Anechoic Chamber podcast

Good evening and welcome to the 12th episode of Anechoic Chamber; free-form audio and insights from the margins of arts and culture. Our guest for this edition is Danish multi media artist, nomad and researcher Jacob Kirkegaard. Given his extensive amount of travel and the wide scope of his chosen subject matter, Kirkegaard’s work can be difficult to summarize in a brief statement, hence the necessity for the lengthier introduction that this show will provide. Nevertheless, Kirkegaard is notable for his use of location recordings, later combined with a variety of visual imagery, to present intimate experiences of globally diverse locations and to perhaps interrogate just how familiar, or just how exotic, these locations may be to us. In addition, with ambitious works such as Labytinthitis, Kirkegaard has extended this sense of reality’s ambiguous nature to the human body, using the rarely explored realm of otoacoustic emissions from the inner ear to show how even fundamental assumptions regarding sensory perception can occasionally be challenged. In the process of doing so, Kirkegaard somehow manages to be an artist who (in the words of Julie Martin from his 2014 Earside Out exhibition catalog), “transcends politics….there is no lecture from the artist, no finger pointing at us humans who are complicit in many […] world-wide phenomena.”

Featured audio (all provided by the artist): Excerpts from "Rewind" installation as found in Sweden, Cuba, New York City, Istanbul / artist's contribution to "freq_out" group sound exhibition / location recordings from Chernobyl / "A Town in Russia" / "Opus Mors" excerpts (ambient recordings of hospital morgue and corpse decomposition at body farm) / "Membrane" recordings of U.S.-Mexico border wall / "singing sands" recordings from Oman / "Labyrinthitis" piece based on otoacoustic emissions

artist links: www.fonik.dk | www.topos.media

Anechoic Chamber links:

[email protected] for PayPal donations

www.thomasbeywilliambailey.com for host activities

Our guest for this episode is Kazuya Ishigami, an electro-acoustic composer and musician who has been active for decades in the extremely fertile Kansai region of Japan. This is the region that has brought us such paragons of musical eclecticism as the Boredoms and pioneers of unadulterated noise such as Hijokaidan and Masonna. However, in addition to these very widely cited examples of sonic intensity and underground attitude, there are creators like Ishigami who incorporate a much greater degree of nuance and subtlety, which is grounded in a clearly Japanese philosophy towards biological phenomena. That is to say, much like the late Kyoto experimenter Akifumi Nakajima, aka Aube, Ishigami approaches technology as something that cannot be completely separated from the natural world, and of course this results in a very organic sound that disrupts expectations of how “electronic” music should sound.

In the spirit of the original Japanese independent record labels like Skating Pears and Vanity, Ishigami has also curated his own NEUS-318 label to minimize aesthetic compromises, and to locally release the works of artists from nations as geographically distant as Argentina and Lithuania. The label’s name is an acronym standing for “noise, electronics, and unknown sounds,” which itself is a good synopsis of Ishigami’s musical interests and his balance of noise music’s confrontational aspects with something more ephemeral and less clearly defined. Ishigami has worked as a concert organizer in both traditional venues and locations like the Zenkouji Buddhist temple, as being a collaborator with visual and performance artists, and of course being a reliable and friendly participant in the “uchiage,” the after-concert communal meals which often end up being an extension of the concerts themselves.

Artist links:

https://kazuyaishigami.bandcamp.com

http://www.neus318.com

https://neus318.bandcamp.com

Paypal donations for Anechoic Chamber: [email protected]

All other inquiries: [email protected]

Time to pass around the hat while waiting for fresh content. Spread the word on social media platforms if so inclined, and PayPal to [email protected]. Gratzi!

Greetings and welcome to Episode 10 of Anechoic Chamber, free form audio from the margins of arts and culture. This week’s guest is perhaps Argentina’s most eclectic musical export, Reynols. True to that eclectic form, this edition of Anechoic Chamber will proceed a little differently than before. After several email exchanges with founding member Anla Courtis, it was decided to do a show which would be wholly comprised of examples from Reynols’ sonic universe along with narration, by me, of their biography, as previously printed in the 2018 Pica-Disk box set ["Minecxio Emanations"] dedicated to the band. For newcomers: Reynols was founded in 1993 and has ever since been powered by the singular vision of Miguel Tomasin, a drummer / vocalist with Down’s Syndrome whose unorthodox interpretation of the universe around him gave rise to both musical forms and non-musical concepts the likes of which “normal” musicians, so-called, still struggle to create in order to differentiate themselves from their thousands of peers. Despite being no strangers to the interview circuit, being the subjects of various documentaries and (as we will get to in short order) being on Argentinian national television for a considerable amount of time, a certain fog of mysteriousness still covers the band’s activities and many of their acolytes might agree that it’s better this way. So, in this spirit, we’ll honor Anla’s request continue by allowing the band’s music center stage.

