.... Jez riley French

Saturday, July 17, 2010

portugal - binaural / nodar residency

a photo diary....

Thursday, July 1, 2010

April 2011 - booking now:

Advanced Wildlife Sound Recording course

with Chris Watson & Jez riley French

click here to view & book

This two-day course with Chris Watson & Jez riley French aims to explore aspects of field recording in more depth, plus a demonstration of techniques for editing audio files on a computer and mixing soundtracks. It is suitable for those who have already taken our Wildlife Sound Recording course, or those who already have good experience of sound recording in the field.

The bulk of the course will be taken up with recording in the field - experimenting with different techniques and microphones, including hydrophones and surround sound systems - and then analysing the results back at base.

The course is taught by Chris Watson, one of the world's top wildlife sound specialists who regularly works for the BBC, and assisted by audio specialist Jez riley French.

Day 1 : Aim to arrive by 6pm, directions will be sent when you have booked your place.
7pm - evening meal served (no problem if you arrive later)
8pm - introductory chat - who we are, who you are, and what we will be doing over the next two days.

Day 2:
Dawn - recording of dawn chorus in the grounds of Whitwell Hall.
8am - breakfast
9am - a discussion about the sound recording fieldcraft and techniques we will be practising. This will include the selection of appropriate microphones, microphone placement, rigging and cabling, mono, stereo and surround sound techniques and the use of hydrophones and contact mikes. This will be followed by practical work in the grounds of Whitwell Hall and analysis of the morning's dawn chorus recording.
1pm - lunch
2pm - a demonstration of how to edit, manipulate and improve sound recordings, and also how they can be effectively combined and mixed together to produce a soundtrack. This could be for a television or radio programme, for installations, or for your own enjoyment.
7pm - evening meal served, after which we will take a trip to Holt Country Park to attempt to record woodcock and other birds at dusk.

Day 3:
Dawn - recording of dawn chorus in Foxley Wood.
8am - breakfast
9am - further fieldwork including the use of hydrophones in ponds
1pm - lunch
2pm - critical analysis of recordings made over the weekend
4pm - course ends

Chris Watson - experienced sound recordist specialising in wildlife - Chris also runs courses in wildlife sound recording and post production at the BBC Natural History Unit, and lectures internationally on location sound and sound design. He has worked closely with two of the most high-profile natural history presenters in the business, David Attenborough and Bill Oddie. He is Oddie's favourite sound man and the TV veteran says of Watson: "I don't know anyone who is so intense yet so splendidly frivolous." Chris became a sound recordist in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television and is now widely regarded as one of the most creative sound artists in the business. His recent credits include the hugely popular Springwatch and Autumnwatch, and he received the Wildlife Film Asia Award for the BBC's Galapagos: Born of Fire. Watson also creates for the radio, with credits includingSoundscape: The Sea Swallow, Watersong and The Estuary all for BBC Radio 4. See www.chriswatson.net

Jez riley French is an audio specialist whose output involves elements of intuitive composition, field recording (using conventional & extended methods) photographic images (including their use in photographic scores) and improvisation. He has performed, exhibited and had his work published widely across Europe and also lectures in both field recording and intuitive composition as a guest lecturer. He is currently resident artist at Hull School of Art & Design.

Jez also makes & sells his own hydrophones and contact mics + runs the ‘in place’ project with a website exploring various aspects of field recording & related work. In recent years Jez has been working closely with specific architectural spaces, capturing a sense of place that is both highly personal and yet offers the audience a fascinating opportunity to look and listen anew to the environments in which we spend our time. http://jezrileyfrench.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

OUT NOW

Jez riley French - 'instamatic # 6 - prague'

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72 minute cdr on taiyo yuden disc / mounted on art card

limited edition of 100 copies

£8 UK / £10 rest of world

'earlier this year I visited prague again for a few days....the few days turned into a week due to volcanic ash closing the airspace over europe....I walked around prague sometimes recording, sometimes not....just walking & listening & looking - for my own pleasure....on the eventual long coach journey back to the UK I listened back to the recordings & found them to have captured 'something'....an evocative representation of the rich filigree of sounds that came & went on those walks....'

