Tag Archives: field recordings

Antoine Chessex & Dave Phillips – Vrhältnis (Coherent States / Krim Kram)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: More than twenty years of friendship haunt Vrhältnis, the new album by Antoine Chessex and Dave Phillips, out now on Coherent States and Krim Kram. Its source material reaches back twenty years, originating from live performances during a 2005 joint tour in Lausanne and Basel and a studio session recorded the same year at the Dynamo/Popkredit Studio in Zürich. Both sessions were then filed away, the recordings disappearing into the archive, untouched for nearly two decades, before resurfacing in 2025 and prompting both artists to return to them with fresh ears and renewed intent. The material was subsequently reworked, manipulated, layered and decomposed -in Zürich and in Thailand- into the two extended pieces that form this album. Iischtellig and Tüüfi unfold across an expanded temporal horizon, echoes and non-linear fragments reverberating between what was recorded, what was remembered, and what was made anew.

The strange ritual unfolding within Vrhältnis possesses a particular distant quality – the creators’ specific gravity and distinct compositional traits concealed behind accumulating densities. Musique concrète with strong noise and heavy electronics elements is the obvious point of entry, yet the work exists under a mystical prism that embraces sonic naturalness, as if the sounds themselves carry a memory that predates their recording. Running through both pieces is a haunting vocal presence drawn from the Silvesterchlausen tradition of northeastern Switzerland -an ancient Alpine ritual of winter processions- raw and untethered, arriving from no fixed point, eerie and unmoored. Deep in the forest, spectral voices surface and dissolve. What time is it?

Antoine Chessex is a sound artist based in Zurich. Drawing on long-standing experience in experimental music and sonic arts since the late 1990s, his work engages sound and listening across multiple formats. Emerging from an early practice as an improvising saxophonist and a sustained investigation of noise within performance contexts, his work has traversed plural sonic territories. It has since evolved into a distinctly transversal practice moving between performance, installation, research, improvisation, and composition. Rooted in sonic intensity, Chessex’s early experience as a solo performer and collaborator -including works with Zbigniew Karkowski, Jérôme Noetinger, and Valerio Tricoli- positioned him within international noise and avant-garde communities. As a founding member of the experimental noise-rock band MONNO, he toured extensively across underground scenes while maintaining an active international practice as a solo artist. He has appeared at CTM Festival, Unsound, INA/GRM Présence Électronique, Issue Project Room, Berghain, and Café OTO, among others, and has released works on Tochnit Aleph, Fragment Factory, Editions Cave12, Musica Moderna, Bocian, and Rekem Records.

Dave Phillips is a sonic activist, composer, performer and core member of the legendary Schimpfluch-Gruppe alongside Rudolf Eb.er and Joke Lanz, a collective that has spent four decades wielding sound as a tool of metaphysics, protest and catharsis. Emerging from the radical tradition of Viennese Actionism and pushing it into the terrain of harsh noise, performance art and extreme sound, Schimpfluch-Gruppe remains one of the most uncompromising and influential collectives in the history of experimental music. Phillips’ roots stretch back further still, to his co-founding of Swiss grindcore pioneers Fear Of God in the late 1980s. His solo work is as philosophical as it is visceral, rooted in a radical ecological and humanimal worldview that consistently positions the listener at the edge of civilisational discomfort. He has appeared at No Fun Fest, Colour Out Of Space, Liquid Architecture, Ende Tymes, Bergen International Festival and many others, and has released his music on Schimpfluch, Tochnit Aleph, Blossoming Noise, Ideal Recordings, Misanthropic Agenda and numerous other labels worldwide. 

Mastered by Francisco Meirino | Artwork inspired by the Silvesterchlausen tradition | Layout by PH!D

A co-release between Coherent States and Krim Kram.
CS-59. coherentstates.com bandcamp bigcartel 2026
KK-34. krimkram.com bandcamp 2026

Dave Phillips – don’t hurt me for your pretty (中国实地录音) [Self-Released]

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

WARNING: PLEASE DON’T BUY, SELL, TRADE OR DISTRIBUTE THE CD VERSION OF THIS RELEASE, THE CD IS FAULTY.

the audio contained on the cd version is not the material i provided for release, and it does not meet the quality standards that i wish to offer.

the label releasing the CD managed to press an early demo version rather than the final audio master. duh. the demo version differs partly in composition and is only partially mastered, some tracks are unfinished and have different track lengths….

the label, once confronted about this mistake, stopped communications alltogether.

