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Fourteen sound artists created pieces inspired by one of
Tarkovsky's seven feature length films. They were given creative
carte blanche as to how they would pay homage to one of the
director's films. Some pieces are less direct than others, and were
created with the intent to also pay homage to the director's work as
a whole or to certain aspects thereof.

MAGALI BABIN
YANNICK DAUBY
DUUL_DRV
JOHN HUDAK
DALE LLOYD
LOGOLASM
KIYOSHI MIZUTANI
MNORTHAM
PHILLIP PIETRUSCHKA
RONNIE SUNDIN
JOSH RUSSELL
SAWAKO
JON TULCHIN
V.V. (Ven Voisey)

Liner note text by Kim Cascone & Trond Trondsen of
Nostalghia.com.

"...nothing short of wonderful! I am an experimental filmmaker who
has been inspired by Tarkovsky as well as other European
filmmakers -- a collection of this sort is a salve for the weary spirit.
There's nothing quite like dreaming while being awake; these
pieces are powerful in their simplicity -- they fire my imagination.

I congratulate you and the other artists and crew who were involved
with this project. Job well done!" (Patrick Steele - Fatcat Filmworks)

E/I MAGAZINE ISSUE 5 (October 2005)
Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s rep hasn’t exactly set the
mainstream director’s guild on fire these last 20 years, but it’s fairly
ignited the audio/visual underground in ways yet to be calculated.
Dale Lloyd’s world has been singed pretty seriously; the concept of
phonography (the merging of those a/v sensibilities, acquiring and
recontextualizing the abject notions of sound design and
cinematography) on which his label and/OAR is built, is about as
perfect a marriage to the Tarkovsky ethic as one could imagine. That
brings us to the label’s two-disc comp dedicated to the director,
Another Kind of Language, whose resident 14 artists focus their
own mental lens’ on Tarkovsky’s isolationist panoramas. Focus
they do: the parallels drawn are markedly impressionistic, as they
should be, and folks like John Hudak, Magali Babin, Yannick Dauby
and Lloyd himself are far too resourceful to sensationalize literally
the inherent power of such Tarkovsky classics as Stalker and
Solaris. So Hudak exteriorizes the cries of birds in husks of blasted
radioactive trees; Dauby navigates his way through the hum of
machinery set adrift in orbit; Rsundin and Logoplasm lose their
protagonists in spatial waves of electrostatic discharge. Snatches of
dialog occasionally provide “samplist links” but the participants’s
reactions are causal to a fault — each track, “composed” or not,
demonstrates genuine inspiration precisely because the aural
responses are so intuitively reactionary. Wet, dark and long, and
intermittently brilliant, Language raises the awareness level on a
network whose octopusic reach continues to gnaw away at the
artistically discrete smarm of the bourgeoisie. (Maxwell Oz)

ZEHAR ISSUE 52 - ENRED (MAY 2004)
Ez da hilabete aunitz pasatu lagun baten bidez Andei Tarkovskyren
Nostalghia filma ikusi ahal izan nuela. Geroztik, harekin
gogoratzerakoan, irudi bakarra dut gogoan. Pertsonaia nagusia,
kandela eskuan, erakusten duen travelling amaigabea. Hutsa
bezain betea den irudia. Ixila bezain ozena. Orduan ulertu nuen zer
den hizkuntza berri bat sortzea, bertzelako hizkuntza bat sortzea.
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) zinemagile errusiarrak utzitako
ondareak zinemaren historian egin den artelan eder eta
garrantzitsuenetako bat izatea lortu badu ere, argi dago, gaurko
egunetik ikusita behintzat, ez duela ikusle gehienen onespena izan.
Baina bere oinstzek, bere arrastoek tinko irauten dute oraindik
artegintzaren bide bazterran, eta ez bakariik zinemagintzaren
munduan. and/OAR label diskografiko iparramerikarrak hori izan du
xede, musika lan eder hau osatzerakoan, alde batetik, errusiarraren
lana omentzeko eta bertzetik, haren ondarearen inguruan
hausnarketa egiteko. Ederra, kontzeptuan nahiz exekuzioan, lan
honek, izenburu beretik hasita, zinemagile errusiarrak bere lanen
bitartez lortu zuen gauza ederrenetako bati egiten dio erreferentzia,
artearen bitartez hizkuntza berri bat asmatzeari, hain zuzen. Zentzu
horretan, Tarkovsky, zinemaren legez, ahalmen hori irudien bitartez
islatzeko gai izan bazen, aipatzekoak dira soinuaren edo musikaren
inguruan egindako erabilerak eta horrek aldi berean bere
diskurtsoa osatzeko erakutsitako gaitasuna. Horregatik, solasgai
dugun bilduman, musika elektronikoa izan da errusiarraren lana
omentzeko aukeratutako prisma, bertzeak bertze musika mota
honekin egin zuen lana aitzindaria ere izan baitzen.

