| $11.66
back in stock as of
july 3rd, 2008
first in stock on
july 8th, 2005
threads:
electro-acoustic-composition
minimalism-drones
field-recordings
musique-concrète
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| | | intransitive (usa) #int 024 cd roel meelkop “5 (ambiences)” compact disc - (1) (8:47)
- (2) (18:37)
- (3) (7:42)
- (4) (13:32)
- (5) (7:12)
| | click the play button to hear an excerpt of "(5)" |
| summer 2005 release from intransitive, a suite of intensely dynamic computer/concrète pieces from roel meelkop.
an amazing feat of sound-design; attack-based events are peppered about the sound-field in an exacting manner amidst long swatches of near-silence. reminiscient of some of ekkehard ehlers work (albeit considerably more spacious), constructed in a manner befitting latter-day ina-grm output (teruggi, specifically.)
a highly rewarding “audio tour” ... |
| | intransitive press release... |
| the music of “5 (ambiences)” deals with ways of approaching and conceptualizing ambient sound, of abstracting sounds from the world until they become much more than documentary observations. the music plays with some referential material (are they field recordings? digitally generated? does it matter?), a very wide dynamic range (to encourage active listening), evocative and even dramatic structures but also forbiddingly impersonal distance. it toys with the notion of “ambient music” (as new age wallpaper) by using ambiences to create deeply involving compositions which change as one changes one’s listening focus. this music is open to any interpretation, or no interpretation at all.
when roel meelkop creates a new cd, he considers anything other than the music to be a distraction from the point at which a listener apprehends a sonic experience and generates his or her own meaning. previous albums have not included any images, text, biographic information, or even titles. this sort of presentation could be misinterpreted as willful obscurity, but quite the opposite is intended. by the composer’s reasoning, the music on the cd is exactly and only what the listener hears; richness then arises from the act of listening. on this new disc, the artist deviates somewhat from his previous pattern. at intransitive’s urging, he wrote a bit of text to describe his thoughts about composition and listening, if not this album in particular. this may not seem like much, but for meelkop it is a major concession. for the first time, this artist who has hardly given any interviews, whose philosophy, while quite straightforward, has been implied but never directly described, has given listeners a way in to his sound world. which says nothing of what that world contains...
this is meelkop’s 2nd cd on intransitive. he is also a member of kapotte muziek, goem, thu20, and the audio.nl label. previous albums have appeared on mego, trente oiseaux, staalplaat, 12k, raster-noton, and cmr.
(sound on disk)
“ink on paper, dissolving into each other, create a surface that supports meaning and content, just like the one you are reading now. the merging of these materials and the way it was done is a complex process involving chemistry and physics, however simple and straightforward the result may look. much the same is true of sound art; take some sounds, merge them in a certain way and there is your result: a piece of sound art. sounds simple enough, but of course it is not. creating a work of sound art implies a slow and immersive process of finding the right materials and the right way to put them together and even then it is difficult to create meaning and content.
ink on paper creates words only as the result of a very specific process involving a lot of human effort; sounds are merged into a work of art only when the artist puts in a lot of effort as well. this work can be heard, the true listener will not accept pretence.
all those who try to seduce the audience with fancy machines or the newest gadgets will succeed only for a very short period. after a while, the hype is over and the real work remains. please don't get me wrong: there is nothing against finding new technologies for working with sound, on the contrary. but there is a big difference between a work of art and a fad. having said this, there is still the issue of how meaning and content are created in a work of sound art.
ink on paper forms text, the merging of sounds forms a soundscape. the question is merely whether the text is legible or not. words that are garbled up don't make sense and the same goes for sounds randomly thrown together. there has to be some kind of structure in order for meaning to appear. there are evidently a lot of ways to impose strucuture on letters and sounds, but what if some kind of structure emerges from the material itself?
ink on paper will not create a structure that can be read all by itself, but words may gain meaning once someone is musing over them for some time. a certain flow may start and the result can be quite rich. after thorough scrutiny the text can be worked into something legible and understandable. this process of improvisation and tuning is the core of the work. it is what has to be done to create structure, slowly and painstakingly. it is the essence of artistic endeavour, even when writing a text like this.
ink on paper is as difficult to handle as sound on disk. it takes time for the right letters to form, for the right letters to form a word, for the right words to form a sentence that makes sense, for the right combination of sentences to form a text that conveys a specific meaning. working with sound is hearing the right sound to start with, playing with it, teasing its essence out and then exposing it. this beginning will ask for completion, it will ask for other sounds to be added, so that its context will be defined more clearly. in this way the material more or less asks for its own continuation, until there is nothing more to add. during this work, meaning is slowly generated by the sounds themeselves and by the work done. this is not a very specific meaning and it is also quite abstract, but it is meaning nevertheless. in the end the content equals the form of its representation.
ink on paper will ultimately be read. sometimes one can quickly understand the words and get a clear impression from the text. sometimes one has to read the text over and over again, because the meaning is somehow hidden within the words themselves or in between them, although meaning may not have been purposely hidden there. and again, sound art is not very different. all work incorporating this meaning, this content, be it hidden, is worth exploring. it is worth our attention and our effort, it is worth our work.”
roel meelkop, 2004 |
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