read more here: www.davephillips.ch/discog/dp-dhmfyp

credits

released April 1, 2021

****************************************************************

recorded 2014 in taiwan & china by dp
xiexie: yan jun, mei zhiyong, nathalie dreier


TRACK INFOS:

1. yangmingshan cicadas, a storm comes up, different cicadas resound. kalamoji mountains 14 jul 2014

the kalamoji mountains are about an hour and a half drive from taipei and yannick dauby kindly offered to take me there. once we are about an hour’s walk into the lush and dense forest, the endemic yangmingshan cicadas start sounding. we set up our recording equipment and listen, with goosebumps. after about 10 minutes, lightning, then a crack of thunder, then another, and heavy raindrops start falling, increasing fast. speedily we pack up our gear and start heading back. soon rain is pouring in torrents and we can but run. that’s when the yangmingshan cicadas start sounding ecstatic, loud, dense, from all directions. i’m sorry i can’t let you hear that. we are soaked by the time we reach the car.

2. zhangjiajie cicadas and whistlers on the river path to yazizhai.
zhangjiajie national forest park 4 aug 2014

zhangjiajie is one of china’s most popular national parks. hordes of people flock into it daily, and nearly all visit the most easily accessible spots only – usually spectacular viewpoints that end up being very crowded. a larger part of the park though is more or less free of humans.
the path to yazizhai is a simple, ugly, concrete footway along a stream that looks as if built fifty years ago and then forgotten. it leads off from one of the popular, very crowded picnic spots – and suddenly, there’s nobody. the couple of times i walked this path i never encountered another human. the path’s beginning is marked by a tumbledown gate, along the way the concrete has crumbled, sunk, been washed away and is covered by leaves, fallen branches and trees or obstructed by rocks that moved. armies of cicadas are sounding, acccompanied by whistlers and other insectan sonics. as the sun starts setting their volume and density increases.

3. nocturnal anuran soundscape.
huashan shanzhai/panlong 15 aug 2014

4. night rattlers.
huashan shanzhai/panlong 14 aug 2014

5. electric insect solo.
huashan shanzhai/panlong 15 aug 2014

huashan shanzhai / panlong in guangxi province is surrounded by forest-covered karst peaks, is home to the longrui nature reserve and to the two thousand year old huashan cliff murals. a village of a few scattered houses and at the top of it, a hotel, of which we are the only guests, as it’s the off season. hiking is only possible with a guide due to the danger of getting lost. but the sounds are all around and at night symphonies are created. these recordings were made in different spots of the village between 22h and 2 a.m., in gardens, overlooking a pond, by the river, and next to thickets at the edge of the dense jungle beyond.

6. upstream moon thicket swell.
dehang 6 aug 2014

dehang in western hunan province is located in a large geological park with astonishing countryside landscapes, terraced valleys and waterfalls. leaving the village upstream, fields of arable land pass by before wilderness takes over, with the path leading further up to the dramatic liusha (or ‘fading yarn’) waterfall, that feeds the little river into dehang.
this path at night is another story. the moon casts a pale light and i stand before a thicket, ears about a hand’s width away from it, for what felt like hours, entranced by the melody and rhythm that these insects reveal as time loses itself. occasional frogs croak from the stream some metres below.

the photo of the insect on the cover, is taken on this path.

7. typhoon.
ri yue, hainan island 28 aug 2014

the sun and moon bay at ri yue wan is a gorgeous stretch of coastline on hainan’s eastern shore, popular with surfers – it is windy. it is even windier the morning after we arrive. the surfer hostel’s caretaker, informed by weather apps, tells us: this is building up to a typhoon. we have to stay put. but listening to this force is awe-inspiring, it sounds, looks and smells incredible, furious winds, trees bending, objects flying around and crashing, stones moving, dogs barking…

8. waterfall and cicadas.
detian 16 aug 2014

detian waterfall in guangxi province is asia’s largest and the world’s second largest transnational waterfall. vietnam is at the top of these falls. surrounded by karst peaks, the falls drop in three stages to create cascades and small pools. as we arrive in the afternoon and walk along these falls, cicadas sound in the papaya orchards nearby.

9. river path walk to yazizhai.
zhangjiajie national forest park 4 aug 2014

see track 2 for info on the location. apart from a few split-second cuts, this is an unedited recording, as i walk, and the sun is beginning to set.

