Thrilling and colossal audio selection by Robert Curgenven connecting 50 compositional works released between 1971 and 2013.
Thrilling and colossal audio selection by Robert Curgenven connecting 50 compositional works released between 1971 and 2013.
The author of the mix is Robert Curgenven (b. 1974), an Australian classically trained organist, composer and sound artist. He started his musical career 30 years ago and went through many different mediums: worked in the radio and as a graphic designer for music magazines, including writing and editing. During his time in Australia, particularly the Northern territory, Curgenven started making field recordings in an attempt to capture the diverse environment around him. Since 2003, he has regularly exhibited his sound installations and performed live in Europe, Japan, Australia and USA. Curgenven is specializing in works based on audio feedback generated from guitars, turntables and custom dubplates. He is also exploring and sculpting various noises, resonances and detailed field recordings. In the last decade Curgenven has released over 10 specific records on such conceptual labels as Richard Chartier’s LINE, The Tapeworm, his own Recorded Fields imprint and others. His highly psychoacoustic music shapes listener’s perception of space and the flow of time. It is important to mention that Curgenven’s new album is coming out early in 2014 on his revitalised Recorded Fields Editions imprint.
“Secret Thirteen Mix 099” is a colossal and complex audio selection that was originally named as “Silent Night”, a polemic against Christmas. This austere mix includes 50 thoroughly expressive works released between 1971 and 2013. Curgenven skilfully demonstrates how to melt barriers between talents of different generations. Mesmerizing pieces of modern composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, György Ligeti, Frank Bretschneider and dynamic works by notable musicians such as Emptyset, Peter Rehberg, John Zorn's Naked City, Jazkamer (Lasse Marhaug) completely connect with each other to form a systematic and fluid wholeness. The basis of the selection stands on the sweeping melodies enriched with frightening mood of obscurity, constantly expanding enormous cinematic soundscapes, hardcore percussions and permanent refined intersection between acoustic and electronic sound. Gradually emerging vivid and ghostly vocals by Diamanda Galas penetrate the subconsciousness and fill the space with strange pressure and haunted aura. Observant micro layering of cut sound particles, presented vast arrangement’s architecture and carefully reshaped textures create completely new structures with different decorations, constructive interiors, unexpected dramatic surroundings and thrilling activity. Exemplary development and smoothly maintained progressive tension, emotional narrative and curiosity keep the intrigue till the very end.
“Secret Thirteen Mix 099” is like an emphatic and puzzling James Nares’ abstract painting “Blacktop” where extremely viscous white strokes across the black ground create poetic, yet nihilistic, subtly metaphorical masterpiece that leads to numerous of controversial interpretations. Nares’ focus on the investigations exploring form, direction, rhythm and repetition of objects in motion are quite similar to Curgenven’s multilayer selection and its indirect composite manifest against global absurdity and humankind foolishness. According to the author of this mix, “its a sort of '(anti)Christmas mix', ideal for a room heated to 337° just like in the Southern Hemisphere to experience the tension and hallucinatory, humid joy of an artificial family gathering amidst soaring temperatures, volatile temperaments - not to mention the horror and ennui of pulpit politics, suburbia, daytime television and summer lethargy. Structurally and cinematically the mix responds to the Christmas and holiday overtones in ‘Wake In Fright’ and ‘The Shining’ with their opposing Yuletide settings”. Curgenven’s audio collage clearly mirrors his musical sophistication, constructive thinking, scrupulousness and reveals his measured thoughts about global society. In all, it is a high quality timeless work that requires patience, attention and open mind to fully absorb its encoded meaning and all the intensive, sometimes even provocative background convulsions.
