artist: JASON KAHN & ASHER
title: Vista
catalog number: and/31
release year: 2008
format: CD
status: available
title: Vista
catalog number: and/31
release year: 2008
format: CD
status: available
One track: 45:48
The work on Vista began in the summer of 2006 with recordings made by Asher in
the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. Walking through the alleys and side streets
he recorded the various mechanical rooms, generators, ventilation systems and
idling motors which were to be found there. These recordings were processed and
sent to Kahn.
Later that fall, Kahn sent Asher several pre-dawn recordings he had made on the
shores of Zürich Lake. Asher processed these in keeping with the methods he had
used with his own location recordings so as to create continuity among the
amassing material. Unprocessed wind recordings made by Kahn in the Swiss Alps
in the summer of 2007 comprised the final batch of material used on Vista. Asher
and Kahn spent the remainder of that year working on a final mix. Addressing the
idea of hearing and seeing out and beyond spatial planes, title Vista references
both the aural expanses of Asher's home on a hill in the town of Somerville and
Kahn's trips to the Alps and Zürich Lake.
In processing and mixing the discrete details of a landscape, we hear them from a
real physical distance. Through the incidental combinations of processed local
sounds and sound materials which are entirely foreign to us, an imaginative aural
view is created which obscures any relationship to a documentary account of the
original locations recorded for Vista.
Jason Kahn is a sound and visual artist based in Zürich. His work includes sound
installation, performance and composition. He was born in New York, grew up in
Los Angeles and relocated to Europe in 1990. Kahn has given concerts and
exhibited his sound installations throughout Europe, North and South and
America, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Lebanon, Egypt, Hong
Kong, New Zealand and Australia. Kahn's work has been published by many other
labels such as his own imprint Cut , For4Ears, Sirr, Crouton, Korm Plastics,
Creative Sources, Longbox Recordings, 1.8 sec records, Chloë and ATAK among
others.
Asher (Thal-Nir) is still a relatively new sound artist living and working in
Somerville, Massachusetts who has already garnered quite a bit of acclaim in just
a few short years for his work using old cassette tapes and field recordings. He also
uses processed acoustic and electronic instruments. His work has been published
online by 12k / term, Con-v, Laboratoire Moderne (EARlabs), and Homophoni, and
on CDR and DVDR by Con-v, Leerraum, Conv, Winds Measure Recordings,
Mystery Sea, The Land Of, among others.
DISCLAIMER:
For full effect, turn up the volume and do nothing else but listen.
You may very well find that this is ALL you will be able to do anyway...
Despite the cover images on the packaging, driving while under the influence of
this CD should be done with caution. This CD may induce a "thousand-yard stare"
(a long, unfocused gaze), instances of "missing time", or audio hallucinations that
could cause disorientation in the listener.
Bottom line: friends don't let friends drive under the influence of Vista.
This CD is for recreational use only. ENJOY.
The work on Vista began in the summer of 2006 with recordings made by Asher in
the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. Walking through the alleys and side streets
he recorded the various mechanical rooms, generators, ventilation systems and
idling motors which were to be found there. These recordings were processed and
sent to Kahn.
Later that fall, Kahn sent Asher several pre-dawn recordings he had made on the
shores of Zürich Lake. Asher processed these in keeping with the methods he had
used with his own location recordings so as to create continuity among the
amassing material. Unprocessed wind recordings made by Kahn in the Swiss Alps
in the summer of 2007 comprised the final batch of material used on Vista. Asher
and Kahn spent the remainder of that year working on a final mix. Addressing the
idea of hearing and seeing out and beyond spatial planes, title Vista references
both the aural expanses of Asher's home on a hill in the town of Somerville and
Kahn's trips to the Alps and Zürich Lake.
In processing and mixing the discrete details of a landscape, we hear them from a
real physical distance. Through the incidental combinations of processed local
sounds and sound materials which are entirely foreign to us, an imaginative aural
view is created which obscures any relationship to a documentary account of the
original locations recorded for Vista.