postage options

extracts from a review by Richard Pinnell ('the watchful ear' website):

...the CDr that I have settled upon is the sixth in the Instamatic series released on riley French’s Engraved Glass label, a recent release that blends together field recordings he made while visiting Prague last year. The Instamatic series is based around this kind of travel recording, little snapshots of a place and time, a bit like leafing through a few pages of someone’s photo album....There is something that I always enjoy about this kind of site-specific field recording...Once the nature of the album was clear to me then I slipped right into the music, trying to understand where every sound came from, trying to identify where the joins sat from one set of sounds to the next, spotting the sound of approaching cars way off in the distance, listening to passing footsteps for as long as I could before they became subsumed in the next set of sounds to come along...The recording quality of this music, as with all of riley French’s work is excellent, and the disc comes attached to another oversized glossy card sporting one of Jez’ excellent photos. The real joy here is in the sounds though...if you enjoy a well made set of field recordings simply for what they are- a moment in time captured for later perusal then this CD is a really nice listen. If you are bored wherever you are, or like me sat at home after a dull day, its nice to be able to shut your eyes and find yourself somewhere else.

Monday, January 25, 2010

exclusive tracks on new compilations

In september the framework radio programme aired its 250th edition!

to mark the occasion, a collection of artists who have been important to the program over the years agreed to donate new and exclusive tracks, which we have published on a pair of double-cdr compilations, in handmade silk-screened packaging.

these compilations are available only through framework, and you will receive one as a thank-you for your minimum donation of €25 (or any subscription that will result in the same amount). alternatively, for a minimum donation of €40 euros, we'll send you both!

The 2 double cd sets including new & exclusive tracks by:

jeph jerman / loren chasse / nuno moita & matteo uggeri / felicity ford / tarab / murmer / scott sherk / steve roden / peter cusack / keith berry / toshiya tsunoda / matsuwa / maria balabas / asmus tietchens / keith de mendonca / seth nehil / martin clarke / maksims šhenteļevs / hitoshi kojo / dallas simpson / eric cordier / jonathan coleclough & ben owen / toy.bizarre / mark schreiber / michael rüsenberg & steve welsh / jim haynes / thomas tilly/TÔ / john grzinich / jean-luc guionnet / emmanuel mieville / jez riley french / giancarlo toniutti / rie nakajima / chris watson / joel stern & lloyd barrett / richard garet / aaron ximm / michael northam / simon whetham / phill niblock

having just recieved my copies of this very special package let me tell you it is well worth getting hold of fast before they run out.

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Also just released is a double cd celebrating the Klingt artists network based in Vienna, Austria.

Disc 1:

01. Alexandr Vatagin coop

02. skylla pink dwarf

03. Christof Kurzmann 180 Seconds Over Latin America

04. Ernst Reitermaier rustenfeld

05. Boris Hauf Hanging out in between

06. Swedish Azz just azz

07. Kazuhisa Uchihashi / Burkhard Stangl good things come to those who wait

08. eRikm botelo de klein

09. Gerald Roßbacher err

10. Toshimaru Nakamura nimb#46

11. K&K assembling the forgotten gate to hell at ibiza beach (postmortem happy end remix)

12. Regolith Moon Bombing

13. Tonic Train Trinity8

14. ctrl als wir die karotten schaelten, vergaßen wir den haferbrei

15. Kazuhisa Uchihashi 531

16. schnee schneeflocke

17. Jan Machacek / Anat Stainberg / Billy Roisz no story song

18. Susanna Gartmayer / Thomas Brghammer sehr sehr

19. The Magic I.D. our favourite thing

20. Pendler Oh No

21. bulbul + Boris Hauf Guten Abend

22. Nitro Mahalia Loss Noch Less

23. Siewert / dieb13 watch your jellyfish

24. Jez Riley French bath oil salt glass

Disc 2:

