#haarvöl

[13melekradyo]

17 Haziran 2023 tarihli program kaydı.

Güncel drone/ambient kayıtlarından bir seçki // A selection of recent drone/ambient recordings. Download.

01 – Alva Noto – Kinder Der Sonne - Intro 02 – Hanna Svirska – Vesnianka 03 – Leo Wolf – You Speak Through Telepathy 04 – Taylor Deupree – Eev 05 – Bob Holroyd – Beige 06 – Haarvöl – Under Post Real Time 07 – Michael Scott Dawson – A Barn On Fire 08 – Monogoto – In Situ - Upper Air (Deletion 19) 09 – Steve Roach – Future Informing

[fluidsf]

Fluid Artist Focus on Haarvöl 3

Haarvöl: The Oblivion’s Wordless Knot (2018)

Reviewed format: review copy of self-released CD Album in digital format as kindly provided by Haarvöl

Welcome to the third review in my series of reviews about the albums of Haarvöl in which today I’m reviewing Haarvöl’s self-released album from 2018 titled The Oblivion’s Wordless Knot. The Oblivion’s Wordless Knot was also performed in full as a “film concert” at The Family Film Project in Porto, Portugal in 2017 and as such this album also has a noticeably more “soundtrack” like feel to it than previous albums with the 5 pieces on the album either flowing into each other as well as there being a very prominent focussed singular sound to this release, meaning that this album has more of a consistent planned sound to all the tracks which coherently binds the full album together rather than being, like on the previous albums, more like a collection of pieces that at times jumps a bit in terms of approach and textures from track to track. The album’s description PDF file also lists the concept of The Oblivion’s Wordless Knot in a very similar description to the recent album Unwritten Rules of A Ceaseless Journey, with again, three “dimensions” of time being used as guides and inspiration for the pieces that form both the album and its live film concert performance. Past, present and future. In terms of execution within the album, the time concept is much more abstracted on this album however, although the heavy Industrial sound already predicts the diffuse mixture of field recordings, metallic sound manipulations and instruments in the aforementioned later album, but a rather fluid approach to dynamics and duration of the pieces is especially apparent in the usage of very long fade outs that also contain sections of the music that are much quieter than the sections before and a lot of the material on this album seems to be focussed on “stretching” and bending time in a way, at times using actual time-stretching, with the pieces at times feeling like continuous streams but also suddenly changing or evolving. Less focussed on a path of sonic events and more on sonic streams and the effect of changes in general, without using a predictable system of structures. An intriguing album again, with quite a different amalgamation of sonic elements this time. Materials included in my CD rip review copy provided by Haarvöl are the 5 album tracks in 16-bit/44.1kHz lossless audio as well as the album description PDF file.

The Oblivion’s Wordless Knot begins with the piece An Unstoppable Will To Resist, which right starting from the title already points at a much less “controlled” kind of attitude Haarvöl have to their compositions on this album and the album description PDF also references “rebellious times” as being a conceptual inspiration for the compositions contained on this album. The piece can be combined with second track Times Of Mutiny as the second piece sounds like a continuation or second chapter of An Unstoppable Will To Resist’s heavily mechanic and Industrial ambience and composition. An Unstoppable Will features a remarkably less Drone oriented composition, instead being full of machinery whirring, heavily time stretched metallic artifacted recordings, classic style glitches, which have more of a CD skip sound or zero-point crossing click to them as well as metallic elements which have some heavy flanger action effect on them. Droning in this piece comes in the shape of more blended in filtered resonances that might also have been sourced from machinery sounds but at times also sound like synth drones. This first piece is definitely a whole different kind of listening experience than the compositions on Bombinate with a much rougher texture based approach in which the listener is invited to dive into the sonic details and edges of the Industrialised soundscape. Recognisable real world sounds are herein combined with heavily effected synthetic sounds to blend “artificial intelligence” like sonic elements with the man-made parts of factory and industrial labour. An interpretation of the rebellion in this piece could be that through these rough edged sounds and fuzzy in-your-face mass of sound, the rawness and pressure of factory and industrial workers could be put into a sonic expression which especially showcases the “human machine” these workers have become part of, working under all this pressure and perhaps under bad conditions just to produce these products or source materials. However besides this interpretation, the piece could also more be described in a more abstract way as being a futurist fully automated machine in which AI has overtaken human labour and human workers are only supervising the actions. Second track Times Of Mutiny follows up quite smoothly from this piece, starting with metallic resonant clangs that lead into a more subdued Industrial soundscape which is less noisy in its sounds but even with its seemingly serene ambience, the music is quite eerie as well. Metallic resonances form most of the drones and scraping tones throughout the piece, pointing at continuous repetitive intense labour in perhaps a steel factory and while the glowing droning resonance in the background might at times make things feel relatively calming and peaceful, a rising stream of fuzzy noise in the second half leading into an eerie brooding dark section tells us that this environment is only misleading us into being the perfect working environment. The scattered crackling glitches within the piece as well as the eerie dark resonant section of the second half featuring bell like glowing resonances also hint at a threatening, dangerous element about the environment, with the glitches feeling like an abstracted version of Geiger counter ticks (which especially with the current popularity of the HBO series Chernobyl and related videos feels particularly eerie). The second half’s heavily high frequency focussed sonic spectrum is also especially intense, pointing towards either constant screeching machinery sounds or even towards hearing damage induced tinnitus from continued work and exposure near very loud equipment. On Curtain Of Bars Haarvöl brings us a darker and harsher composition which is formed out of various metallic clangs, hisses, crackling sonic details, time stretched sonic structures and a distorted drone that’s encased in a gloomy ambience of constant hard labour sounds and intense resonator effect manipulations. The drone fluctuates in tone overtime in this longest piece from the album and the Industrial sounds and metallic manipulations form various processes and actions throughout, at times heavily sjidechaining the drone into fuzzy scattered patterns and at times details like cicada like chirping and ghostly eerie screeches can be heard. It’s a soundscape that seemingly turns industrial labour into a dystopian nightmare, but besides the dark ambience there’s also plenty of enjoyment to be had to the wildly varying details and metallic sounds and manipulations that keep organically morphing the piece in many shapes and arrangements overtime, very nice. Between Coal And Diphtheria then is one of Haarvöl’s most straight on Industrial piece, feeling very much like classic style Industrial / Noise music though with a very strong digital granular sampling sound to it which already starts with an awesome stutters metallic speed manipulation of granulated sound. The whole piece is overwhelmingly metallic, resonant and quite harsh too in that the hissy metallics fill up almost the entire piece. An upbeat warm flowing drone plays in the background of the Industrial mayhem, which does feel quite ironic in an amusing way for a piece that has quite a dark title but in the second half of the piece things do indeed get quite dark and alien and the metallic soundscape starts to deteriorate as it were into a squelchy molten mass of iron and steel pipes until evolving back into the granular metallics which fade out in a particularly long fade. Final piece Painful Shout (Of Silence) For Freedom reminds me more of the previous Haarvöl albums a bit, and the phased worm like organic sounds sound quite familiar to me, it is however still a more Industrial oriented dark piece and the ghostly washes of voice within the piece are proper scary and haunting combined with the filtered hollow and resonant machinery like sounds throughout most the piece. The whole soundscape also plays out in a very big sonic space which makes the vocals, phased crackling sounds and machinery sounds sound especially threatening and doom-laden. The second half of the piece lightens up the atmosphere somewhat however subtly stripping down the layers of the piece accompanied by a warmer high pitched drone, as the piece also gets softer and softer, forming a very slow gradual fade out near the end of the piece. A sweet Dark Ambient kind of piece which in the middle still has quite some energetic Industrial outbursts as final piece of the album.

