Francis Alÿs - Nightwatch (2004) & Seven Walks (2005)
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Belgian artist Francis Alÿs collaborated with the National Portrait Gallery to create a piece generated by the gallery's state-of-the-art internal CCTV system.
Alÿs released a fox, called Bandit, into the deserted gallery at night. Seen from the high viewpoint of the security cameras, the fox looks a little puzzled among all the paintings of the great and the good. Like the guards, the fox is out of context; an intruder, observed dispassionately.
This rip includes two videos from his 2005 pieces "Seven Walks" in London. This video shows the artist rattling a stick along railings of the crescents in Regents Park. This may not sound promising but as this lone figure wanders at variance with the surrounding buildings, the effect is subtly disturbing.
Karagarga; Nightwatch and Seven Walks. Demonoid; Nightwatch and Seven Walks.
at 2:53 PM
Supersilent Discography
Friday, September 21, 2007
Over 3 hours totally improvised deathjazzambientavantrock from new limitstretching quartet featuring members and ex-members from Terje Rypdal Skywards, Farmers Market, Motorpsycho, Deathprod and Veslefrekk.
Supersilent 1-3 at Karagarga.
New, quite stunning recordings from the quartet spearheading the new wave of Norwegian jazz. Colourful, dynamic and more varied than their debut, it combines improvisation and electronics, without a drumloop or computer in sight.
Supersilent 4 at Karagarga.
Producer and member Helge Sten (Deathprod) went through some 30 hours of live recordings to come up with this 70 minute collection, including selections from Oslo, London and Bologna. Mostly a calmer, more reflective side of Supersilent that those familiar with their concerts might have experienced. As always an utterly thrilling experience in the art of improvised soundcreation and even more difficult to define than before.
Supersilent 5 at Karagarga.
Supersilent have been a solid cornerstone in Rune Grammofon since the very beginning and are seen by many as the very essence of the label. From the monumental hardcore blizzard storms of "1-3" to the elegant electrojazz of "4" and the almost quiet soundscapes of "5", this new album is where the sum of all things Supersilent comes together in a shape of almost epic proportions. Like "1-3" and "Scorch Trio" it was recorded at Athletic Sound in Halden, Norway. More than ever it appears clear that their music lives in a no man's land between the genres, somewhere between rock, electronica, jazz and modern composition. As with all their recordings and live performances, everything here is improvised. That most of the music on "6" appears to be written or at least arranged, is testament to the high, almost telepatic level they work at . Needless to say, there are no overdubs. Often being labelled jazz because of the improvising aspect of the music and the fact that three of the members come from a jazz background, with "6" they are just as likely to attract followers of bands such as Goodspeed You! Black Emperor, Sigur Rós, King Crimson, (late) Talk Talk or Popol Vuh.
Supersilent 6 at Karagarga.
Note: This is ONLY the audio from the dvd. The dvd can be found here.
Finally we can present this longawaited treat of a concert film. The sold out concert took place in Oslo in August last year and was beautifully captured by Kim Hiorthøy and friends to 16 mm black and white film, and later edited by Hiorthøy. The sound was recorded by Athletic Sound and mixed by Helge Sten. Needless to say, it looks and sounds fantastic. The concert itself was rewarded a six out of six review at the time in Norway´s major national paper Aftenposten. You get the complete concert, 109 minutes, 6 tracks, in the same order as on the night, there are no overdubs or repairs. And there is no bonus material, not even a menu. This is a conscious decision by the director, artist and label. We wanted it to work like a cd, with instant access to the concert material and individual tracks. Both sound and picture has been coded in the best possible way. It´s a DVD-9 (as opposed to the more normal DVD-5), meaning it´s a dual layer disc with more space for information and therefore better picture quality. In addition to the standard Dolby Digital, there is also a DTS sound option for those with players equipped for this. Please note that we now have both a PAL version and a NTSC version available. NTSC is generally used in North America, Central America, Japan and Taiwan and some countries in South America and Asia. Today NTSC versions will play in most PAL territories while it might be more difficult the other way around. Apart from this coding, the versions are identical. Please note that it is your own responsibility to order the correct version for your player.
Supersilent 7 at Karagarga( audio/dvd).
