pop_and

Highly indicative of the nomadic life that international sound
artist Michael Northam has come to know over the past 5 or so
years, this release represents a sonic recollection of his life
dispersed across a vast geography, pinpointing three specific
locations and moments from his long journey:

- Glacier du Trient, Switzerland / France
- Eagle Creek, Indianapolis
- Ils Grosbois, Montreal

At times, this hypnotic release presents meditative,
invigorating, and eerie translations of places and experiences
in ways that only Northam can poetically convey.

Originally dispersed among friends in 2003, as a limited
edition "spontaneous document" CDR, this work is now
re-issued on CD so it can finally be enjoyed by more people.
And deservedly so.

SMALLFISH (AUGUST 2006)
Automnal 2003 is an audio document capturing 3 moments /
locations in time. Glacier Du Trient in Switzerland, Eagle Creek
in Indianapolis and Ils Grosbois in Montreal. The artist
travelled and moved studio 13 times in 3 years and these
locations formed part of the journey. Initially released as a
limited edition of 50 copies, and/OAR has seem fit to give them
a new life with this beautifully packaged release. The three
tracks are deep, incredibly hypnotic soundscapes that bear
comparisons with the works of Gas, Kenneth Kirschner and,
perhaps more pertinently, William Basinski. There's a deep
sense of melody throughout each piece coupled with
background sounds that add a little aural punctuation but
essentially it's all about the ambient tones that are conjured
up. A magical selection of tracks that place and/OAR and
Mnortham firmly at the top of the tree as regard to this form of
minimalist music. Quite simply a wonderful release that's
recommended most highly. (Mike Oliver)

EARLABS (OCTOBER 2006)
My first (and somehow positive) impression was, that I didn't
hear the expected field-recordings of the stated locations,
instead there are clusters of long lasting tones, gently
sweeping in space. I would not call it a drone-thing, because it
is so airy and fragile. Northam carefully adds some metallic
sounds which could be derived from field-recordings but I
cannot say what kind of. Later I recognize the sound of ringing
church bells in the distance. The end of this 32 minutes lasting
first track "weave (glacier test)" is a fine highpass filtered part.

The second and shortest track "creek (at nan´s)" deals with
deeper frequencies than before and again it sounds like
field-recordings which I cannot associate. Under the thick wall
of the deep frequencies there are some short metallic crashes
and sizzles. Again Northam blends out with a highpass filtered
version of the sound heard before.

"ils grosbois (montréal)" the last of the three tracks is a very
subtle, gleaming piece. It starts with a field-recording, which
could derive from walking through the woods. Then there are
more and more layers of long lasting bell-like tones, which are
falling on me like breaking through sun rays. Somehow I
associate here a very sunny, overwhelming beautiful place in
the woods.

All in all I cannot complain about anything in this release,
which is for me one of the best at and/OAR. It doesn't matter
that this recording has been re-issued after 3 years, as it is a
so ageless sonic pleasure." (Sascha Renner)

REMOTE THOUGHTS (OCTOBER 2006)
and/OAR continues to impress me as a label with its varied,
original and extremely high quality release and it’s clear that
owner Dale Lloyd takes a great deal of care over every single
release.

As such it’s always a pleasure to hear a new CD from such a
quality imprint and this release from Mnortham is absolutely
sublime.

The three tracks that make up the 55 minute CD are audio
snapshots of three different locations in time and reflect the
ideas and feelings the artist had whilst relocating around the
globe thirteen times in the just two years, culminating in his
arrival back home in Autumn 2003.

Prepare to be soothed and engaged by the work on offer here
as there’s a tangible sense of difference between the pieces,
even though the approach is roughly the same each time with
processing of location recordings and found sounds forming
the main structures.

‘Glacier Du Trient, Switzerland/France’ is a light, breezy, yet
discordant piece that lifts you up with its high end drone
sounds and insistent clicks in the background which force you
to pay attention. It’s hard tune it out and you’ll find yourself
listening to it in depth and discovering more and more
resonant frequencies existing than you imagined at first.

‘Eagle Creek, Indianapolis’ has a heavier, more oppressive
tone and bears a similarity at times to some of the work of
Wolfgang Voigt under his Gas moniker. Combined with the
sound of cicadas in the background the organic tone that
drives the track forward gives you a palpable sense of a wide
open space inhabited by creatures of the night.

The final piece ‘Ils Grosbois, Montreal’ is the most haunting of
the works here. A mid/high-frequency drone that works with
discordant layers resonates at just the right level to create a
sense of dislocation, gradually adding in subtle static sounds
and scratchy, gritty tones into the background. Again this give
the track a real sense of movement, driving it ever forward.

And it’s this sense of moving and never settling in one place
that permeates the whole CD… a feeling of transience
captured for eternity on a piece of encoded plastic.