The Oblivion’s Wordless Knot is once again another great entry in Haarvöl’s consistently great stream of album releases with which they have released quite a body of quality experimental Drone music and soundscapes in only a few years time. This album’s soundtrack based focus and much more Industrial tinged sonic signature once again give listeners a new listening experience of an album that bends the Industrial genre into new immersive cinematic expressions and the innovative pacing and usage of dynamics throughout the pieces make for a very captivating and compact yet also expansive sonic journey. The blend of real world field recordings, synthesised tones and (digital) stretched manipulations adds an excellent contemporary futuristic granular Glitch element to the group’s sound that adds fresh new colours to their compositions but also builds on the group’s continuous evolution of their sonic signature. With this more Industrial tinged sound I can definitely recommend this album to fans of the Industrial and Dark Ambient style, but also listeners who are into Haarvöl’s previous albums or Drone in general will find a lot of enjoyment in this album as Haarvöl’s approach to composition brings out rich resonances and drones even from sonic elements that appear to be harsh or piercing at first. Varying from cinematic doom laden soundscapes to metallic workouts the album remains fresh and surprising throughout its 45 minutes playing time and again a highly recommended entry of an album within Haarvöl’s discography. Check this out.

CD and Digital Album are available from Moving Furniture Records' mailorder store on Bandcamp here: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-oblivions-wordless-knot-haarv-l-self-released

[hugopaquete]

@c Espaço, Pausa, Repetição Crónica 150~2019, Tape Release date: 7 May 2019 Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais have been working as @c since 2000, publishing several albums (some of which in Crónica), composing music for audiovisuals and theatre, performing extensively, and creating site-specific sound installations. Having been invited to develop a new work for the Exhibitions Pavilion of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, to be shown from March to June 2018, around the time of the 15th anniversary of Crónica, they decided to develop a piece that would involve and reflect the label and the artists with whom it works. Anotações Sonoras: Espaço, Pausa, Repetição (Sonic Annotations: Space, Pause, Repetition) was developed from sound objects provided by more than fifty artists and projects. The installation established an area for a multisensory immersive experience that incited a dialogue with the sound objects, the architectural space and its visitors. An infrastructure built from speakers, flooring, light, fragrance, and a hovering frame, set a stage for the creation of a nonlinear, generative and open algorithmic composition for computer and speakers. This area was a pivotal point for listening, but it also steered visitors to move, leaving the ideal listening point and exploring the exhibition space to discover how different perspectives over the sonic matter could be attained through its traversal. The installation was built from the exhibition space and from the idiosyncrasies and autonomy of the more than 300 sound objects that were collected, ranging in duration from under a second to more than an hour. From these, Tudela and Carvalhais developed in excess of one thousand individual sound objects and developed a physical and computational system that fuelled their anarchic autonomy, and stimulated several relationships: between different sound objects; between sound objects and space; between sound objects, space, and listeners. In this site-specific installation Tudela and Carvalhais developed music that was not projected into an environment, that was not about an environment but that rather was the environment. A music that created its own space, to which it then directed the attention of visitors, so that they were led to develop a holistic reading and interpretation of the work. They developed a music of metaphors, by using sound objects and their qualities to create new objects that serendipitously emerged during the running of the installation. Fleeting objects that could be heard by visitors or could be forever lost. The two pieces in this release were composed using the sound objects and the generative system from the installation. They are not intended as documentation of the installation, but rather aim at being listened to as new compositions created from, and after, the installation. The first piece, Espaço, Pausa (Space, Pause), is perhaps closer to the dynamics of the opening configuration of the installation, with clearly recognisable sound objects and a focus on their articulation and relationships. The second piece, Repetição (Repetition), is infused with texts in English and Portuguese that were inspired by two other spaces: Pierre Schaeffer’s monumental Le solfège de l’objet sonore (Music Theory of the Sound Object), and Pierre Henry’s House of Sounds, as documented in the photo-book by Geir Egil Bergjord (published by gilka.no). Poetically indexing sound objects, Repetição proposes their semantic reinterpretation, further extending the metaphorical constructs. Credits Composed by Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela with sound objects created for the installation Anotações Sonoras: Espaço, Pausa, Repetição by Alex FX, Alexander Rishaug, André Gonçalves, Andreas Trobollowitsch, Artificial Memory Trace, Arturas Bumšteinas, Attilio Novellino, Carlos Santos, Carlos Zíngaro, Cem Güney, Dan Powell, David Lee Myers, Diana Combo, Durán Vázquez, Emídio Buchinho, Emmanuel Mieville, Enrico Ascoli, Enrico Coniglio, Astrid & Ephraim Wegner, Haarvöl, Freiband, Gintas K, Graeme Truslove, Hugo Paquete, Ifs, James Eck Rippie, Janek Schaefer, Jazznoize, Jim Haynes, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, Jörg Piringer, Jos Smolders, Lawrence English, Luca Forcucci, Maile Colbert, Marc Behrens, Martijn Tellinga, Mikel R. Nieto, Mise_en_Scene, Monty Adkins, Morten Riis, paL, Ran Slavin, Richard Eigner, Saverio Rosi, Simon Whetham, Sound Meccano, Stephen Vitiello, Sturqen,Tamtam, Tuulikki Bartosik, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Vitor Joaquim, Yiorgis Sakellariou. Cover image by Márcia Novais. Installation photos by Pedro Tudela. Special thanks to Lúcia Almeida Matos and Luís Pinto Nunes. Anotações Sonoras: Espaço, Pausa, Repetição (Sonic Annotations: Space, Pause, Repetition), an installation by Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais was commissioned by oMuseu and the Exhibitions Office of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto for its Exhibitions Pavilion. March 24th to June 30th, 2018.

