Artist : Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer
Title : In A Place Of Such Graceful Shapes
Genre : Ambient
Year : 2011
Date : 10/2011
Bitrate : VBR kbps
Tracks : 01
Label : 12k
Source : CDDA
Encoder : Lame 3.98.4
Length : 49:53 min
Size : 79,7 MB
Tracklist:
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01.In A Place Of Such Graceful Shapes 49:53
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49:53 min
In the fading days of autumn in 2010,
Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer,
having become acquainted only earlier
that year, set out on the sort of
cross-country collaboration typically
executed via technology and the web.
However, having made a few rough
sketches, they became disenchanted by
the Internet and the machines between
them, and quickly realized that the only
way forward was via a plane ticket.
Marcus left Portland for New York in
February of 2011. The two met face-to-
face for the first time, and without any
hesitation embarked on 4 days of
creating music and photographing the
bitter cold and deep snow that covered
the state.
Buried in a sea of guitar pedals,
looping boxes, analog synths, tape
recorders, found objects and percussion
instruments, Deupree and Fischer settled
into the 12k studio and began crafting
long passages of music, with no editing,
into what would become the single
composition on the CD. The creative
energy didnÆt stop in the studio,
however, as the frozen bay and snow-
covered hills of a park along the Hudson
River became the visual backdrop that
brought the project to completion. The
fruits of their collaboration could not
be realized only with a single compact
disc, and grew to become a boxed set
containing a CD, a 7ö record and a
booklet of photographs.
Titled In a Place of Such Graceful
Shapes and limited to only 500 copies,
the stark and austere package starts
with a black box adorned with a
monochromatic photograph of a winter
landscape, with the artistsÆ names and
the album title only appearing in tiny
print on the bottom of the box. Inside,
the jacket of the 7ö shines in a bright,
warm yellow û the only color in the
landscape, provided by waterside grasses
û and contrasts with the black and white
photography (taken by both Deupree and
Fischer) inside the booklet. A warm grey
tone ties everything together on the CD
and outer box to balance the color
palette.
The attention to detail and care taken
in the packaging is echoed in the music,
whose goal was laid out at the very
beginning of their collaboration: to
create a single long piece that barely
touched surfaces, ebbing and looping in
stillness and the softest of movements.
Intended for quiet listening, In a Place
of Such Graceful Shapes is a warmly
tactile and human piece of music, free
of the computers that turned the artists
off in the first place. The almost 50-
minute composition builds a complex
ecosystem of sounds, with the faintest
of baritone guitar, bells, strings and
harmonica joined by simple tones from
synthesizers and toy keyboards. Even a
bundle of sticks picked from the river
finds its way into this deeply textured
recording.
Using passages of recordings that they
did not use on the CD, Deupree and
Fischer, in their separate cities, each
created one side of the 7ö record, using
the short format to play against the
long-form CD, but creating equally
transcendent, melodic works. As with
most of the package, the vinyl is
unmarked, letting the music and imagery
combine in each listenerÆs own way.
In a Place of Such Graceful Shapes is
quintessential 12k û the meeting of
minds, the joining of sound and image û
and is among the most ambitious projects
the label has undertaken. It will be
released in September of 2011, nearly a
year after the work began, and will be
set once more against an autumn tapering
into the quiet cold of winter.
http://www.12k.com