Frank Bretschneider - Kippschwingungen Part 6-8 (LINE, LINE057, 2012)
Diamanda Galas - There Are No More Tickets to the Funeral/Were You A Witness (I-III), Plague Mass (Mute, CDSTUMM83, 1991)
Koumé - Eliane Radigue, Trilogie De La Morte (Experimental Intermedia Foundation, XI 119, 1998)
György Ligeti - Harmonies – Study No 1 for Organ (performed by Zsigmond Szathmáry) – two versions, including Ligeti – Keyboard Works (Sony Classical, SK 62307, 1997)
Jérôme Noetinger & SEC_ - Testacoda Side Two (Bocian Records, BC TC, 2012)
Pita - Untitled (2), Get Out (Mego, MEGO 029, 1999)
Emptyset - Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station - Snowdonia, Wales 17.12.12, Material [Subtext, SUB007, 2013)
John Scott - Wake In Fright theme, Original Soundtrack (direct from NFSA restoration 1971/2011)
Chris Watson - Cracking Viscera (Vultures) Outside the Circle of Fire, Touch, TO:37, 1998)
Donald Pleasance & Gary Bond - Wake In Fright, Original Soundtrack (direct from NFSA restoration 1971/2011)
David Lynch & Angelo Badalamenti - Slow Speed Orchestra 2 (Unease Motif/The Woods)"(Twin Peaks Archive)
Murcof - Ulysses (Deathprod Mix), Utopia (Leaf, BAY 38CD, 2004)
Krzysztof Penderecki - The Awakening of Jacob, The Shining (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Warner Brothers, HS 3449, 1980)
Naked City - Part Two "La Bleue", Absinthe (Avant, AVAN 004, 1993)
Diamanda Galas - Wild Women With Steak Knives (The Homicidal Love Song For Solo Scream), The Litanies of Satan (Y Records, Y 18, 1982)
Diamanda Galas - Les Litanies De Satan, The Litanies of Satan (Y Records, Y 18, 1982)
Vidna Obmana & Asmus Tietchins - VOT 3/2 (A Remix), Storm of Drones (Asphodel, ASP 0966, 1995)
Jazkamer - Friends of Satan, Metal Music Machine (Small Town Super Noise, STSJ118CD, 2006)
Metal Music Machine - Jazkamer, Metal Music Machine (Small Town Super Noise, STSJ118CD, 2006)
Modulin - Nicholas Bullen, Open Provocation 2013 Festival Compilation (Not on Label, 2013)
Kyema, Intermediate States – Eliane Radigue (Experimental Intermedia Foundation, XI 103, 1990)
Naked City - …Rend Fou, Absinthe (Avant, AVAN 004, 1993)
Sun Wind Darkness Eye – Nana April Jun, Observations and Momentum (Touch, Tone 39, 2009)
Eva-Maria Houben - Druids and Questions (Edition Wandelweiser Records, EWR 1104, 2011)
Dyslex - Track One, Paredolia (AKM Records, 2010)
Kevin Drumm - Cupcake Focussed Militants, The Obstacles of Romantic Exaggeration (Karl Schmidt Verlag, KSV 093, 2010)
Pita - Untitled (1), Get Out (Mego, MEGO 029, 1999)
Krzysztof Penderecki - De Natura Sonoris No. 2, The Shining (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Warner Brothers, HS 3449, 1980)
Krzysztof Penderecki - De Natura Sonoris No. 1, The Shining (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Warner Brothers, HS 3449, 1980)
Krzysztof Penderecki - Polymorphia, The Shining (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Warner Brothers, HS 3449, 1980)
Phase and Amplitude – BJ Nilsen, The Invisible City (Touch, TO:77, 2010)
Lontano - György Ligeti ,The Shining (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Warner Brothers, HS 3449, 1980)
Jack Nicholson & Shelly Winters - New Rules For Wendy, The Shining (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Warner Brothers, HS 3449, 1980)
Tahiti Boy & Mr. Oizo - Mind Link 1, Wrong (Original Soundtrack) (Because Music/Ed Banger Records, BEC5161228, 2012)
Occult Glider - Jazkamer, Metal Music Machine (Small Town Super Noise, STSJ118CD, 2006)
Emptyset - Aleph, Emptyset (Caravan, CVAN010, 2009)
György Ligeti - Lux Aeterna (performed by A Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss & Susanne Van Els)
Alva Noto - F117.tif, Transspray (Raster Noton, RN 63, 2006)
Yungchen Lhamo - Om Mani Padme Hung II, Tibet Tibet (Real World, CD RW 59, 1996)
Emptyset - Fragment, Recur (Raster Noton, RN 151, 2013)
Emptyset - Lens, Recur (Raster Noton, RN 151, 2013)
Damaged - Nails, Do Not Spit (Black Hole Records, HOLE 001, 1993)
Henry Mancini - Champagne and Quail, The Pink Panther: Music from the Film Score Composed and Conducted by Henry Mancini (BMG, ND 80832, 1989)
Extracts also from Such Was The Wreck of Hesperus (The Tapeworm, TTW58, 2013), Go Outside (KAON, Ju12, 2012), Isole: Allargando Nero (LINE, LINE042, 2010) & Transmission 7 (unreleased)
1 Comment
one of the best things i've heard this year!