[noise-rm]

Anotações Sonoras: Espaço, Pausa, Repetição from Miguel Carvalhais on Vimeo.

Sound installation: LED lamps, metal structure, loudspeakers, sound and electric cables, computer, carpet, fragrance.

March 24 to June 30 2018, Exhibitions Pavillion, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto.

An installation by Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais, developed from sound objects by guest authors. The artwork establishes an area for a multi-sensory immersive experience that dialogues with the architectural space and the permanence of the visitor. Speakers, flooring, light, fragrance, and a hovering frame create an infrastructure for three sound pieces for computer and speakers, to be presented for one month each. These are fed by the contributions of the guest artists, articulated in non-linear, generative and open algorithmic compositions.

Commissioned by oMuseu and Exhibitions – Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto.

- Project coordination: Lúcia Almeida Matos - Deputy Coordinator and Production: Luís Pinto Nunes - Research: Luís Pinto Nunes, Miguel Carvalhais, Pedro Tudela - Production assistance: Isabel Gonçalves - Artists, sound objects: Alex FX, Alexander Rishaug, André Gonçalves, Andreas Trobollowitsch, Artificial Memory Trace, Arturas Bumšteinas, Attilio Novellino, Carlos Santos, Carlos Zíngaro, Cem Güney, Dan Powell, David Lee Myers, Diana Combo, Durán Vázquez, Emídio Buchinho, Emmanuel Mieville, Enrico Ascoli, Enrico Coniglio, Astrid & Ephraim Wegner, Haarvöl, Freiband, Gintas K, Graeme Truslove, Hugo Paquete, Ifs, James Eck Rippie, Janek Schaefer, Jazznoize, Jim Haynes, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, Jörg Piringer, Jos Smolders, Lawrence English, Luca Forcucci, Maile Colbert, Marc Behrens, Martijn Tellinga, Mikel R. Nieto, Mise_en_Scene, Monty Adkins, Morten Riis, paL, Ran Slavin, Richard Eigner, Saverio Rosi, Simon Whetham, Sound Meccano, Stephen Vitiello, Sturqen, Tamtam, Tuulikki Bartosik, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Vitor Joaquim, Yiorgis Sakellariou - Frame: Luís Albuquerque Pinho, Luís Pinto Nunes, Miguel Carvalhais, Pedro Tudela - Speaker stands: Miguel Carvalhais, Norberto Jorge, Pedro Tudela - Exhibition equipment setting: Carlos Lima, Jorge Garcez, Tiago Cruz - Fragrance development: i-sensis perfume design – Eduardo Oliveira, Paula Gomes - Photographic documentation: João Lima - Video documentation: Patrícia Viana Almeida - IT support: João Rodrigues - Communication: Communication office, FBAUP - Graphic Design: Márcia Novais - Education: Education office, FBAUP - Technical staff: Ernestina Dias, Miguel Rodrigues - Sponsors: Crónica, Garcia e Albuquerque – Arquitectos - Acknowledgements: António Ferreira, João Azinheiro, Luís Albuquerque Pinho, Marta Rodrigues, Rosi Avelar, FBAUP team, directions of Licenciatura em Artes Plásticas, Licenciatura em Design de Comunicação, Mestrado em Estudos Artísticos, Doutoramento em Artes Plásticas.

[chikensem]

https://soundcloud.com/movingfurniturerecords/haarvol-a-remake-of-ourselves-for-bas-jan-ader-bombinate

[easy-pieces-blog]

HAARVÖL - Hebetude

Hebetude by Haarvöl

[fluidsf]

Fluid Artist Focus on Haarvöl 2

Haarvöl: Bombinate (2017)

Reviewed format: review copy of CD Album on Moving Furniture Records in digital format as kindly provided by Haarvöl

Welcome to the second review in my review series on four albums that were sent to me for review by Haarvöl. Today I’m reviewing the second one in the set, which is Bombinate. An album released on Moving Furniture Records in 2017 as part of a still continuing trilogy, Bombinate finds the group using field recordings more in the background than foreground and forming their pieces more into continuous streaming masses of sound that offer more intensity in terms of texture and the sonic spectrum is quite a bit heavier in the low end with sub bass throbbing patterns being quite prominent in several pieces. As it says in the description of this release, the pieces on Bombinate also explore time more prominently which is quite noticeable in the way the pieces feel more like they progress within a certain planned time path per piece, with the endings of the pieces also suggesting a kind of infinite continuous movement of the music with all pieces fading out at such a point. I’d say that in Bombinate Haarvöl have been focussed on creating sound sculptures in which the progression over time is more about shaping the pieces as a whole than adding new sonic events or major changes to the pieces. Bombinate again comes in the same review copy format, the 6 album tracks as 16-bit/44.1kHz CD quality lossless files, the album description PDF file and a log file from the CD ripping process.

