★Line
Foley Folly Folio
Pinkcourtesyphone is the not so secret alter ego of renowned sound artist Richard Chartier, and while it seems to be geared more towards a looser, more relaxed sensibility than the serious artist guise that is usually thrust upon him, it lacks none of his careful attention to structure and detail. Quite a bit of the material on this compilation (recorded erratically between 1997 and 2011) could pass for his normal work, but throws enough curve balls to give it a distinct identity all its…
Kippschwingungen
In 2007, Frank Bretschneider was invited to compose music for the Subharchord, a unique electronic instrument developed during the 1960’s at the RFZ, the technical center for radio and television of the East German postal service. Built in a limited edition of eight machines total, only three Subharcords (in Vienna, Trondheim and Berlin) are believed to survive to this day. The Subharchord is, broadly defined, a subharmonic sound generator, comparable soundwise to the Mixturtrautonium. It’s sugg…
Valence
Line is proud to present a new work by Montreal sound artist France Jobin. Having released under her moniker i8u, Valence is her first release under her own name. Created entirely from transformed field recordings, this collection of three compositions has an elegant flowing simplicity. Slow harmonic modulations of a similar essence to the works of Eliane Radigue and Celer.Valence is inspired by both the valence bond (VB) and molecular orbital (MO) theories.An atomic orbital is a mathematical fu…
Attack On Silence
Sacred geometries, and their sonic equivalents, are said to mirror the micro and macroscopic structures of the physical world; the complex harmonies of the Tibetan singing bowl, like the patterns of the Mandala, allow access to the deepest levels of the consciousness inducing meditative states that transform the very being of their participants. In the modern reciprocals of these technologies the shift is one of teleology. The sacred metals and antique art of the singing bowls give way to…
Soiree
Line is proud to present a new full length solo recording by German electronic music pioneer Asmus Tietchens. Soirée is the result of extended recycling. Beginning from the investigation of: what will happen if I recycle (not remix) some of my older compositions and then recycle the recyclings and then recycle the recycled recyclings… ad infinitum? Quite quickly the initial pieces vanished totally. New structures and sounds emerged depending on the methods and tools I used.Each of the pieces on …
Proximities
Finaly restocked: Line is proud to present Proximities the first solo recording by Steve Roden on the label since 2005′s critically acclaimed release, Airforms. "Proximities was recorded in 2010 during my time as the artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. I began by recording a performance of a series of tones played on an old battery powered Paia Oz, that were determined by the letters A-G as found in a text by minimalist sculptor Donald Judd. I recorded the tone seq…
Eight Studies for Automatic Piano
Inspired by the work of James Tenney, György Ligeti, Charlemagne Palestine, and Conlon Nancarrow, Seth Horvitz’s Eight Studies for Automatic Piano makes use of simple, computer-aided compositional processes to test the limits of human perception and machine precision. It relies on a bare minimum of technical means to explore notions of temporal distortion, iterative process, and elegant complexity. Presented in an immersive concert setting without the presence of a human performer, Eight Studies…
Transparency (Performance)
In 2010, sound artist Richard Chartier was awarded a Smithsonian Institution Artist Research Fellowship to explore the National Museum of American History’s collection of 19th Century acoustic apparatus for scientific demonstration. Chartier focused on the works of the German physicist Rudolf Koenig, including the Grand Tonometer (c. 1870-1875). This beautiful and precise set of 692 tuning forks expresses the frequency range 520 v.s (vibration simple)(260 hz) to 8192 v.s. (4096 hz). The p…
Objects of Memory
These works occupy a position between an expanded notion of composition and a gallery-based art practice. The content of the works presented on this disc produce a slow series of gestures that give the illusion of stillness amidst a texture of continually developing material. The central concern in all of these pieces (the three fully scored works, the installation documentation, and the live-performance) is the construction of a sound world that is able to be environmental rather than tempora…
Further Materials
A sequel to the Other Materials compilation (released via Richard Chartier’s own 3Particles label), this album draws together the various compilation tracks released by the artist between the years 2002 and 2005. Many of these pieces take the form of miniatures, meaning they’re both shorter and more condensed than Chartier’s conventional output, the most succinct of these being the two-minute sound sculpture ‘Tracing (Sketch For)’ lifted from Raster Noton’s Frequencies [Hz]. You’ll…
