Philip Jeck is putting the finishing touches to his new CD for Touch in the next couple of weeks. The album should be released sometime in the Spring of 2008. Here are the details:
Philip Jeck - Sand [Touch # TO:67]
CD digipak
Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Denis Blackham
7 tracks - 44:50
Track Listing:
1. Unveiled
2. Chime Again
3. Fanfares
4. Shining
5. Fanfares Forward
6. Residue {to listen, click on the title]
7. Fanfares Over
"... the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity" [from 'The Chariot' by Emily Dickinson]
'Sand' was recorded live in Holland and England in 2006/7 and edited in Liverpool January, 2008 using Fidelity record-players, Casio SK keyboards, Behringer mixer and sony mini-disc recorders.
In memory of Phyllis May Jeck (1920-2008)
The vinyl LP, Suite, is already recorded and is due for release on Autofact/Touch [USA] at the same time. Here are the details:
Philip Jeck - Suite [Touch # Tone 29]
Side A
1. Press
2. Intro Roll
Side B
1. Live With Errors
2. All That's Allowed
3. Chime, Chime
Recorded at Hive, FACT, Liverpool on 25th October 2006 as part of Touch 25, live to a M-Audio Mictrotrack 24/96. Edited by Philip Jeck April 2007. Cut by Jason at Transition 14th May 2007 on a Neumann VSM 70]]>
Gavin Bryars/Philip Jeck/Alter Ego
The Sinking of the Titanic
Touch # Tone 34
Limited Edition of 2000
CD in Special wallet + postcard [postcard image by Andrew Hooker]
Artwork by Jon Wozencroft
1 Track - 72:37
This version of Gavin Bryars's seminal piece, The Sinking of the Titanic, was recorded at the 49th International Festival of Contemporary Music at The Venice Biennale on 1st October 2005 at the Teatro Maliban.
Gavin Bryars - Double Bass
Philip Jeck - Turntables
Alter Ego - Strings, Brass, Wind, Percussion, Keyboard, Tape Recorder and sound design
Boomkat (UK):
Gavin Bryars' 'The Sinking of the Titanic' is, and I say this with confidence, one of the finest pieces of music you could ever wish to own. Written in 1969 it has journeyed through the lands of modern classical, experimental and electronic music netting dedicated followers on its way, and each and every time I hear it I become more convinced of its genius. Bryars wrote the piece to mirror the last moments of the doomed voyage, when the Titanic sunk and famously the band played on. According to survivors the music being played was a rendition of 'Autumn', an Episcopal hymn which forms the basis of Bryars' composition. The notes and phrases from the hymn are worked in and out of the piece, sinking through the waters, effected by time, nostalgia and the cavernous reverberations of the ship itself with each scrape and hiss worked into Bryars' incredible vision. For this special performance of the piece we see Bryars (on double bass) alongside Italian ensemble Alter Ego (not to be confused with the German electronic duo of the same name) and experimental turntablist Philip Jeck, and the result is arguably its most stunning rendition to date. The most noticeable addition is Jeck, whose expertise and unique style seems to fit like the final piece of the puzzle as his crackles and motifs melt into the architecture of the recording as if they had always been there. This additional layer of nostalgia brought forth by these found sounds adds a significant sense of history , forcing the mind back into hazy film footage and decomposed photos, a perfect match for the subject matter. Also of note are Alter Ego, who surprised me with their stunning renditions of Philip Glass recently, and work comparable magic here on Bryars' composition, with their ensemble bringing in the sounds of bottles, tape recorders, laptops and percussion on top of more traditional instruments. The sounds are merged together effortlessly to form a fog of harmony and memory, perfectly melting the themes which Bryars intended his piece to convey in the first place. Really words can't do justice to 'The Sinking of the Titanic', like William Basinski's 'The Disintegration Loops' there is a timelessness, a patience and an ineffable beauty to this music that almost impossible to describe. Unique, flawless and totally essential music.
You can read other reviews here]]>
"Vinyl Coda V" - Bangkok, Thailand 2007
"Vinyl Graveyard" - Haarlem, The Netherlands 2003
"Vinyl Pond" - Bruges, Belgium 2002
"Vinyl Pond" - Szczecin, Poland 2005]]>
Sand
[Touch # TO:67, 2008]
CD - 7 tracks
Sand was recorded live in Holland and England in 2006/7 and edited in Liverpool January, 2008 using Fidelity record-players, Casio SK keyboards, 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' (Touch Tone 34), 'Sand' is a set of seven new compositions that highlight Jeck's mastery of vinyl manipulation, personal and collective memories.
