Tuesday, January 6, 2009

(i can feel the sea falling over my head)

a study of the sea, on the one year anniversary of arthur de eriomém's encounter with the sea, nearly being taken by her, yet spared with the promise to pursue her beauty.

- pt anderson - there will be blood - 2007


there will be blood - 2007

- michelangelo antonioni - l'avventura - 1960



l'avventura - 1960

- the work of anna atkins

bangia fusco-purpurea - 1843-53

polysiphonia violacea. -1843-53

- david attenborough's the life of birds - 1998
with sound contributions by chris watson

- roy ward baker - a night to remember - 1958

- the work of bonnie prince billy
including
- my home is the sea & death in the sea (from superwolf)
- is it the sea
- west palm beach & gulf shores (from sings greatest palace music)
- seafarers music
- amalgamated sons of rest

- maurice blanchot - thomas l'obscur - 1941

thomas sat down and looked at the sea. he remained motionless for a time, as if he had come there to follow the movements of the other swimmers and, although the fog prevented him from seeing very far, he stayed there, obstinately, his eyes fixed on the bodies floating with difficulty. then, when a more powerful wave reached him, he went down onto the slopping sand and slipped among the currents, which quickly immersed him. the sea was calm, and thomas was in the habit of swimming for long periods without tiring. but today he had chosen a new route. the fog hid the shore. a cloud had come down upon him the sea and the surface was lost in a glow which seemed the only truly real thing...........

- william bradford - the arctic regions: illustrated with photographs taken on an art expedition to greenland - 1869 (with photographers john l. dunmore and george critcherson) *

instantaneous view of icebergs on our way north - plate no. 50

the midnight sun in melville bay in august - plate no. 80

between the iceberg and field ice - plate no. 98


steamer “panther” among the icebergs in melville bay - 1874

- gavin bryars - the sinking of the titanic - various recordings

- charles burchfield - from his journals - 1934

a march storm was raging out of the north; the roar of the waves penetrated the room and dominated all other sounds; then it seemed as if the waves came right into the room, covering part of it, and then receding thru the walls as tho they were made of mist; and then kept surging thru again and again - once i saw a girl walking down the aisle almost engulfed; outside thru the window i could see the phalanxes of waves rushing toward the shore - i was filled with delight that i was to be in this room where the elements were so close, and came into the room.

- george butler - the endurance: shackleton's legendary antarctic expedition - 2000

- the work of james e. buttersworth

ship in a storm

- marcel carné - port of shadows - 1938




port of shadows - 1938

- vija celmins - sea works
untitled (big sea #1) - 1969

- samuel taylor coleridge - rime of the ancient mariner - 1797-1798

and now the storm-blast came, and he
was tyrannous and strong :
he struck with his o'ertaking wings,
and chased us south along.

with sloping masts and dipping prow,
as who pursued with yell and blow
still treads the shadow of his foe,
and forward bends his head,
the ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
the southward aye we fled.

and now there came both mist and snow,
and it grew wondrous cold :
and ice, mast-high, came floating by,
as green as emerald

- the life and work of joseph conrad *

- the seascapes of john constable

brighton beach with shipping and a gig - 10 june 1824

rainstorm over the sea [seascape study with rainclouds] - c.1824-28

coast scene, brighton - c.1824-28

stormy sea, brighton - 20 July 1828

- the work of thomas joshua cooper

rain shadow the beagle canal - 2006

soaking wet snowfall the south atlantic ocean
and mar argentino - the argentinian sea
- 2006

- john singleton copley - watson and the shark - 1778

- joseph cornell - jack's dream - ca. late 1930s

jack's dream - ca. late 1930s

- the work of gustave courbet

the wave - 1871

- alvin curran - maritime rites - new world records - 2004

maritime rites

- richard henry dana jr. - two years before the mast, a personal narrative of life at sea - 1840

there is something in the first grey streaks stretching along the eastern horizon and throwing an indistinct light upon the face of the deep, which combines with the boundlessness and unknown depth of the sea around you, and gives one a feeling of loneliness, of dread, and of melancholy foreboding, which nothing else in nature can give.

- charles darwin - the voyage of the beagle - 1839

- daniel defoe - robinson crusoe - 1719

however, i was very grave for all that day, being also a little sea sick still; but towards night the weather cleared up, the wind was quite over, and a charming fine evening followed; the sun went down perfectly clear and rose so the next morning; and having little or no wind and a smooth sea, the sun shining upon it, the sight was, as i thought, the most delightful that ever i saw.

- donovan - hms donovan

- sergei eisenstein - bronenosets potyomkin - 1925

- robert j. flaherty - man of aran - 1934

- john ford - the long voyage home - 1940
(as well as eugene o'neill's the long voyage home, seven plays of the sea - 1919)




the long voyage home - 1940

- the work of casper david friedrich

fog - 1807

monk by the sea - 1809

the farewell (destroyed or lost: 1931) - 1818

- antonio lópez garcía

woman on the beach - 1959

- the work of gustav le grey
large wave, mediterranean sea - 1857

le vapeur - ca. 1856 - 1859

- howard hawks - to have and have not - 1944



to have and have not - 1944

- alfred hitchcock - rebecca - 1940
- alfred hitchcock - foreign correspondent - 1940,
- alfred hitchcock - lifeboat - 1944

foreign correspondent - 1940


lifeboat - 1944

- her majesty's ship (various)
including:
hms endurance (ernst shackelton)
hms beagle (darwin)
hms challenger (ernst haeckel)
hms donovan

hms beagle

hms challenger expeditions from 1872 to 1876

- the work of winslow homer

study of the life line - 1884

a summer night - 1890

- works by paul huet

breakers at granville point - 1853

- the work of victor hugo

- frank hurley - south - 1919
(footage from the hms endurance)

