the garden of cellular indecision

02/07: "Road To Esperance" review from TEXTURA

Lance Austin Olsen: Road To Esperance
Infrequency

Road to Esperance is a special release beyond the simple fact that it's only available in a limited run of one hundred copies. The single-track, forty-eight-minute recording is also the first solo release from Infrequency Editions co-founder and sound artist Lance Austin Olsen; plus, in addition to a CD-R, the hand-crafted booklet-styled package includes original ink drawings on vellum and a b&w photograph from Olsen's family history. The visual presentation thus extends the sound material into a whole new dimension that as the label itself rightly proclaims goes missing “in the homogenization of the album format through digital distribution.” The hand-stitched binding of the vellum sheets into the cover and the ink-generated text and drawings personalize the project and enhance its intimate character. That the project combines sounds and visuals doesn't surprise, given that Olsen formally trained as a painter and worked as such for many decades before pursuing his interest in sound art in 2000 and subsequently co-founding Infrequency.

A shape-shifting travelogue of field recordings and other mutated sounds, the CD begins with what resembles a multi-layered assemblage of metal factory-generated clatter gradually being swept away by a dust storm that leaves in its wake the broken remains of music boxes and gamelan instruments. Road to Esperance isn't a soul-soothing ambient project, in other words, something that's especially clear when said clattering sounds morph into ear-piercing screeches a dozen minutes into the work (it's said to be a long-form narrative representative of a “blindfolded journey from Canada to Australia”). Nature-based field recordings guide the listener through a forest area where waters rage and birds call, and voices murmur alongside the seeming roar of a train, but Road to Esperance is hardly a one-note exercise in aggression and noise, however, as quieter passages appear too; such ruminative episodes, like the ghostly one that emerges at the thirty-five-minute mark (and the blurrier one that follows), allow the listener's nerves to settle. One clearly derives the sense of a journey, with all of its wild contrasts in experience, from the recording.

July 2010

27/02: ROAD TO ESPERANCE: new audio release

The first solo release from Infrequency Editions co-founder Lance Austin Olsen is also the first exploring our new packaging ideology: extending our audience's experience of the sound art through the handmade artist book.

Road to Esperance is, much like its creator, simultaneously aggressive and poetic, applying a long form narrative to guide the listener on a blindfolded journey from Canada to Australia. Imagine starting with a compelling collection of field recordings and then beating them into submission with a ball-peen hammer to form a unique and enigmatic travelogue.

Trained as a painter, and having spent the last 40 years developing his own language of mark making on epic scale canvas and paper, Olsen began pursuing a parallel career in sound in 2000, subsequently co-founding Infrequency to help publish editions of experimental minimalist sound art.

Road to Esperance comes housed in a hand crafted artist book with silk screened wraps, original ink drawings on vellum, and a randomly selected photograph from Olsen's family history in a glassine envelope. The result is a crosstalk of ideas between the audio and the tactile artwork, an experience which Infrequency Editions recognizes as missing in the homogenization of the album format through digital distribution.

Published in a very intimate edition of 100 copies.

infrequency/dragons eye recordings

07/10: infrequency editions joins dragon's eye recordings

MAKING TWO LABELS EVEN STRONGER


We are pleased to announce the merger of Infrequency Editions with Dragon's Eye Recordings. Please join us over at the new joint website

Infrequency was established in 2001 as a platform for artists to explore sound as an art form through informal public concerts in a local Victoria (British Columbia) gallery. These events brought together various disciplines and provided a venue to create improvisational works. Within this framework, artists collaborated to created works in front of a live audience, for example musicians worked with painters, poets collaborated with synthesizer enthusiasts.

The next step in the evolution for Infrequency was to publish works focusing on live recordings and documenting installations. In 2002, the first such release was the self-titled live ep by Jeffrey Allport and Tim Olive, followed soon after by Tablet and snow:field, both by founders Jamie Drouin and Lance Olsen. As an early adopter of web-exclusive digital releases, Infrequency went on to publish several works under the title re:mote, a project which explored geographically specific soundworks, as an edition of free MP3s.

After a brief hiatus, Infrequency was relaunched in 2007 to coincide with the release of Snowfield+Remix, a remastered selection of seven tracks by Jamie Drouin and Lance Olsen from an installation created in 2003, and which included a second CD of remixes by invited artists Yann Novak and Tomas Jirku. Snowfield+Remixreceived critical acclaim from magazines such as The Wire, and reestablished Infrequency as a valuable platform for experimental sound works.

