Jack Harris & Samuel Rodgers, Chik White, Ben Owen, Haptic

[Notice Recordings]

Prices:
$6.00 for Jack Harris & Samuel Rodgers and Chik White
$6.50 for Ben Owen and Haptic

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( Notice #29 ) — Jack Harris & Samuel Rodgers : " Primary / Unit 11 "
Samuel Rodgers (co-curator of Consumer Waste) pairs up with sound artist Jack Harris on two explorations of minimal performance and sound creation. Working in a semi-urban ambience—open windows, barking dogs, distant sirens—the duo suggest both a specific location and a generic one. Their previous work has explored tensions between analogue and digital processes; here, sounds remain mainly non-instrumental in source: amplified object manipulation, cable hum, and different types of feedback intrude upon room tone at various intervals, like heavy clusters of dry floating leaves settling on transparent pillows. These pieces blur definitions of action and performance, and call into contemplation the intention of sound-making and what defines its “success,” while repeatedly upending expectations about pace and content.
Larger artwork :
http://www.noticerecordings.com/wp-cont ... d-case.jpg

- Professionally duplicated edition of 100 on Chrome plus tape stock
- Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery
- Pro-printed in Portland, OR


( Notice #30 ) — Chik White : " Jaw Works & Behind a Dead Tree on the Shore "
Two sets of music by Chik White, an alias of Darcy Spidle, whose Nova Scotia-based Divorce Records has been slinging LPs of sonic bemusement since 1999. Jaw Works is made up of solo jaw harp performances, wringing mesmerizing detail from variations in rhythm and tempo, while achieving a wide variety of barely believable, almost synthesized-sounding timbres. Behind A Dead Tree On The Shore also features the jaw harp, albeit in concert with the North Atlantic Ocean, which inspired the more minimal, rhythmic pieces performed on the shore. Organic and personal, this is folk music created by a single person in his environment, using the most basic of musical tools.

Larger artwork :
http://www.noticerecordings.com/wp-cont ... d-case.jpg

- Professionally duplicated edition of 100 on Chrome tape stock
- Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery
- Pro-printed in Portland, OR


( Notice #31 ) — Ben Owen : " Birds and Water, 4 "
The third entry in Ben Owen's Birds and Water series of recordings. As with Birds and Water, 1 (NTR018), these two sidelong electronic drones reflect Owen’s typically rigorous compositional choices. They display remarkably disparate, rich textures and are extremely immersive, especially when played loud and/or on headphones. Owen once again displays an ability to invite multiple levels of reaction to deceptively complex timbres, ranging from meditative to oppressive.

“The third release of recordings made on residency with The Experimental Television Center in Owego, NY during May 2010. The Birds and Water series is my main body of work created at ETC. The work and title is influenced from the birds that hovered as dusk approaches over the Susquehanna River, which borders the residency building, seen from the third floor windows.

The recordings are both sound and sound and image based pieces using David Jones' image processing system. ETC expanded operations in 1974 with the first Jones Colorizer, and in 1975 with a set of keyers, a multi-input sync-able sequencer and a bank of oscillators, all designed and constructed by David Jones. Numerous patches and variations of each were recorded in extended durations. Both recordings are presented with edits only to their original duration.

Continued thanks to Hank Rudolph, Sherry and Ralph Hocking, Justin Lincoln, Giuseppe Ielasi, Denis Shapovalov, Evan Lindorff-Ellery and Travis Bird.”
- Ben Owen, November 2014

Larger artwork :
http://www.noticerecordings.com/wp-cont ... d-Case.jpg

- Professionally duplicated edition of 100 on Chrome plus tape stock
- Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery
- Letterpress printed by John Fitzgerald at Fitzgerald Letterpress, New Orleans, LA


( Notice #32 ) — Haptic : " Excess of Vision: Unreleased Recordings, 2005-2014 "
Since the mid-aughts, Chicago trio Haptic (Adam Sonderberg, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Steven Hess—this time around featuring Salvatore Dellaria and The Necks' Tony Buck) has delivered riveting, meticulously controlled live sets, as well as a handful of releases mainly on the Entr'acte label, all of which reflect the group's unique attitudes toward collaboration and structure. This release features material sourced from a variety of past recordings; they are without form and yet architectural, and just as uniquely engaging as the group's previous work.