That’s the magic of music and it’s certainly where the magic of
this CD comes from.

A delightful, beautiful and very personal piece of work.
(remote_at)

TOUCHING EXTREMES (DECEMBER 2006)
Constantly working on the borders between nature and
unconscious, Michael Northam is one of those artists who is
almost impossible not to appreciate. "Automnal 2003"
consists of three long haunting tracks that, according to the
composer, are "taken from three moments/locations" during
the "re-collection of my life dispersed across North America
and Europe" (Northam relocated 13 times between 2001 and
2003; and I thought that my own four moves in five years were
a sort of record...). The album is full of magnificently sounding
faint luminescences, carriers of barely defined frequencies
which contribute to a state of perturbed serenity.
Pseudo-aquatic emissions and environmental subtleties
mesh with what sounds like misshapen aural documentaries
of life in a termitarium; ghostly undulations and uncatchable
harmonic constellations put your head into their huge, yet
impalpable hands to caress it until acceptance becomes
mandatory. At the end of the first movement I seemed to
perceive joyously tolling bells, filtered and processed to sound
like they were underwater, but maybe it was just an acoustic
mirage. Yet, I felt such a warmth in my heart at that very
moment that I wished it would never stop.
(Massimo Ricci)

AQUARIUS RECORDS (APRIL 2007)
As of spring 2007, the nomadic lifestyle of Michael Northam
may land the American born sound artist in New Delhi where
he might manage a media arts facility or he might take up the
humble calling of a gardener in the south of France, where he
could find plenty of inspiration for his ecologically tinged
compositions. The excitement, fear, and instability of not really
knowing where housing might come from has been the
existence for Mr. Northam for many years now, and he's always
managed to build an impressively cohesive body of work
through composition, performance, and exhibition. The
Automnal 2003 disc was originally a self-published CD-R
which Northam gave to his friends and colleagues as a
testament to the benefits, joys, trials, and failures to his
chosen lifestyle. During the 24 months between August 2001
and the autumn of 2003, Northam picked up and moved his
studio 13 times across Europe and North America; and the
three extended tracks on Automnal represent three particular
places along that journey. The first track opens with a glassy
drone of sustained string vibration which sound remarkably
like the more pastoral tones of Phill Niblock. Aquatic rumblings
and fluttering patterns emerge as complementary elements to
the Northam's droning infinitude that aptly fits Northam's
geographical subject, a glacier on the Switzerland / France
border. The second track is my favorite piece that Northam has
created to date. With a gaping low-end drone beautifully
stacked with what seem to be choral harmonics built from the
environmental recordings of crickets near a stream, Northam
offers a breathtaking, nocturnal piece of activated ambience
much like Zoviet France's Shadow Thief Of The Sun or Gas'
Konigsforst minus the motorik rhythm, of course. For the finale
of Automnal 2003, Northam presents a sinewy vibrational
hypnosis that's quite similar in frequency to the first track, yet
he manages to dislocate the bleary ambience with a
subcutaneous stream of crackle and static. A wonderful record!
(Jim Haynes)

E / I (SEPTEMBER 2007)
Automnal 2003 is a testimony of Michael Northam’s nomadic
life, which has seen to it that he relocate thirteen times
between the moments bookending 2001 and 2003. The three
extended tracks that surface here represent three distinct
junctures along that journey, a glacier along the Switzerland/
France border, crickets captured from Eagle Creek in
IIndianapolis, and an assortment of sounds taken from what
sounds like a walk in the woods of Ils Grosbois, Montreal,
respectively. With the first selection, plangent notes and long
string resonance evoke both a peaceful meditation and an
underlying restlessness that is indicative of the work on a
whole. Successive pieces, though marked by long stretches of
slowly evolving sounds, are thereby of a more questing rather
than simply soothing disposition. From the beginning,
compositions are texturally sophisticated and diverse in mood,
but as the album ages, it continuously moves away from
lengthier passages of slow-moving, more or less constant
sounds, towards pieces that are stringent and rigid. Along the
way, the switching of angles and perspectives are significant
yet ingenuous, dynamic yet immediately involving. Accordingly,
pleasure is had in witnessing so many percolating details get
swamped in the low swelling of the pieces, a certain pleasure
in being taken over and giving into absence. Indeed, the
relentlessness of Northam’s approach all but ensures that
one will give in, be it immediately or over a certain period of
time. The final work, for instance, being characterized by
intense internal arguments and clashing directions,
encourages quick submission, and the varying degrees to
which this is the case in other works only adds to the album’s
appeal. It’s a venture that the mind enjoys, then, but of which
the body eventually grows tired. A challenge, certainly, yet this
document exhibits an impressive variety of states—both of the
garden-variety and those of a more specific nature—which no
doubt colored Northam’s time over the course of his travels.
(Max Schaefer)