▀
▀
▄▄
███ ███
███ ▀▀▀
▄▄▄▄███ ▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▄ ▄
████ ███ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ ▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄
██▓█ ██▓ ███ ████ ██▓█ █▓█ ██▓█▄ ▄▄▄ ▄
█▓▒█ █▓▓ ██▒ ██▓█ ██▒█ █▓█ █▓▒█
█▒░█ █▒▒ █░▒ █░▒█ █▒░█ ░▒█ █▒▒█
█░ █ █░ █ ░ █░░█ █▒░█ ░█ █▒░█ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄
█ █ █ █ █ █ █░ █ █ █░ █ ████ ████ ████
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀█ █ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ████▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ████▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
█ ░█ ████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ███ ████
███ █ █ ████ ██▓ █▓██ ███ ████ ███ ████ ██▓ ████ █▓█ ██▓█
█ █ █ █ ██▓█ ██▓ █▓▒█ ██▓ ██▓█ ██▓ ██▓█ ██▓ ██▒█ █▓█ █▓▒█
█ ▓█ █ █ █▓▒█ █▓▒ █▒░█ █░▒ █▒░█ █▓▒ █▓▒█ █▓▒ █░▒█ ░▒█ █▒▒█
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ █▒░█ █▒░ █░░█ █░ █░ █ █░░ █▒░█ █▒░ █ ░█ ░█ █▒░█
█░ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █░ █ █ █ █ █ █░ █
▀ ▀▀ ▀▀▀ █ █▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
█░ █
█ █ P U B L I C . S O U N D
█ █
█ █ presenting our latest release
▀▀▀▀
r e l e a s e . i n f o
Artist.....: Seth Nehil
Title......: Amnemonic Site
Rip Date...: Jun-02-2007 Cat.No.....: a28
Style......: Avantgarde Label......: Alluvial Recordings
Quality....: VBRkbps Type.......: Album
Size.......: 61,0 MB Source.....: CDDA
r e l e a s e . n o t e s
Seth Nehil has composed sound works for CD,
multi-speaker installation, solo and large-group concerts, dance,
theater and multi-media performance.
Recordings include collaborations with jgrzinich and
Olivia Block and solo works such as Tracing the Skins
of Clouds (1998); From Cloud to Seed (1999); Uva (2000); and Umbra
(2002), among others. He has performed throughout the US, in
Europe and Japan. Seth Nehil is also co-editor and designer of FO
A RM magazine, a journal of arts and research with a focus on
sound art.
This is Seth Nehil's first solo cd in 5 years.
"Perhaps Seth Nehil is better known from his collaborative work
than for his solo work. He worked with jgrzinich and Olivia Block,
but his last solo work was from 2002. In the years between he
worked mainly on different projects that couldn't be released on
CD, such as multimedia installations. The new work 'Amnemonic
Site' is covered with obscurity. Besides his name, the title,
label name and catalogue number, the cover holds no information.
'Play Loud' it says on the
label, which always raises the question here: why? I usually like
to make up my own mind if I want to play music loud or not. The
whole time I was playing this
CD, I couldn't stop thinking 'what are these sounds'? It's of
course a question that I constantly ask myself when playing new
music, certainly when covers are as obscure as this one, but in
Nehil's case, it can be anything really. Are these field
recordings? Perhaps. Or closely miked objects? Also likely. And
what about the nature of sound processing? It seems likely there
is some. How and to what extent? And do I also detect some real
instruments, like wind instruments, or perhaps organs? It's all
likely. Each of the pieces is a large mix up, I imagined, of all
of these. There is field
recordings, closely miked objects falling to the wooden floor, but
also long sustained sounds of wind instruments. It all makes up a
particularly strong CD,
that is very much alike the latest Olivia Block release, in which
a similar treatment of 'real' instruments and field recordings is
used, and Nehil easily reaches to a similar height in his
'Amnemonic Site'. Full of tension, he offers
a strong interplay between all of his soundsources and it's easily
the best release I heard from him to date."
