remnants from paradise

music - favourites of 2008

- asher & ubeboet - cell memory - wind measure recordings
- aidan baker - fragile movements in slow motion - universal tongue
- aidan baker - book of nods - beta-lactam ring records
- william basinski - the river - 2062
- william basinski & richard chartier - untitled 1 - 3 - line
- christopher bissonnette - in between words - kranky
- james blackshaw - litany of echoes - tompkins square
- the blithe sons - the great orthochromatic wheel - family vineyard records
- john cage - seven - quartets I-VIII - neos
- celer - nacreous clouds - and/oar
- celer - tropical - mystery sea
- loren chasse & michael northam - the otolith - helen scarsdale agency
- loren chasse - the footpath - naturestrip
- loren chasse (of) - the sun and earth together - ultra hard gel
- loren chasse (of) - rocks will open - digitalis recordings
- yannick dauby & christophe havard & hughes germain
(as °sone) - passerelle - and/oar
- taylor deupree & kenneth kirschner - may - room40
- toumani diabaté - the mandé variations - nonesuch
- the dowland project - romaria - ecm
- werner durand - remnants from paradise - absurd
- max eastly / graham halliwell / evan parker / mark wastell - a life saved by a spider and two doves - another timbre
- lawrence english - kiri no oto - touch
- morton feldman - the viola in my life - ecm
- morton feldman - the late piano works, triadic memories (steffen schleiermacher) - mdg
- fennesz - transition - touch
- fennesz - black sea - touch
- jgrzinich - ferric - taâlem
- vikki jackman - whispering pages - faraway press
- giya kancheli - little imber - ecm
- kenneth kirschner - filaments and voids - 12k
- alexander knaifel - blazhenstva - ecm
- k. leimer - lesser epitomes - palace of lights
- level - opale - spekk
- machinefabriek & matt davies - onkruid - a room forever
- stephan mathieu - radioland - die schachtel
- marc namblard - chants of frozen lakes - kalerne / atelier hui-kan
- dj olive - triage - room40
- adam pacione - with wakened eyes - bee eater recordings
- charlemagne palestine - from etudes to cataclysms for the doppio borgato - sub rosa
- steve peters - chamber music 4: filtered light - dragon's eye recordings
- rameses iii - basillica/origins - important records
- steve roden - vester fields - volume
- steve roden - sunrise - new plastic music
- mathieu ruhlmann & celer - mesoscaphe - spekk
- jordi savall - invocation a la nuit - alia vox
- trygve seim & frode haltli - yeraz - ecm
- colin andrew sheffield - signatures - invisible birds
- scott sherk - icelandic air - wandering ear
- matt shoemaker - mutable depths - ferns recordings
- v. sjöberg new jazz ensemble - do nothing 'til you hear from
me - ideal
- richard skelton - crow autumn - sustain-release
- richard skelton - marking time - preservation
- svarte greiner - til seters - a room forever
- tape - milieu plus - häpna
- tape - opera plus - häpna
- tape - luminarium - häpna
- scott tuma - not for nobody - digitalis
- chris watson - cima verde - fondazione edmund mach, lol productions
- various - a cleansing ascension - elevator bath
- various - fennesz / jeck / matthews - amoroso - touch
- various - solo andata / seaworthy / taylor deupree - live from melbourne - 12k
- various - spire live - fundamentalis - touch
- various - victrola favorites: artifacts from bygone days - dust-to-digital

also very good

- alio die & martina galvagni - eleusian lullaby - projekt
- asher - study for autumn - conv
- asher - intervals - the land of
- j.s. bach - sonata in a-minor, partita in d-minor + barry guy aglais (barry guy & maya homburger) - maya recordings
- celer - i love you so much i can't even title this (the light that never goes out went out) - celer
- celer - discourses of the withered - infraction
- celer - the everything and the nothing - infraction
- andrew chalk & brendan walls (isolde) - all things to fall like marching men - penny poppet
- taylor deupree - northern (remastered) - 12k
- kyle bobby dunn - fragments & compositions of kyle bobby dunn - sedimental
- jim haynes - eraldus / eravaldus - elevator bath
- arve henriksen - cartography - ecm
- koen holtkamp - make haste/free birds - a room forever
- jóhann jóhannsson - fordlandia - 4ad
- arsenije jovanović - galiola - works for radio, 1967 - 2000 - fo a rm projects, and/oar, alluvial recordings
- garth knox, agnes vesterman - d'amore - ecm
- jasper leyland - carbon series: volume 5 - 12x50
- annea lockwood - a sound map of the danube - lovely music, ltd.
- steve peters - the webster cycles - cold blue music
- benoit pioulard - temper - kranky
- max richter - 24 postcards in full colour - 130701
- sigur rós - með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust - xl recordings
- mirko uhlig - the nightmiller - mystery sea
- wolfgang voigt - gas - raster-noton
- various - graceful degradation: variations - sourdine

(compiled with young gossamer)

he lived in fear that the state of illumination with which he was blest - or with which he was afflicted - might be untimely withdrawn

one night i dreamt that i had made a pact with the devil: he was my servant, and anticipated my every wish... i found myself handing him my violin to see if he might manage some pretty tunes; but imagine my astonishment when i heard a sonata so unusual and so beautiful, performed with such mastery and intelligence, on a level i had never before conceived was possible! i was so overcome that i stopped breathing and awoke gasping. immediately i seized my violin, hoping to recall some shred of what i had just heard - but in vain. the piece i then composed is without a doubt my best, and i still call it the devil's sonata, but it falls so far short of the one that stunned me that i would have smashed my violin and given up music forever if i could but posses it.

