★Touch
Stepping Into The Dark
1996 release, repressed! Watson's lead instrument is the tape recorder. After working with Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio, he became sound recordist for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He has since joined a film and video production company, working for BBC wildlife documentaries and occasional feature films. The 12 recordings on Stepping into the Dark contrast a windswept forest in Glen Cannich with the gathering conversations of rooks roosting in a churchyard in Northumber…
Englabörn
Upon setting out to score the music for the play Englaborn by Havar Sigurjonsson, Johann Johannsson, co-founder of the Icelandic arts organisation Kitchen Motors, came upon a text by the Latin poet Catullus which roughly translates as, I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you might ask? I dont know, but I feel it happening to me, and it's tearing me apart. This poem concisely bridges the emotional opposites which clashed within the play itself. As the play's content was extremely violent and distu…
Vectors
Touch releases an album by UK experimental musician Robert Hampson. Before his involvement with acousmatic sound, Hampson was the originator behind such guitar-based acts such as Loop and Main. He was also a member of Godflesh, and collaborated with Jim O'Rourke and Organum. Vectors features three pieces, two of which were commissioned by the Group du Recherches Musicales (GRM) which had their debut performances on the Acousmonium in Paris. "Umbra" (2006) is a 16-channel piece that had its d…
Wireless
1st live album by Norway's Geir Jenssen - recorded in 2007 by Chris Watson & mastered by Touch stalwart BJNilsen. In the early 1990s, he was a pioneer of so-called "ambient techno," but since then, he has refined his sound into something more magnetic & enduring. Here, he incorporates samples of field recordings by Jony Easterby & trumpet by Anders Karlskas, invoking a sparser, more arresting sound.
Ignotum Per Ignotius
Original copy on Touch, packaged in large card wallet with 36 page booklet. This was the first CD by The Hafler Trio. Ignotium Per Ignotius stands for unknown to the very unknown, which is as much a mystery as the other Hafler Trio CD with a Latin title from that period "E Causa Ignota" — by unknown cause). Releases by The Hafler Trio are never "easy listening" and Ignotum Per Ignotia no exception. This is a brief CD (clocking in at 36 minutes), which for once is a good thing, as there is much t…
The Ontology Of Noise
Mastered by Denis Blackham. The Ontology of Noise researches the dark associations of post-black metal. No traditional instruments are used on the album and all techniques are digital in their application. There are almost no arrangements or layers, but the pieces consist of single streams which change intuitively. This makes The Ontology of Noise a concrete journey through an abstract language evolving around light and darkness, nature and artificiality, and sometimes even takes the form of a s…
Substrata 2
Reissued: Biosphere's 2nd CD for Touch after Cirque (Touch # TO:46, 2000) is a double CD in digipack designed by Jon Wozencroft. CD One - Substrata. Originally released in 1997 on All Saints Records, this remastered version of Substrata contains 11 tracks with a total length of 55:20. '...by many (the undersigned included) considered to be the finest ambient album of the 1990s' (Motion-State 51), and 'Three years after its release, biosphere's 'Substrata' is already being recognised as one of th…
Heated
Limited edition CD - 2 tracks. Live performance at Super Deluxe, Tokyo, 24th October 2008. Source material recorded with 2 x 8011 DPA hydrophones, 2 x DolphinEAR-PRO hydrophones and 2 x 4060 DPA microphones on a Sound Devices 744T recorder in Greenland, Iceland and Norway. Following Tetsuro Yasunaga's spoken word introduction, here unfolds Jana Winderen's blistering live set from her recent trip to Japan as part of 'Norwegian Music Today'. Her first CD, 'Heated' follows her only other release to…
Despite the water supply
Over the last 20 years, besides his own music, Jim O'Rourke has worked with the Merce Cunningham Dance company, Takehisa Kosugi, Derek Bailey, and Tony Conrad amongst many others. He has produced albums for Beth Orton, Stereolab, John Fahey, Brigitte Fontaine, Faust, and Wilco and more. Between 1999 and 2005 he was a member of Sonic Youth. He has also scored films for directors Werner Herzog, Olivier Assayas, Shinji Aoyama, and Koji Wakamatsu and more. O'Rourke's own films were part of the 2004 …
The Short Night
BJNilsen (b,1975 Sweden) is a sound and recording artist, has since the early 90’s been putting out work in various constellations. Primarily focused on the sound of nature and its effect on humans, field recordings and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound, often electronically treated. Using location recordings, weather, birdsong and radio, BJNilsen continues to map and explore uncharted territory. A follower to 2005’s Fade to White [Touch # TO:65], BJNilsen develops hi…
Matrix
This is Ryoji Ikeda's fifth solo CD and his third for Touch, following the highly acclaimed +/- [1996] and 0*C [1998]. He previously released 1000 Fragments on his own cci recordings, and Time and Space, a double 3” CD, for Staalplaat. Ryoji is constantly touring as part of the Japanese performance group Dumb Type, who are shortly to undertake a tour of Japan, and also as a solo artist.
