michael pisaro, wandelweiser, etc.

still fond of 'l'ame est sans retenue' lately

https://www.toneglow.net/reviews/2017/11/16/jurg-frey-lame-est-sans-retenue-i

I'm sure you have seen it but just in case not, Yuko wrote about the series also, before she ended up starting elsewhere and putting out #2.

http://surround.noquam.com/borders-disappear/

no! great pictures!!

https://michaelpisaro.bandcamp.com/album/nature-denatured-and-found-again

Musicians

Antoine Beuger (flute)
Jürg Frey (clarinet)
Marcus Kaiser (cello)
Radu Malfatti (trombone)
André Möller (electric guitar)
Kathryn Gleasman Pisaro (oboe/english horn)

composition, field recording, sine tones, noise, mixing, mastering by Michael Pisaro

based on the ‘flussaufwärtstreiben’ project
created by Joachim Eckl, Marcus Kaiser and Michael Pisaro

Flussaufwärtstreiben installation conceived and realized by Joachim Eckl, Marcus Kaiser and Michael Pisaro (2011-2015) and produced by heim.art.
melodic fragments embedded within the installation are drawn from
Antoine Beuger’s melody collection “auch da.”

this set is great and the physical presentation is really nice too. bit spendy but hey

yep it's lovely. I need to do some closer listening but it's similar to continuum unbound in sound and scope and especially in the way that the field recordings are essential. I especially like the second disc so far.

just wanted to chime in (wasn't aware it had been mentioned already) about Denatured and Found Again... it's a well-engaging (and long-ish) series of field recordings, blended with electro-acoustic, compositional elements. it's my favorite Pisaro release in quite a while

also, l'ame est sans retenue I (Jürg Frey) is really great passive listening material. Been playing it on the stereo in an adjacent room for the last few weeks. it's maddening to actively listen to ('waiting' for sound events), but when i'm not focused on it, it's lulling, and there's loads of subtle detail. I'd like to call it ambient (it's not), but it works great as ambient sound art. It can sound like ocean surf crashing (intermittently), or the sounds of jet airplanes in the sky, or like a distant freeway/din of the outdoors--with vague, incidental, tonal elements (very subtle, or pronounced, but nearly impossible to anticipate) ... each of the five discs work well for repeated listening.

These two releases work quite well (simultaneously, w/add'l, low volume, minimal / drone-type ambiance) to simulate a sort of relaxing, 'inclement weather' environment indoors.. i'd been going on two weeks of marked (cold turkey) Benzo- withdrawal (a fucking nightmare), and i was using these recordings to calm my nerves, even when (i don't know) [if] they're not intended to be used as ambient music. The Tone Glow review is linked above, but here's a direct Bandcamp link - https://erstwhilerecords.bandcamp.com/album/l-me-est-sans-retenue-i

I'd be curious to hear others' thoughts on these recordings!

yeah, i like that frey too

i have been in the same listening situation, or constellation of listening situations, for many years now, and while i can get a certain amount of mileage out of recordings like these here and there, i always feel a little let down at not being able to really audition them the way i imagine i ought to—quiet room, big stereo, environing sound

the payoffs from waiting for the sound events on the frey, and on plenty of the others (similar stop-start structures on the new pisaro sometimes), are certainly weird. you wait and get used to waiting and forget that you're waiting; eventually things flip and the silent stretches feel like surprises, like 'oh yeah i forgot sometimes it's not ging'; sometimes they remind you that you were listening to something else in the first place, after you blanked it out.

it's been a while. load of remarkable events, releases, and pieces of writing (Tone Glow online, etc.) have transpired during the last ~four years. feel as if i've been clobbered by work and life, haven't been keeping up much with these sorts of things. labels Erstwhile & Elsewhere (their catalogues are up on bandcamp) have been putting out albums at a steady rate... as well as Another Timbre (of course)

Gondolas, by Graham Lambkin & James Rushford (on Erstwhile) is one of the freshest, rawest things i've listened to in a while. TOP (erst 093) sounds wicked on the hi-fi, as well. but, re: wandelweiser, Eva-Maria Houben's ensemble works, played by ordinary affects (along with E-MH), has remained my favorite release on the edition wandelweiser label. haven't kept up with more recent releases on EWR, though. the Houben disc (disc one, EWR 1904) is just perfect. it's tonal, spacious, and quite unhurried (almost still) ..yet it's massive-sounding (on a proper stereo), and enveloping. check out the samples: https://www.wandelweiser.de/_e-w-records/_ewr-catalogue/ewr1904-05.html

Germaine Sijstermans' Betula (elsewhere 023-2) is similar, though it's less porous (more sustained sounds) and very understated. i've had the album for several months and i'm still hearing new sounds, timbres, and events (attack transients, etc.) with new listens. it's v smooth, sort of muted, and kaleidoscopic.

*that have transpired

Someone dumped the Jurg Frey collection on Dusty Groove recently

“A” Jurg Frey collection

several of those are "choice" jurg frey CDs. of the ones that are still in stock, Fields, Traces, Clouds is ace, along with Ephemeral Constructions. EC is the weirder and less tonally straightforward of the two. Fields, Traces, Clouds is an excellent entry point into Frey's oeuvre, and my current favorite of his.