★Room40
Circle Drum Music
"Occasionally ideas present themselves in ways that no one can expect. This recording from Australia’s Eugene Carchesio and the UK’s Adam Betts is one such unexpected presentation. A couple of years ago, Eugene passed me a collection of recordings that he explained were in the orbit of his now legendary Circle Music series. The recordings, in Eugene’s particular manner, maintained an intensely rhythmic quality rooted in a deep and unwavering sense of minimalism. Eugene has a way of making a tiny…
The Shell That Speaks The Sea
*100 copies limited edition, slightly discounted - Please note sleeves have a seam split on the top side* "I first met David Toop some 20 years ago. I think we were in touch shortly before that, but our first meeting took place when I invited him to Australia to perform and to speak as part of REV, a festival held at Brisbane Powerhouse. It was a memorable meeting, I vividly remember his solo performance and the edition A Picturesque View, Ignored, documents an improvised meeting during that tim…
Vakning
Tip! * clear vinyl version * "Nothing is fixed, nothing is permanent, nothing holds for anyone, any time or anything.
As stable as we might choose to think it is, this planet is anything but that. A paper thin crust, the zone in which we find ourselves, and mostly concern ourselves with, exists as a modest veil cloaking a dynamic seismic turbulence that is as powerful as it is unknowable.
There are moments though where ruptures occur. The pressure from within carves its way to, and through, the …
Glass World
“I have become fascinated by the complexity of the single sound.” - Annea Lockwood
Totemo Aimasho (15th Anniversary Edition)
"Some time in the early 00s John Chantler, who was living in Japan at the time, sent me a couple of curious sound pieces he’d just recorded with musicians he’d met from Tokyo - Tenniscoats. This was my first introduction to Saya and Ueno, who have subsequently gone on to become longtime friends and a wellspring of sonic inspiration. In 2005, through their connections to Guy Blackman in Melbourne, Tenniscoats under took a tour of Australia and as part of that visit I arranged a concert for them i…
Outside Supercolor
"Lionel Palun and I met in 2003 in a context of social struggle. Aware of an inevitable downfall, we decided to discuss our respective practices. Sound for me and image for him. Then there were the basic questions: "What does it do if you connect a video output to a sound input?"; "What does a sound output do to a video input?" Then the tinkering that goes with it, like opening a Scart socket and plugging directly into it. And to finish, we discovered that as always, everything has already been …
MONOAkuma
*2023 stock* "I think the first time I heard Merzbow must have been in 1994. I was a compulsive cassette trader back then and I was sent a tape from a fanzine editor I traded with in the USA. It had two long form pieces on it that just said Merzbow//Noise. I remember at the time not really knowing what to make of it. It was effortlessly deep and aggressive, but also very emotive and almost lyrical in the way the waves of sound would erupt and decay. In those days it wasn’t so easy to discover in…
Eel
"From eel to eel," Oskar thinks, standing by the coffin, "for eel thou art, to eel returnest." --The Tin Drum, Günter Grass Eel is the second set of sound works from Berlin based Korean American composer, Hyunhye Seo. Known widely for her contributions to the now legendary unit Xiu Xiu, Seo's solo pre-occupations dwell in an altogether more timbral and gestural domain. Each of the two pieces that compromise Eel are visceral deep dives into a turbulence of sound flows. Uniting her interests in ec…
Reality Opposition
A note from Christina Giannone
Dissociation is the driving force behind the composition. The act of surrendering, the attempt to observe our existence from the outside.
Giving in feels like giving up.
Acceptance feels like resignation.