Bombinate starts with Senescência, a piece which right from the start features a lot more synths and electronic elements than we could hear on Indite, as well as some lovely bass frequencies. On this piece Haarvöl, build an eerie sonic sculpture out of high frequency waving synth drones, mechanic stuttered delayed pitched down samples, ghostly stuttered sounds that sound like a strange alien being sleeping, as well as field recordings that are used as additional details in the piece, like a voice through a megaphone on the street and what sounds like a stream of little rocks in the middle of the piece. The high frequency drones which are quite prominent throughout most of the piece are quite piercing but also bring a nice kind of tension to the music and while they are quite intense in energy, they do sound very clear in texture adding a great glassy glimmering and later metallic resonances to the piece that have quite interesting fluctuations throughout the piece. The rhythmic stabs of the mechanic samples and growling like metallic textures also add sweet “structure” like sonic to the piece. This piece feels a bit like a great cross of Noise-bordering Drone, 80’s styled sampled Industrial elements and cinematic tense field recording elements that add some nice organic details to the glowing resonant ambience of this piece, a great intriguing mixture of tranquility and tension. Second piece Angst (After The Future, The Past) also offers a great mixture of calm ambient elements with Industrial resonances and whirring noises. Though in this case the whirring noise can get quite harsh, not entirely overtaking the mix but it’s still rather prominent. The piece’ focus is (in my listening experience) to bring us a feeling of buried melancholy within continuous mechanical processes and modern technology. The ever shifting layers of whirring machinery, hissy noise as well as the glitched up main melody tones and urgent synth tones conjure up this feeling through this combination of real life sounds through the field recordings and synthesised tones and resonant shapes that add to the harsh metallic resonances of the piece. The piece feels like a pre-cursor of the even more diffuse blend of field recordings, synths and sonic manipulations on Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey. The melancholic glitched tones form warm memories of hope within the mysteriously pulsating mass of shifting resonant layers. Besides the excellent mixture of mechanical sounds and synthesised sounds the piece also feels like an intriguing sonic picture of an Industrial wasteland of heavy noise equipment with glimmers of sunshine in the grey environment turned into sound by the glitched tones of the main melody popping up in the piece. Once again, a great composition of tense mechanical sounds and waves of synths. On Paura (A Tonino G.) Haarvöl bring us a relatively brighter ambience, with its glowing synth drone. Industrial whirring and hiss are here again too however, though in a less “threatening” manner than in the previous piece with the synth drone and resonances taking a more prominent role in the music in this piece. Subtly but also punchy ticking glitches add a nice rhythmic element to the music too and auto-panned chorus effected diffuse noise, piano tones and high pitched synth details also bring in some unique quirky elements to the mixture on this piece. The piece has a bit of an “up-beat steampunk” ambience to it, there is plenty of movement in the mechanical sounds in the music as well as the aforementioned whirring and hissy sounds but the warm glowing resonant drones also add some nice sunshine to the Industrial soundscape. On A Remake of Ourselves (For Bas Jan Ader), Haarvöl indeed do “remake” a bit of their style from the Indite album as their are recognisable elements from that album in the form of the stereo stuttering instrument, intense nature field recordings and highly resonant drone, but it’s not really a “remix” kind of piece. Instead, it fits these elements within the Bombinate framework, which makes for a tropical soundscape like piece which is filled with calming rustling sounds and waving fluctuating drones that are quite metallic but also not as piercing as on Indite. The piece (like Paura (A Tonino G.) also has a bit of a Krautrock ambience within its drone in that the bright tone of the drone combined with the fluctuations recalls the improvisatory element of Krautrock as well as the flowing minimalist ambience that could be backed by motorik grooves in a Krautrock piece. A pretty calming drone piece, the fluctuations within the synths and subtle crackling and hissing field recordings create sweet pleasant sonic shapes within this tropical landscape but the diffuse dissonance within the piece also add some welcome melodic tension in the composition which keeps the musical progression intriguing and captivating and adds an additional layer of discovery within the piece that makes it a great composition to explore for all its details and sonic shifts. An Eldritch Floor goes back to the more gradual progressive pieces in that, while it still feels like on evolving soundscape, the separate elements follow eachother more often than blend into the mixture with elements like whirring, “turning” glitches in the sides of the stereo field and the particularly nice cloud of cello tremolo patterns that occurs in the middle of the piece. But while there is indeed a more gradual evolution within this piece, the synth drones and effects remain an element within the music that is a bit stronger in the mix than the field recordings, with especially the nicely buzzing sawtooth synth being a nice element within this track. An Eldritch Floor is a piece that seems to focussed a lot on contrasts, between the various parts of the track as well as the elements that make up the soundscape. Buzzing or metallic synths get matched with organic sounds and the aforementioned cloud of cello tremolo moves into a glitchy scraping synthetic sonic environment. It’s a cinematic piece in which waves of ambiences and at times eerie sonic details flow from one to another to great effect and together with Angst (After Future, The Past) is one of the strongest pieces on the album. The separation of the elements within the piece and the mostly suggestion based flow of the sonic events within the piece are great strengths of this piece and it also feels quite on the fly, slightly improvised to, in a way, which makes the soundscape feel very smooth within its time span. A great piece. Final piece Peur (Presque silence) is indeed quite subtle and silent, however there are quite strong bass pulsations throughout which form a majority of the piece’s soundscape with clicky delayed patterns of sub bass flowing throughout. Subtle resonant tones appear at times, as well as low brooding eerie bass tones which make this sub bass heavy piece quite an interesting different listen as the final track of Bombinate. Eerily brooding and very subdued, this soundscape is indeed like the soundtrack of a very deep sleep, whilst still being aware of your surroundings in bed. Like small details of the nocturnal situation dripping into your subconscious and into your dreams, very intriguing and different, a great closing piece of this album.

