Your cart (59 items)

ELEH / TARA JANE O'NEILL - Circle Four: 100 Gongs for Arieto / Medusa Smack

Format: LP Label & Cat.Number: Important Records IMPREC430 Release Year: 2015 Note: wonderful split release with highly meditative drones as a homage to HARRY BERTOIA => contains a piece from 2012 by TARA JANE O'NEILL using BERTOIAs sound-sculptures on one side, 100 gong-sounds (for 100 years of BERTOIA) performed on a 'Serge modular system" by ELEH on the other; lim. 800 letter-press cover (gold on black), looks great. BLACK VINYL Price (incl. 19% VAT): €30.00 More Info "Sound sculptures and gongs by Harry Bertoia unite the sides of this split LP from Tara Jane O'Neil and Eleh. Packaged in deluxe letterpress printed jackets in an edition of 800. The first 300 copies are on metallic gold vinyl. O'Neil's composition was commissioned by Venessa Renwick for her Medusa Smack video installation (originally screened in 2012 at the Oregon Biennial). The piece is partially comprised of sounds recorded by Harry Bertoia on his own Sonambient sound sculptures, as well as a recording Tara made of Athanasius Kircher's Bell Wheel at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Eleh's side consists of 100 gongs synthesized on a Serge modular system to honor the centennial of Bertoia's birth in 2015." [label info] www.importantrecords.com Vanessa Renwick recalls the conception of Medusa Smack: "In the '70s I was a bike messenger in Chicago and whenever I had downtime, I would hang out in front of the huge Bertoia sound sculpture outside of the Standard Oil Building. The winds off Lake Michigan whipped his masterpiece about, clanging and banging. Years later, in Oregon, I came across a small Bertoia sound sculpture, I clasped its rods together within my hands and released them. The exquisite noise they made immediately whispered Tara Jane O'Neil to me. I knew that someday I would make a film and Tara would incorporate this very noise into the score. Along came my idea to create a giant mother-jellyfish-shaped screen, the Medusa Smack, for people to lay beneath, with moon jellies and pacific sea nettles projected upon it. I asked Tara to create the score, and incorporate Bertoia's own sound recordings into it. Harry Bertoia's son, Val, granted his permission. This beauty to lull you away to the deep is the result."