Lichtung
Lichtung captures the experimental sound score for a dance solo performed by Catherine Jodoin and choreographed by Antoine Effroy & Anne Rudelbach. A year on from the piece’s premiere at Kampnagel in Hamburg, the dependably brilliant Line label releases the audio, as conceived by Brussels-based electronic artist Yves De Mey. The thirty-five minute composition begins with a quiet high frequency drone, but within just a couple of minutes the austere hiss opens up to reveal a less elu…
Trac(k)_t
his is the final work in the series of works-encompassing ataraxia, bradycard, trans~, and back_forward – using the cymbalon as source material. The process of working with this hammered stringed instrument for this series has been a “discussion” between the instrument and myself, an exploration of traditional playing, digital processing, and mixtures of both. I feel that trac[k]_t should convey the scope of using an instrument without losing both its intrinsic nature of engagement as …
Twin Radiant Flux
Twin Radiant Flux, a beautiful processed solo guitar work by Scott Cortez, the instrumentalist of Lovesliescrushing. This previously unreleased hour long collection of works, recorded between 1997 and 1999 shows Cortez’s unique pioneering aesthetic. With droning flows and melodic layered sonic drifts, Twin Radiant Flux predates some of the most important guitar driven currents in contemporary electronic music. Scott Cortez, (b.1969) is a textural guitarist,visual artist, based in Chica…
Relocation.Reconstruction
Relocation.Reconstruction is derived from the sound elements of the three installations in Yann Novak’s solo exhibition Relocation at Lawrimore Project (May 2009). In the original exhibition, Novak explored the multitude of emotional states experienced during and after the relocation of one’s life. With this latest work, Novak continues his exploration into this theme a year after the initial event that inspired him, with the new insight that although he has arrived at his destination, the reloc…
Remain
Another beautiful sweeping dense work by German artist Stephan Mathieu. Remain, a new 60 minute composition utilizes original material from Janek Schaefer’s Extended Play, reprocessed by Stephan Mathieu between September 2008 and October 2010 using an entropic setup, spectral analysis and convolution processes. A companion piece to A Static Place on 12k. (label info)
Optofonica
"The immersive environments presented here by 42 artists from 13 different countries incite a unique multi-sensory awareness of both physical and mental (imagined) space. Some works directly examine the slipping contours of kinetic phenomena, involving magnetism (Kanta Horio), fluid dynamics (Skoltz Kolgen), or acoustic levitation (Domnitch/Gelfand/Chartier). Others have invented an impossible phantom spatiality, stemming, for example, from brain wave interference (Ulf Langheinrich) or stereosco…
Crwth (Chorus Redux)
Through their use of low tech means and focusing on the blending of guitar noise and electronic voice processing, Lovesliescrushing can be seen as the early 'missing link' between the likes of Slowdive and Fennesz. Their output has been consistently and beautifully crafted... works that contain an element of sonic mystery and still sound timeless. Lovesliescrushing is an important, if perhaps overlooked, point in the timeline of contemporary electronic music. - Richard Chartier. Loveslies…
Oltre
The best 12k/LINE release in ages - dark, Lynchian eroded tape-loops and analogue menace. ESSENTIAL PURCHASE! (boomkat) "The Transparence dubplate, developed at O ' in Milan, Italy, works within the physical limitations of the vinyl medium, employing the object as sound source and also sound medium, to become an instrument in its own right. Using the non-linear acoustics of the gallery at O', the dubplate was recorded, and later cut to disc in Berlin, at very low volume. This ephemeral audi…
Monochromes Vol. 1
Monochromes Vol.1 is the new sound work by Italian multimedia duo TU M'. The Monochromes series is a collection of modular audio and video compositions for chamber ensemble. Fragile atmospheric colours made of sound, light, space."A poet always has too many words in his vocabulary, a painter too many colors on his palette, a musician too many notes on his keyboard.
h-Menge
The latest in Asmus Tietchens ongoing Mengen series, this album maintains the bold adventurousness and strict minimalism of previous recordings whilst suggesting some sense of evolution along the way. The series was initiated as an exercise in composition based exclusively around spatial manipulations of white noise and sine tones, but this instalment seems to hint at a heightened level of sonic richness and diversity than that policy could ever reasonably hope to accommodate. Some of the pieces…