- peter hutton - looking at the sea - 2000-2001, at sea - 2004-2007
(images to come)

- kon ichikawa - alone across the pacific - 1963

- the work of antonio jacobsen (known as the audubon of steam vessels)

the neckar - 1879

lumber schooner in new york's lower bay - 1894

- the work of tarrl lightowler





tarrl lightowler
isle of north uist, scotland, on the ferry to skye - 2002




tarrl lightowler - from series dedicated to yves klein - 2008

- frank lloyd - mutiny on the bounty - 1935

mutiny on the bounty - 1935

- h.p. lovecraft - at the mountains of madness - 1936

- terrence malick - the thin red line - 1998


the thin red line - 1998

- stéphane mallarmé - sea breeze - 1865

and maybe the masts are such as are inclined
to shipwreck driven by tempestuous wind.
no fertile isle, no spar on which to cling...
but oh, my heart, listen to the sailors sing!
or
and, it may be, the masts, inviting storms
are of the sort that wind inclines to wrecks
lost, with no mast, no mast, or verdant isle...
but listen, oh my heart, the sailors sing!

- the work of edouard manet

- a film by agnes martin - gabriel - 1976


gabriel - 1976

- winsor mccay - the sinking of the lusitania - 1918

the sinking of the lusitania - 1918

- the life and work of herman melville

- jean-pierre melville - l'armée des l'ombres - 1969

- works by claude monet

the green wave - 1866-67

- works by edvard munch

moonlight by the sea - 1912

- mystery sea label from belgium



- roy william neill - pursuit to algiers - 1945

- nurse with wound - salt marie celeste - united dairies - 2003

"sounds waved back and forth between two chords, providing a cold and creepy feeling of ship being lost at sea"

- the films of yasujiro ozu

early spring - 1956

equinox flower - 1958



tokyo twilight - 1957

- irving pichel, ernest b. schoedsack - the most dangerous game - 1932 *

- michael powell - the edge of the world - 1937

- satyajit ray - the world of apu - 1959

the world of apu - 1959

- the seestücks of gerhard richter

seascape (brown, troubled) - 1969

seestück (grau) - 1969

seestück (see-see) - 1970

- mary shelley - frankenstein - 1831

the appearance of the sky is indescribably beautiful; clear by day and illuminated at night by the aurora borealis which spreads a roseate tinge over the heavens, & over the sea which reflects it's splendour.

- the work of percy bysshe shelley (was lost at sea in 1822)

the funeral of shelley by louis edouard fournier

unfathomable sea! whose waves are years,
ocean of time, whose waters of deep woe
are brackish with the salt of human tears!
thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
claspest the limits of mortality,
and sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
who shall put forth on thee,
unfathomable sea?
(time by percy bysshe shelley)

- the work of seaworthy

- the smiths - i know it's over

oh mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head
see, the sea wants to take me

- micheal snow - the end of wavelength - 1967 & atlantic - 1967

atlantic - 1967

- iain stewart/keith berry - 58º north - 2006 *

- works by august strindberg

rock and sea - 1873

blizzard - 1892

storm in the archipelago (the flying dutchman) - 1892

- hiroshi sugimoto - seascapes

sea of japan, hokkaido - 1986

- jonathan swift - gulliver's travels - 1726

... the weather being very hazy, the seaman spyed a rock, within half a cable's length of the ship; but the wind was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split .... we therefore trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves, and in about half an hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. what became of my companions in the boat, as well as those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, i cannot tell; but conclude they were all lost...

- françois truffaut - les quatre cents coups - 1959
final sequence

- the work of joseph mallord william turner

from liber studiorum - 1806-1819

surge of sea in a storm (perhaps related to the 'lost sailor') - circa 1835

snow storm - steam boat off a harbour's mouth making
signals in shallow water, and going by the lead. the author
was in this storm on the night the ariel left harwich
- 1842

- the work of willem van de velde the younger

calm sea - 1665 - 1666

- voltaire - candide - 1759

while he was reasoning, the air grew dark, the winds blew from the four quarters of the globe and the ship was attacked by the most horrible tempest in sight of the port of lisbon....

- the work of chris watson

- peter weir - master and commander: the far side of the world - 2003

- h.g. wells - the island of dr. moreau - 1896

- the work of chris welsby


drift - 1994

at sea - 2003

- the work of james mcneill whistler

sea and rain: variations in violet and green - 1865

- frank arthur worsley - endurance: an epic of polar adventure - 1931

sailors from the wrecked ship endurance

the gale was blowing up again with fresh force, and the little cabin, had become as noisy as a railway station. the turmoil of sound made it seem as though ghostly trains were rushing past the ship - trains of snow....

under the cheerless grey sky the water assumed a leaden hue. not a speck of colour anywhere broke the monotony: sea and sky were monochrome.

- works by hiroshi yamazaki

the sun is longing for the sea 3 - 1978

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

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)

Saturday, December 27, 2008

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))

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

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