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VELEZ, DAVID & SIMON WHETHAM - Yoi

Format: CD
Label & Cat.Number: Unfathomless U17
Release Year: 2013
Note: fully exciting field recordings made in the Colombian Amazonas, the air is filled with tremendous energy of natural sounds - a very vivid MIND-SPACE, highly recommended if you like powerful, surrealistic environmental drones.. "The jungle plays tricks on your senses. It's full of lies, demons, illusions" [Werner Herzog]; lim. 200
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00
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"In April 2011 David Vélez invited Simon Whetham to Bogota to run a field recording workshop at the Nacional University as part of the Masters in Fine Arts that Vélez was taking.
They also planned to work together outside the workshop, a major part of this exchange being to visit the Colombian Amazonas – to record, explore and collaborate – capturing sounds and sharing experiences.
During the trip, they were removed from their comfort zone and endured the rigors of the jungle in different situations, such as becoming lost in the first night and wandering around until they found their way back to their base. Also, two days before they returned, they traveled for many hours along the river itself, in the darkest night, on a tiny raft, in an experience that can only be described as sublime and unfathomable.
All these situations created a strong bond between the artists that was articulated in a concert as part of the MA; and now on this release, that has required several revisits because the artists’ impressions of the trip, the locations, the memories, the emotions have continued to evolve following the original experience." [David Vélez – Simon Whetham, July 2013]

www.unfathomless.net


"This release is the first split release, I think, on Unfathomless, but both artists were on the same field trip in Columbia. David Velez was doing his masters in Fine Arts in April 2011 and invited Simon Whetham for a workshop. This workshop took them to Colombian Amazonas - 'to record, explore and collaborate - and they got lost for a while and did a nightly trip on a raft. It's not something we can easily relate too, I guess, when we are just listening to the music, but if anything, this sure has an Amazonian quality to it. It's not a place I have been too - and maybe disqualifies me as a reviewer? - but if I would asked to describe what the rainforest sounds like, I would certainly describe something that is captured here in the pieces by Velez and Whetham. Velez has a twenty-four minute piece, while Whetham's is ten minutes longer and I am not sure if they are both based on the same set of recordings, or just on sounds captured as a whole during this trip. It doesn't matter I guess. The piece by Velez is more or less an ongoing affair of a multitude of sound layers, all, I think, derived from animals. It's quite loud and fierce this piece, maybe not too dissimilar from life in the jungle. Whetham takes on a more subtle approach and uses the collage technique to mark out differences in the material, and also seems to more interested in slightly altering the color of the sound, i.e. there is occasionally a bit more bass end here. It ends, or so it seems, on a long fade, getting darker and darker. Maybe this is the piece that reflects that nightly raft trip? Oddly enough, it indeed has a strange claustrophobic feel. Odd, as this is the jungle, we're speaking about. Very nice release!" [FdW/Vital Weekly]