★Touch
Substrata 2
Reissued: Biosphere's 2nd CD for Touch after Cirque (Touch # TO:46, 2000) is a double CD in digipack designed by Jon Wozencroft. CD One - Substrata. Originally released in 1997 on All Saints Records, this remastered version of Substrata contains 11 tracks with a total length of 55:20. '...by many (the undersigned included) considered to be the finest ambient album of the 1990s' (Motion-State 51), and 'Three years after its release, biosphere's 'Substrata' is already being recognised as one of th…
Heated
Limited edition CD - 2 tracks. Live performance at Super Deluxe, Tokyo, 24th October 2008. Source material recorded with 2 x 8011 DPA hydrophones, 2 x DolphinEAR-PRO hydrophones and 2 x 4060 DPA microphones on a Sound Devices 744T recorder in Greenland, Iceland and Norway. Following Tetsuro Yasunaga's spoken word introduction, here unfolds Jana Winderen's blistering live set from her recent trip to Japan as part of 'Norwegian Music Today'. Her first CD, 'Heated' follows her only other release to…
Despite the water supply
Over the last 20 years, besides his own music, Jim O'Rourke has worked with the Merce Cunningham Dance company, Takehisa Kosugi, Derek Bailey, and Tony Conrad amongst many others. He has produced albums for Beth Orton, Stereolab, John Fahey, Brigitte Fontaine, Faust, and Wilco and more. Between 1999 and 2005 he was a member of Sonic Youth. He has also scored films for directors Werner Herzog, Olivier Assayas, Shinji Aoyama, and Koji Wakamatsu and more. O'Rourke's own films were part of the 2004 …
The Short Night
BJNilsen (b,1975 Sweden) is a sound and recording artist, has since the early 90’s been putting out work in various constellations. Primarily focused on the sound of nature and its effect on humans, field recordings and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound, often electronically treated. Using location recordings, weather, birdsong and radio, BJNilsen continues to map and explore uncharted territory. A follower to 2005’s Fade to White [Touch # TO:65], BJNilsen develops hi…
Matrix
This is Ryoji Ikeda's fifth solo CD and his third for Touch, following the highly acclaimed +/- [1996] and 0*C [1998]. He previously released 1000 Fragments on his own cci recordings, and Time and Space, a double 3” CD, for Staalplaat. Ryoji is constantly touring as part of the Japanese performance group Dumb Type, who are shortly to undertake a tour of Japan, and also as a solo artist.
plus forty seven degrees 56\' 37\" minus sixteen degrees 51\' 08
This is Christian Fennesz' 2nd solo full album after the highly acclaimed 'Hotel Paral.lel' (Mego 16). He also released 'fenneszPLAYS', a 3" CD originally issued by Mego but now on Jim O'Rourke's new label, Moikai. Fennesz has also made various contributions to compilation CDs, including the awesome 'Surf' on 'DECAY' (Ash International 3.9) and is a member of MIMEO, fixed line up orchestra alongside Keith Rowe, Kaffe Matthews, Jerome Noetinger, Phil Durrant, Peter Rehberg, Thomas Lehn, Rafael To…
In The Pendulum's Embrace
Oren Ambarchi continues his otherworldly investigations with 'In The Pendulum's Embrace', a dark twin to his landmark 2004 album 'Grapes From The Estate' [Touch # TO:61]. Returning again to the hallowed halls of BJB Studios in Sydney, Ambarchi expands the scope and range of his unique musical language, incorporating an even broader pallette of instrumentsand sensibilities. Despite the use of glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, percussion and guitars, it's startling that the world created is …
Black Sea
Black Sea is the much-anticipated new album from Christian Fennesz, his first since Venice. Fennesz’s career has come a long way since Instrument, his debut for Mego in 1995, and his first solo album Hotel Paral.lel which followed in 1998. Endless Summer [Mego, 2001] brought him to a much wider audience and Venice underlined his mastery of melody and dissonance. His songs usually embody the skilful application and manipulation of dense sonic textures with a genuine feel for the live, and real-ti…
Withers In The Waking
This is the eighth release in the Touch Sevens 7" vinyl-only limited edition series. Both songs are the result of the WFMU podcast series "Codpaste," in which Vicki Bennett (aka People Like Us) & Ergo Phizmiz publicly composed a series of collage compositions and did a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay's ScreenPlay. This resulted in the online-only album Rhapsody In Glue, from which these two songs are alternative versions, with re-tooled guitars, and vocals added to a Prokofiev melody.