Bombinate by Haarvöl is an album which sounds considerably more focused on the layering, manipulation of sonic elements into sonic sculptures as well as the effect that setting time paths on these pieces has on the perception of the music itself. There’s a more prominent focus on the synths and synthetic effects within the music, although at times the field recordings still have quite a prominent role within the pieces. Haarvöl again prove that they are very versatile in their approach to crafting cinematic immersive Drone soundscapes that are recognisable in their style but are also always different in how the group creates, mixes and manipulates their sonic material and structures this in new surprising ways. The warmer, more upbeat tones in several pieces on this album also add some brightness to the sometimes quite dark and brooding atmosphere on the music on this album. Bombinate is again a highly recommended listen and especially fans of other Haarvöl albums, Dark Ambient, Drone soundscapes and Industrial inspired music will dig this one in particular. I’d say, go check this album out.

CD and Digital Album are available from the Moving Furniture Records Bandcamp page here: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/album/bombinate

[fluidsf]

Fluid Artist Focus on Haarvöl 1 Haarvöl: Indite (2015) Reviewed format: review copy of CD Album on Moving Furniture Records in digital format as kindly provided by Haarvöl Welcome to the first review in a series of four reviews of releases by the Portuguese experimental music group Haarvöl, whose awesome recent album with Xoán-Xil López on Crónica I reviewed not too long ago. Since this review series is similar in style to Fluid Label Focus I decided to name this Fluid Artist Focus for this occasion. I received the four Haarvöl albums I’m going to review as rips from the original CDs as lossless digital files from Haarvöl themselves through email. I received a great response from them on my previous review so they kindly suggested to me to review several more release by them as well, to which I obviously said yes. So here we are with the first release I’m reviewing of the set of four albums. My approach is to review the albums chronologically from old to new, so today we’re starting with Haarvöl’s 2015 album on Orphax’ label Moving Furniture Records, Indite. Conceptually Haarvöl state in the accompanying release description PDF that a strong focus of Indite is the actual process of composing music. Indeed in all of the 6 pieces on this album you can definitely feel a sense of being able to hear the compositions being composed, layered and structured, while they are playing, with the 6 pieces following quicker progressions than the Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey album released this year. The various elements of the pieces on Indite are brought more to the foreground, have a rougher at times distorted texture to them and the music sounds more like an exploration in progress with various elements in the music often occurring just once, spontaneous and on the fly, creating compositional paths within the pieces which you can follow, with the music having a less diffuse interlocking of layers. Now, before we move into the review of the music, I’ll mention the contents of my review copy of Indite. It contains the 6 album tracks in 16-bit/44.1kHz CD quality audio, a log file from the CD ripping process and the description PDF file. Indite begins with the track Stazione metafisica (A Antonioni), a piece which introduces the sound of this album quite well. With much more prominent melodic elements in the form of strong drones, bass and synthesised strings the piece lays Haarvöl’s droning side more bare. I also noticed right from the start that the music is much louder on this album, with less extreme dynamics and more of consistent flow of sound than Haarvöl’s newer music which features bigger differences between more subdued and louder sections of the music so it does feel quite in your face at times. The music’s quality again however and right from the start with this first piece we have an exciting and very varied musical journey from A to B, which you can also guess from the title’s meaning, a metaphysical station. Flowing from station to station as it were, the piece starts with a very strong intense bass which moves towards a calmly fluctuating synth drone melody, this synth drone melody then moves towards the middle of the piece. Clattering metallic objects can be heard throughout the stereo field, as well as fuzzy noise and strange stuttering delayed metallic effects. These metallic industrial elements are definitely not unfamiliar to us, especially if you’ve also listened to Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey. But on this track and on the album in general, their usage is much less about blending in with the droning tones and melodic elements and more about being a clear integrated both resonant and percussive layer of textures but that is still just like most elements on Indite, a clearly distinguishable part of the puzzle that forms the sonic layering of all the music. What Stazione metafisica (A Antonioni) brings as a first piece is a composition in which calm ambiences morph into darker more mysterious cinematic gloomy darkness, with the middle of the track taking an especially foreboding eerie ambience but afterwards the music moves towards a brighter albeit more “chaotic” kind of part in which especially creaking sounds and mechanical sounds and P.A from a train are audible, backing cinematic string drones and swirling droning sweeps. This latter half seems like a hybrid of sound describing the noisy and at times stressful experience of travelling by train, in a full train for example and blends this with a sonification of subconscious thoughts, like a subtle sleep creeping in as you wait and wait in that train until you finally reach your station. This first piece also showcases the way that this album features Haarvöl’s music in slightly more compact form, spread over the 6 pieces as they’re all shorter than the 15-minute pieces from the new album and form more of a continuous collection of shorter works that all have their own short story or sonic events composed on the fly as the music moves on and while these pieces are a bit harsher and industrial in nature, the music feels more accessible for listeners unfamiliar with experimental / avant garde music too as the melodic elements and separation of elements makes the pieces quite easy to get into straight away. Next track Water Ordeal matches its track title quite well, a more traditional styled Drone piece, this piece features water field recordings indeed blended with calm meditative drones but also some lovely distorted tones in the mix as well. Quirky synth effects, metallic shifting sounds and glimmering sounds and sharp sawtooth synth tones from some sweet details in this piece that also adds an oriental instrument to the mix creating a kind of “Eastern Industrial Drone Ambient” sound. It’s a sweet relaxing piece of music that feels a bit like the soundtrack to a mysterious boat trip on a river, a very nice track. The Massive Downward of Greyness moves into some proper Industrial territory with pretty much the whole track being filled with all kinds of metallic, warbling, distorted tones and screeching. The piece retains a drone based style however, as low filtered eerie blobs of sound fill the background and a strange didgeridoo like warbling sound starts and ends the piece in a very intriguing and sonically pleasing manner. This piece is definitely the most intense piece on the album, feeling like walking in a gloomy noisy environment near both a factory and a landfill, as the bells combined with the metallic machinery sounds create that suggestion of wind brushing against bits of junk and loud heavy industrial machinery constantly in use. At times the sounds are all enveloping, almost ear piercing but the variation in textures as well as subtle single tones on a string instrument (that sound pretty funny in an absurd way when you notice them) brings a nice dynamic to the piece which keeps it from becoming predictable and always keeps surprising within this noisy sonic environment. Also, keep an ear out for some voice sounds in here, won’t spoil too much though. Quaestio Tormentorum is a favourite track of mine, much less dense in terms of textures with the sonic space, but a great piece in its slow build towards a very explosive climax. Featuring brooding eerie resonant drones, resonant reverberated plucked string tones, mysterious glimmering and ghostly electronics and this amazing sounding clarinet part which is gated in chopped bits and panned in a very impressive manner, creating intriguing fluctuating sonic shapes that give the music a sweet electro-acoustic touch that also fits the Dark Ambient vibe very well and adds a lovely new element to this album as it progresses, making every track lean into yet another new direction of ambience and types of sounds used. The aforementioned climax occurs in the second half of the track and features a very intense distorted Noise drone that is looped, adding a curious element of sound manipulation to the climax that is quite unexpected as very recognisable looping doesn’t often occur, at least not in Haarvöl’s music that I listened to so far. This climax then fades out into the eerie ending of the piece which features resonant reverberated percussion, buzzing synth drone and ghostly synth effects. A very nice eerie dark piece of music in which the clarinet chopping adds a very unique sonic element to the music and the climax is very intense and effective. Then on The Inescapable Labyrinth bring us a brighter drone piece again featuring some lovely water sounds, this time more of a crackling kind that are mixed in with morse code, high frequency shimmers and organ like wavy drones. This piece is a sweet mixture of the organic sonic elements and electronic sounds, feeling like a smoothly flowing stream of warm liquid river textures in which the high frequency melodic and rhythmic details add additional shimmering colours to the blend of crackly resonant drone goodness. Metallic textures, subtle saturation and short percussive hits continue the more Industrial oriented direction of this album in general which is also enhanced by additional noisy fuzzy AM radio static like drones that also feature in this piece. A great mixture of ambiences and Industrial elements. On final track Broca (Effacer la mémorie) builds a layered drone from scraping resonant overtones, brushes like percussive elements, cello droning and stuttering metallic elements. It’s a great combination of acoustic and electronic elements that also features a bit of noise in the second half of the piece and the simple yet captivating melodic progression also adds a nice charming element of compositional depth to the piece. Sounds like pretty classic style Industrial Drone in its execution with again some organ like tones as well as glockenspiel popping up as well. A great richly textured final piece of the album with some lovely scraping drone work and industrial elements in the music again, very intense and a great progression within the composition itself, very nice. All in all, Indite by Haarvöl offers up an excellent set of 6 richly textured and composed pieces of experimental drone soundscapes that have a more melodic and rhythmic focused approach to both the compositions themselves as well as the sound sculpting. The well balanced pacing of the compositions, Industrial influences and inventive captivating details within the music make this an album that is both ambient and cinematic but also Industrial and harsh at times, forming an interesting cross between the meditative and introspective qualities of Drone Ambient music and the mechanic, resonant sonic qualities of machinery and Noise infused Industrial elements that form some great climaxes at times too. This another strongly recommended album by Haarvöl that’ll definitely be a great listen for fans of Drone, Industrial and Dark Ambient music and Electro-Acoustic soundscapes and proves the versatility of the group Haarvöl, showing their tonal qualities this time as well as letting the listener participate in their observations while creating their compositions through the clear structures of the 6 pieces on Indite. A great recommended album to check out now for sure. Limited CD and Digital Album are available from the Moving Furniture Records Bandcamp page here: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/album/indite

