KODAMA
Turning Leaf Migrations
12" VINYL PUBLISHED BY: OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE

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Seijiro Murayama &
Michael Northam
Moriendo Reniscor
CD PUBLISHED BY: XING WU

Between 2003 and 2004 - Michael Northam and Seijiro Murayama met a few times in Switzerland and France. One artifact of their meetings, 'They Stood Around and Watched' a 20 min CDr was published by Universe International. A more comprehensive and extended document of these meetings has finally made its way in the form of 'Moriendo Reniscor.'

Seeded from composted recordings taken in Lisbon, Portugal and Astoria, Oregon. Northam offered heavily mixed sources during these meetings. Selections were made by trying to find segments of activated sonic 'matter' then finally to be passed through the ears and hands of Murayama. An awkward meeting perhaps - tangential - yet something else. A shared desire to find some special experience through the medium of sound.

During the process of creation the two took drives out to the Jura in Switzerland and through rural France and passed some terse moments arguing the finer points of the unlikely meeting between a densely planned acousmatic 'composter' and a highly disciplined improvisor. A discussion that ended up producing four enigmatic tracks.

'Moriendo Reniscor' - a term taken from a southern French dialect - meaning 'in death, rebirth'

NOTE - due to a miscommunication the inner sleeve is nearly unreadable - it reads as:

L'astre
est une rayure
sur l'oeuf
souple

L'astre
connît ce plaisir
d'être une boule.

Des distances infinies nous séparent
des distances plus grandes que des distances
des distances anonymes
(à force de distances)
des distances qui gravent
un instant de fer.
Le futur s'approche
et mange une boule de feu.

L'attaque insensée des couleurs
reste notre seule idée -
- pour sortir.

---L.M.

OLD NEWS

Some of my sound-work is being featured in the the theater work "The World-Stair"
presented at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Theater in Pondicherry, India on the 1st of December 2008.

Continuing work with the film 'redbelly' in Brattlboro, Vermont - and monthly trips to New York.
Future events are being organized both in Brattleboro and in New York that will concern 'listening salons' and other projections.

Looking forward to continue the Hokuro project with Sachiyo Honda in January and February 2009 in Brattleboro and beyond.

Anticipated new releases with various projects on these labels: Taâlem, Drone, Xing Wu, Olde English Spelling Bee, Majmua, Ruralfauna...

NEW RELEASE!

Loren Chasse & Michael Northam
The Otolith
PUBLISHED BY: HELEN SCARSDALE

The recordings of Loren Chasse and Michael Northam begin and end with the great outdoors. Yet, the well-documented wanderlust of these two kindred sound artists is only part of the equation. Field recordings of wind, water, and stone intertwine and hybridize within private rituals of droning psychedelic ragas that return as a folklore reiterating the mystery of the natural world around us. Through his numerous contributions to the multi-faceted Jewelled Antler as well his solo work, Chasse has long postulated the microphone as an extension of his ear, which magnifies and probes the surface of the earth for a tactile grit that permeates all of the sounds that he generates. Northam claims his inspiration from vast geographies, microscopic detail, and severe weather, which he compacts through various techniques to explore what is between improvisation and acousmatic composition. Both Chasse and Northam entertain such notions through an alchemy of arcane instruments: autoharps, ouds, flutes, bells, gongs, bowed wires, harmonium, and Northam's magnetic table harp.

The Otolith is the result of several years of work, with sounds gathered collectively in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout Europe. The album speaks as a bramble of fence wire and chaparral scrub oak, acquiring an unkempt collection of rubbish, cobwebs, insects, and soil within its tangle. As the wind pushes in one direction, this mass emits a quite if scratchy melody as if the ghost from a forgotten song; but when the wind changes directions, it bellows a rasping din of metal and vine cracking against itself. This sodden calliope tumbles into a miasma of droning atmospheres, softly rasped distortion, and very subtly rendered lulabies lurking deep within the overgrowth.

Order via AQUARIUS RECORDS