"Musika elektronikoa sumatzen dugun momentu berean, alegia,
bere egitura nolakao den ulertzen dugun momentu horretan bertan
desagertzeko gai da. Musika instrumentala berriz, hain da arte
independentea, ezen film batean sartzeko aise zailagoa bihurtzen
baita, eta film beraren zati organiko bihurtzen da."

Tarkovskyren premisa hauek ez daude gaur egungo musika
elektroniko esperimentalaren eta minimalistaren filosofiatik hain
urrun (sortzaile guztiak batzeko gai den filosofiaraik badago), lan
hau osatzen duten artista gehienen kasuan, behintzat. Paisajista
sonoroen, elektroakustikaren eta soinu esperimentazio ororen
ondorengoak, azken hamarkadotan hainbat musikarik hiztegi berri
bezain ezaguna erabiliz, argi eta garbi erakutsi du hizkuntza berriak
bilatzeko grina, Francisco Lopez, horren adibide. Disko bikoitz
honetan bada, orain aipatutakoaren 14 adibide biltzen dira,
nazioarteko 14 artista, bakoitza Tarkovskyren film batean oinarritu
baino inspiratuta, 14 pieza osatu dituztenak. Bakoitzak bere modura
egin dio erreferentzia filmei: batzuek esplizituki filmeko momentuak
soinu bidez (inoiz ez hitz eginez) iradoki dituzte, eta bertze batzuek,
berriz, zuzenean filmen bidez jasotako inpresio edo bizipenetan
oinarritutako piezak osatu dituzte. Haien artean aipatzekoak dira,
beharbada filmetako sentsazioak iradokitzeko gaitasuna dela eta,
Michael Northam eta Dale Lloyd Amerikarren, duul_drv
Kanadiarraren edo logoplasm talde Italiarraren saiakera
zoragarriak. Atal entzungarriaz gain, Kim Casconeren (ikus Zehar
51), eta zinemagile errusiarra omentzen duen www.nostalghia.com
web orriko arduraduna den Trond S. Trondsonen testu mamitsuek,
zenbait zita tartean, osatzen dute, dudarik gabe, maitasun haundiz
egindako lan eder hau.

"Soinu tonua ezbai batean mantendu behar da, entzuten duguna
musika, ahots bat edo haizea izan daitekeenean."
(Xabier Erkizia)