Since then, label curator Jamie Drouin has developed a unique catalog of works ranging from the poetic improvisation of Chiaroscurious Blues, to the recent Au Clair De La Lune featuring nine international sound artists reinterpreting the earliest known recording of the human voice. With the merger of Infrequency and Dragon's Eye Recordings, Drouin hopes to further define Infrequency as an important catalog of sound installations and performance, focusing on the transformation of these works through their dislocation from the original venue and how this expands the concepts in unexpected ways.

Thank you for all of your support and bookmark the new website...exciting things are just around the corner!

25/02: AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE

VARIOUS | AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE
2 x CD | INFREQUENCY 005 | Edition of 500 | Duration 1hr 37min

Nine internationally acclaimed sound artists create new compositions based on the earliest known recording of the human voice.

The original recording was made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville on April 9, 1860 using his own invention, the phonautograph, and consists of a series of scratches on a roll of blackened paper. Scott had never developed a way to play back his recordings and they went unheard for 148 years. In 2008, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory converted the thin lines back into audio, allowing us to hear a woman singing a segment of the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune”.

The two CD compilation is a conceptual extension of breathing life back into this document through modern technology; deciphering a voice that was etched into a thin layer of oil lamp smoke, and featuring a diverse group of international contemporary composers, creating new works from this ten second piece of history.

Additional credits: Our sincere thanks to historians David Giovannoni & Patrick Feaster for their assistance in this project. The Édouard-Léon Scott recording is licensed by Firstsounds.org


CD1

STEVE RODEN - AUCLA IRDE LALU NE
LIONEL MARCHETTI & YÔKO HIGASHI - A SHORT STORY
SLEEP RESEARCH FACILITY - DARK SIDE OF THE LUNE
LANCE OLSEN - THE CREATURE THAT DRANK SOUND
STEPHEN VITIELLO & MOLLY BERG - CLAIRE SONG SUNG
CHRISTOPHE CHARLES - BREATHE

CD2

JAMIE DROUIN - SOOT AND PAPER
BERNHARD GUNTER - LES VOIX DU PASSE / CHANTENT L'AVENIR / CLAIR DE LUNE
YANN NOVAK - TIME FORGOT


Price $18US (includes international shipping)

Purchase online through infrequency

DIGITAL RELEASE
VARIOUS | AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE (digital)
MP3 | INFREQUENCY D001 | Duration 55min

To expand upon our 2xCD compilation, an open call was made for artists to submit their own interpretations of the 1860 recording by Édouard-Léon Scott. This digital-only release from INFREQUENCY collects together nine exceptional submissions as high quality MP3s.

PHILIPPE JELLI
JIMMY BEHAN
VENUS VULTURE
THOMAS ANFIELD & DAVID BIRCHAM
RICHARD LAINHART
CIMARRON CORPÉ
SHIN ICHIRO A
ROB THEAKSTON
SIGHUP

28/12: anfield/olsen

Thomas Anfield, a Vancouver artist and Butoh performer, and myself have been working on a 27 minute dance performance for 2008. We met once and planned out the dance, at the same time we made a hell of a noise with electric guitar (Thomas) and toy accordion (Lance).

the CD Chiaroscurious Blues
will be released by infrequency january 2008



to listen to clips

review

This is a fascinating CD indeed. Lance Olsen and Thomas Anfield recorded a stream of consciousness session in the studio and the results are amazing. Using electronics, guitars and vocal elements all of these come together to make a very compelling work. What's particularly striking is the coherency of the resulting recording and the way it seems to have a natural ebb and flow. The title sums it up I think as there's an earthy kind of bluesy feel to the guitars coupled with the reverb laden, distant voices. An odd but very satisfying release that gets better and better with each listen.

smallfish

19/07: Wandering Ear

my audio portrait of Nanaimo Harbour has been released by the Minnesota label
wandering ear

05/05: snowfield + remix: infrequency

INFREQUENCY is pleased to announce the release of
SNOWFIELD + REMIX by DROUIN/OLSEN.



