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.





postage options





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:





postage options




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)

Friday, June 26, 2009

q-o2 residency photo blog



bruxelles photographic score # 3

bruxelles photographic score # 4









Monday, June 15, 2009

Saturday, June 13, 2009

hull school of art & design residency






















a few copies of the cd / print set featuring work completed as part of this residency will be available soon from engravedglass.blogspot.com