Holodec – Tru Folk (Phantom Limb)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

PHTNM059

Holodec – TRU FOLK LP

footsteps, car horns, a drawer sliding shut.
wind chimes, family voices, street corners.
bus stops, parks, a dog barking, a fight on TV.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Taipei, Oakland, Keelung, San Gabriel Valley, South City.

░H░o░l░o░d░e░c░’░s░ ░T░R░U░ ░F░O░L░K░ ░L░P░ ░i░s░ ░b░o░t░h░ ░a░ ░f░o░l░k░ ░r░e░c░o░r░d░ ░a░n░d░ ░a░n░ ░a░u░d░i░o░ ░d░o░c░u░m░e░n░t░.░

It draws from a 15-year archive of field recordings that capture the ordinary music of lived life. Rather than aspiring to aesthetic refinement or spiritual escape, TRU FOLK exists at street-level. It approaches sound as a vernacular practice that values what is common and humanmade. The album functions as a record of presence, tracing how people live, move, and endure through shared environments. In doing so, it extends the idea of folk music into the realm of daily listening, creating a document of survival and place.

 

p̷̨̛̺̩̣̻̟͇̹̖͛̊͊͒̒͂̿̽͘ͅa̶̧̦̞͕̮̠̐͗́̍š̵̲̙̲̗̳̯̼͐̇̿̆̓́̾͝ť̶̰̿̉̒̽͘ ̸̘̲̀̀͋̈l̸̩̽́̀̆̈͘͠ͅi̷͓̬̳̰͊v̶̫̩̦̱̳͎̟̲̤̽ͅẹ̸̛̾̽̑̋̔͝͠s̷̙̃̚ͅ ̸̛̛͚̭̻̒͐̔̏́͠b̶͚̱͍̟̗̜̤͍͐͛́̊̓̕ḝ̷̡̺̤͙̹̗̥̤̿͝c̶̲̮͇̱̰͒̄̀ͅỏ̷̰́̈̍̓̃͆͝͝m̸̨̤̯̯̯͙͓̱̘̻͑͋̄̿͊̃̍̊é̶̛̞̣̥̝͐̍̆̅̏͆͘͠ ̴̡̮͈̥̼͈̹̱̘̃͐̑̈͐̒̾̓͜͝ṱ̷̻̲̩̼̭̲͉̝̽̌̀̀͋h̶̡͚̹̓͐̋̂̋i̸̧̬̫͇͕̩͗͋͐͋̂͘ͅs̵̢̡͈͖͔̘͔͇̾̊͒̀̌͋̕͠ ̶̨̲͓͉͔̍l̴̤̻̱̜̬̒͆́̎́̐̄͠͝i̴̧̪͓̖̻̻͉͇̹̓f̴̛͍̥̤̣̙̅̓͊̀͆̉̈͝ę̴̰̫̖̖̀̚.̴̫̱̀̆̋̊͘͠ ̴̨̼̰͙̃̈́ẗ̶̗̼̲̗͈̤̹̭̲́̐̈̾͂̅̽͐͘͜͝h̵̛͍̤̜͇̉̔ī̸̞̙̲͇̻̕ş̶̩͕̩̲̈́͠ ̵̩͚́͆̓̐l̷̳͔̥͍̞̑̆ͅí̵̛̩͍́͑͗̈͝f̵͙̠̂̍ē̶̪ ̶̙͔̮̩̱̤̪́̑͘b̴̪̭̹̾ę̶̧̢̱͖̰̑̾c̶̨͚̺̗̬̳̎̀ǫ̵̢͓͖̠̝͎̺̌̔̿̍͘͘͜ͅm̴̼̬̩͒̑͆̋̕̚̚͝e̷̡̛̳͚̰̞̱͊͒͝s̶̢̨̅̀̿̈́̒͑ ̵̡̙̭̤̟͕̘̖͑́̋̄̾̚͜͜͝ṭ̶̢͔̪͎̘̋̾̚ͅh̸̥̪̦̮̆̑͠ȩ̷̝̳͚͕̦̃̆́̆͝͠ͅ ̸̡̰̪̲̣͈̤̆̿̃̈̏́n̶͖̓ê̴̢̧̹̥̙̭̞̂̃̓́̒͊̅̿͋x̵̥͙͉̝̙͍͖̱̭͇̆̾̀́̇̋̓̽̚͝t̸̨̧͙̘̻̞̰̍̆̇̈́̀̎̈́̀̚ ̴̧̖̠̪̙̊̿̍̏͊̏l̵̜̖̺̐̓̿i̴̞̘̲̪͚̪͛̆̓̃͊̓̅̓͒̈́f̷̟̜̻͗͗͒̌̐̎͗̍͜é̸͚̼̬͖̫̯̌̀̍ͅ.̵̧̦̮̼̙͚͍͗͊͗̅͒̚͜
credits

Mastered by Nick Foglia
Artist & Repertoire Direction by Jonathan Jayasinghe
Design by Allek Bien
Photography by Donovan Novotny

Peter Wullen – The Noble Rot (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Field recording Febr 27 2026 at 2pm. Sounds from an exhibition.

