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
Track list:
1. Aprupture
2. Skully
3. Flock
4. Hither
5. Ecllipses
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.
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.
1. Aprupture
2. Skully
3. Flock
4. Hither
5. Ecllipses
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.
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)
