artist: SETH NEHIL & MATT MARBLE
title: Ecllipses
catalog number: and/30
release year: 2008
format: CD
status: available
title: Ecllipses
catalog number: and/30
release year: 2008
format: CD
status: available
a/O is very pleased to present this highly anticipated first
collaboration release between two American "sound composters",
Seth Nehil and Matt Marble. A dynamic whirlwind tour through states
of ellipsis and eclipses, abrupt ruptures, reuniting and igniting. Where
nothing is static for too long. Through an invigorating admixture of
instruments, field recordings and various found matter, a compelling
and mysterious world comes alive to spark the imagination.
Track list:
1. Aprupture
2. Skully
3. Flock
4. Hither
5. Ecllipses
Seth Nehil is a multimedia artist living in Portland, Oregon. He has
composed sound for CD, multi-speaker installation, solo and large
group concerts, dance, theater and performance. Apart from and/OAR,
Seth has release work on international labels such as Alluvial
Recordings, Kaon, Intransitive, Cut, Edition Ellipsis, 20 City, Erewhon
among others, and has collaborated with composers such as John
Grzinich, Olivia Block, Matt Marble, Brendan Murray and MIchael
Northam. He has performed throughout the US, Europe and Japan.
Seth is also co-editor and designer of FO A RM projects, a
collaboration of arts and research with a focus on sound art. He
teaches Time Arts and Art Theory at the Pacific Northwest College
of Art.
Matt Marble is a composer / performer and writer / researcher. Matt
has composed works for film, theatre, dance, CD, stereo diffusion,
multimedia performance, and instrumental ensembles. Currently and
for the past 5 years he has been focusing on a practice of scored
improvisation, which emphasizes collective self-organization, social
and sonic geometry, and rhythmic elasticity. Exploring social
e-motions without a predetermined or singular cultural ideology or
aesthetic. Composing for nervous systems as much as sound. Matt
studied music composition at CalArts (with Michael Pisaro), music
theory at Portland State University and the University of Paris VIII, St.
Denis-Vincennes (with Eugenia Duta), and is currently in the midst of a
graduate program in Music Composition at Princeton University. Matt
received his B.A. in Speech & Hearing Science from Portland State
University.
collaboration release between two American "sound composters",
Seth Nehil and Matt Marble. A dynamic whirlwind tour through states
of ellipsis and eclipses, abrupt ruptures, reuniting and igniting. Where
nothing is static for too long. Through an invigorating admixture of
instruments, field recordings and various found matter, a compelling
and mysterious world comes alive to spark the imagination.
Track list:
1. Aprupture
2. Skully
3. Flock
4. Hither
5. Ecllipses
Seth Nehil is a multimedia artist living in Portland, Oregon. He has
composed sound for CD, multi-speaker installation, solo and large
group concerts, dance, theater and performance. Apart from and/OAR,
Seth has release work on international labels such as Alluvial
Recordings, Kaon, Intransitive, Cut, Edition Ellipsis, 20 City, Erewhon
among others, and has collaborated with composers such as John
Grzinich, Olivia Block, Matt Marble, Brendan Murray and MIchael
Northam. He has performed throughout the US, Europe and Japan.
Seth is also co-editor and designer of FO A RM projects, a
collaboration of arts and research with a focus on sound art. He
teaches Time Arts and Art Theory at the Pacific Northwest College
of Art.
Matt Marble is a composer / performer and writer / researcher. Matt
has composed works for film, theatre, dance, CD, stereo diffusion,
multimedia performance, and instrumental ensembles. Currently and
for the past 5 years he has been focusing on a practice of scored
improvisation, which emphasizes collective self-organization, social
and sonic geometry, and rhythmic elasticity. Exploring social
e-motions without a predetermined or singular cultural ideology or
aesthetic. Composing for nervous systems as much as sound. Matt
studied music composition at CalArts (with Michael Pisaro), music
theory at Portland State University and the University of Paris VIII, St.
Denis-Vincennes (with Eugenia Duta), and is currently in the midst of a
graduate program in Music Composition at Princeton University. Matt
received his B.A. in Speech & Hearing Science from Portland State
University.
SMALLFISH (SEPTEMBER 2008)
Ecllipses is the first collaboration between these two American
sound artists / composers. It's a voyage through seemingly thrown
together sound sources and rhythmic influences. It never stays static
for long and is full of constant movement. The more you listen, though,
the more it becomes clear that it's not as random as you may think.
There's a coherency and solidity to the tracks that's carried right
through the CD and the invigorating range of styles and sounds is
pretty mindblowing on further inspection. In particular the last two
tracks (also the longest, incidentally), 'Hither' and 'Ecllipses', are
incredibly deep with the former using a deep textural drone to draw
you in and the latter adding bass hum to static and scratchy tones to
make a really compelling finale. The most challenging of the three
new and/OAR releases, no doubt, but one that I find myself completely
drawn to. Absolutely superb.