01. David Schweighart i trash your fuck

02. Stefan Geissler sequenz 03

03. LSD orion

04. nifty’s hope bungalow

05. HOSE repentance

06. Klinger / Lewis / Nagl / Novotny kahüttenclipper

07. noid artina.hr_2008 july th_11:17pm to 11:22pm

08. Los Glissandinos pop

09. Matija Schellander dangerfield

10. noiset noiset no. 1

11. b:f:n tschifra

12. frufru aqualung

13. taus ping paung

14. cilantro haphazardous

15. Tronstoner The Sprawl Atavism

16. Clemens Hausch photobrom

17. Goh Lee Kwang (part 2, downsampled)

18. ennoson TIME COMPRESSION 2,58

19. Angélica Castelló San Antonio

20. dieb13 entirely unlike 2:20

20b. Duo Schamberg Enter Preis

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Michael Pisaro - 'Only' (harmony series # 17)

Throughout the month of August 2009, a selection of artists and musicians were invited to perform Michael Pisaro's Harmony Series, a project initiated by Jason Brogan, and produced by Compost and Height. The documentation of Only [Harmony Series #17] can now be viewed/downloaded from www.compostandheight.com

Only [Harmony Series #17] Artists: Adam Sonderberg / Barry Chabala / Ben Owen / Casey Anderson / James Saunders / Jason Brogan / Jason Kahn / Jez riley French / Joseph Clayton Mills / Julia Eckhardt / Julia Holter / Manfred Werder / Michael Pisaro / Patrick Farmer / Richard Kamerman / Rhodri Davies / Ryan Jewell / Sam Sfirri / Sarah Hughes / Steve Roden / Vanessa Rossetto

Sunday, August 30, 2009

JrF & Neil Davidson - photographic score realisation - free download

available now from the 'compost & height' online label:

click here to download or stream

'Sunday afternoon, 29th March, 2009 - Neil's flat in Glasgow, in the kitchen with the window open: here is a recording, very much a location recording, of myself & Neil Davidson playing one of my photographic scores. These pieces begin with a very wide field of interpretation available to the performers & in this case the informal & sociable nature of the session had a significant influence on the work (positive). Neil plays acoustic flat wound guitar with preparations & I play field recordings, zither & paper. Glasgow contributes wind rattling the window & other sounds coming in through it' - JrF

Saturday, August 1, 2009

ear room - re-sounding dialogues across the globe

a new online interview project curated by Mark Peter Wright has just launched - you can take a look by clicking here

there will be an interview every month & the first edition features....er....me !

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Austria residency / connected:09 / Pollau

whilst in Pollau I created a 20 minute piece & made a limited edition cd with various found paper items as the sleeve + photographic prints.

an mp3 version + pdf file of information & images is available for free download here:

Sunday, July 5, 2009

4 new releases

Jez riley French - '....the bright work' - hydrophone recordings

1) East Yorkshire waters: Thornwick Bay # 2

2) Czech waters: Dolni Pocernice lake

3) English waters: River Cherwell

4) Estonian waters: Mooste jarvi, Apnajarve, Palojarv & Vohandu river

recorded 2008 / 2009 with JrF hydrophones & others.

egcd031

taiyo yuden cdr mounted on oversized photo card + additional photo card.

review from 'The Field Recorder' blog by John McEnroe:

‘The bright work’, originally published on 2009 and reissued on February of 2012, was largely made with hydrophones, very likely the ones Jez Riley French builds himself.

Hydrophones offer a very particular experience as what we hear is sound propagated through water, though a fluid. Fluids and sound waves have similar behaviors under certain circumstances, but what is interesting here is that the hydrophone hearing experience would suppose an immersive experience, but instead ‘The bright work’ seems to be more about textures, scales and friction. It’s like if water became a large membrane we use to listen to the surface of solid container of this water. A tactile and visual surface with detailed features and beautiful narratives.