IGLOO: m i c r o v i e w (APRIL 2004)
* * * * 1/2 It was only a few months ago that I reviewed "In
Memoriam Tarkovsky" (on Russian label IVB) another homage to
the influential filmmaker who passed in 1986. Several interesting
artists pack this two-disc set, packaged in a cinematic DVD-style
case with 14 long playing tracks. Opening the set is Mnortham's
inclement "When Inaccessible." At over fifteen minutes, the field
recordings of steep rainfall meet the atypical sine drone of a tuning
fork (or so it sounds). The hush wind tone of Jon Tulchin's
"Mnemonic Cartography" uses a collection of sparse sound
samples of nature: the crackle of campfire (or is it the sizzle of
bacon?), the top wind on the ocean's edge, and the eerie void of the
midnight air with a moon halo. He stops to take breathy pauses as
metal is towed and muffled timbre cascades with sluggish pace.
Yannick Dauby's "Bruissements (for Solaris: Tarkovski/Lem)"
reminds me of some of his previous work with crackling embers
and other experiments in gently stirring sound demographics. The
theme continues with "Smoldering Ardor" by label maestro Dale
Lloyd. The tactile environment is steely as stubbly miniature clicks
drag our ears through the dirty hum of a convincing whispery world.
Towards the end, what could be a stampede of horses is a
windswept distortion of open flames. Birds whistle and call "In the
Dream" of John Hudak. Subtitled "Tarkovski's Sacrifice", the
normally resplendent chirp-chirp has a somewhat menacing edge
on this 21+ minute piece. He's tuned these feathered friends into
something of a channeled set of harmonic scales, almost as if they
are pets on command. Left to right, simultaneous, and
fore/background - these sing-song short calls for attention balance
a calm and unnerving energy. Kiyoshi Mizutani's unscripted
percussive chant "Nicolai", sounds like a group of monks in a
subway. He portions out parts of this track - the first with street
sounds vs. some passing airborne calling birds (the theme is alive
and well). Next are some gravel-like pouring from left to right
channel, add an open canvas of rain, a random singing choir and it
becomes a bit like r.e.m. to me - and I don't mean the band. This is
an illusory open-air bath for the sensual pleasures of the wild.
Towards its conclusion, a plane takes flight, above and away.

Disc two opens with Sweden's Rsundin whose "Spegeln" is a
sudden clap of thunder and roaring lightening, and we are in a
surround-sound live storm with a sweet robin calling to it's family.
The lapping waves and gulls envision a shore after the eye of the
storm has firmly closed, some remnants left aside. "At The End Of
The Rope" is Magali Babin's fuzzy contribution. Crumbling
stagecoaches, rattling teeth and the bass of pain/pleasure moaning
from a headless figure in the deep background. Canadian artist S.
Arden Hill, otherwise known as duul_drv breaks the sound barrier
with a popping glass bulb and various metallic industrial
bric-a-brac. His harmonies are woven texturally and sequenced like
fine layers of Egyptian silks. Josh Russell spends 18 minutes
forming his "Objects" with space light and secret lasers (I made that
part up - but that's what it sounds like). It's as if you are dealing with
sensitive infrared technology, everything is so mute with a layer of
impending challenge to the risky material. 24-year old Tokyo-based
Sawako (Kato) develops her sound from small fragments, amplified
and then processed, the equivalent of refried beans in electronics.
The process of reduction makes her "Mirror" reflect only the residue
of nature's work. It's like an organic inversion, simply shrunk and
mixed with floating physical manifestations of sound particles
moving about, kicking along a metallic perimeter.

Included are liner notes with various quips and statements by Arvo
Part, Ingrid Bergman, and Kim Cascone's apropos "Viral Space:
The Cinema Of Atmosphere." With additional tracks by logoplasm,
Phillip Pietruschka, and v. v. this is essential listening for any lover
of cinema and various experiments with sounds that are born in the
wild. (TJ Norris)

AQUARIUS RECORDS (FEBRUARY 2004)
Despite the oversized package and the dedication to the amazing
Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, this is not a DVD. Rather this
is a collection of sound artists and archivists who were
commissioned to create a piece inspired by the work of Tarkovsky.
The majority of the artists in question have composed their pieces
as an homage to Tarkovsky's slow, but revelatory pacing of the
narrative. The atmospheres of the sublime, the psychologically
horrific, and the melancholic -- which all run through Tarkovsky's
work -- speak boldly with Another Kind Of Language as thick
dronescapes molded from various field recordings of rain, wind,
and surf. There isn't anything overt about this comp that screams
out "TARKOVSKY!" with no obvious samples or quotations to be
found within; rather, this is a humble dronological tribute to the
Russian filmmaker's amazing sensibilities. The contributing artists
run the gamut, from familiar AQ faves MNortham, John Hudak, and
Kiyoshi Mizutani, to lesser-knowns/unknowns Jon Tulchin, Yannick
Dauby, Dale Lloyd, RSundin, V.V. Magali Babin, Duul_Drv, Josh
Russell, Phillip Pietruschka, Sawako, and Logoplasm.