Noche de Los Muertos / Un-Tape Me – at Echoraum, Vienna

NOCHE DE LOS MUERTOS / UN-TAPE ME – a night of music and installations involving magnetic tape

01 / 11 /2018 – 19:00 @ echoraum / Vienna

Like every year on November 1st, Institut 5haus, Echoraum and for the second time Wien Modern will host the annual Electro-Improv-Night “Noche de los Muertos”, this time, with the title “un-tape me”. The night has been curated by Mexican-born, Vienna-based artist Angélica Castelló and it promises to be a magnetic evening with all kinds of tapes and cassettes, obsolete machines and illustrious guests from Vienna, Glasgow, Marseille, Berlin, and more.

Concert
– Jerôme Noetinger / revox, tapes, electronics
– Mark Vernon / found dictaphone and reel to reel tapes
– Marta Zapparoli / tape recorders & reel to reel tape machine
– Wien Diesel feat. burlin mud (r.f. culbertson iii) / tapes

Installation
– Angélica Castelló / magnetic altar

Curated by Angélica Castelló /
Production i5haus
Coproduktion Wien Modern and Echoraum

On tour in Chile

Live performances in Chile for October 2018:


 
Sábado 20-10-2018, Soundtiago, primer festival cuerpo, sonido y espacio

Martes 23-10-2018, Ciclo Relincha, Espacio En Construcción, Valdivia

Viernes 26-10-2018, Radio Valentín Letelier, Valparaíso

Sábado 27-10-2018, Espacio Kulczewski, Santiago

Orphaned Works

Research Laboratories / RL020 Cassette (2018)

New tape ‘Orphaned Works’ released on Research Laboratories, 2018. Limited edition of 30 copies. Twelve tracks.

>>> Monaural verbal stimuli of forgotten provenance <<<

 


Reviews:

“Another great collection from the current god of tape archaeology. Using similar found-sound materials as his Lend An Ear and Remnant Kings releases, Vernon here again evokes incredible emotion and atmosphere in what amounts to a diverse collection of relatively short pieces. We get of course detailed clanks and clunks amidst the sound of all manner of interior spaces along with fragments of instructional tapes, dictations, and anonymous thrift-store home recordings (somebody turned 16 on Friday, October 13th 1989, if you’re the superstitious type) among much more. Overall has an ethereal, haunted character as complimented by the 4AD-like cover art/layout. More composed than collaged, they differ from Lend An Ear while retaining a similar intimate feel. The emphasis on structure at times veers toward his work in the duo Vernon & Burns. One of the better details is the use of hyper-processed voice wizardry, not unlike Valerio Triccoli or “The Floor Above” by Mercury Hall. Vernon’s added acoustic work is of course also absolutely gorgeous and spectral. Has a distinct (by chance only, mind you!) HNAS/Heemann/Ultra vibe at times. Criminally-small edition which I understand is nearly sold-out, so visit Mark’s YouTube channel to stream it:”

Josh Peterson.

“…Side one brings us glitched rhythms, distant drums, creaking doors, static walls and half-heard words from a tea room conversation. I imagine a lot of the sounds here are ‘found’. Cassettes / tapes lost in time and rediscovered lurking in the back of dusty charity shops, boot sales and the radio airwaves. Orphaned Sounds? Both sides play as one piece. On side one “Sentinent Dust (Go Thou Must)” stands alone though. A pagan banishment ritual discovered after taking the wrong turn on Summerisle.”What was the interest of Dr. Pepper”?

Side two begins carrying an air of menace. All seance and atmosphere. Concentrated mouthplay, detuned radios and clutterphonics. The approaching air of menace soon turns to whimsy with toy guitar and cat-a-waling. It all starts straying in to Nurse With Wound territory before returning to the shadows with “A Pale Pink Voice”. I am not complaining. This is my first hearing of the sound of Mark Vernon and I am intrigued and wanting to hear more.”

Steve Cammack, Remuhmuration.

“…as has been reported numerous times in these pages, Vernon is an undisputed king of tape treatments, doing it in a very English and understated way, and operating in an endearing environment of found objects, cheap machines, discarded fragments, and a DIY approach that embodies all that is best about the garden-shed ham-radio amateur, a can-do make-do-and-mend attitude. If I make it sound like Vernon belongs to an earlier period in UK history, maybe he does – but I mean it in a positive way, a time when there were better manners, a bobby on every corner, and a man could smoke his pipe in peace in a railway compartment…

The tape before us today is called Orphaned Works (RESEARCH LABORATORIES RL020). Only 30 copies were pressed, a quantity which seems incommensurate with its cultural value, and there isn’t even a Bandcamp page where one could spin its delights on the PC. All the familiar Mark Vernon trademarks are here: lost, dissociated, found recordings assembled in a slightly absurd, vaguely scrambled framework that makes a mockery of linear thought, corresponding instead to the artist’s own spontaneous lines of thought and creating a dream-like interior logic that is a pure delight. Music, voices, and sound effects – pretty much the three fundamental elements in his box of groceries, but the techniques of assembly, editing, varispeeding and collage are also present, just done in his usual unobtrusive way. Vernon has never been one for calling attention to the technique, unlike the academic composers who developed musique concrète and its numerous followers, who often can’t wait to demonstrate – very loudly, if possible – their flashy skills on the mixing desk, editor, or computer suite. Mark Vernon is too close to the content and meaning of his work for that, and I suspect he would prefer to gently release hidden voices and unexpected treasures from their respective oxide traps, and inviting us to follow the butterflies as he sets them free. This is something we can only love and respect.