All musical selections by Reynols, available on the following releases:

https://www.discogs.com/Acid-Mothers-Reynols-Vol1/release/14832178

https://www.discogs.com/Reynols-Minecxio-Emanations-1993-2018/release/13340854

some additional new releases by the artist:

- Gordura Vegetal Hidrogenada 25th Anniversary

in a special "dematerialized LP" format edition

https://reynols.bandcamp.com/album/gordura-vegetal-hidrogenada

- Reynols "Gona Rubian Ranesa" LP

Outlier Communications (Canada)

https://outliercommunications.bandcamp.com/

Anechoic chamber links

donate via Paypal: [email protected]

general inquiries. [email protected]

Welcome to episode 9 of Anechoic Chamber, freeform audio from the margins of art and culture. This week's guest is filmmaker Thomas Nordanstad. Thomas currently helms the production company Electric Avenue Pictures, and has a cinematic resume whose highlights include documentary films dealing with creative response to repressive societies, a series of visually immersive films produced in collaboration with Carl Michael von Hausswolff, and some ambitious new projects: these include a forthcoming feature film entitled The Letting Go, a slow film treatment of Rikrit Tiravanija's communal dining project, and a trilogy of Pinter film adaptations. The economical and essentialist nature of Nordanstad's film is an increasing rarity in an image-saturated cultural atmosphere, and has provided plentiful rich material for the discussion to follow.

Cover image: still from Nordanstad's production of "Victoria Station" by Harold Pinter (forthcoming)

Additional sounds: opening dialogue from "Victoria Station" / soundtrack excerpts from "The Letting Go" (forthcoming) / megamix of psychoambience by Thomas Bey William Bailey

artist links:

www.nordanstad.com

Anechoic Chamber links:

donate via Paypal: [email protected]

all other inquiries: [email protected]

Welcome to episode 8 of Anechoic Chamber, free form audio from the margins of arts and culture. Our guest for this edition is Rick Reed, an Austin, Texas based visual artist and electronic musician. As one of the first individuals in the area to record and perform home-grown electronic music outside of an academic or otherwise institutional framework, Rick has been a key participant in Austin's transformation into a city where the surplus of new electronic music, rather than a deficit, is the challenge to be dealt with. His even-handed and unique approach has led to fruitful collaborations not only with experimental music icons such as Keith Rowe, but also with pioneers of synesthetic film including Ken Jacobs and Aldo Tambellini. Inspired by the odd malfunctions of analog communications media (for example, de-tuned shortwave radio or distorted television signals), Reed has spent decades crafting art that hints at the ease with which reality can be completely transformed by slight perceptual shifts. We discuss this, and more, in the conversation to follow.

All music by Rick Reed, from "20 Million Years to Earth" retrospective compilation

Artist links:

https://richardkreed.bandcamp.com

Anechoic Chamber links:

donate via PayPal: [email protected]

other inquiries: [email protected]

Welcome to episode 7 of Anechoic Chamber, free form audio from the margins of arts and culture. Our guest for this edition is Francisco López, who as of this recording is celebrating 40 years of what he has called sonogenic composition. Over this time, López has carved out an almost unparalleled reputation as a bioacoustic researcher and as a champion of sound's phenomenological, non-representational qualities, while being critical of conceptual uses for the same. Equally at home using sonic material from the rainforest or the factory, while also being equally adept at exploring the qualities of overwhelming noise or seductive silence, López remains one of the principal authorities on the extremes of sonic perception and how they inform all that lies in between. Though he is often noted for the supposed "novelty value" accorded to his rejection on the concert stage, this is only one aspect of a fully integrated philosophy of sound, which we hope to unveil in this broadcast.

All compositions by the artist; available on the limited edition USB card album "A Bunch of Stuff 1980-2020: 40 Years of Sonogenic Composition"

artist links:

www.franciscolopez.net

Anechoic Chamber links

donate via PayPal: [email protected]

all other inquiries: [email protected]

Welcome to episode 6 of the Anechoic Chamber, free form audio from the glowing margins of arts and culture. Our guest for this edition is Barbara Ellison, a composer and sonic researcher whose deep explorations into what she calls "phantasmatic" sound reveal a world in which aesthetic experience becomes an active, rather than passive process, and in which our human propensity for seeking meaning in the apparently meaningless is manifested in a variety of fascinating ways. In her new book Sonic Phantoms - co-authored by yours truly, and out now on Bloomsbury's 'Sound Studies' series - Ellison unveils a previously hidden world in which musical instrument practice, technological experimentation, world travel and immersion in nature all point back towards this propensity and suggest it as being the spark for a staggering amount of human creativity. The following discussion, along with compositional examples provided by Barbara, only begin to scratch the surface of this involving subject.