Labyrinthitis
Jacob Kirkegaard has turned his ears inwards: His new work labyrinthitis is an interactive sound piece that consists entirely of sounds generated in the artist's auditory organs and will cause audible responses in those of the audience. labyrinthitis relies on a principle employed both in medical science and musical practice: When two frequencies at a certain ratio are played into the ear, additional vibrations in the inner ear will produce a third frequency. This frequency is generated by the e…
Behind the radiators
7' vinyl only. Limited edition. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Cut by Jason at Transition. Locked grooves. Mika Vainio continues the series of Touch Sevens, 7' vinyl-only releases, with this stunning record. The crackle... The fire of the analogue... Mika Vainio is the most adept at using crackle as a voice. Sound artists have used crackle ever since the reality of digital audio hit home, however there's a big difference between this and how other practitioners use it... Here are two…
Kiri No Oto
The Japanese phrase Kiri No Oto loosely translates to the sound of fog or sound of mist. In many ways it's a collection that meditates on the sense of displacement and distortion that occurs in environments which undergo extreme mists, snowstorms and sea sprays. In the same way that visual objects loose their perspective, form and shape in these environments, the sound components that make up Kiri No Oto are not quite as they first might appear. Utilising a range of divergent mixing techniques, …
Fundamentalis
Coproduction with Autofact (Usa). Art Direction & Design by Jon Wozencroft. Spire Live - Fundamentalis is a collection of live tracks recorded at various Spire events held throughout 2005 and 2006. Released in association with US label, Autofact, Touch presents a selection of tracks performed by the main performers of Spire: Fennesz - Philip Jeck - BJNilsen - Charles Matthews - Marcus Davidson. Improvised pieces from Fennesz, BJNilsen and Philip Jeck contrast with a performance by Charles Matthe…
Project
7' vinyl only. Limited edition. Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft. Cut by Jason at Transition. 'Project began as a film soundtrack for 'The Overcoming of Hazard' by Brad Butler and Karen Mirza, whose 3 monitor installation piece was presented in the crypt of St. Pancras church in London, August 07. It uses four atmosphere recordings, short wave radio and an organ stop - an attempt to confuse inside and out. Mixed with Mathias Gmachl at Loop.ph using Digital Performer, one side is designe…
Sand
This is Philip Jeck's fifth solo album for Touch. Sand was recorded live in Holland and England in 2006/2007 and edited in Liverpool in January, 2008 using Fidelity record players, Casio SK keyboards, a Behringer mixer and Sony mini-disc recorders. Following Philip Jeck's acclaimed collaboration with Gavin Bryars and Alter Ego on a new version of The Sinking of the Titanic, Sand is a set of seven new compositions that highlight Jeck's mastery of vinyl manipulation and personal and collective mem…
Amoroso
Charles Matthews played the grand organ in York Minster, during Spire Live on January 20, 2007, alongside Fennesz and Philip Jeck. This release is an homage to Arvo Pärt and the school of minimalism, specifically "mystic minimalism" or "sacred minimalism." He is considered a pioneer of this style, along with contemporaries such as Henryk Górecki and John Tavener.
Destinationless Desire
Oren Ambarchi presents Destinationless Desire: electric guitars, organ, samples, bells, percussion and motorized cymbals recorded at BJB Studios, Sydney with additional overdubs made at home in 2005-2007. Gratitude to Fairport Convention and Boris D Hegenbart.
Oceanus Pacificus
Chris Watson is the world's leading wildlife sound recordist. Oceanus Pacificus captures the voices and rhythms of the Humboldt current around the Galapagos Islands recorded in April 2006 using a pair of Dolphin Ear Pro Hydrophones onto a NAGRA ARES-PII digital audio recorder. After co-founding Cabaret Voltaire and playing in The Hafler Trio, he left all of it to become the sound archivist for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He is now a full-time freelance sound recordist.
transition
7" vinyl only -- no legal downloads of these tracks are available. These three tracks are based on 8 different guitar recordings made at Amann Studios, Vienna, between 2005-2007. The acoustic guitar was recorded with an AKG C12 microphone. Other sounds were made using a Fender Stratocaster and a Vox AC15 amp. The 7" is part of the Touch Sevens 7" vinyl-only series, which began with Oceanus Pacificus by Chris Watson (TS 002EP).Track Listing:A1. On A Desolate Shore (5:14)B1. A Shadow Passes By (3…
Headphone musics 1 to 6. As I As
In 1967 Z'EV took a tape music class at the UCLA night school. The leader of the course was Joseph Byrd who was the founder and theoretician of the first electronic rock band: the united states of america. So while it's almost 40 years now that he has been involved in the production of electro-acoustic music, Headphone Musics marks the first release of a product exclusively featuring this form of music. All of the source material is drawn from the collection of cassette tapes Z'EV has amassed ov…