I will add, finally, that this particular radio-play (almost every release of his deserves to be understood and heard in that context – they are like a magical realist version of Radio 4 from a lost between-the-wars period that never existed) is not only redolent of mystery and sadness, but also hinting at the mortality of all human life, the fragile existence of the soul in a bleak and uncaring world. It does all of this by the power of suggestion, juxtaposition, and careful light-touch treatments. Vernon remains so respectful that he almost effaces himself from the compositional picture; and yet everything he does is unique, could only have emerged from his fingerprints. A delight!”

Ed Pinsent, Sound Projector, 18th July 2018.

Gig at Glad Cafe supporting Miki Yui

 

 
The Glad Cafe, Glasgow
Tuesday, 15th May, 7:30 PM

Tickets £7 in advance

Following her performance at London’s Cafe Oto the previous day I will be playing the support slot for Tokyo/Dusseldorf based artist Miki Yui as part of the Southside Fringe Festival.

Miki Yui creates sonic landscapes emerging out of delicate noises, samples, electronic sounds, and field recordings. Her unique minimalist and organic approach towards sound balances between subtle nuances, industrial hums and turbulent hooks. In her live concerts she invites listeners to take part in mesmerinzing in the acoustic spaces, rich of abstract and narrative sound circulation.

She has released her solo albums from 12K /LINE(N.Y.) and Hören (Osaka). Her 5th solo album “Oscilla” was released in October 2015, on her own imprint MY. New album Mills on Cusp Editions is out this month.

Tectonics Sound Sessions

The Sound Sessions are a series of six improvised performances over the Tectonics Festival weekend with a rotating line up of musicians including Mark Vernon, Kim Moore, Ohad Fishof, Alicia Mathews and Barry Burns.

Sound Sessions take place in the Recital Hall at the following times:

Saturday, 5th May
15.30 (15 mins)
17.30 (15 mins)
20.00 (15 mins)

Sunday, 6th May
14.30 (15 mins)
17.00 (15 mins)
20.00 (30 mins)

 

Tectonics Festival, City Halls, 5th-6th May
Festival passes – £28/£20 concession
Day passes – £18/£14 concession

More details here: http://www.tectonicsfestival.com/glasgow/

An evening with Vernon & Burns…

The Old Hairdressers
20 – 28 Renfield Lane,
Glasgow,
G2 6PH
Tickets £5 Adv, £7 Door

As part of the Old Hairdresser’s programme for the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2018 Vernon & Burns present a night of performance, music and film:

50Hz or thereabouts: Calum Stirling’s 2015 film, made in collaboration with Barry Burns and shot on location in a decommissioned nuclear bunker in the East Neuk of Fife, has been re-edited by Viltė Vaitkutė for this special one-off expanded screening with a live soundtrack by Vernon & Burns.
“We’ve got a new man interested in isolation”.

Toi-so, Christina Dunwoodie and Tony Morris. Two performers coming from wildly different musical backgrounds, collaborating in the deconstruction of the old, reinventing it in a dark, diverse, sinister and sensual world with voice and electronic music.
“Like Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue with a lobotomy or two.” Nick Currie (Momus)

Marta Adamowicz will create a live version of Poludnica – a part soundscape, part drone music performance that illustrates an attack by a mythical summer demon from Slavic folklore.

For more details visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/849874765213624/

PDF of full Old Hair programme available HERE:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FGGk6R54DvR3RYCcJ9l0F9PqMVQxyjHJ/view

Old Hair programme is supported by Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2018.

Dead Air Spaces

A live radio work created for Radio Revolten. Recorded at the Radio Revolten Club on Tuesday, 25th October 2016.

‘Dead Air Spaces’ is a new radio work that explores one of the most basic but vital of our bodily functions – breathing. It includes interviews with diving instructors, a singer, an organist and a yoga teacher and recordings of breathing exercises, snoring, pneumatic tube systems, purring cats, suction units and scuba-divers along with mechanical processes analogous to the human respiratory system such as church organs, bellows and hospital ventilators. The piece also incorporates the use of bi-nasal microphones, a balloon repurposed as an artificial lung and variety of pipes, tubes, whistles and other apparatus played live.

A ‘dead air space’ in diving terminology, refers to a pocket of air that doesn’t play a part in the gas exchange with the lungs; air left over in the snorkel, regulator or even the throat containing greater levels of carbon dioxide.

Atom Town

Atom Town: life after technology – a film by Gair Dunlop (UK, 2011)

“Dounreay Atomic Research Establishment is a sprawling monument to solidity, optimism and analogue engineering. The intangible alchemies and sense of romantic science at its heart are trapped like amber in archive film and in its colossal structures. Over the last two years, unprecedented access to the facility and to the UKAEA Archive at Harwell have allowed Gair Dunlop to explore the dream and the consequences of high science in a remote community”.

Sound design and original music by Mark Vernon.
Sound post production by Zoe Irvine.

Duration: 22min

http://www.atomtown.org.uk/

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