The Vigeland Park is one of Oslo, Norway’s biggest tourist destinations. Crowds gather year-round in its capacious green space, which contains over 200 oversized human forms sculpted by one of the nation’s most celebrated artists, Gustav Vigeland. Gus wasn’t the only artist in the family; working with oils and stained glass, his brother Emmanuel fashioned vivid images of spiritual events and sexual unions. His mausoleum, which is situated in a distant Oslo neighborhood, is a windowless space that contains the artist’s ashes and a vast, erotic fresco. Even vaster is the room’s acoustic character, which drastically amplifies even small sounds. That is where cellist Okkyung Lee recorded her latest solo album, Dahl-Tah-Ghi (Moon Gliding).
Lee is a Korean cellist who has been based in the USA since the 1990s. She is an inveterate and restless collaborator, whose c.v. includes work with Christian Marclay, Laurie Anderson, Swans, Ellen Fullman and John Zorn. In 2012 Lee tapped Lasse Marhaug to record Ghil, an LP of raw solo performances captured by an old tape deck in various locations around Norway. To celebrate the record’s release in June 2013, she played two concerts at the Emmanuel Vigeland Mausoleum, one for the general public and another for 30 invited friends. A recording of the second concert became Dahl-Tah-Ghi.
Both timing and setting influence this album’s extraordinary character. Lee had already had a chance to experience the space’s 18-second natural reverberation, so there’s an informed and purposeful quality to her experiments with the mausoleum’s sound. The room isn’t just a setting; it’s part of the score. At some points she plays very sparsely, letting the room draw out the grain of single bowed notes. At other moments she plays quite loudly and densely, mixing low strokes with hard smacks to create rapidly mutating audio-compounds. The sonic material is close to that on Ghil. But where that LP rendered sound events like blown-up snapshots, the music here progresses scene by scene, each moment discrete but shaped by the events surrounding it, rather like the frescos on the walls around the cellist.
Alki Beach, Seattle, 10:30 A.M., January 26, 2011 (6:42)
Jesse Paul Miller
I went to Alki Beach, in West Seattle, yesterday morning.
It was densely foggy, quite cold, and very beautiful in a silvery way.
There, I made 3 ink drawings using a piece of bamboo and walnut ink, while using my Edirol R09 wave recorder to record the shore break. There were multiple boat horns happening when I set up the recorder. I was hoping to get some audio of these.
As it happened, there wasn't a single horn in the 20 minutes I recorded
until the battery ran out and I finished these drawings.
This recording was made at the highest resolution, 48khz/44bit. I usually don't use this setting but decided to do so to see how it sounded.
Then it was converted to mp3.
I really enjoy making these recordings of Puget Sound and bringing them into my studio
and listening to them after I arrive back; there's a feeling of some strand of connection to the recent experience; magical and unspeakable... it's very refreshing.
Perhaps you will have some of this feeling also, enjoy.
see the next posting (above) to see the aforementioned drawings