plus forty seven degrees 56\' 37\" minus sixteen degrees 51\' 08
This is Christian Fennesz' 2nd solo full album after the highly acclaimed 'Hotel Paral.lel' (Mego 16). He also released 'fenneszPLAYS', a 3" CD originally issued by Mego but now on Jim O'Rourke's new label, Moikai. Fennesz has also made various contributions to compilation CDs, including the awesome 'Surf' on 'DECAY' (Ash International 3.9) and is a member of MIMEO, fixed line up orchestra alongside Keith Rowe, Kaffe Matthews, Jerome Noetinger, Phil Durrant, Peter Rehberg, Thomas Lehn, Rafael To…
In The Pendulum's Embrace
Oren Ambarchi continues his otherworldly investigations with 'In The Pendulum's Embrace', a dark twin to his landmark 2004 album 'Grapes From The Estate' [Touch # TO:61]. Returning again to the hallowed halls of BJB Studios in Sydney, Ambarchi expands the scope and range of his unique musical language, incorporating an even broader pallette of instrumentsand sensibilities. Despite the use of glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, percussion and guitars, it's startling that the world created is …
Black Sea
Black Sea is the much-anticipated new album from Christian Fennesz, his first since Venice. Fennesz’s career has come a long way since Instrument, his debut for Mego in 1995, and his first solo album Hotel Paral.lel which followed in 1998. Endless Summer [Mego, 2001] brought him to a much wider audience and Venice underlined his mastery of melody and dissonance. His songs usually embody the skilful application and manipulation of dense sonic textures with a genuine feel for the live, and real-ti…
Withers In The Waking
This is the eighth release in the Touch Sevens 7" vinyl-only limited edition series. Both songs are the result of the WFMU podcast series "Codpaste," in which Vicki Bennett (aka People Like Us) & Ergo Phizmiz publicly composed a series of collage compositions and did a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay's ScreenPlay. This resulted in the online-only album Rhapsody In Glue, from which these two songs are alternative versions, with re-tooled guitars, and vocals added to a Prokofiev melody.
Labyrinthitis
Jacob Kirkegaard has turned his ears inwards: His new work labyrinthitis is an interactive sound piece that consists entirely of sounds generated in the artist's auditory organs and will cause audible responses in those of the audience. labyrinthitis relies on a principle employed both in medical science and musical practice: When two frequencies at a certain ratio are played into the ear, additional vibrations in the inner ear will produce a third frequency. This frequency is generated by the e…
Behind the radiators
7' vinyl only. Limited edition. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Cut by Jason at Transition. Locked grooves. Mika Vainio continues the series of Touch Sevens, 7' vinyl-only releases, with this stunning record. The crackle... The fire of the analogue... Mika Vainio is the most adept at using crackle as a voice. Sound artists have used crackle ever since the reality of digital audio hit home, however there's a big difference between this and how other practitioners use it... Here are two…
Kiri No Oto
The Japanese phrase Kiri No Oto loosely translates to the sound of fog or sound of mist. In many ways it's a collection that meditates on the sense of displacement and distortion that occurs in environments which undergo extreme mists, snowstorms and sea sprays. In the same way that visual objects loose their perspective, form and shape in these environments, the sound components that make up Kiri No Oto are not quite as they first might appear. Utilising a range of divergent mixing techniques, …
Fundamentalis
Coproduction with Autofact (Usa). Art Direction & Design by Jon Wozencroft. Spire Live - Fundamentalis is a collection of live tracks recorded at various Spire events held throughout 2005 and 2006. Released in association with US label, Autofact, Touch presents a selection of tracks performed by the main performers of Spire: Fennesz - Philip Jeck - BJNilsen - Charles Matthews - Marcus Davidson. Improvised pieces from Fennesz, BJNilsen and Philip Jeck contrast with a performance by Charles Matthe…
Project
7' vinyl only. Limited edition. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Cut by Jason at Transition. 'Project began as a film soundtrack for 'The Overcoming of Hazard' by Brad Butler and Karen Mirza, whose 3 monitor installation piece was presented in the crypt of St. Pancras church in London, August 07. It uses four atmosphere recordings, short wave radio and an organ stop - an attempt to confuse inside and out. Mixed with Mathias Gmachl at Loop.ph using Digital Performer, one side is designe…