asher / fourm “selected passages • set.grey” compact disc

• asher - selected passage i (5:30)
  
• asher - selected passage ii (6:52)
  
• asher - selected passage iii (6:35)
  
• asher - selected passage iv (5:56)
  
• asher - selected passage v (5:41)
  
  
• fourm - set.grey 001 [occupying and connecting] (16:31)
  
• fourm - set.grey 002 [parametrics and parallax] (15:00)

nonvisualobjects press release...

artist: asher / fourm title: selected passages / set.grey cat#: nvo_o23 format: cdrelease date: may 2010 limited edition: 300 selected passagesduring the winter of 2008, i stayed on the campus of a small college in vermont where i had previously recorded the material for a piece titled “intervals”. when i first arrived i made recordings of a small radio which was in my room, i would listen to that radio throughout my stay and captured many different sounds from it. i also spent quite a bit of time both indoors and out recording the environments, and made recordings playing some of the pianos which are in various rooms and buildings on the campus. i returned to my studio with these materials and after experimenting with various approaches to the recordings i ultimately chose only to work with the piano parts. to me these recordings, while only capturing the sounds of the piano and the room it was in, seem to speak about winter and quiet just as well as the sounds of wind and ravens, hushed voices, footsteps in the snow, weather reports, local djs and poor reception. --- in the faint shadows cast by the last light before twilight, i like to roam unthinkingly through what the city becomes (…) as my feet wander i inwardly skim, without reading, a book of text interspersed with swift images, from which i leisurely form an idea that's never completed. fernando pessoa, the book of disquietude --- set.grey the “set” series is a study in generative soundscaping, with an emphasis on reduction and elimination of unneccessary material. the pieces here reflect an aesthetic that jettisons any contextual framework readily perceivable as music, eliminating established references such as layering, blending etc, using purely generative and iterative methodologies to activate audible structures that the artist presents as “sonic sculpture”, or “audible architecture” (archisonics). this is the second part of an ongoing investigation series that began with “set.neutral” (white_line, uk), and will end with set.noir (tba). special thanks to heri at nvo for giving these exploratory works a home, also to mike at smallfish for love and support, maura for love, shinkei and turra without whom… yann novak, and all white_line supporters distributors and collaborators… you know who you are. --- treat every negative as a positive – seek opportunity where others see only hurdles – nothing is ever as it seems … embrace change … if you always do what you always did – you will always get what you always got.

asher “interference” c68 cassette

• interference (1)
  
  
• interference (2)

semata productions press release...

sem-011 asher 'interference' c68 asher thal-nir has been releasing his own blend of minimal drone music for about 5 years on labels such as con-v, leerraum [ ], mystery sea, and/oar and his own promising sourdine imprint - his recent collaborative work with jason kahn, which received critical acclaim, exposes asher's strengths as a collaborator and improviser, it's under the guise of 'composer' however where we see asher's true light shine through.  in a time of one chord organ drones, and feel good ambient music, what asher brings to the plate is most refreshing to say the least. these are not mediative drones, on the contrary - these two side long interpolations are rather uncomfortable; there is a definite claustrophobic feeling to the music, brought in part by the controlled usage of airplane engine hum, feedback and clever use of field recordings. tension seeps in and out at just the right times, the saturated tape hiss is constant, on what feels like the soundtrack to your miserable daily nine to five. on the surface static and constant, upon closer inspection one can see the mood shifts and dynamics for what they really are - a horrifying window into the end. edition of 100 : pro-dubbed on green type ii high bias cassettes with 2-panel jcard, silkscreened shells & shrink-wrapping.

“graceful degradation : variations” compact disc

• steinbrüchel - shimmer (10:35)
  
• kenneth kirschner - april 17th, 2006 (5:35)
  
• heribert friedl - rehsa (8:07)
  
• john hudak - snd8 (8:55)
  
• steve roden - gration degradaceful (5:16)
  
• jason kahn - am wasser (5:05)
  
• ubeboet - untitled #305 variation (17:26)

sourdine press release...

sd-001: graceful degradation: variations 2.2008 cd limited to 500 copies featuring: heribert friedl, john hudak, jason kahn, kenneth kirschner, steve roden, steinbrüchel and ubeboet. the source recording for the compositions featured on this album still exist on a single 90 minute cassette, made by the intermagnetics corporation from santa monica, california. there are still some bits of led zeppelin here and there which remain among my recordings, but mostly the tape is full of recording i made. i remember working with this tape for several months over the summer and into fall of 2005, in my apartment in brooklyn; i would spend hours going through the material and trying to find different combinations of the recordings of the sounds which are stored on it. after a certain period of time working with the material i put together some pieces for an album release and thought i was done. but in the end i went back and continued working, it is the material from this second period of work which has been used by the artists featured on this release. the concept of graceful degradation in relation to memory as well as system failure, seemed quite fitting to the work i was doing, as well as to the work of other sound recording artists. there is a relationship that develops between our own memories and recordings made and archived using various data storage and retrieval technologies which i am very interested in; i initiated this project with this interest in mind. as a continuation of the graceful degradation of my original recordings i asked seven artists to use the material in their own ways to create a new piece. each artist put the material into their systems of working with sound and came up with the results featured on this album. i am very honored to have their contributions and pleased to present them on this first release on sourdine.