A duo of November releases show the strong and distinct presence by two interesting women who bring something new to the international experimental music circuit. The contributions herein addressed a diverse range from white-noise to trance-ambient and favor longer form tracks. Their spectrum runs from linear to repetitious in noteworthy serenity; electronic and highly processed to organic and minimal.
Susanne Skog | Siberia/Sirens
Fylkingen Records (LP/CD/DL)
An album in two exposures is Suzanne Skog’s ‘Siberia/Sirens.’ As if to emulate an icy abyss that weathers the geographical namesake, Siberia, it whispers into an almost non-established audio the moment when a listener presses play. I turned up the volume to flood my studio with the drafty white noise this track transmutes. However one may experience twenty five and a half minutes of soft frequencies with nominal dynamic, the origin (a 205 hour train journey from Moscow to Vladivostok) casts the piece in a real-world scope of cerebral conjugation. This is your harsh realism in stereo.
Sirens flips the durational winter of the first track into a striking counterpoint. Years of recordings from sirens around the world are compiled into nineteen minutes. The source field material in this selection come from several cities in Japan as well as New York, Athens and Rotterdam. When cast in the shadowy rendering of the first track, and having also taken epic rides on former Soviet rails, my imagination floats to the vibrato of the parallel iron which sear along. The knowledge of the worldwide origins of this composite creates a deep appreciation for the experiences that accompanied each place and the connective space/time between them. The works were mixed and mastered by Skog in Sweden. Both sound installations have been featured in gallery settings. Listen to samples of both compositions HERE.
Jessica Ekomae | Multivocal
Important Records (LP/DL)
Similar in some ways to the work of Suzanne Skog, Multivocal is the slightly longer-formed two-track release by Jessica Ekomane. Aside from the neon pulsing notation, the stereo-panning of Solid of Revolution jumps out for listeners. There must be some algorithmic compositional tool at work.
The pacing rises and ebbs yet the electro wobble in 1-2-3 repetitions is relatively consistent in phase-shifts. Overlapping renders a sense of sound collage. The minute evolutions of this sequence create a space in which the vacillating details can be celebrated.
Never Odd or Even provides a different scale and dual sensed perception. There are thudding bass notes which accompany several higher notes that create a rosy fill. The trance effect has levity. The musical dichotomy serves the binary negating title. Each live composition is from the Ars Electronica 2018 sleeping event Sonatas for Sleep/less.
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