The process included digital sound experimentation by means of observance and detail orientation and the idea of sound presenting itself in different identities depending on the listener. This attention to detail acts as a hologram, changing shapes depending on th…
Eidolon
To understand tuning systems, to peer into the infinity of microtonal compositional strategies, is to imagine a sense of musicality that extends far out beyond the familiar harmonies of the western ear. Iranian composer Siavash Amini, a self-confessed tuning obsessive, has dedicated much of his musical investigations over the past half decade to unlocking new relationships between harmonic events. Moreover, he has sought new timbral relations too and in doing so has honed a particular sonic-aest…
The Voice of Theseus
From Yann Novak In Greek mythology, the legend of Theseus describes how the king-founder of ancient Athens rescues the children of his city from King Minos’ minotaur on the island of Crete. In commemoration, Athenians began a pilgrimage to honor his victory, taking the ship of Theseus and sailing it from Athens to Delos. It was with this tradition that a philosophical paradox about the historic ship was raised: As the ship was repaired, piece by piece, until it was no longer composed of any orig…
Der Krater
A note from Valerio Tricoli: "It is always very, very difficult for me to write about the music I was personally involved in making. As a matter of fact, a good reason for me to make music is precisely that I don't want to be a writer, and also to be able to shut up... for once. Yet, once a record is finished, invariably arrives the request from the publisher - in this case the great Lawrence English -- asking for a 'press sheet', a very weird, but apparently necessary form of literature in whic…
Fabrique
Restock 2023. In 2001, on a rainy November Sunday afternoon, a performance took place on the Brisbane Powerhouse Turbine Platform. It was a crowded affair, some 600 people turning out for DJ Olive Meets I/O3, a performance since released as 'Powerhouse Sessions' (EDRM400). Whilst the actual shape of the series was yet to take form, this event was the genesis for a series of events curated by Lawrence English.Titled Fabrique, the series ran for eight years and produced 40 events - each celebratin…
For Those Who Hear Actual Voices
Restock 2023. 'Someone a long way off, or in the next street on a still day, or in the office across the hall in the rain, might be playing something that sounds a bit like music.'
Revers Ouest*
Restock 2023. "THIS IS THE STORY OF A MAN MARKED BY AN IMAGE OF HIS CHILDHOOD …OR PERHAPS IS IT THE STORY OF THIS WOMAN COMING HERE TO MEET A BELOVED STRANGER, AT THE GRANGE-AU-LOUP STREET? OR MAYBE THEIRSTORY?” - SEBASTIÉN ROUX
The Spaces Contained In Each
Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello are sound artists working at the nexus of sculpture and acoustics. They are professional listeners, embedding themselves in the auditory and relishing that which is encompassed in their horizon of listening. It's a shared horizon, then, that is at the core of The Spaces Contained in Each. Recorded as part of their joint residency on Governors Island in New York, this edition documents their installation work created for the unique acoustics of the island's St. Co…
The Last Days of Reality
Restock 2023. Room40 release The Last Days Of Reality, featuring Decibel performing the works of Lionel Marchetti and Cat Hope. "I first met Lionel Marchetti in Australia in 2010. Decibel were touring our Alvin Lucier program, and Lionel was on the same bill performing a live performance set manipulating electro-acoustic materials with dancer Yoko Higashi. I was so taken with Lionel's performances that I asked him if he would write a piece for Decibel. I didn't realize that he hadn't done someth…
Documental
Restock 2023. Tokyo quartet Minamo occupy a privileged place in the Japanese music scene.They remain one of the few ensembles to consistently produce work that simultaneously refines and expands upon their existing themes and aesthetics. Their largely improvised interactions have produced a collection of recordings that benefit equally from considered listening amongst the groups members and a willingness to stray from the path without warning.Documental, their new edition (a follow up to ‘A Pat…
Temporacha
Restock 2023. I visited Saya and Ueno at the Majikick house in June last year to catch-up, hang out and chat about what another record from them on ROOM40 might feel like. I'd come fresh from RM40 HQ in Brisbane, working with Lawrence on Noriko's 'U' and was packing a clutch of his recent solo stuff. The house was fascinated with 'Studies for Stradbroke' a CDr released on Wind Measures of hydrophone recordings made in the gorgeous natural lakes on Stradbroke Island, just off the coast of Queensl…
Stéme
Restock 2023. Between his reputation as swift shifting improviser, concréte composer and turntable deconstructionist, Marseilles based artist ERIKM has earned himself an enviable position in the European music community. With Stéme, his most ambitious and fully realised compositional work to date, he devolves and recontextualises the boundaries between sound source and sound media.In essence, Stème originates from a selection of ten one minute long sound pieces burned on a CD which was deliberat…