“Noble rot is a natural phenomenon caused by a fungus called Botrytis cinerea. This fungus develops on grapes when the weather conditions are favorable, especially in autumn, with alternating periods of humidity and sunshine.”

Inspired by Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built.

Listen with headphones. 🎧

Machinefabriek – Lijnverkenning (Quiet Details)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Digital half-price until 6th March x

Credits:
Music by Machinefabriek
Mastered by Alex at quiet details studios
Artwork by quiet details in collaboration with Rutger Zuydervelt
Design by quiet details
© quiet details 2026 all rights reserved

For the next interpretation of quiet details, I have the pleasure of welcoming a true musical experimentalist, Rutger Zuydervelt, here as Machinefabriek.

Hailing from the Netherlands, Rutger has been active as Machinefabriek for over twenty years, releasing on highly regarded labels such as Western Vinyl, Type, Important, 12K, Entr’acte, Miasmah, Consouling Sounds, Eilean and Edition Wandelweiser. This, alongside many collaborations, music for film and dance, installations and live performances, has given him a place as one of the most admired artists working today.

Known for his ability to bring together various strands of musical exploration – from electro-acoustic, field recording, ambience, drone, sound art and minimalism – he has created something completely unique in the quiet details series

Lijnverkenning is an album of sparse and powerful textural beauty. Machinefabriek’s innate comprehension of the potential of sound to affect us in profound and unknowable ways.

This is an album where the personality of the machines dictated the direction of music – carefully and deftly guided by Rutger’s intuition and musicality.

There’s an exquisite subtlety throughout, layers of sound implying so much and the interplay creating something incredibly moving.

As Rutger says:

Of course I said yes when quiet details asked me to join their roster. I was playing Scanner’s Forces, Reactions, Deflections quite a bit at the time, and it inspired me to create my own take on the quiet details idea. I started working with cassette tapes and created a whole bunch of short, quite melodic compositions, but eventually decided they didn’t fit the label’s aesthetic, and definitely didn’t work in the long-form format that qt used for its CDs.

So I started anew, focusing on longer durations and moving toward a more free-form and intuitive direction. Taking time, letting my machines softly hum. In the process of creating the music, I think I found a strange form of intimacy within the sounds — as if eavesdropping on the ghosts inside the machines I was using.
The tracks here were mostly made by combining various layers of minimalistic improvisations with field recordings, oscillators, effect pedals, etc. I even hesitate to call these pieces “compositions,” because to me they feel more like entities that follow their own logic, rather than clearly defined and constructed songs.

Stemcassette is a different story. That track came to life after I used a short vocal sample taken from a tape I found in a second-hand memo recorder I had bought. It was filled with home recordings of rehearsals by an opera singer. A short, pitched-down snippet was used in the piece Lijnverkenning 3, but I couldn’t shake the idea of doing more with the sample. So I created the short Stemcassette from it, and felt it worked well as a mid-album “breather.”

Lijnverkenning means “line exploration.” It’s an expression I once saw marked on a public bus, presumably indicating a test of a new route. It’s a multifaceted word, with many connotations that also relate to the music. I hope listeners of this album will feel like explorers — Lijnverkenners — too.

Huge thanks to Rutger for this stunning addition to the series.

The artwork was made as always influenced by the music and idea behind the album – originating from a photo from Rutger which was then captured with analogue photography and processed here at quiet details studios.

As usual, the album is presented on the physical edition, a custom six-panel digipack with a separate fine art print too.
The CD also has a special long-form continuous mix of the album, created by the artist and representing the music in its purest form – highly recommended.

machinefabriek.bandcamp.com   

Marja Ahti – Touch This Fragrant Surface Of Earth (fönstret)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Marja Ahti is a Swedish artist living in Turku, Finland. She works with found sounds, objects and electronics, creating auditory assemblages that reveal a profound sensitivity to sound’s tactile potential. This new record sees her palette expand to include more recognisable acoustic instrumentation, albeit working in collaboration with musicians who are already reconfiguring how those instruments can sound.