From the perspective of Notice, Haptic's mixture of the organic and the industrial has been profoundly influential, and could even be said to define a quintessential Chicago ethos channeled through dark ambience: roiling waves of density, structure, work, beauty, and oppression constantly overtaking each other. However, the final silence will always be present—and is expected—just like the spare, steady late-night call of a single circling black bird.

Larger artwork :
http://www.noticerecordings.com/wp-cont ... d-case.jpg

- Professionally duplicated edition of 100 on Cobalt tape stock
- Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery
- Letterpress printed on pearlescent stock by John Fitzgerald at Fitzgerald Letterpress, New Orleans, LA

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We are currently selling $4 downloads for sold-out or nearly sold-out releases on our new Bandcamp website.

Downloads are now available for:
Coppice - Pied
Anne Guthrie - so it's inverted, occupying the same position as always
Tiny Music - Epitaph
Jon Mueller - Halves

A sale is currently happening on our website. Some of our available back-stock can be obtained free of charge with the purchase of any tape. Just go to the Shop section and if there is a button "Free + shipping, with another order" by a given release, click that button with, of course, your other order.

Next up are two very immersive releases by Bhob Rainey and Chris Cooper, under the Prants alias, as well a tape by Vancouver, BC's Joda Clément. These releases will coincide with both of the musicians' performances in Portland, organized by both Notice and Portland's Creative Music Guild. For those who live in Portland, please come to the show ! It will be held at Reedemer Lutheran Church on 5431 NE 20th Ave, just off Killingsworth. Bhob will perform a live diffusion of his quadraphonic piece, "Axon Ladder". A poster for the show can be seen here.

After that, we'll wrap it up for the year.

Thanks for everyone's support, and enjoy the changing season.

[Notice Recordings]

Reviews of three of the tapes by Brian Olewnick :

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2014/11/th ... otice.html

Ben Owen - Birds and Water 4 (Notice Recordings)

Owen's "Birds & Water" also appeared on Notice a few years back. Apparently I've missed one intervening number but "4" (presented with the connecting word, not the ampersand) has migrated a good distance from at least one of its forbears, though as the titles of the two pieces indicate ("20100509-04" and "20100509-08"), these were recorded in 2010 at The Experimental Television Center in Owego, NY. Both are drone works, both setting a pattern in motion and sticking with it for 20 minutes. The first, "20100509-04)", contains at least two lines, thick and ropy, one slightly out of phase with the other, creating a varies series of internal pulses. As an effect, of course it's something that we've all heard, probably many times. But as an example, a kind of laying out of the process, quite open and transparent, it has the beauty of an elegant mathematical drawing, say of a parabola, though one with non-standard fluctuations. I discovered that if I yawned while listening (not out of boredom!), the perceived pitch lowered slightly; interesting. I've used the Partch line before but am forced to resuscitate it here; it does exactly one thing but that one thing it does superbly. The second cut, though also a drone, is immediately different--a much more porous texture. Very quickly you realize you don't have to yawn to shift pitch, Owen is doing it for you, microtonally sliding up and down, perceptibly but subtly, throughout the work. Again, this attack is maintained for the duration, very lovely, sometimes recalling La Monte Young's high tension wires, the minute variations always focussing one's attention. Excellent work.