[fluidsf]

Fluid Label Focus on Crónica 017

Haarvöl + Xoán-Xil López: Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey (2019)

Reviewed format: review copy of Digital Album as kindly provided by Crónica

Welcome to the 17th review in the Fluid Label Focus series on the Crónica label. Today I have for you another recent release on the label that I finally got to this month. This is the new collaborative album by Portuguese experimental group Haarvöl and field recordist and sound artist Xóan-Xil López, titled Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey. This album features three long pieces for dance that were created for the play Revoluções (Revolutions) by choreographer Né Barros. As always, Miguel Carvalhais from Crónica kindly sent me an advance review copy, in this case of the digital version of the album. The Bandcamp download I got here features the 3 album tracks in high resolution 24-bit/48kHz audio, as well as a high resolution version of the album cover (in a wider 3259x2965p resolution as also used on the packaging of the physical CD version) and a PDF file. The PDF file (in my review copy it’s the promo version) features the album cover as well as additional artwork by Rui Manuel Vieira of Haarvöl, design of this release is by José Carneiro. Besides the artwork, as with many Crónica release you will find a lot of details on the release including the tracklist, credits and a description of the album and the various pieces. I read the full PDF file before listening and the texts per track are admittedly quite complex and oftentimes abstract, so they do require some background knowledge and reading to fully comprehend but even if (like me) your strength isn’t in the academic part of arts and music and concepts within them there’s quite a few recognisable reference points in the texts and names and literature mentioned to reference. As is also mentioned in the description of the album, the three pieces all depict three layers of time, past, present and future which also an interesting aspect of the concept behind the music, though for me personally these time layers were clearer as a difference in textural build up and sonic patterns between the three pieces and the “human sounds” within the music gave hints to passing time. It is definitely interesting to re-listen the pieces and reference details within them to the text in the PDF file but a great quality of the music is also that on its own the inherent effect it has on the imagination and subconcious are very strong, so let’s have a look at the music itself in the next section.