Touch This Fragrant Surface of Earth has its roots in a tape piece presented at Lampo in Chicago. Ahti then started working with Isak Hedtjärn (clarinet), Ryan Packard (percussion) and My Hellgren (cello) at the electronic music studios (EMS) in Stockholm. Incorporating recordings from those sessions, Ahti presented a new iteration of the work at the Seventh Edition Festival for Other Music in February 2024 with the trio performing live on stage whilst Ahti helmed the mixing desk, spatialising a specially made tape part through the INA GRM’s Acousmonium speaker orchestra. The piece has since gone through several further iterations before arriving at the version we have here on the LPs B-Side where immense bass pressure and high frequency tones buffer restless amplified breath and scrape that folds over itself with extraordinary dynamics and subterranean activity before giving way to gorgeous resonant forms and passages of ritual purpose and sheer, unmistakeable beauty.

The A-Side is Touch This Fragrant Surface of Earth’s gentle double. Still Life with Poppies, Mirror and Two Clouds offers a companion reconfiguration of Ahti’s resynthesised percussion sustain and the same recordings of Hedtjärn and Hellgren from EMS, but here they’re nestled in a sonic landscape of calm and restraint that gives them a wholly other character. Ahti also draws on older recordings she’d made of Sholto Dobie’s diy pipe organs and uses these to create repeating patterns and flourishes of sliding pitches that emerge unexpected out of cycling passages of Ahti’s clear struck metal, destabilising electronic interventions and minimal piano figures.


Marja Ahti: 

“I’ve been fascinated with the kind of elemental quality the sounds I’m using have such as airy sounds or earthy, wooden sounds. These qualities can also be found in wind instruments and percussion and the musicians I worked with on Touch This Fragrant Surface of Earth are really good at enhancing these qualities in their playing. I wanted to have this connection between found sounds, field recordings, or pre-recorded sounds, objects, and material, and see where these sounds might meet each other, and hopefully blend is a natural way without a divide between instrumental music, or acoustic music, or electronic music.

But also, when you bring in people they come with their personalities and their ideas which is also energizing and brings surprising things into the collaboration that I couldn’t come up with myself. I was really interested in making this a proper collaboration and not just coming up with the piece and giving it to them. We had the sessions at EMS where we could share ideas and Isak, Ryan and My could bring in their own ideas. Making recordings there gave me time to process these ideas and to also approach them in the same way that I would work with any other sound.”

Marja Ahti: electronics, field recordings, idiophones, amplified objects, piano, bass harmonica

Isak Hedtjärn: clarinets
My Hellgren: cello
Ryan Packard: percussion


Composed, mixed and recorded by Marja Ahti.
Mastered and cut by Andreas [LUPO] Lubich.
Artwork by Maija Luutonen.
Layout by John Chantler.

Evgeny Bylina – Accidental Meetings (Florina Cassettes)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

“No knowledge of where gone from. Nor of how. Nor of whom. None of whence come to. Partly to. Nor of how. Nor of whom. None of anything. Save dimly of having come to. Partly to. With dread of being again. Partly again. Somewhere again. Somehow again. Someone again”.

From “Ceiling” (1981), by Samuel Beckett

What will you do when confronted with nothingness?
On his sophomore effort “Accidental Meetings”, Evgeny Bylina meditates on this existential question. The album was created by chance while working on another record. Drawing inspiration from the prose of Samuel Beckett, this two-track tape laments the past, echoing the sound of the dance floor with its long, carefully constructed pieces.

These ambient compositions exist only as distant memories of a joyful past. The harsh reality of the morning urges you to look into the abyss hidden in the ceiling or wall. In a way, it’s a hungover record, reflecting an emotional and physical state of decadence: blurry and tranquil, it inverts the surroundings in the liminal space for a while.
However, it’s not just a dream: the heaviness of the environment reminds us that the body is not an abstract concept, but part of the world. Is there any hope? Or are we barely supported by fleeting nostalgia? Listeners must find the answer for themselves.

Words by Artem Makarskiy

Written and produced by Evgeny Bylina
Mastered by James Edward Armstong
Photos by Pier-Luc Tremblay
Layout by Anne-Julie-Dudemaine
Original painting “Circumcision” attributed to Giorgio Vasari (Oil on wood, about mid-16th c.)
©Florina Cassettes 2025