Listen With Others No.2 – July 4th 2025
Links are in blue
1. Peak Chroma by Claire Rousay (2021) 8’48’’ from A Softer Focus
“Historically, Rousay primarily operated in non-melodic experimental music, sculpting compositions from obsessive field recordings, inserting voice-to-text, percussion played via text message sounds, conversations, and daily life. By contrast, the six-song collection and collaborative project A Softer Focus is lush and almost entirely melodic, even veering into pop at a couple points.” https://clairerousay.bandcamp.com/album/a-softer-focus
2. Window Side by Yuko Nexus6 (2022) 06’54’’ from Neko-San Kill! Kill
“Yuko Nexus6 is a composer of time-based and interactive electronic music. She creates sound collages that combine field recordings, samples, digital processing, and her own vocals. Her works involve both highly complex technology and low-tech recording devices.” https://retracrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/neko-san-kill-kill
3. Fifth Worship II Kali Malone (2019) 7’50’’ from The Sacrificial Code
“Malone’s minimalist process captures a jarring precision of closeness, both on the level of the materiality of the sounds and on the level of composition. The recordings here involved careful close miking of the pipe organ in such a way as to eliminate environmental identifiers as far as possible – essentially removing the large hall reverb so inextricably linked to the instrument. The pieces were then further compositionally stripped of gestural adornments and spontaneous expressive impulse – an approach that flows against the grain of the prevailing musical hegemony, where sound is so often manipulated, and composition often steeped in self indulgence. It echoes Steve Reich’s sentiment “..by voluntarily giving up the freedom to do whatever momentarily comes to mind, we are, as a result, free of all that momentarily comes to mind.” https://kalimalone.bandcamp.com/album/the-sacrificial-code-2019-edition
4. Intimate Geometry by Thembi Soddell & Anthea Caddy (2012) 09’56’’ from Host
“For their second major recording project Host, Australian sound artists Anthea Caddy and Thembi Soddell rigorously shape aural representations of physical environments to express psychological experience. Recorded in scientifically controlled spaces and unpredictable natural and man-made environments, sampler and cello interact to generate acoustically opposing atmospheres. Interwoven with abstracted found sounds, instrument and environment merge to create a dynamic interplay between physical reality, sensory perception and psychological interpretation. Host presents an edition of tense electroacoustic compositions that define new, dense, and sonically detailed environments that highlight and shadow the interaction between human psyche and the physical world.” https://room40.bandcamp.com/album/host
5. Un amour si grand qu’il nie son objet by Ghédalia Tazartès (1979) 09’38’’ from Diasporas (“A love so great it negates (or denies) its object”)
“In almost a prayer-like decree, he chants to the gods in an undefined wail that is both haunting and spiritually divine. His unique use of tape loops to capture the disappearing traditions of his family’s past creates an atmospheric texture that unexpectedly complements his cut-up, manipulated vocal experiments. Utilising his invented practice of ‘impromuz’, a method in which he endlessly records for hours and edits only the moments that display any sense of spontaneous enlightenment.” https://ghedalia-tazartes.bandcamp.com/album/diasporas
6. Kits Beach Soundwalk by Hildegard Westerkamp (2010) 9’42’’ from Transformations
“I like walking the edge between the real sound and the processed sound. On the one hand I want the listener to recognize the source, and thus want to establish a sense of place. But on the other hand I am also fascinated with the processing of sound in the studio and making its source essentially unrecognizable. This allows me as a composer to explore the sound’s musical/acoustic potential in depth.” https://empreintesdigitales.bandcamp.com/album/transformations
7. Kyema from Trilogie de la Mort by Éliane Radigue. (1988), 61’07’’
Premiered on November 22, 1980 at Mills College in Oakland. ARP 2500 synthesizer on magnetic tape. Produced at the artist’s studio in Paris. https://elianeradigue.bandcamp.com/album/trilogie-de-la-mort
“Intermediate states… to my son, Yves Arman.
First part of the ‘Trilogie de la Mort’. Inspired by the root text of the ‘Bardo Thödol’ (Tibetan ‘Book of the Dead’), this piece refers to the six intermediate states of consciousness that constitute the existential continuity of being:
1. Kyene – Birth
2. Milam – Dream
3. Samten – (Meditation)
4. Chikaï – Death
5. Chönye – (Bright light)
6. Sippaï – Crossing and Return”
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… for Jake …