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DEMEULENAERE, STIJN - Latitudes - September 2016

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Silken Tofu STX.63 Release Year: 2017 Note: this promising field recording artist from Belgium presents his first work, a multi-layered studio composition with audio sources mainly from South Africa and Iceland, lots of water and underwater sounds and mysterious jungle wild-life, all set cleverly together for a captivating head-trip with great spatial resolution... a must if you love TOY BIZARRE, E. LA CASA, YANNICK DAUBY, F. LOPEZ, CHRIS WATSON, etc... comes in oversized full-colour gatefold-cover Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00 More Info Stijn Demeulenaere is a sound artist and field recordist from Belgium. ‘Latitudes - September 2016’ is the recording of a live set played in his Latitudes series at Q-O2 in Brussels. Latitudes is a project where he brings sounds from North and South together. On the album, the bulk of the sounds come from South-Africa and Iceland. Further recordings were made in Ostend, De Biesbosch, Amsterdam and ‘t Kuipke (Ghent). The album combines a mixture of natural sound recordings and heavily processed sounds. The album is a cd in a custom A5 sleeve and comes out in a limited edition of 149 copies. Latitudes is a project where Stijn collects and records sounds from all over the world. He brings these sounds together and explores the relation between climate, geology and how a place sounds. He looks for ways to have the sounds interact with each other and researches the ways nature sounds generate expectations and how one can play with these expectations. Stijn uses the material to develop installations and live sets where he explores the sonic material, creating new sonic structures juxtaposing the sounds, or melting them together. Latitudes is a project in continuing development: the sounds from Iceland and South Africa are being mixed with sounds from other spaces, nature sounds with industrial ones. If there is enough time and space, Stijn also makes recordings in the cities and places where he performs, and works this material into his live sets. Amongst others, he made recordings in the northern tundra climate of Iceland and the subtropical climate of South Africa. The recordings in Iceland were made during a Wildeye residency guided by Chris Watson and Jez Riley French in 2015. The sounds from South Africa were recorded during the 2013 Sonic Mmabolela residency under curatorship of Francisco López. Apart from traditional equipment, he also uses a myriad of unconventional microphones and transducers in his search for sound. "You may not know this name, unless perhaps you visit Belgium quite a bit, as that’s where Stijn Demeuelenaere’s activities as a sound artist mostly take place. Not really to release his music on CD but as part of sound installations, video work and dance pieces. ‘Latitudes - September 2016’ is his first release, and it is a registration of a concert at Brussels’ Q-O2, and it uses only field recordings, from his trips to South Africa, Iceland and The Netherlands (that man has time and money to burn, I was thinking!), in this piece, just under twenty-four minutes. That is a bit short, I thought. If I understand well there is not really a narrative Demeulenaere is telling his listeners, but more or less puts together sounds from all over the world, choosing and selecting together what he thinks fits best together. There is, so it seems to me, a love for sounds that involve water. In the opening sequence this sounds like the sound of rowing, along with birds, insects and from there on he expands further into wildlife. It is hard, or perhaps for me impossible, to tell what it is that he’s doing with these sounds, if anything at all that is. This might be a work of pure, untreated sound events stuck together for all I know, but just at the same time it might also be that Demeulenaere creates loops out of his sounds, or uses quite a bit of sound processing. Only towards the end there is definitely loops and processing going as Demeulenaere creates some odd rhythms out of his material, and whatever was the sound originally we no longer know. For much of the rest of this piece we don’t know if that is the case as well. Now, of course, after hearing the whole thing a couple of times, I would think it is the case; everything is some way or another a bit processed and enhanced. Overall I enjoyed this piece quite a bit, but found it perhaps a bit too short. Why not add another recording, from another concert but within the same context and double the pleasure for the listener? Now it’s a fine but short debut, hopefully with the promise of more to come." [FdW/Vital Weekly] https://silkentofu.bandcamp.com/album/latitudes-september-2016