Jason Kahn is a sound and visual artist based in Zürich. His work includes sound
installation, performance and composition. He was born in New York, grew up in
Los Angeles and relocated to Europe in 1990. Kahn has given concerts and
exhibited his sound installations throughout Europe, North and South and
America, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Lebanon, Egypt, Hong
Kong, New Zealand and Australia. Kahn's work has been published by many other
labels such as his own imprint Cut , For4Ears, Sirr, Crouton, Korm Plastics,
Creative Sources, Longbox Recordings, 1.8 sec records, Chloë and ATAK among
others.
Asher (Thal-Nir) is still a relatively new sound artist living and working in
Somerville, Massachusetts who has already garnered quite a bit of acclaim in just
a few short years for his work using old cassette tapes and field recordings. He also
uses processed acoustic and electronic instruments. His work has been published
online by 12k / term, Con-v, Laboratoire Moderne (EARlabs), and Homophoni, and
on CDR and DVDR by Con-v, Leerraum, Conv, Winds Measure Recordings,
Mystery Sea, The Land Of, among others.
DISCLAIMER:
For full effect, turn up the volume and do nothing else but listen.
You may very well find that this is ALL you will be able to do anyway...
Despite the cover images on the packaging, driving while under the influence of
this CD should be done with caution. This CD may induce a "thousand-yard stare"
(a long, unfocused gaze), instances of "missing time", or audio hallucinations that
could cause disorientation in the listener.
Bottom line: friends don't let friends drive under the influence of Vista.
This CD is for recreational use only. ENJOY.
SMALLFISH (SEPTEMBER 2008)
A very interesting pairing indeed here. Kahn and Asher began swapping and
processing sounds and files relating to certain environmental locations (Asher's
home on a hill and Kahn's trips to the Alps and Lake Zurich) and then produced
this finely honed and very intense 45 minute work. The initially sparse sounding
lead in has an earthy tone which ever-so-slowly evolves into a more bass-heavy
drone. There are wonderful sounds there and the harmonic quality is superb
bringing to life the idea of the vista from the title. It becomes more expansive as it
moves one changing and morphing at exactly the right rate to keep you
completely hooked. I guess I have to call it a drone work really and I'm mighty
impressed with it. and/Oar is really a fantastic label and this is another
contemporary electronic release that they should be absolutely proud of.
Deeply excellent. (Mike Oliver)
A very interesting pairing indeed here. Kahn and Asher began swapping and
processing sounds and files relating to certain environmental locations (Asher's
home on a hill and Kahn's trips to the Alps and Lake Zurich) and then produced
this finely honed and very intense 45 minute work. The initially sparse sounding
lead in has an earthy tone which ever-so-slowly evolves into a more bass-heavy
drone. There are wonderful sounds there and the harmonic quality is superb
bringing to life the idea of the vista from the title. It becomes more expansive as it
moves one changing and morphing at exactly the right rate to keep you
completely hooked. I guess I have to call it a drone work really and I'm mighty
impressed with it. and/Oar is really a fantastic label and this is another
contemporary electronic release that they should be absolutely proud of.
Deeply excellent. (Mike Oliver)
E / I (NOVEMBER 2008)
The cross-hatching of field recordings from the town of Somerville, the Alps and
Zurich Lake found on Jason Kahn and Asher’s collaboration Vista interrupts the
stupor of lucidity and momentarily reawakens an oceanic feeling for the world and
its far-flung extremities. The recording is indeterminate by reason of its
fundamental structure. The two sound-worlds interrelate without fusing or forming
a unity; the mechanical rooms and generators of Somerville amass and give rise
to a resistance and a sense of dimension of material space within and against the
wind and water sounds from Kahn. Vista is thus elemental, physical, yet also
otherworldly, in fact, more so than anything one is likely to find in the back-
catalogue of either artist, straining as it often does to frame a certain spectral
presence. Consisting of a single forty-five minute composition, the work begins in a
state of liquid insubstantiality, before being broken up and veering off into time-
shifts. A grimy generator thrum is set to some rich sonic mush and a mechanical
pulse that incrementally multiplies in density. All of these elements fold back and
entwine themselves chokingly around a sound (water beating up against a rock?)