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Haptic - Excess of Vision: Unreleased Recordings, 2005-2014 (Notice Recordings)

As I think I've also said before, I like me some Haptic. As near as I can determine despite the time span indicated in the title, there are two pieces, presumably one from 2005 and one from 2014; I may well be wrong; perhaps various recordings over the period were mixed into these two tracks? In any case, Side A, "So for the Remainder" includes the core Haptic trio of Adam Sonderberg, Joseph Clayton Mills and Steven Hess, augmented by Tony Buck while "And Otherwise" has the trio plus Salvatore Dellaria. Both pieces are, by my definition, more steady state than drone, underlaid by ongoing strata of tones through which various strands permeate and grow, calm but riding that comfort/disquiet line, something they've always managed very ably. New stria constantly enter the hum, many from exterior recording, her with mechanical janglings and a particularly plaintive kind of soft moan which may derive from something as pedestrian as a squeaky door hinge but evokes a forlorn animal. Side A is good, Side B is better. The basic structure isn't dissimilar but, for me, the elements used are a little more mysterious, provide a bit more tension. A rattling sound, like maracas filled with sand, pervades the track and the tones used are icier, more ominous. You get a glacial feel, not just of cold but of slow movement, with internal, churning vortices, filling in all gaps as it proceeds. Great ending as well, sounding like someone abruptly opens a push handle door and walks outside, encountering a different hum. Strong work, a fine addition to the canon. (I assume it's coincidental, but was wondering if the title isn't a tip o' the hat to the fine Golden Palominos album, "Visions of Excess").

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Jack Harris/Samuel Rodgers - Primary/Unit 11 (Notice Recordings)

"Primary"--sounds in a room, window open, some noises being made by the pair; often it's clear that Harris and Rodgers are the culprits, occasionally one is uncertain. The musician-generated sounds are a bit more up front but not extremely so. More to the point, their emergence seems, as a rule, to be approximately as exigent as the passing sirens, that is to say, unforced, unnecessary but not so intrusive. Less the AMM-ish dictum of making a sound when it *is* necessary, more subsuming oneself or trying to--tough goal) into the environment. For about 35 minutes, this was one of the most satisfying blocks of sound I've heard this year. Around then, some particularly violent amplified object noises leap to the foreground, disrupting matters in a way I found off-putting and intrusive, though I can imagine that being intentional on the part of Harris and Rodgers, perhaps aware that things had become too comfortable. One of those cases where thinking about the procedure in one way yields a different aesthetic reaction than another, always an interesting aspect to ponder. "Unit 11" apparently uses the same approach, in a different environment, here encountering a thunderstorm near the beginning and containing distant, muffled voices, as though from a school or hospital. For a good portion it's just as successful as the preceding track, a bit calmer perhaps, with a similar "intrusive" moment around the 23 minute mark, this time a loud hum, soon followed by high-pitched, rapid squeaks embedded in static. Once more, the question arises whether this is more than necessary or whether "necessary" has anything to do with it. A kind of synthesis occurs over the final several minutes, I believe more performers than environs, where hums and rumbles merge into a very stirring aural wall.

Really fine, thoughtful music, my favorite of what I've heard from these fellows thus far.

[Notice Recordings]

Vital Weekly reviews.

Tapes are still available, but we're running out.

(Again, we're not from Chicago anymore.)

http://www.vitalweekly.net/957.html

"JACK HARRIS & SAMUEL RODGERS - PRIMARY/UNIT II (cassette by Notice Recordings)
CHIK WHITE - JAW WORKS & BEHIND A DEAD TREE ON THE SHORE (cassette by Notice Recordings)
BEN OWEN - BIRDS AND WATER, 4 (cassette by Notice Recordings)
HAPTIC - EXCESS OF VISION: UNRELEASED RECORDINGS, 2005-2014 (cassette by Notice Recordings)
Four new releases on Chicago's Notice Recordings and we review them in chronological, release, order. Samuel Rodgers might be known from his own label, Consumer Waste, and here works with one Jack Harris. They are working, recording, in a space here with windows open, so we hear some outside sounds, as opposed to pre-recorded field recordings. They don't use any traditional instruments, but only 'amplified object manipulation, cable hum and different types of feedback', which they move around the room in which they record. I assume this is all live, without much manipulation of any kind, both in the process of getting this recorded, as well as post-recording - no editing of some kind, although the cover says 'mixed by Rodgers', so maybe it has been recorded from various angles. I also assume this is without an audience of any kind, but I could think this would be fascinating to see. The sounds they produce are quite fascinating to hear, so I assume them pushing around these objects through space could be likewise interesting to watch. That's one side of the game. This tape is also quite long and both sides do not seem to differ very much, even when they are recorded a year apart in two different locations. 'Unit 11' seems a bit more reliant on feedback sounds and less on the loosely structured hovering around of objects, but it's all a bit too long. Editing this down a bit would have been nice, I think. Quite a Fluxus inspired stream of consciousness sounds if you are willing to open up.