Disc one of this 2-CD set features documentation of DROUIN/OLSEN’s 4-channel installation SNOW:FIELD from 2003. The seven tracks were derived from the interaction with a field of snow in British Columbia measuring the same dimensions as the empty host gallery in the United Kingdom where the compositions were played back. Originally issued as a limited CD-R release in 2003, SNOWFIELD retains an unexpected quality that continues to reveal new details through it’s densely woven field recordings.

Disc two contains remixes of the original material by Drouin and Olsen, as well as by invited artists Tomas Jirku and Yann Novak, breathing new dimension and variation into the tracks. The intimate scratchings of the SNOWFIELD tracks open up into extended cinematic movements, with familiar textures reshaped into micro journeys through icy terrain.

Now available for pre-order. Shipping July 2.
Price $20 / includes International shipping.


REVIEWS



"The seven untitled tracks here have a remarkable cumulative impact, the contrast between their tiny, crystalline details and the vastness of the landscape becoming ever more telling. The CD comes with a second disc of remixes by Drouin, Olsen, and fellow North Western audio adventurers Tomas Jirku and Yann Novak; denser and more layered than the source material, they're an excellent counterpoint which builds to a bracing climax with Drouin's inexorably rising "The Walk Out." THE WIRE

"A deep work of musical art...If this is the calibre of release we can expect from this label in the future, then I for one will be eagerly anticipating the next installment! Quite superb from beginning to end and a must for lovers of Raster Noton, NVO, Line and other such labels. Highly recommended." SMALLFISH.UK

"This re-issue of a set of CDR field recordings now emerges as a tour de force for Canadian based Infrequency Recordings. Documenting and interacting with a field of snow in British Columbia, artists Jamie Drouin and Lance Olsen have taken their original installation piece, and offered it up for remixing by fellow collaborators, Yann Novak and Tomas Jirku, as well as re-mapping the contours of their source work.

This is a densely layered piece, not only a direct recording of snow activity, but also thematically and compositionally corresponding to all the manifestations of snow. The original installation piece sets out to record snowfall, interspersed with energetic sampling that gives life and energy to the field recordings, that are muted, gray renderings of dappled sound.

Essentially, this is minimalism with a capital “M” pared down to minute shavings of granular texture, and literally brings the outdoors into a gallery environment, blurring the boundaries between the real and the simulated."
WHITELINE

"Scratchy contact microphone crackles and lush drones make these discs a delight."
THE STRANGER


TOMAS JIRKU
Tomas Jirku has quickly established himself on the international electronic music scene. From his humble beginnings of independently released MP3s — first by No Type in 1999 — and CDRs, his unpredictable explorations of techno have since been released on prestigious record labels around the world.

With already an impressive discography to his name, and an unrelenting desire to challenge himself, Jirku has created a new method of realizing his ideas and music though his new label Rivers of Recording

YANN NOVAK
Sound artist and Dragon's Eye Recordings label owner Yann Novak documents the emotional impact of the world around him by recording it and then uses digital filtering to hone in on the feelings of time and place that field recordings can evoke. While maintaining the naturally occurring composition of the original document, Novak reveals the delicate nuances of sound within the new context of evocative soundscapes.
www.yannnovak.com


JAMIE DROUIN
The work of sound and multimedia artist Jamie Drouin explores the subtleties of experience, with a specific interest in the way audio can dramatically alter perceptions of both physical and temporal space. Incorporating photography, field recordings, guitar and synthesized sounds, Drouin’s works create intricately detailed patterns and textures which, while retaining references to corporeal sources, seek to expand and transform audience perceptions of familiar habitat.

Featured at international festivals of new music such as MUTEK (Montreal), Decibel (Seattle), and 2:13 (Greece) and in solo exhibitions in Japan, Germany, and Canada.
www.jamiedrouin.com

20/08: kyoto saw:

19/08: the peartree:audio

the subject of this field recording was a 100 year old pear tree growing in my backyard.

    the peartree_10.7 MB...MP3

18/08: garden:night. drouin/olsen. free mp3 downloads:

18/08: infrequency: drouin/olsen audio work

snow:field by drouin/olsen

this 5" full-length cd documents portions of the audio installation of the same name installed at the folly gallery UK. all sounds in this production are the result of interaction with snow.







Read More!

27/04: a pain came:

10/04: sap-blood: from "peartree dreams"

    sap-blood:mp3

I have been working on an audio project for a couple of years called "peartree dreams" based on field recordings made from a 100 year old peartree in my garden. This is one of the tracks.

17/03: transmission arts.

experimental online radio