Audio CD [ao12b]
1st edition by Apraxia, 1992 (Cassette)
“Three simple eyes of the insect ancestor” was originally released on cassette in 1992 in black-painted boxes with twigs glued on top, wrapped up in copper wire in sealed in wax. There is a big difference, obviously, in the sound quality between the original release and this CD version (remastered by Laurent Gabiot), and in the case of the first piece it is almost a shame. The limitations inherent in cassette recordings provide a kind of physical crunchyness to the sound, as if one could actually chew it, which is necessarily absent here.
I must admit that I recall nothing at all about “Crowd of small things”. The ambiance is very familiar, but the circumstances of its creation are hidden in the mists of Erebus… For me the interest here is more historical than aesthetic, with this kind of sonic morass that seems to hover above the Pacifique northwest of the early 1990s, and which brings to mind a particular way of listening to the world, a sort of sonic steambath.
“Tank extasy between floors” left a more precise imprint on my memory. The main part was recorded in collaboration with members of Yeast Culture in the staircase of the Seattle Public Library, before opening hours. Its legitimate raison d’être is simply the celebration of the fabulous reverb in this place usually reserved for silent reading.
For this new edition Cédric Peyronnet supplied the photographs. The interior image appealed to me because it made me think of a phantom or angel, from beyond, that might have been summoned by (or it emerges from) the sonic mass of the first piece. The cover image is extremely similar -mirabile dictu- to that in a conceptual work of mine from 1997, “Dislocation Migration” (dedicated to Jeph Jerman ; see the booklet accompanying the Harbinger LP release).
William Key RANSONE
10.viii.2012