*Update - 'Hither' (track 2) is simply amazing. I've been listening to it
for hours over and over again. I can't remember whether I sampled it
or not, but I'll work it out and do one if it's not there. Awesome track!*
(Mike Oliver)
Ecllipses is the first collaboration between these two American
sound artists / composers. It's a voyage through seemingly thrown
together sound sources and rhythmic influences. It never stays static
for long and is full of constant movement. The more you listen, though,
the more it becomes clear that it's not as random as you may think.
There's a coherency and solidity to the tracks that's carried right
through the CD and the invigorating range of styles and sounds is
pretty mindblowing on further inspection. In particular the last two
tracks (also the longest, incidentally), 'Hither' and 'Ecllipses', are
incredibly deep with the former using a deep textural drone to draw
you in and the latter adding bass hum to static and scratchy tones to
make a really compelling finale. The most challenging of the three
new and/OAR releases, no doubt, but one that I find myself completely
drawn to. Absolutely superb.
*Update - 'Hither' (track 2) is simply amazing. I've been listening to it
for hours over and over again. I can't remember whether I sampled it
or not, but I'll work it out and do one if it's not there. Awesome track!*
(Mike Oliver)
AQUARIUS RECORDS (AUGUST 2008)
Naturalist aktionism? Sure, let's call it that. We can't really say that the
Hermann Nitsch and Gunter Brus bloodletting as grand allegory is
applicable to this collaboration between Portland based sound artists
Seth Nehil and Matt Marble; but a rigorous body of work is definitely at
hand. These two are the editors of the sound art journal FO A RM, and
have both generated impressive bodies of conceptually minded
compositions through field recordings, found objects, the almighty
drone, and hand-built instruments. Here, Nehil and Marble wax poetic
about the overlay of tactile sounds to emphasize the ruptures, holes, and
negative spaces which may have been present on each layer of sound.
So, instead of a gaping piece of unbroken ambience, Ecllipses is a
tense and discordant album of rollicking textures which bristle and
scrape against each other. Nehil and Marble revel in tumbles and
scrabbles of what could be a revolving metal drum filled with various
pine cones, twigs, and pebbles. Elsewhere, they focus upon churning
bowed steel-strings, which offer buzzing clouds of softly rendered
acoustic noise; and then soft pluckings of what sound like softened
dulcimers drift into prolonged echo, hinting at avant-folk drones of
Jewelled Antler (especially the Ov recordings) and Kemialliset Ystavat.
Barring a minimal amount of signal processing and ring modulation, the
album flourishes in the sodden palette of natural objects: wood, grass,
leaves, soil, and rock.
Naturalist aktionism? Sure, let's call it that. We can't really say that the
Hermann Nitsch and Gunter Brus bloodletting as grand allegory is
applicable to this collaboration between Portland based sound artists
Seth Nehil and Matt Marble; but a rigorous body of work is definitely at
hand. These two are the editors of the sound art journal FO A RM, and
have both generated impressive bodies of conceptually minded
compositions through field recordings, found objects, the almighty
drone, and hand-built instruments. Here, Nehil and Marble wax poetic
about the overlay of tactile sounds to emphasize the ruptures, holes, and
negative spaces which may have been present on each layer of sound.
So, instead of a gaping piece of unbroken ambience, Ecllipses is a
tense and discordant album of rollicking textures which bristle and
scrape against each other. Nehil and Marble revel in tumbles and
scrabbles of what could be a revolving metal drum filled with various
pine cones, twigs, and pebbles. Elsewhere, they focus upon churning
bowed steel-strings, which offer buzzing clouds of softly rendered
acoustic noise; and then soft pluckings of what sound like softened
dulcimers drift into prolonged echo, hinting at avant-folk drones of
Jewelled Antler (especially the Ov recordings) and Kemialliset Ystavat.
Barring a minimal amount of signal processing and ring modulation, the
album flourishes in the sodden palette of natural objects: wood, grass,
leaves, soil, and rock.
