John Wynne: Blurred Boundaries

Installation no. 2 for high and low frequencies. 

The corner of Lower Clapton Road and Urswick Road. It's 12:30pm and the sun is beaming the outside world inside. The visual contrast between the whitewash walls of the Angus Hughes interior and the streams of red buses and trailing cars at the traffic lights outside is striking; but add sound into the equation and the lines begin to blur.

By gathering and manipulating the external sound, John Wynne has crafted a recording which works with the internal space; it is so finely tuned to the specifics of this room that the sound system is able to create feedback from the walls and windows. There is a feeling of full integration and after a few minutes you begin to totally lose a feeling of the barrier between intended and incidental sound.

The really compelling thing about this installation is the way it is innately tied to the room. The experience is diminished by losing the visual connection with the space. Something has been woven into the architecture of the building, the tremors from the windows and door give the feeling of a pulse and the outside floods the inside with an intensity that is totally lost without the sound.

The installation is free and runs from 6th - 29th April 2012 at the Angus Hughes Gallery, Hackney.

John Wynne
Angus Hughs Gallery 

Blueprint techno / Basic house: Sensate Focus 10

Intricate house patterns.

However many tracks this release actually consists of is questionable but not really relevant; the listening experience as seamless as any I've heard. Despite multiple and often abrupt changes to the tempo and structure of the track(s) this could be broken down in many different ways. There is a such a spatial awareness involved in its creation, the sounds fit together seamlessly, beats changing tempo and washes of background colour meld in the mix as it morphs, passing a series of distinct points. The result is a hypnotic epic which changes on repeat listens as you are drawn to different minutiae of the overall sound. Elements seemingly move in all directions, like eddies in a flowing stream, never losing the overall direction but never expressing the streamlined consistency of traditional house.

It might sound about as uplifting as the iTunes visualiser, but this is club music, though destined for only select dance floors it takes all its elements from classic house sounds. As Peter Rehberg of Editions Mego puts it:

" ..liked the keyboard sounds from early House music, but had got bored of the rhythms. We did not want to throw the baby away with the bathwater, so decided to keep some things. So we kept the water and threw the baby away. "

And the name. Sensate Focus clearly chosen as the focal descriptor here, despite the big name - Mark Fell - there is no indication of an artist and tracks remain untitled in plain white sleeve. This really works; this is all the pleasure of house music without the feeling of an inevitable climax. Instead it deals with pleasure points and works from nothing (no artwork, no title) to frame a new take on the genre. The reference to joining points echoed in the inclusion of a pencil (?) though let's be honest, this is an unnecessary but slightly humerus inclusion.

The whole label seems to be making the statement: This is a blank sheet. Taking house music back to nothing and constructing something from the parts that we already have, but with none of the constraints of an archetype. This definitely requires a degree of intrigue from the listener, but it builds everything from there on in, rewarding curiosity and a little patience.

What comes next will be interesting, whether this label is to be home to a family of well-established names as an outlet for a specific type of new house music, or something a little more unpredictable is unsure. For me, the way this music works to a new set of rules using the same components is the most intriguing aspect, everything else seems to have been left to one side for the time being.

Livity Sound 004 - Preview

So these just landed!

Check out some previews for Livity004:

Kowton - More Games


Kowton - Jam01

Blueprint techno / Basic house: Livity Sound

Slowly, a new movement of house and techno mutations is building. All that this generation learned from dubstep has been distilled to it's basic elements and then refined to make bastardised interpretations of house and techno.

- Asusu on Livity Sound

It really struck me straight up. This statement, which I read a long time after hearing the music on Livity Sound, describes exactly my feelings about the label. From the off there was this stark, draughtsman-like quality to the tracks which laid the music bare. The elements present themselves in minute detail, they are defined, dimensioned and meticulous and the beauty of their complexity lies in their innate simplicity. The label's basic philosophy seems to be rooted in their ability to be just that; basic. To break apart the elements of electronic music and rearrange them in a way which showcases them as a collection of individual sounds. 
 
The label's first release hits this point exactly. Kowton and Pev take on the same track, not as one mix and a reinterpretation, but as two takes on the same basic structure, like two different models constructed from the same parts. Somehow this gives a whole new feel to the release, not bound by the confines of one dominant artist, the tracks seem to reflect two separate ideas whilst remaining true to a single form. The elements of the track are the focal points, sounds moving in and out of audio-space but never getting lost in the overall sound. Kowton's take on the A moves stealthy and metallic, mechanically driven and bleakly technoid, you get the feeling of some complex machine at work. Pev's take on the B jitters and pumps, sounding something equally physical but more organism than machine. The tracks are unmistakably the same beast, and yet unmistakably different forms. You can hear all those tweaks and shifts in the sounds which have been crafted and worked to give the overall form; each individual hit honed and moved through the L-R space, giving these tracks some weighty ambiance.

You can hear this right through the second and third releases. Asusu's 'Too much time has passed' in particular, is a minimalist dubstep echo chamber; it harks to something like those first couple of tracks Martyn released on Apple Pips, but pitched way down to give the sounds time to breathe and be heard. 'Salt Water' is a skewed dancfloor tune, skitting frantically between laid-back ambiance and speedfreak rhythm but staying fully in control all the time. There's confidence here, enough to let the music speak, and speak clear and raw, it shows that you don't need to rely on layering tracks to the point where they jump out to you; tunes can be innately danceable and also very basic, even stark.  

What Asusu says about learning from a generation of Dubstep is showcased here over just three 12s; something important. This label, along with the now relatively well established Workshop, are showing what you can do with a lot of honing and relatively few but well-chosen sounds. This is not about some new sound or scene, it's a fresh way of looking at what electronic music has to offer, and producing the purest mixes possible.

Livity Sound showcase mix

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