts you've got memorized and cross referenced and note the op of this thread calls for analysis over recs. what i'd really like to know is what do you make of this pierre henry guy???

 

[wektor]

bayle fucking did it today, man's 92 or something and still diffusing his works live !

mourge sample from 7:43 onwards

 

[0bleak]

mourge sample from 7:43 onwards

What is "mourge sample"?

 

[mvuent]

bayle fucking did it today, man's 92 or something and still diffusing his works live !

mourge sample from 7:43 onwards

god damn it. wish i'd been there today instead of putting meat on a shelf for 8 hours. listened to this so many times it's a masterpiece

 

[wektor]

What is "mourge sample"?

 

[wektor]

also been thinking of this

 

[wektor]

and been thinking some of the early digital stuff is nicely close to music I happen to enjoy in other context, see:


(again, logos fanboyism peeks thru)

the phasing here and the rapid cut into splattered hits just around the third minute! huge fan of how short and perhaps effective this piece is

Flashback, hommage à Pierre Schaeffer – Elżbieta Sikora

elzbietasikora.com

 

[mvuent]

bayle fucking did it today, man's 92 or something and still diffusing his works live !

going to try to catch this in the summer

INA grm Akousma #3 | Maison de la radio et de la Musique

Pour clore sa saison Multiphonies 24-25, l’INA grm présente trois concerts de création au cours desquels l’écoute sera déployée grâce à l’Acousmonium, impressionnant dispositif d’une soixantaine de haut-parleurs couvrant tout l’espace du Studio 104. Des pièces mixtes côtoieront des oeuvres sur...

www.maisondelaradioetdelamusique.fr

 

[thirdform]

What is "mourge sample"?

it was when Wiley invented dubstep but don't tell luke that.

 

[wektor]

going to try to catch this in the summer

INA grm Akousma #3 | Maison de la radio et de la Musique

Pour clore sa saison Multiphonies 24-25, l’INA grm présente trois concerts de création au cours desquels l’écoute sera déployée grâce à l’Acousmonium, impressionnant dispositif d’une soixantaine de haut-parleurs couvrant tout l’espace du Studio 104. Des pièces mixtes côtoieront des oeuvres sur...

www.maisondelaradioetdelamusique.fr

I'm just going to Paris for the Akousma 1 and 2 concerts next week. And Valentine's Day of course.

High chance I will see you there in May as well!
Peeping their later schedule – it's mostly the geezers, and the younger names are mostly unknown to me, aside from Maria W Horn maybe – should be interesting.

 

[version]

Never heard of this guy before. The first tune's quite abrasive. Crackly, buzzing synths. A precursor to Haswell's Acid No!se Synthesis. Second one's like a feedbacking guitar in a cave system.