TSUNODA, TOSHIYA / JUSTIN BENNETT - Cleavage of Acoustics / Cacerolada

Format: LP

Label & Cat.Number: Stichting Mixer MLP03 ( Dertiende Mixer)

Release Year: 2004

Note: lim. 300

Price (incl. 19% VAT): €12.00

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Nr. 3 in der Mixer Split LP Reihe ! JUSTIN BENNETT hat einem Protestmarsch in Barcelona gegen den Irak-Krieg im März 2003 beigewohnt, eine unglaubliche detailreicher Soundkulissensumpf aus Sirenen, Autohupen, Perkussion, Pfeifen & Gegröhl. T. TSUNODA arbeitet diesmal nicht mit reinen field recordings, sondern lässt Sinuswellen auf konkretes Material treffen, was zu knisternd-resonanzbildenden Effekten und merkwürdigen „small sounds“ führt.
Tolle Geräuschmusikplatte !

“Both Justin Bennett and Toshiya Tsunoda have gained a reputation when it comes to fieldrecording-based soundworks. Using their sonic surroundings as the startingpoint for their work, both are unique in approach and result. "Cacerolada" is based on a noise-protest against the Iraq-war, recorded in Barcelona. It wakes up and dies out as any day does, gradually moving along all kinds of sonic occurrences in between. Compared to Tsunoda's, Bennett's work comes from a more contemplative approach, outlining to his listener the beauty, absurdness or musicality of the everyday soundtrack he's living in. Originally these protests served a highly political goal, to record them and treat these recordings as a piece, is what made "Cacerolada" into a sound-object, to be listened to with different ears. This is the core of Bennett's work. Using hardly any processing-tools (Bennett composes with the raw building-blocks he records), these environmental-pieces are very much like documents, with specific artistic or aesthetical qualities. He hunts for certain scenes or situations and captures moments in time that contain a specific type of gesture he is looking for. The reference to daily life might be very much upfront, though Bennett's work is much more than a highly associative collection of recorded sounds. His recordings easily keep up as complete compositions with a strong musical form, taking the listener beyond what is heard at first sight and this is exactly where the strength in Bennett's work as a composer and sound-artist lies. These works show a delicate timespam, organically interpolating from scene to scene. The so familiar sounding material constructs and underlines compositional shape and development, adding a rare compositional richness to environmental-soundworks.
Tsunoda's "Cleavage of Acoustics" stands in close relation to previous works in which he tries to integrate somewhat technical concepts into the everyday beauty of singing birds and chirping crickets. Tsunoda adds to the body of these compositions of the public domain, as Justin Bennett does, but takes a different route to get there. He experiments to find out the musical relevance of technicality for natural sounds and forces a symbiosis between the two. The results still contain the associative character and organic development so typical for environmental recordings, but have a new, more abstract, mimicry. The sometime subtle, sometimes clashing, but always interesting interference between these two worlds, is what gives Tsunoda's work a very unique twist. It can exist as a completely autonomous entity while grafted upon the soundmaterial we all know so well. Tsunoda, like Bennett, makes us hear our surrounding acoustic reality in a different way. Not by fencing off certain parts of it, as Bennett does, but through simple yet very effective technical interventions, making it's appearance shift a bit or two.

"When listening to field recordings, I am always surprised by the richness of it's acoustics. Vibrations echoe from various places, in mixed complexity, changing constantly over time. In some way, it looks like stratum. I would like to sharply cleave the stratum to see the surface of the crevice. This work shows the audibility of sound vibrations through an uncommon process. I tried to cut off the source (field recording) material using a gate device and sine-waves. In each track, specific sine-waves have been mixed with the source-material.
In this work, I regard the sine-wave as the standard speed signal for the source. This has made any alternation within the audio signal detectable for the gate device. The linear audio signal (monoral) is cut horizontally into the advance direction, turning it into two signals. The amplitude of the alternating current has a separated + and - side, with 0 volt as base for the gate device. This split signal is simultaneously reproduced through the right- and left- channel of stereophonic audio equipment. Try mixing these 2 channels. The waveform is almost restored to it's original form, giving a peculiar result compared to the separated signal playback." [press release]