tartini to j.j. de lalande,
voyage d'un françois en italie (1765-66)
(found in giuseppe tartini - the devil's sonata - played by andrew manze)
((title from thomas mann - doctor faustus - 1947))

signatures, in the regular edition, is now available

invisible birds is deeply honoured to release the very fine disc by mr. colin andrew sheffield entitled signatures, in the regular edition.

here, we have posted a nice review:

seattle’s colin andrew sheffield has been quietly destroying sound since the late 1990’s. beginning with 1998’s side one/side two, on his own elevator bath imprint – also home to recordings from adam pacione and rick reed, among others – he’s been utilizing man-made and “found” sounds in a continually sweeping effort to restructure what has come before him, with all genres and mediums up for grabs. his work has consanguinity with many dabblers in electro-acoustic and experimental music; an obsession with turning mechanical, digital, and everyday sounds into contemplative drones through concentrated layers of sustained recording, often with the occasional sprinkling of electrified emphatics to convey external impulse or to mark transition.

back in 2000, sheffield offered up his own music for surgery on the cassette-only, recycled music (rrrecords). while a collaborative effort, it marks an early instance of the conventions used in his music today: to literally disassemble into raw components a recording (tape, vinyl, microcassette, whathaveyou) and frankenstein it into music that can only be described as panoramic. it’s a wildly unique approach that incorporates scientific methods to meet an aesthetic end.

it is appropriate that his newest release would come in partnership with invisible birds, a concept label committed to expression using abstract sound and image inspired by… birds (actual and implied). such a focused model can’t be without well-considered artwork or presentation, and sheffield’s disc sure looks nice. his signatures is the second release in the young catalog (the first a dvd from film artist matthew swiezynski), and some detail is required to get at the music.

a sampler, multi-track recorder, and vinyl were used to capture bird-related and -specific sound for reconstruction into long-play. you likely won’t recognize a single source – short “clips” used are slowed to betray recognition and then layered in parallel and in series with some remarkable results. a sustained chord from a church organ is heard, but it’s really not. bell-like harmonics from an analog synthesizer likely originate from a whippoorwill. our only acquaintance is the occasional, muffled pop from cartridge-on-vinyl. signatures is fours tracks of this, the first and last in dreamy excess of twenty minutes, and they are worth the sit just to hear the nuances come and go. arise uses trebly, airy samples and some killer use of reverb to evoke distance. and surrender is another relatively short piece, and provides the only instance where the disc’s inspiration makes a faint, audible appearance, buried beneath thick textures.

while the disc is copyrighted for 2009, it is released this week, and after nearly a week of continued listening it has crept up as my dark horse for favorites this year. fittingly, i can find no better tribute to commemorate a tunesmith of the same fiber, who would be celebrating his 100th birthday – olivier messiaen.
~alan jones - bagatellen

the release is for sale here

thirty-fifth one flew

errol morris - vernon, florida - 1982
cinematography by ned burgess

listen to that sound.
hear that sound?
getting in and out of trees?

of visible secret visions

study for camino real, gouache on paper
(blueprint graph), 1967

line involvement v, lithograph, 1964

enmeshed I, lithograph, 1963

... our pounding heart drives us down, deep down to the source of all.
what springs from this source, whatever it may be called, dream, idea or phantasy - must be taken seriously only if it unites with the proper creative means to form a work of art.
then those dreams become realities -- realities of art which help to lift life out of its mediocrity.
for not only do they, to some extent, add more spirit to the seen, but they also make secret visions visible.

paul klee, from the book anni and josef albers - latin american journeys, hatje cantz, 2007

all images by anni albers

at sea

this invisible art of memory - magic hour number 1 - 2007
by matthew swiezynski

playing at the san francisco cinematheque
sunday, december 14 at 7:30pm
location - yerba buena center for the arts, san francisco
(at sea by peter hutton also playing)
701 mission street (corner of third)

(broken light) an early appearance heard in the evening

colin andrew sheffield - signatures special edition - invisible birds

tissu léger et transparent

photographs by bolesław okoniewski, "discovered" by him on his 1960s trip to paris france.
his three most inspiring art discoveries there (besides the city itself): marcel duchamp, victor hugo, and henri michaux.
okoniewski is rumoured to have whispered to his newfound love there "gaze, tissu léger et transparent, de soie, de lin ou de laine, à armure complexe, à fils sinueux. étoffe, robe de gaze....."

ciaccona, the musical thought

nathan milstein playing the ciaccona

various recordings of j.s. bach's chaconne

from sonaten und partiten für violine solo (bwv 1004)
aka les sonates et partites pour violon seul
sonatas and partitas for solo violin
sonate e partite per violino solo
completed in cöthen, 1720

- nathan milstein - angel records/emi - 1954-1956
- joseph szigeti - vanguard classics - (recorded) 1955, (edited) 1962
- arthur grumiaux - philips - 1961
- henryk szeryng - deutsche grammophon - 1968
- sándor végh - auvidis valois - 1971
- nathan milstein - deutsche grammophon - 1975
- gidon kremer - philips - 1980
- itzhak perlman - emi - 1990
- christoph poppen - ecm - 2001 (2 versions)
- rachel podger - channel classics - 2002
- gidon kremer - ecm - 2002
- john holloway - ecm - 2006
- maya homburger - maya - 2008

(link removed)

the work "survives in an autograph fair copy dated 1720 with the title 'sei solo a violino senza basso accompagnato libro prima'. several copies, including one by anna magdelena bach, evidently derive directly from this autograph but some incorporate remarkable discrepancies and variants, notably that by j.p. kellner (1726), thus leaving much for scholars and performers to contemplate." from oxford composer companions: j.s. bach edited by malcolm boyd - oxford university press - 1999