that is both strangely muffled and claustrophobic. What at first ripples and rises
darkly as if through obscured glass, near the end of the album is brutally,
unforgivingly and starkly illuminated and, for all that—or, rather, because of it—
oddly foreign and distant. As an ending, its thus more a dissolution than a
conclusion, and a surprisingly effective one at that. In between these two points,
the work follows a steady, consistent and yet exploratory path—constructing well
formed telluric landmarks and branching off into a number of directions, thereby
evoking geometric attributes constitutive of material space. (Max Shaefer)
The cross-hatching of field recordings from the town of Somerville, the Alps and
Zurich Lake found on Jason Kahn and Asher’s collaboration Vista interrupts the
stupor of lucidity and momentarily reawakens an oceanic feeling for the world and
its far-flung extremities. The recording is indeterminate by reason of its
fundamental structure. The two sound-worlds interrelate without fusing or forming
a unity; the mechanical rooms and generators of Somerville amass and give rise
to a resistance and a sense of dimension of material space within and against the
wind and water sounds from Kahn. Vista is thus elemental, physical, yet also
otherworldly, in fact, more so than anything one is likely to find in the back-
catalogue of either artist, straining as it often does to frame a certain spectral
presence. Consisting of a single forty-five minute composition, the work begins in a
state of liquid insubstantiality, before being broken up and veering off into time-
shifts. A grimy generator thrum is set to some rich sonic mush and a mechanical
pulse that incrementally multiplies in density. All of these elements fold back and
entwine themselves chokingly around a sound (water beating up against a rock?)
that is both strangely muffled and claustrophobic. What at first ripples and rises
darkly as if through obscured glass, near the end of the album is brutally,
unforgivingly and starkly illuminated and, for all that—or, rather, because of it—
oddly foreign and distant. As an ending, its thus more a dissolution than a
conclusion, and a surprisingly effective one at that. In between these two points,
the work follows a steady, consistent and yet exploratory path—constructing well
formed telluric landmarks and branching off into a number of directions, thereby
evoking geometric attributes constitutive of material space. (Max Shaefer)
AQUARIUS RECORDS (SEPTEMBER 2008)
This is a pairing that we didn't expect; and without a doubt, we didn't expect it to
be so good. Jason Kahn is an American ex-pat living in Switzerland, having made
a smooth transition from the percussive ends of improv into a drone heavy
minimalism that often derives from the resonant frequencies of snares and floor
toms. Earlier in 2008, Kahn delivered a transcendent live set at the San Francisco
Art Institute with little more than an amplifier, a drum head, and some basic
electronics. Asher Thal-Nir has impressed us with his ultra-quiet renderings of
whispered field recordings and gauzy atmospherics, on par with some of the best
work from Bernhard Gunter (what ever happened to that guy, anyway?). The album
begins with rasping din of soft metals like aluminum or copper rattling against
each other. For those familiar with Kahn's work, this tactile acoustic noise sounds
just like one of his feedback systems transmitted through his drum kit; however, the
sources for this album are all field recordings. Asher provided the environmental
sounds from the back alleys of Boston, with ventilators, heating units, and other
motors that ceaselessly rumble in the urban landscape. Kahn picked the far more
pastoral sounds of Lake Zurich. It's almost as if Asher decided upon sounds better
suited to Kahn's aesthetic and Kahn to Asher's sensibility. In any case, the huge
rumble of subharmonics from Asher's industrial field recordings becomes this
leaden cloud that weighs very heavily upon the recording. The fastidious
production work between these two subtly shifts the clamorous frequencies into
singing overtones, resembling a Ligetti chorale at times or a Pandit Pran Nath
harmonium drone at another. But by the end of the record, the thick drone
collapses into a vibrating black hole with ripples of negative energy fading into
the soft patter of those lakeside field recordings. Definitely for fans of Phill Niblock,
John Duncan's drone work, and Kevin Drumm's Imperial Distortion.
Very f*cking cool.
