13’36 10’42 12’48 with MICHAEL GENDREAU
CD/digital, Misanthropic Agenda,
2021 MAR 058, 4 panel digipak, matte finish, Ltd 200
CD edition : 11.- euros + shipping (includes digital ed.)
Recorded live in Switzerland in July 2008 at Cave 12, Geneva and Oblo, Lausanne.
These live recordings were lost and forgotten in our archives, more than a decade later, they were found on a dusty external hard drive in Meirino’s home studio.
Re-discovered, edited, mixed, and mastered in 2021.
Artwork and mastering by Francisco Meirino
Comes in a digipack with matt printing, features artwork collage by Francisco Meirino and live pictures by Lisa Seitz & Megan Jankowski.
Big vibrations in perspective
Michael Gendreau : field recorder, microphones, accelerometers, computer.
Francisco Meirino : field recorder, microphones, electr-magnetic sensors, computer.
REVIEWS
MICHAEL GENDREAU & FRANCISCO MEIRINO - 13'36 10'42 12'48 (CD by Misanthropic Agenda)
The title refers to the duration of the three music pieces on this CD. These pieces were recorded in July 2008 at Cave 12 in Geneva and Oblo, Lausanne, both cities in Switzerland. Why release it now? You might be curious to know? The straightforward reason is that the recordings were considered lost and recently found on a hard drive in Meirini's studio. The music on this CD is not a documentation of concerts, but the live recordings served as building blocks for three pieces here. Both men deal in their solo work with sonic extremes. Gendreau "uses architectural vibrations specific to each building as an imposing live sound source' and Meirino uses gear in such ways as not meant to be.
The sound of things you can't hear and amplify that. That said, this is not a work of noise music, as such. These are not men to play the easy harsh noise wall. The extremes lie somewhere else. The low-end bass rumble is set against high pitched frequencies and the scratch and tear of faulty electricity lines in the middle. Things build towards a mighty crescendo, only to be cut away abruptly and replaced by something completely different. The sound of white noise is heavily amplified but not distorted by too many effects. Or the steady click pulse of an ultra-short sinewave.
'Ultra' might be the operative word anyway for whatever these men do. Ultra low, ultra high, ultra short, long and so on. There are connections to be drawn to the world of laptop music (well, looking at the photo on the inside, yes, obviously), but also to the whole clicks ' cuts and musique concrete, electro-acoustic improvisation and microsound, but twisted and re-shaped to make it something of with a character of their own.
This is some powerful music, literally as well, with these radical frequencies, and it's great to know people inspect old hard drives and do great discoveries. (FdW)