Helge Sten, Ståle Storløkken, Arve Henriksen and Jarle Vespestad celebrate 10 years as a groundbreaking quartet with their first studio album in almost 5 years. Their music lives in a no-man's-land between the genres, somewhere between rock, electronica, jazz and modern composition. Yes, we say composition because when listening it´s not far fetched to think it could have been, although everything here is improvised, as it has always been with Supersilent. With ”8” they have yet again re-invented themselves, exploring more abstract and mysterious pathways and ending up even further away from traditional categories.
The album is produced by Deathprod and mastered by US mastering guru Bob Katz.
Supersilent 8 at Karagarga.
Demonoid links will be added later.
at 11:29 AM
Olga Neuwirth - Lost Highway (2007)
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Lost Highway is a composition that decidedly lives from the transformation of physical spaces, diverse inner and outer spaces, into sound spaces. In performance, this is achieved through various, three-dimensional sound projections, which surround the audience with playing, live-electronics, and virtual acoustics, resulting in different experiential relationships from within and without, close by, and from a distance. The illustrations of these sound spaces and notes naturally are only an attempt to approach the experience in the theater. Fortunately, the possibilities of surround-techniques have come to our aid, which envelop the listener with alternating, overlaying sound-strata. Thus, the present production was intended to be mixed for 5.1 surround.
Olga Neuwirth participates in Documenta12 with a work called '…miramondo multiplo…'. The piece consists of a video along with various bits of sound, which fills the somewhat intimate room at Neue Gallerie. Screenshot from the video below.
Share Lost Highway via karagarga or demonoid.
at 9:30 PM
Havblik Audio - Heroes Of September (2007)
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Havblik Audio is a danish duo based in Copenhagen. Their sound scape primarily consists of sounds related to the ocean; water, seagulls, fishing boats, etc. This is a limited cd-r release containing a 24min. track.
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at 12:26 PM
Supersilent - 7 (2005)
Filmed at Parkteatret, Oslo in August, 2004, the performance itself is often downright stunning. As with most of Supersilent's output, this generous 109-minute set largely defies categorization as the free-flowing foursome fuses ambient passages with modal jazz and progressive rock with surges of noise and Eastern melodies. A deeply moving and physical experience from the most lethal improv combo of the present. No overdubs, just pure, raw energy.
Supersilent sounds better after total immersion, as extended exposure clarifies the logic of the group and pushes their subtle-yet-grand interplay closer to the surface. The fluidity with which the pieces develop makes jazz standards of strange bedfellows. The snarling, grainy tones of Helge Sten’s Deathprod project somehow complement Arve Henriksen’s romantic trumpet bursts perfectly. The glacial winds from keyboardist Ståle Storløkken bounce with drummer Jarle Vespestad’s rapid-fire rhythms like two kids on a trampoline. Supersilent’s fusions succeed so effortlessly that they seem to lead to a future where all genres melt together into a common improviser’s toolkit. But my experience with ear-grating electro-acoustic ensembles tells me otherwise. Despite their technological trappings, Supersilent gets by on old-fashioned chemistry.
Centered around trumpeter Arve Henriksen, the only member of the band facing the audience unobscured, Supersilent radiates outward, three spokes pointing towards different traditions.
Consider the postures: Helge Sten, crouches wolf-eyed over a set of knob-boxes. His dark, textured material pays its dues to post-industrial demiurges Nurse With Wound and Coil. Sten looks poised to pounce on the rest of the group, teeth bared with black noise spewing forth from tense jaws.
Rarely blinking, Storløkken monitors his crew, his eyes stealing light from the dim house. More often than not, his tones characterize the songs, leaving the melodic stamps by which they are remembered. Yet he is resolutely group-focused, refusing to outstrip his bandmates.
Henriksen angles downward, towards his mic and trumpet. His muse is more personal, passionate, prone to outbreaks of semi-lingual vocals, sung with impressive range. Supersilent owes much of its humanity to Henriksen’s powerful emotional presence.
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at 12:18 PM
Gordon Matta-Clark - Office Baroque / Open House (1972 / 1977)
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Open House 1972, 41 min, color, silent, Super 8
In May 1972, Matta-Clark installed an industrial waste container between 98 and 112 Greene Street in New York's SoHo district. He collected discarded doors and pieces of timber and divided the interior into three openings. This piece records an opening-day site performance by the artist, Tina Girouard, Keith Sonnier, and other friends.
Office Baroque 1977, 44 min, b&w and color, sound
Matta-Clark made a cut in a five-story commercial building located in front of the Steen, a tourist spot in Antwerp. (On Matta-Clark's death shortly after, an attempt was made to save the work as a future museum of contemporary art, but the building was demolished.)