During the past year Jeck has refined and consolidated his unique sound, playing superb sets at last summer's Faster than Sound festival and at York Minster for Spire. He has recently released 'Amoroso' [Touch # TS01, 7" vinyl only with Fennesz] where he responds to Charles Matthews's homage to Arvo Pärt.
Stoke
[Touch # TO:56, 2002]
CD - 7 tracks
The Wire [UK]:
With its acrobatic athleticism and penchant for charming gimmicks, in all likelihood HipHop will indefinitely dominate the field of turntablism. Even record-spinning abstractionists like Christian Marclay and Martin Tetrault, who may not always share HipHop's necessity for the beat, put on flashy demonstrations that engage the machismo of technique, alongside their critically minded recombinations of cultural readymades. While Philip Jeck's performances, installations, and recordings have centred around his arsenal of turntables (at last count, he was up to 180 antique Dansette record players, though more normally he performs on two or three, and a minidisc recorder), he isn't terribly interested in the contemporary discourse of turntablism, preferring to coax a haunted impressionism with those tools. However as a calculating improvisor, he shares affinities with the turntable community. Once he is in control of the overall context of the music, he leaves much to the spontaneous reaction towards sound at any given moment.
A typical Jeck composition moves at an incredibly lethargic pace through a series of looped drone tracks caught in the infinities of multiple locked grooves. As he prefers to use old records on his antique turntables, the inevitable surface noise crackles into gossamer rhythms of pulsating hiss. Occasionally, Jeck intercedes in his ghostly bricolage with a slowly rotated foreground element - a disembodied voice, a melody, or simply a fragment of non-specific sound - which spirals out of focus through a warm bath of delay. For almost ten years now, Jeck has been developing this methodology, building up to Stoke, his strongest work to date. Its opening passages are on a par with his Vinyl Coda series, with Jeck effortlessly transforming grizzled surface noise into languid atmosphere.But Stoke really gets going with the breathtakingly simple construction of Pax, upon which Jeck overlays an aerated Ambient wash with the time-crawling repetition of a single crescendo from an unknown female blues singer. By downpitching her voice from the intended 78 rpm to 16 rpm, he amplifies its emotional tenor by making her drag out her impassioned declarations of misery far longer than is humanly possibly. The effect is just beautiful. Philip Jeck has always been good, but Stoke makes him great. [Jim Haynes]
Live at ICC, Tokyo
[Touch # TO:5CDR1, 2000]
CD - 1 track
Recorded live by Mike Harding at ICC, Tokyo, on a short tour with Disinformation & Ash International
Surf
[Touch # TO:36, 1999]
CD - 7 tracks
AT A PLACE that is yours or mine. It is morning, evening, anytime. You are driving to work, to a theatre, home. You are in a crowd or all alone. You are in Rio, Chicago, Sydney, on a plane to Madras, a ferry to Dublin. You are at college, in a rest home; the children are sleeping, the grandparents are on the phone.
You have your own time, own place. You listen to whatever comes out of now, the past. The sound can drip with well won laurels of acceptance, of transience, of longevity. There is a touch, a method that changes, adapts with the mood of the music and times. The touch is always personal, passionate: it embraces, repels, passes, returns.
Soaked
[Touch # TONE 15, 2002]
CD - 1 track
This recording is taken from their live performance at the Moers Jazz Festival, Germany, in May 2002
“There are grains of truth in the suggestion that, in moving, you may find yourself in or out of some one’s favour. But, listen to the slow, delicate, even introspective background: some breeze, some chimes, some distant thunder as each focal point remains a lament.”
This blistering work was recorded live at the Moers Jazz Festival, Germany, in May 2002 and follows hot on the heels of Philip Jeck’s highly acclaimed “Stoke” [Touch # TO:56, 2002], about which The Wire said “Philip Jeck has always been good, but Stoke makes him great” and Side-Line wrote: “an essential record for the lovers of meaningful experimental and ambient stuff!”.
Jacob Kirkegaard is a member of Danish combo Aeter who work in a mixed media context. He was born in Denmark, 1975 and studied at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne. Germany. He now lives in Berlin. He has taken part in numerous festivals throughout Europe, playing live, improvising with samplers and other electronics, as he does on this recording.]]>
Hi-Res photos can be downloaded here and Lo-Res here]]>