TWiS Listening Post (0012)
The Wednesday issue of This Week in Sound is usually for paid subscribers. I’d already intended to also share this week’s with all subscribers, and then I got news that great musician Steve Roden had died at age 59, and getting out that sad news became an additional reason to broaden this issue’s reach.
An annotated playlist of ambient (and adjacent) music, this is usually a weekly bonus — a thank-you to people who financially support This Week in Sound. It supplements the free Tuesday and Friday issues, which feature a broader array of material from the field of sound studies.
Today, we’ve got: (1) a video, (2) a sequel, and (3) a preview — and (4) a memorial.
1. A VIDEODARK STAR: The first video from the forthcoming solo record by Vince Clarke is so stark, so somber, it makes “Ghosts Again,” Depeche Mode’s tribute from earlier this year to the late Andy Fletcher (which took the form of an homage to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal), seem almost like a pop pastiche by comparison. “The Lamentations of Jeremiah,” which has no vocals, shows a gaunt Clarke, dressed in black, striking various poses in a largely empty building. This is lockdown as solitary retreat — solo album as monastic reflection on mortality. Occasionally Clarke glances at the camera, challenging the viewer to not look away. The music matches the dire tone of the video, which was directed by Ebru Yildiz. It is primarily the cello of guest musician Reed Hays, playing against Clarke’s synthesized room tone of doom. There is reportedly no singing on the album; it is described as a “a 10-track lyric-less album of uncategorisable ambient beauty.” Apparently the album, titled Songs of Silence, should prove similarly intense as a whole: “Nobody in my household is particularly interested in what I get up to in the studio,” Clarke said in an announcement from Mute Records. “Even the cat used to leave after an hour or so of listening to drones.” Songs of Silence is due out November 17.
2. A SEQUELhttps://eivindaarsetjanbang.bandcamp.com/album/last-two-inches-of-sky
TWO OF A KIND: Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset and his countryman, electronic musician Jan Bang, strike out for elegant dub territory on Last Two Inches of Sky, the first song from which, “City Never Sleeps,” is now available in advance of the album’s September 23 release. This follows up Snow Catches on Her Eyelashes, the duo’s extraordinary 2020 album. It’s a gorgeous work of firmly rooted, slow-motion ease. Apparently there’s a sample of trumpeter Arve Henriksen somewhere in this song, as well as “treatments” courtesy of Erik Honoré. Nona Hendryx provides guest vocals on another of the upcoming album’s tracks, “Legion.”
3. A PREVIEWhttps://zimoun.bandcamp.com/album/modularguitarfields-i-vi
OBJECT LESSON: The kinetic sculptor and sound artist Zimoun has an album due out later this month, on September 22, on the 12k Records label. Titled ModularGuitarFields I-VI, it is, judging by the opening track, an extended exploration of tone. This first piece, “ModularGuitarFields I,” is a 12-minute meditation on slight fissures amid deep feedback. According to the press materials, Zimoun’s equipment on the album amounts to: “a Tenor Baritone Guitar, combined with select elements of a Modular Synth and a vintage 1960s Magnatone Amp.” Zimoun is best known for sculptures that use simple materials like cardboard, cheap motors, crumpled paper, and plastic balls to explore how systems can create structure and patterns in sound and visuals alike. Parallels can easily be drawn between that art practice and the impact of this hypnotic new recording.
4. A MEMORIALLOWERCASE STUDY: Just as I was putting this issue to bed, I got an alert from an old, mutual friend of the sound artist, musician, and visual artist Steve Roden that Steve had passed away — news announced on his Instagram account, @inbetweennoise. I last saw Steve in the summer of 2019, when the impact of his diagnosed Alzheimer’s was already becoming evident; he spoke spoke that August at the Los Angeles gallery Vielmetter, in conversation with Michael Ned Holte, and then he performed on his modular synthesizer. Steve was a wonderful human, and an incredible thinker about art and sound. I will cherish the meals we shared over the years, and the discussions we had. He was also a friend of Disquiet, having been part of the art installation we did for the San Jose Museum of Art back in 2014, and our collaboration with artist Jorge Colombo, LX(RMX), in 2012 — among other examples. Steve is particularly well known for “lowercase” music that ekes out beauty and meaning at a volume just above a hum. For many who followed in his footsteps, lowercase was an aesthetic pursuit. With Steve, it also felt like a reflection of his own presence. (Above, just by way of example, is a 2009 performance by Steve at the Schindler House in Los Angeles.)