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I've got around 40 invites for karagarga, write me if you want one.
at 10:46 PM
Jem Cohen & Peter Sillen - Benjamin Smoke (2000)
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
An affectionate, candid depiction of the last days of Benjamin Smoke (born Robert Curtis Dickerson), the gravel-voiced singer with Atlanta punk-blues quintet "Smoke", "Benjamin Smoke" is the result of a long collaboration between idiosyncratic visual poet and lyrical documentarist Jem Cohen, and documentary maker Peter Sillen.
Eschewing voice-over narration, Cohen and Sillen conjure an intelligent, visually hypnotic, and intimate portrait of a maverick original, a self-proclaimed "mouth of the South" with a penchant for cigarettes, alcohol, and cross-dressing. Filmed before Smoke's untimely death from Aids-related Hepatitis C in 1999, the film skilfully weaves filmed reminiscences from colleagues and contemporaries (including rock goddess and "Smoke" muse Patti Smith), performance footage, and sharp, pithy observations from the man himself during his highly unconventional odyssey through American life and music.
Screening as part of the NFT's Jem Cohen season, it is perhaps Cohen's most fully-formed work and certainly several notches above standard music documentary fare. A remarkably honest, occasionally painful work, "Benjamin Smoke" is a fitting epitaph to a remarkable if marginal career.
Share Benjamin Smoke via karagarga or demonoid.
at 11:09 PM
Harun Farocki - Schnittstelle/Interface (1995)
Saturday, August 11, 2007
This video was derived from an installation Farocki made for the Lille Museum of Modern Art, about his own work and working methods. Farocki sits behind his editing stations and describes and illustrates his ways of working, the difference between film and video, working with found footage vs filming new material. As most of his films, it is thus a reflection on how we see or how we mediate, but reflected back upon his own work. He shows fragments of his previous films and analyses and contextualises them anew juxtaposing them as he did in other two-channel installations as I Thought I was Seeing Convicts and Eye/Machine.
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at 7:18 PM
Jem Cohen - This Is a History of New York (1987)
"This is a History of New York" constructs a fictional landscape of the city from prehistory to the Space Age. Cohen uses an evocative soundtrack to compile genres of architecture and visual arts into a hybridized evolution of New York City. Although the videomaker's intent was to create an accessible street document, on an abstract level, the tape inquires if the Great Ages of Man might not co-exist here and now, before our very eyes.
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Jem Cohen - Chain(2004), Lost Book Found(1996) & Free.
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at 11:35 AM
Harun Farocki - Workers leaving the Factory/Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik (1995)
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Workers Leaving the Factory - such was the title of the first cinema film ever shown in public. For 45 seconds, this stillexistant sequence depicts workers at the photographic products factory in Lyon owned by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière hurrying, closely packed, out of the shadows of the factory gates and into the afternoon sun. Only here, in departing, are the workers visible as a social group. But where are they going? To a meeting? To the barricades? Or simply home? These questions have preoccupied generations of documentary filmmakers. For the space before the factory gates has always been the scene of social conflicts. And furthermore, this sequence has become an icon of the narrative medium in the history of the cinema. In his documentary essay of the same title, Harun Farocki explores this scene right through the history of film. The result of this effort is a fascinating cinematographic analysis in the medium of cinematography itself, ranging in scope from Chaplin's Modern Times to Fritz Lang's Metropolis to Pier Paolo Pasolini's Accattone!. Farocki's film shows that the Lumière brothers' sequence already carries within itself the germ of a foreseeable social development: the eventual disappearance of this form of industrial labor. (Klaus Gronenborn, Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung, November 21, 1995) The first film ever projected is listed under the title The Workers Leaving the Factory. Chaplin played a worker, and Marilyn Monroe once exited the gate of a fish factory... but the workers' film has not become a main genre in film history. The space in front of the gate is far from being a preferred cinematic location. Most films begin when the work is over. I have collected images from several countries and many decades expressing the idea "exiting the factory", both staged and documentary - as if the the time has come to collect film-sequences, in the way words are brought together in a dictionary.
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'harunfarocki' & 'farocki' at del.icio.us.
Harun Farocki at UBU.
farocki-film.de
ps. this will probably be the last post, until late august.
at 11:12 AM