Topics under discussion: tricksters, "gods of the in-between" and shamans / tricks of the mind in bistable imagery, Gestalt psychology, expectations priming perception and experience, the brain as a "predictive machine" and "top-down" perceptive models / the phenomenon of sine wave speech and the apophenic mind / semantic satiation and semantization / EVP, OVP and pareidolia / katajjaq vocal game of the Inuit / acoustic niche theory in natural environments, and its effect on human musical composition

All compositions used in this episode by Barbara Ellison 2009-2019

artist web links:

www.barbaraellison.com

https://barbaraellison.bandcamp.com/

www.sonicphantoms.com

Anechoic Chamber links:

donate via Paypal: [email protected]

general queries: [email protected]

Our guest for Episode 5 of Anechoic Chamber is Enzo Minarelli, who, since the early Seventies, has been active in the field of linear and visual poetry, performing several one-man shows while also editing and releasing records, CDs and DVDs. He is the main theorist of Polypoetry - whose first Manifesto was published by Minarelli in 1987 - and the publisher of the vinyl series 3ViTre Records, producing about twenty records both on 7” and LP. He has also founded the 3Vitre Archive of Polypoetry which can now be consulted permanently at Lincoln Center in New York and at Bologna University. As a scholar and researcher about orality and poetry, his essays and books are a well-known reference on the subject. His sound and visual works are in the collections of national and international musea, libraries and archives. As a video-poet, he has produced many video-poems and video sound poetry installations since the early 80s.

For this discussion, Minarelli provides a valuable primer on sound poetry in general, dispelling numerous myths about the form while also touching upon its most essential qualities.

Discussion topics: Is technology essential to sound poetry? / not “performance art” or music / Henri Chopin, Bernard Heidsieck: two different poetic perspectives on language / relationship to the “avant-garde” + being comfortable with tradition a la Dick Higgins / Can sound poetry be comedy? / Losing control of the audience / different meanings of silence in performance: beyond John Cage / “Urloh” + “Howl”: an example of art meeting life

Sounds used in this episode: Enzo Minarelli “Urloh (1984)” (previously appeared in Polipoesia mon Amour [2005] and Voice Studies London [2015]) / "Voci Nell Italia di Fine Secolo" / "Gran Amor Platonico" / Additional atmospheric sounds created by TBWB exclusively using interview footage from this episode as a sound source.

Cover image: “Urloh” schematic by Enzo Minarelli.

Anechoic chamber links:

Artist web links:

http://www.3vitre.it

https://www.enzominarelli.com

donate via Paypal: [email protected]

all other queries: [email protected]

Welcome to episode 4 of Anechoic Chamber, free-from audio reportage from the margins of arts and culture. This episode’s guest is John Duncan, multi-disciplinary artist, psychic researcher and key figure in a fluid subculture based upon explorations into the extremes of information and expression. Duncan’s long-standing propensity for working with either an overload or deficit of stimuli have made this work more, rather than less, relevant to the present, while his declaration of quote “take me as you will” hints at an ethos of directness in a media landscape of seemingly universal deceit. Interestingly, our discussion for this episode focuses not just on the artist himself but on the actions of several other individuals whose work he has recommended.

Topics discussed: nearness to death and proving worthiness / learning from isolation / Narcomantic sleep performance, and an interesting participant (Nicola Valentino) / social media and “no picture didn’t happen” / taking up shortwave radio as an instrument, and Gary Jo Gardiner / another new instrument: Aurora Borealis radiation / resonant sites for recording / Bryan Lewis Saunders: an example of risk-taking art / art as a mirror, as a hammer, and more

Sound used in this episode: John Duncan / Bernhard Günter “Home, Unspeakable” | John Duncan “Change” from ‘Mind of a Missile’ compilation | John Duncan directing Ensemble Phoenix Basel “Phantom Broadcast (acoustic)” | John Duncan “Move Forward” soundtrack | John Duncan “River in Flames” | John Duncan + Elliot Sharp “Tongue” |

John Duncan “Lady Grinning Soul” [David Bowie cover, currently unreleased]

artist link: www.johnduncan.org

Anechoic chamber links

donate via Paypal: [email protected]

all other queries: [email protected]