E / I (NOVEMBER 2008)
Seth Nehil and Matt Marble are keen on subverting musical flow and
yet they rarely seem any less alive to the situation. In fact, on account
of their peculiar method, the opposite proves to be the case: the
positive presence of Ecllipses is structured by a series of elliptical
movements around an assortment of micro-temporal cut-outs. It's
these very breaches and gaps that ultimately keep the resulting
music both constantly moving and yet structured. Owing to this
process, and the fact that at first the sounds seem to be issuing from
fragmented and unrelated harmonic and rhythmic spaces, they have a
tendency to seem somewhat bold and harsh. That being said, it's
actually anything but simple messy soldering and abstruse
perversion of electricity. The two demonstrate themselves to be
exceptionally disciplined and they never seek assistance from
outside their own internal necessities. Intervaled silences penetrate a
low ground swell on "Skully", transforming an otherwise hypnotic
ambience into a swirling, insistent and centreless piece. So too with
"Flock", metallic percussion rattles like the links of a chain uncoiling
and strings pointedly trickle around a few high end notes, foraging,
amidst magnetic fluctuations, shortwave demodulations and spiraling
squeals, for a melodic opening that is never allowed to quite take
form. From here the pieces widen into a stately panorama of obscure
and half-submerged gestures. By virtue of contrast, in these larger
spaces of curved-wall acoustics, coated with fizzling drones, the tiny
textural striations and other such open-ended masses of miniscule
events are all the more beguiling, giving off a glimpse of the
immensity and near emptiness of space. (Max Schaefer)
Seth Nehil and Matt Marble are keen on subverting musical flow and
yet they rarely seem any less alive to the situation. In fact, on account
of their peculiar method, the opposite proves to be the case: the
positive presence of Ecllipses is structured by a series of elliptical
movements around an assortment of micro-temporal cut-outs. It's
these very breaches and gaps that ultimately keep the resulting
music both constantly moving and yet structured. Owing to this
process, and the fact that at first the sounds seem to be issuing from
fragmented and unrelated harmonic and rhythmic spaces, they have a
tendency to seem somewhat bold and harsh. That being said, it's
actually anything but simple messy soldering and abstruse
perversion of electricity. The two demonstrate themselves to be
exceptionally disciplined and they never seek assistance from
outside their own internal necessities. Intervaled silences penetrate a
low ground swell on "Skully", transforming an otherwise hypnotic
ambience into a swirling, insistent and centreless piece. So too with
"Flock", metallic percussion rattles like the links of a chain uncoiling
and strings pointedly trickle around a few high end notes, foraging,
amidst magnetic fluctuations, shortwave demodulations and spiraling
squeals, for a melodic opening that is never allowed to quite take
form. From here the pieces widen into a stately panorama of obscure
and half-submerged gestures. By virtue of contrast, in these larger
spaces of curved-wall acoustics, coated with fizzling drones, the tiny
textural striations and other such open-ended masses of miniscule
events are all the more beguiling, giving off a glimpse of the
immensity and near emptiness of space. (Max Schaefer)
TOUCHING EXTREMES (DECEMBER 2008)
Portland, Oregon's Seth Nehil is a multi-talented artist whose work
includes installation soundtracks, dance, theatre and performance;
taking a look at his resume, among the memorable collaborations we
come across Michael Northam, Olivia Block, John Grzinich, Brendan
Murray. Matt Marble - also from Portland - studied composition at Cal
Arts with Michael Pisaro, his activities as a composer, performer and
writer spreading through several multimedia contexts, although the
recent work is mainly focused on scored improvisation emphasizing
"collective self-organization, social and sonic geometry and rhythmic
elasticity". There's a too-often used adjective that perfectly describes
the quality of this substance, and that's "organic". The pieces are
constructed and developed around a bidirectional axis which, on the
one hand, comprises field recordings and concrete sounds - and,
perhaps, ectoplasms of guitars or otherwise strung instruments -
assembled in a way that defining "skilled" is just about limitative;
on the other, these manipulations aren't nothing but the ideal terrain
for us to catch glimpses of the natural resonance of reality,
manifesting through that kind of vibration that only truly sensitive
beings can perceive. The acoustic properties of common (and less)
objects, the drops of water that bounce on resonant surfaces, appear
like music written by nature itself even after Nehil and Marble's
expert management and assemblage; furthermore, the couple doesn't
put forward a detailed list of sources. A heteromorphic miscellany of
sebaceous materials and stammering evolutions of sonic phenomena
that finds its most engrossing flash at the exact moment in which the
whole mutates into the harmoniously breathtaking drones of "Hither",
over thirteen minutes where the process of acceptance of our role in
life - as miserable as it may be - is finally brought to completion.
(Massimo Ricci)
Portland, Oregon's Seth Nehil is a multi-talented artist whose work
includes installation soundtracks, dance, theatre and performance;
taking a look at his resume, among the memorable collaborations we
come across Michael Northam, Olivia Block, John Grzinich, Brendan
Murray. Matt Marble - also from Portland - studied composition at Cal
Arts with Michael Pisaro, his activities as a composer, performer and
writer spreading through several multimedia contexts, although the
recent work is mainly focused on scored improvisation emphasizing
"collective self-organization, social and sonic geometry and rhythmic
elasticity". There's a too-often used adjective that perfectly describes
the quality of this substance, and that's "organic". The pieces are
constructed and developed around a bidirectional axis which, on the
one hand, comprises field recordings and concrete sounds - and,
perhaps, ectoplasms of guitars or otherwise strung instruments -
assembled in a way that defining "skilled" is just about limitative;
on the other, these manipulations aren't nothing but the ideal terrain
for us to catch glimpses of the natural resonance of reality,
manifesting through that kind of vibration that only truly sensitive
beings can perceive. The acoustic properties of common (and less)
objects, the drops of water that bounce on resonant surfaces, appear
like music written by nature itself even after Nehil and Marble's
expert management and assemblage; furthermore, the couple doesn't
put forward a detailed list of sources. A heteromorphic miscellany of
sebaceous materials and stammering evolutions of sonic phenomena
that finds its most engrossing flash at the exact moment in which the
whole mutates into the harmoniously breathtaking drones of "Hither",
over thirteen minutes where the process of acceptance of our role in
life - as miserable as it may be - is finally brought to completion.
(Massimo Ricci)
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