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7"
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FACT 017EP
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$9.00
NOT IN STOCK, SPECIAL ORDER
Great new Autofact 7" series, pressed in the UK w/ the same quality and design specs as Touch's recent 7" series. Perfect audio/art documentation, limited to 500 copies... Surface runoff is when soil is filled with excess water from rain, snowmelt, etc., and its subsequent flow of excess onto land. This cycle, and the dependence of life on water, is reflected in these hot and cold recordings made by Jana Winderen. Uniquely able to co-exist in its three natural states, of gas, liquid and solid, water is our most precious resource. Without it we die. Surface Runoff is the first in a new series of 7" releases.
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CD
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FACT 006CD
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Autofact is pleased to announce a reissue of The West -- a five song album by the Baltimore electronic duo, Matmos -- in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the album's original recording, released on Deluxe Records in 1999. On this, their third release, Matmos collaborate with an all-star selection of friends to create an unusual hybrid of digitally-constructed acoustic music. Imitating but transforming rock, country, and folk gestures, The West reaches territory similar to work by John Fahey or Gastr del Sol from a perversely opposite end of the spectrum: instead of making organic music that draws upon electronic texture, this is electronic music that feels organic -- both in its sound sources and in its construction. Instead of the bizarre sound sources that Matmos have used in the past (amplified crayfish nerve tissue, rubber clothing, hair), the musique concrète elements on The West have an everyday quality: a phone rings, a car starts, the pages of a book are turned, water drips, a cigarette is smoked. Very quiet, familiar sounds are amplified into strange new shapes. Despite their temporary flirtation with traditional instruments, Matmos' conceptual antics remain: in a Cage-ian gesture, a dice game determined the selection and content of the tiny sample snippet clouds within the first song "Last Delicious Cigarette," with dice rolls selecting records by Penderecki, Minor Threat, Enoch Light, Mandrill, a "Costar" record with Fernando Lamas, and a recording of a Heidegger lecture. The resulting song starts off as tongue-in-cheek turntablism and ends in a ditch with a dark, scraping drone. "Action At A Distance" pits Dave Pajo's tranquil guitar figures against the distorted noise of water dripping on a heavily-amplified copper sheet. Listen carefully and you'll hear the crisp pages of a Bible turning. "Sun On 5 at 152," an ode to a favorite strip of freeway, flickers between gentle repetitions of Mark Lightcap's acoustic guitar and discrete, unnerving digital edits before bursting into full drums/banjo/violin/cello orchestration and peaking with thirty seconds of drum and bass. "The West" ambitiously fuses distinct sections into a continuous 20-minute road trip across quasi-country, kosmische space music, electro, Krautrock, free-jazz, and full-on noise. The final song "Tonight, The End" is a sleazy take on stripper jazz featuring Jim Putnam (of Radar Bros.) on trumpet, Rick Brown (from Run On) at the kit, and Mark Lightcap's talents on the peck horn. Matmos is Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt.
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LP
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FACT 011LP
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Restocked; new UK black vinyl pressing. Suite: Live In Liverpool follows Philip Jeck's acclaimed collaboration with Gavin Bryars and Alter Ego on a new version of The Sinking of the Titanic. It is the companion release to his latest solo album, Sand; a set of five new compositions that highlight Jeck's mastery of vinyl manipulation, personal and collective memories. During the past year, Jeck has refined and consolidated his unique sound, playing superb sets at the Faster Than Sound festival and at York Minster for Spire. Suite... is at once elegiac, celebratory, mournful and uplifting. Those who have followed Jeck's development since his first release (Loopholes, 1995) will observe his return to the industrial textures that colored that collection, though here they are fused with his symphonic grace and continued development as a composer and live performer . Philip Jeck studied visual art at Dartington College of Arts. He started working with record players and electronics in the early '80s and has made soundtracks and toured with many dance and theatre companies in addition to his solo concert work. Over the last few years, he has returned to visual art -- making installations using from six to eighty record players including Off The Record for Sonic Boom at The Hayward Gallery, London (2000). Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. Jeck makes genuinely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art, not the gimmick. This is Philip Jeck's sixth solo album for Touch after Loopholes, Surf (1998), Stoke (2002), 7 (2004) and Sand (2008). Boomkat said of his performance with Gavin Bryars in Rome: "The most noticeable addition is Jeck, whose expertise and unique style seems to fit like the final piece of the puzzle as his crackles and motifs melt into the architecture of the recording as if they had always been there. This additional layer of nostalgia brought forth by these found sounds adds a significant sense of history, forcing the mind back into hazy film footage and decomposed photos, a perfect match for the subject matter."
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2LP
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FACT 012LP
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Spire Live - Fundamentalis is a double LP-only collection of exclusive live tracks recorded at various Spire events held throughout 2005 and 2006. Released in association with U.S. label, Autofact, Touch presents a selection of tracks performed by the main performers of Spire: Fennesz, Philip Jeck, BJNilsen, Charles Matthews and Marcus Davidson. Improvised pieces from Fennesz, BJNilsen and Philip Jeck contrast with a performance by Charles Matthews of a scored composition by Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, "In Nomine Lucis," and Marcus Davidson's self-penned "Standing Wave," which ends side two with a locked groove. Cut to preserve and enhance the bottom end frequencies, Fundamentalis is not merely a document; the tension between and within the individual pieces is palpable. As the Touch label places it, Fennesz's set "...evokes the rolling centuries in all their pain and beauty, leaving us at once becalmed and energized, but never oppressed under the weight of time." Electronics breathe new life not only into the organ, but also into the setting. But a new technological successor does not mean replacement. Ultimately, it's the majestic sound of the organ, so steeped in centuries of tradition that one remembers above all else. Spire is one of the most innovative projects around, drawing on the full canon of organ works, from the very first annotation in the Robertsbridge Codex from the 14th century, to Max MSP patches and software sampling. With two CD releases and nine performances in cathedrals and churches throughout Europe, Spire remains a potent live force in harnessing the sounds of the ages. Art direction and design by Jon Wozencroft.
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