This is a pairing that we didn't expect; and without a doubt, we didn't expect it to
be so good. Jason Kahn is an American ex-pat living in Switzerland, having made
a smooth transition from the percussive ends of improv into a drone heavy
minimalism that often derives from the resonant frequencies of snares and floor
toms. Earlier in 2008, Kahn delivered a transcendent live set at the San Francisco
Art Institute with little more than an amplifier, a drum head, and some basic
electronics. Asher Thal-Nir has impressed us with his ultra-quiet renderings of
whispered field recordings and gauzy atmospherics, on par with some of the best
work from Bernhard Gunter (what ever happened to that guy, anyway?). The album
begins with rasping din of soft metals like aluminum or copper rattling against
each other. For those familiar with Kahn's work, this tactile acoustic noise sounds
just like one of his feedback systems transmitted through his drum kit; however, the
sources for this album are all field recordings. Asher provided the environmental
sounds from the back alleys of Boston, with ventilators, heating units, and other
motors that ceaselessly rumble in the urban landscape. Kahn picked the far more
pastoral sounds of Lake Zurich. It's almost as if Asher decided upon sounds better
suited to Kahn's aesthetic and Kahn to Asher's sensibility. In any case, the huge
rumble of subharmonics from Asher's industrial field recordings becomes this
leaden cloud that weighs very heavily upon the recording. The fastidious
production work between these two subtly shifts the clamorous frequencies into
singing overtones, resembling a Ligetti chorale at times or a Pandit Pran Nath
harmonium drone at another. But by the end of the record, the thick drone
collapses into a vibrating black hole with ripples of negative energy fading into
the soft patter of those lakeside field recordings. Definitely for fans of Phill Niblock,
John Duncan's drone work, and Kevin Drumm's Imperial Distortion.
Very f*cking cool.
WIRE (FEBRUARY 2009)
Asher Thal-Nir is a composer out of the greater Boston area, who has stealthily
amassed an intrighuing catalogue of quiet compositions. His digital download
album fro Room40, Landscape Studies, is a series of sketches inspired by the
intrusion of the urban din into his living space. He articulates such sounds as a
field of static with minor fluctuations that interrupt the softened white noise.
Unfortunately, Asher sublimates these sounds as a backdrop for a rather generic
Ambient architecture of mid-range timbres. Given the occasional disintegration of
these sounds in conjunction with the velvety hiss of the background noise,
Landscape Studies is frustratingly banal when it could
have been great.
Asher redeems himself on the infinitely better Vista with Jason Kahn. I'm not
convinced that it's Kahn's presence that makes this record better, but rather that
both artists are at the top of their game. Vista is a cohabitation of two sets of field
recordings made by Asher in the urban landscapes around Boston and Kahn
around Lake Zurich in Switzerland. Given Kahn's preference for controlled
feedback systems, it seems that Asher picked mechanical rumblings that were
sympathetic with Kahn's sound; and Kahn collected the quieter textures patterned
after Asher's aesthetic. Collectively, these sets of sounds are stretched, crushed,
looped and layered, and then allowed to slowly crossfade against each other for
the course of 40 minutes or so. Very little happens, but the effect of subtle
cracklings and irregularities upon the subharmonic throb and motorised vibration
is downright hypnotic. (Jim Haynes)
Asher Thal-Nir is a composer out of the greater Boston area, who has stealthily
amassed an intrighuing catalogue of quiet compositions. His digital download
album fro Room40, Landscape Studies, is a series of sketches inspired by the
intrusion of the urban din into his living space. He articulates such sounds as a
field of static with minor fluctuations that interrupt the softened white noise.
Unfortunately, Asher sublimates these sounds as a backdrop for a rather generic
Ambient architecture of mid-range timbres. Given the occasional disintegration of
these sounds in conjunction with the velvety hiss of the background noise,
Landscape Studies is frustratingly banal when it could
have been great.
Asher redeems himself on the infinitely better Vista with Jason Kahn. I'm not
convinced that it's Kahn's presence that makes this record better, but rather that
both artists are at the top of their game. Vista is a cohabitation of two sets of field
recordings made by Asher in the urban landscapes around Boston and Kahn
around Lake Zurich in Switzerland. Given Kahn's preference for controlled
feedback systems, it seems that Asher picked mechanical rumblings that were
sympathetic with Kahn's sound; and Kahn collected the quieter textures patterned
after Asher's aesthetic. Collectively, these sets of sounds are stretched, crushed,
looped and layered, and then allowed to slowly crossfade against each other for
the course of 40 minutes or so. Very little happens, but the effect of subtle
cracklings and irregularities upon the subharmonic throb and motorised vibration
is downright hypnotic. (Jim Haynes)