Water and fluids acquire the shape of their container, they also tend to propagate and its behavior changes based on the molecular interaction with its container. On a more cultural approach water serves as mirror, the origin of the image. Anyway on ‘The bright work’ I’d say water is more of a metaphor to the space between ourselves and the things, to the distance we need to establish to have an image of things.

Water here works like some sort of a membrane, a magnifying glass, a medium to relate to the micro, to a reductionist approach through the possibility of listening to sounds otherwise inaccessible for human listening.

What is quite poetic here is what does Jez Riley French finds on this sounds that makes him want to play them to us. How his mediation as artist and sound capturer imprints his experience in these sounds: how his mediation imprints his emotions, thoughts, reflections and questions in the sounds we listen here.

‘The bright work’ is a work that serves to understand all the depth and transcendence behind the premise that in sound art sound is both the medium and subject. There is an immanent sort of “extraordinary” and revealing element in the hearing experience, in the reduction of the hearing that puts the listener in contact with something that he can’t necessarily comprehend but that he feels and experiences. This is no longer a metaphorical, figurative and descriptive process: this is sort of a metaphysical exercise: a way to sensibly address questions about ourselves and about the world.

Again, ‘The bright work’ is a very successful work as it provides a universal sense to the act of Jez Riley French recordings the water of some specific sites with hydrophones. The sense found here is the sense of relating to the world and relate to ourselves in a way different to the question / answer approach. More like if we subtract ourselves intellectually in order to feel the cosmos we are part of and have an actual meaningful transcendent experience.

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a few copies of the 'as (urfaces)' cd & print set to accompany an exhibition of work completed during my time as artist in residence at Hull School of Art & Design are now available. There are only a handful of these left though.

details of the pieces included on the cd can be found by clicking here.

prices

review from 'just outside' (Brian Olewnick):

'a more purely field recording-oriented release (though French bows or otherwise touches various surfaces on three of the six tracks). Here, one's reaction I find often depends "simply" on how intriguing one finds the given sound-field in play. Even there, you're almost compelled to give a deeper listen if, initially, you're not so fascinated; often there's more at hand than you thought. The one unenhanced cut that I immediately loved was the fourth, "as030", which features a motor of some kind (I think), it's strong, subtle and varies hugely within a narrow focus. The lengthy final track, the one on which bowing can most clearly be discerned, works pretty well also, a rich range of rubbing-induced groans....one can easily imagine wallowing it it with pleasure in an actual installation. It's a good disc....'

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3inch split cd on 'compost & height':

Jez riley French - 'pelure # 6'

A composition of untreated field recordings capturing the seating fabric and floor surfaces of Peel Hall, Salford, prior to giving a performance there later the same day. I enjoy the simple pleasure of spending some time quietly exploring like this - listening to the audible silence of objects and environments that surround me. Recorded November 2008

Rob Curgenven - 'largo affettuso'

Field recordings + Transparence resonating dubplate (feedback, surface noise and room harmonics) performance recorded live at Extrapool, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 8th March, 2009 by Martin Luitenremixed and mastered at B52, Berlin, Germany, 12th & 13th March, 2009additional overdub - Fender guitar feedback, recorded 1st February, 2009 at the Cloud Factory, Amsterdam,

Limited edition of 50 copies mounted on wooden square.

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Free MP3 & PDF download:

Jez riley French - 'four approaches to quietude - bruxelles, June 2009'

a limited 3inch photo card mounted version of this release is also available:

Monday, June 29, 2009

Jez riley French & Patrick farmer - live MP3

Simon at Another Timbre has just uploaded several mp3 extracts of sets from his 'unnamed music festival' set of concerts & one of them is by myself & Patrick Farmer.

to download it click here (it's only on there for a limited time)