As mentioned before, Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey consists of three long pieces, each of which is around 15 minutes long and while each of the three pieces can work as an independent work if listened on their own, there’s also a great consistency in the music even though the three pieces definitely differ from each other in quite major ways (referencing the various phases of time). In terms of overall sonic signature, I’d say that Something’s Missing (Utopian) is a shifting at times quite noisy haze of textures, glitches and often metallic manipulated field recordings, The Pulsating Waves (Reality) goes for a more Industrial Drone sound, though it’s not as noisy as the first piece and Don’t Look Back, Run (Trauma) is the most minimalist in terms of composition, being mostly centred around a repeating Drone motif and filtered resonances. The album begins with Something’s Missing (Utopian). This piece moves through various phases, mixing field recordings, drones and glitches together to create a deep immersive and ever evolving soundscape that freely moves from fluctuating resonances to more tonal focussed moments in time. High frequency shimmering pulsations throughout the piece add a great metallic shine to the music and the glitches add some vibrant rhythmic elements to the mixture which are also very well blended into the sonic image. The piece has a very dense kind of layering within it in which field recordings, the drones and glitches are blended in such a way that there’s these audible edges between the sounds and the sonic layers seem to both intertwine and all be clearly audible as separate parts of the mix of the piece. The evolution of the music in the piece throughout is also very focussed on both textural contrasts and balance and the sounds used are also often not easily discernible in which sources they come from with the metallics in the field recordings and some of the resonances in the drones adding a layer of “artificial” sonic energy in the piece but this also makes it feel quite magical and wholly original and new. I love how the music’s combination of concrete sounds and textures also at times creates new wonderful organic sounds from material that is often coming from very human sources and the combination of both tonal pulsations and scattering glitch elements is quite unique and offers a great new take on Drone music that I haven’t heard before. The buzzing climax near the middle of the piece and the distorted organ like drones in the second half are highlights in the piece too. Indeed there’s a lot of things going on in these pieces but even with this many layers and changes throughout the music always stays consistent and not hard to grasp and most importantly never gets to a point of staying idle and “looping it out” which is a risk of Drone music if an artist would get too minimal with his / her approach. The very good mix and master on the piece also makes me feel this music could work great in multi-channel surround installation form as there’s a great depth and spatiality to this pieces, very good. In the next piece The Pulsating Waves (Reality), the music moves into a more “Industrial” like direction, so to speak, with quite a lot more focus on field recordings of machinery and metal clangs, as well as buzzing electricity like whirring sounds though the drones remain too, albeit in more subdued filtered form. With fuzzy human sounds of distant voices and crowds as well as some great vocal samples pitched in various hissy resonant tones the music moves into a contemplative introspective ambience. The buzzing electrical sound reminds me of the Mosaique album Shattering Silence (also on Crónica) that I reviewed last year but in this case there are mysterious resonances and distant sounds from the field recordings which again lead to a bit of a climax near the middle of the piece but also get quite intense in the finale of the piece in which an array of machinery sounds and heavily resonant flanged metallic sounds are combined with even more noisy mechanical sounds to create an ending that’s both intense but also quite hypnotic with its ever shifting overtones and resonances. The Pulsating Waves (Reality) definitely has more of a general Industrial ambience to it than the first piece but the gradual but also very varied composition of sonic elements also does give it a bit of a minimal Glitch kind of feeling in the middle of the piece with the droning tones accompanying the whirring sounds in subtly stuttering way. Again, definitely an awesome piece of music this one and while it’s quite Industrial, the piece has a very intriguing sense of introspection and tranquil peace to it too though the calm drones and fluctuating resonances throughout, feels quite like an atmospheric aural version of a panoramic time-lapse of a factory, intense mechanical sounds but also a sense of rest in your mind. Final track Don’t Look Back, Run (Trauma) is the most minimalist composition on the album, with a strings like droning tone forming a repeating pattern throughout almost the entire piece. The field recordings are much less recognisable as well, with many of the elements in the piece being very resonant, metallic or high frequency. Glimmering delayed elements, additional filtered drones as well as filtered distant noise change and evolve within the piece overtime, always moving in a new direction while the main droning tone keeps moving in an irregular rhythm. Indeed it’s an especially great quality of all three pieces on this album and of course of Haarvöl and Xoán-Xil Lopéz themselves that even in the most minimalist piece on the album, there’s such a rich variety of both organic, metallic and other sculpted sonic elements as well as constant evolution of the composition that the music always stays intriguing throughout and never stops moving forward in the extended length of the pieces. A great closer to an awesome album of music.

Unwritten Rules of a Ceaseless Journey by Haarvöl and Xoán-Xil López is definitely an awesome strongly recommended album, that is one of the best releases on Crónica and also of experimental music in general so far this year. The richness of textures and completely original sound that these artists create together on this album breaks the borders of soundscape and Drone music in a great new way that makes the music so well suited to many re-listens as well as these pieces will always sound new and different, even with every new repeated listen. There’s just so many layers and details of evolution in sound in the pieces to be discovered that it’s amazing how well balanced the pieces are all are considering how densely packed with layers most of the pieces are. I would especially recommend this album to fans of soundscapes, field recordings and Drone (Ambient) music but also if you’re into Industrial and even Glitch you’ll find plenty to enjoy in this music, it’s very rich music. So go check out this album for sure, you won’t regret it.

Digital Album and Limited Edition CD are available from the Crónica Bandcamp page here: https://cronica.bandcamp.com/album/unwritten-rules-of-a-ceaseless-journey

[fluidsf]