Vital Weekly
"Seth Nehil is interested in forgetting everything he knows about
music. "I began imagining a culture in which the idea of music had
been forgotten or never learned, but in which people insisted on
the value and practice of collective sound-making activity. What
would their 'music' sound like?" To this end, and after having
experienced certain sonic immersions in "real life" such as an
enormous welter of activity during a Chinese New Year celebration
in Manhattan, he began investigating methods of blurring the
distinctions between live and pre-recorded music and sounds,
folding them into one another in systems and combinations that had
as little as possible to do with his hardwired ideas of what music
should be. "Amnemonic Site" is the first release documenting this
idea.
Of course, translating these concepts to the sonic sphere is
another thing entirely. IÆm sure I could have happily listened to
the five tracks here without such thoughts ever flitting through
my mind even though knowing this background might cause me to
listen from a different angle. The first two pieces in particular
donÆt overtly straddle the music/non-music territories, at least
as far as contemporary sounds go; they more comfortably fit into a
similar electro-acoustic landscape as did the Matt Mitchell disc I
wrote about last week, an extension of the areas explored by
pioneers of the electronic avant of the 60s like Raaijmakers. You
do ascertain certain elements that likely worked their way in from
outside the studio, but they ôreadö as entirely akin to the
(presumably) synthesized onesùtheir texture is essentially the
same. This makes for a fine, shallow (not in a bad sense) spatial
effect, one of sounds winging their way back and forth inside a
narrow, metallic envelope before ending in a small spray of static
clicks. The second section is muffled, anaerobic and severely
claustrophobic, as though youÆre drowning in heavy, flapping
flannel. ItÆs effective and at the same time unpleasant though the
organ-y chords and bloopy electronics that surface later on in the
piece I could do without.
Over the last three portions, however, the work breaks out into
the open and hits stride, NehilÆs expressed ideas (at least in
retrospect) peeking aboveground for a glimmer or two. ThereÆs a
relationship between the sound world heÆs exploring and that
investigated by his sometime collaborator Olivia Block, a like
affinity for open field noises with vague (hence enticing)
narrative content. The layers of texture lap after one another,
the soft drone, then the backwards-sounding thwacks and shuffles,
the dully resonant taps, the thwacks taking on the character of
burning wood, each element subtly rising and fading in volume, in
degree of grain. Gradually, that third cut splays out into a play
of high, reedy drones, what sounds like a bass flute (but
undoubtedly isnÆt) and faraway, impossible to decipheràvoices?
Almost out of the range of hearing, in any case. Those two sounds,
the high whine and the low ôfluteö reappear at the beginning of
track four, wedded to a lower, more clarinet-like bellow and a
purer, medium range organ chord. The whole structure wells up,
shedding clatter, coalescing into unintelligible voices and
evaporating into a large, public interior space. Again, a moving,
bracing ônovellaö. Amnemonic SiteÆs coda combines any number of
the preceding elements (was that Chinese being spoken all along?)
where that admixture of inside and outside gets its clearest
demonstration. Impossible for me to say if Nehil accomplished his
stated goal or if, indeed, itÆs a possible thing to do with
recorded media. But the disc works real well as an extended
ôstoryö, building in waves toward some perceptible, if
indescribable, whole."
Brian Olewnick, Bagatellen
http://www.sethnehil.artdocuments.org
p l a y l i s t
01 Amnemonic Site 1 10:03
02 Amnemonic Site 2 08:25
03 Amnemonic Site 3 14:56
04 Amnemonic Site 4 09:00
05 Amnemonic Site 5 04:16
46:40 min
g r e e t i n g s
agw - amok - bass - bcc - bex - boss - cmg - cmc - cms - d2h
def - dh - disc0 - drum - emp - ftd - fwyh - gem - i8 - ipc
jce - jfk - jrp - just - khz - kinky - kw - lame - maem - mbs
mgc - psycz - r2r - rac - radial - rapid - rks - rtb - sb
sever - sfe - soup - sour - sq - tr - trt - ube - uc - upe
uki - xtc - yard - zi
respect to music lovers worldwide
never forget : go to the show. buy the t-shirt. order the vinyl