Darcy Spidle, owner of Divorce Records, goes by the name of Chik White when playing the jaw harp. Here on this cassette we find on the side that is called 'Jaw Works' eight pieces of jaw harp playing, at home or in the studio I assume, as on the other side, called 'Behind A Dead Tree On The Shore', the jaw harp was 'recorded under a mud cliff, behind an upside down tree in Seaforth, Nova Scotia. These cliffs line the coast and can be heard quietly slipping into the sea at all hours of the day. Trees fall to the rocks from the tops of these cliffs when the soil that houses their roots break away'. The jaw harp may seem a silly folk instrument - well, to some it may seem like that - but it's played here with some great style. Obviously I studied the press text and cover while listening to this, so I know it's a jaw harp, but I wonder what I would have made of it, had I not known this. Maybe I'd guessed it right, but on the other hand I could have mumbled something about a synthesizer being played of a very homemade origin? That is especially the case on the first side, as on the second side it seems to be a more 'regular' jaw harp, but then the sea waves provide an interesting additional texture. This is all consistent, music-wise and at forty or so minutes this is surely also long enough.

Somewhere along the lines I may have missed out upon 'Birds And Water', the second and third instalment, but I did hear the first one, also released on cassette by Notice Recordings (see Vital Weekly 804). In 2010 Owen was on residency with The Experimental Television Center in Owego, NY and worked with some of the in-house electronic equipment, 'set of keyers, a multi-input syncable sequencer and a bank of oscillators'. Inspired by the bird that 'hovered as dusk approaches over the Susquehanna River, which borders the residency building', Owen creates some deep end drone music here. On the previous volume I heard Owen produced more washes of sound, and here it's two times twenty minutes of pure sustaining drone music. Forty minutes of music, but you could have this on for hours on a low volume that is loud enough to fill up your environment. This is the kind of drone that you heard before, perhaps, but which is still very nice. Owen is very capable of creating his own excellent variation here.

It's been a while since I last heard music by Haptic, a trio from Chicago of Adam Sonderberg, Joseph Clayton Mills and Steven Hess, who had some great releases on Entr'acte years ago. Their music is largely improvised using a variety of instruments and electronics, in a fine electro-acoustic tradition. Here we have two pieces with two guests, Tony Buck on the first side, and Salvatore Dellaria on the other, and as there are only two pieces, the title could have been 'unreleased recordings 2005 & 2014'. Or maybe they are a construct of some kind, out of more recordings? That last thing I actually doubt. Both of these pieces last somewhere around twenty minutes and are slow builders. From just one or two sounds things start to build and grow and slowly new sounds are added. It's not easy to say what kind of instruments are used, but surely a fair amount of electronics and Hess' drum kit being played with bows and objects to generate more (more and more) deep drone like sounds, creating a vast landscape of sound; a beautiful scape of sound, an picture of vast open space with some greyish clouds above them. Of the four releases this is the one that is the one that is most 'musical' (relatively speaking) and perhaps least conceptual; it's for me the one that is simply the best out of these four. Twice an excellent flow of sounds, rolling majestically about. It's good to hear music of Haptic again. (FdW)