Project B2 01 Orphax: Live Circles Release date: September 13, 2019 Label: Moving Furniture Records Catalogue number: MFR077 Reviewed format: CD Welcome to a review in the Project B2 series in which (like previously in Sonic Picks) I review music with a generally “lighter” kind of sound through review submissions from artists and labels as well as the occasional personal picks. This review is of a release I picked myself this time. Today I have for you the new album by an artists whose activities in experimental music I’ve been following for well over a year now, Orphax (Sietse van Erve). Sietse has been active performing his own music as Orphax as well as releasing many albums, singles and miscellaneous releases for many years now and has also been always been very active in releasing music by a variety of well-known and new names in experimental music and sound art through his label Moving Furniture Records as well as organising various concerts and events of artists he invites, like the excellent series Ruisburo which I often attend here in The Netherlands. Previously I reviewed the series of albums that Haarvöl mostly released through Moving Furniture Records, the last part of which I will write at some point but for today I thought it’s time to put the spotlight on Orphax’s own music with this 1 track live album titled Live Circles. Live Circles is a reworked and mixed version of two direct live recordings of performances of Orphax’s piece Circles as performed at IKLECTIK and Centrala in the UK earlier this year. The recordings are seamlessly blended into each other, creating a dynamic captivating progression in Orphax’s drones that blends bright uplifting atmosphere with darker shades of texture. The album doesn’t feature audience noise. Live Circles is presented on CD in a neat 4 panel cardboard sleeve featuring (uncredited on the packaging) artwork by Orphax on the front cover. A neat composition of thin black circles on a warm yellow-orange background that expresses the pulsating tones of the music quite well but also adds a classy 70’s like LP cover touch to the design of this release. Besides the cover artwork the design of the package is quite minimalist but on point, featuring artist name, title and catalogue number in Orphax signature lowercase type on the spine, credits and label logo on the back as well as a nice written introduction to the album by Sietse on the inside left panel. A great touch and Orphax’s explanation of the influences of the environment at the places he performed on his performances is also enlightening and a nice guide for listening. The CD itself features minimal print, with only the artist name, album title and label logo featuring on it. Let’s focus on the music on Live Circles itself now. Being a 1-track Drone album I thought it’d be good to approach this album with a general interpretation and afterwards a short analysis of several time points part of the 37 minute track to have a look at the various layers part of Live Circles. Live Circles in general is a Drone piece which has this captivating theme of pulsations within it, the “circle” aspect part of the textures in Live Circles can be found in various manners within the various synth layers and eventual progression of these over time. Having seen two performances of Circles live before, right from the start I could recognise the curious juxtaposition of some kind of distant dark tension and the buzzing sharpness inherent in several of the synth layers within Circles. Live Circles can best be described as a mostly liquid morphing organism in which the at times tense or subtly fluctuating chords created by the layers synth tones hint at either a safe but at the same time also fascinating situation or a bright peaceful sensation enhanced by the sharp buzzing of the synths combined with sharp but not piercing high tones or a combination of both kinds of atmospheres as the music blends these at various points. The strong bass vibrations throughout as well as the rich detailed stereo movement also make for a very impressive listening experience where speed ups and other changes in bass tone and pattern add exciting sonic events making for a Drone piece which is still quite minimalist in composition but also full of progression and never meanders into an idle stretch of tones. The waves of tone, at times ticks from the gated effect or pulsations of the synths especially nearing the middle of Live Circles make the Drone also feel very physical even if the synths have quite a strong filtered sound to them throughout. Indeed only the ending climax is when Orphax opens up the filter of the buzzing synth fully to expose the sharp radiant tone within and fades out with more drones starting, everything moving to a place in the distance. Jumping to a few time points in Live Circles, at 6:39 you can hear a great example of the intriguing juxtaposition of the highly resonant phaser affected warm buzzing drone synth with a dissonant high pitched tone creating tension but also calming the listener as even this high pitched bright tone could be interpreted as a warm shining light. At 13:33 the piece transitions within a similar kind of juxtaposition to a section in which the phasing synth drone feels like a sniffed river stream, a calming spring like ambience is emitted from the bassy but also liquid texture of the synth. The hollow tone accompanying the drone pulsates in an exciting ear massaging pattern creating a hollow kind of texture wave, eventually fading out. At 22:08 we can feel a didgeridoo like kind of entrancing pattern created within the phased drones by a gating effect or sequencer. The filtered synth tones subtly overflow you and a buzzing synth enters adding high pitched textural elements to the mixture. The pulsating synth eventually drops in pitch and fades out revealing a recognisable warm drone sound. Indeed Live Circles features quite a lot of variation in its progression but there are also recurring drones and textures that add a nice consistency to the piece and act as reference points to grab onto while listening if you feel like your mind wandered off a bit too far while listening. Orphax does also point this out in his written introduction, that the listening experience of Live Circles doesn’t necessarily need to mean the full attentive kind of listening but often felt more like a kind of trip the audiences had in their thoughts and applying this shifting in and out of thoughts while listening the subconscious effect of the music is indeed very inspiring and calming, the occasional dissonance and darkness triggering a healthy kind of urgency from the music which keeps it fresh and definitely not predictable, also on repeated listens. At 30:32 we enter the final climax of Live Circles which happens quite gradual but is also definitely very thrilling in its nature. Featuring multiple types of drone pulsations, both “round” and choppy Live Circles “organism” slowly starts to grow bigger and bigger, seemingly morphing into its final life form. Indeed this might make it seem a bit Horror like, but this is definitely how this ending felt like to me. A warm but sharp stream of bright warm buzzing synth totally engulfing you into an overwhelming stream of highly resonant sound and it feels amazing. To conclude this review of Live Circles I would say that especially Orphax’s kind of Drone music is especially inspiring for a whole lot of interpretations of the “meaning”, subconscious imagery or aural sensation you feel while listening and indeed you as a listener will definitely have a different kind of listening experience than I did but as always I hope this review gave you an idea of the qualities and sonic imagery on this live album through my own review and analysis of a few points in the album’s timeline. Live Circles is a great aural documentation of the live performances of Circles and Orphax’s fine reworking and mix of the two live recordings used for the album allow you to have a quite similar experience to a live performance of Circles within your preferred listening environment and I highly recommend this live album for fans of Drone and (experimental) electronic music in general. This is top-notch music you can listen to again and again, a very fine release. Definitely go check Live Circles out. The limited edition CD version and download of Live Circles are available from the Moving Furniture Records Bandcamp page here: https://movingfurniturerecords.bandcamp.com/album/live-circles

[easy-pieces-blog]

Haarvöl

Haarvöl, a collective project based in Portugal with three permanent members, has been active in the field of experimental music since the end of 2012.

 Haarvöl’s music is conceptually developed in the exploration of the properties of sounds in order to achieve cinematic and imaging environments. Hence the emphasis on non-illustrative interaction of sounds with images, which is evident in the videos purposely prepared for certain compositions and that can be viewed on the Vimeo page of the project (*). 

The sounds are not restricted to their medial origins: both digital and analog sources are used and mixed.