(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)
JEPH JERMAN & TIM BARNES - Versatile Ambience LP (Idea Intermedia)
200 words isn’t enough to get to the mysterious heart of Versatile Ambience; I’m not even sure that 200 spins would get me there. Perhaps I could get bearings by re-listening to Jeph and Tim’s excellent record from last year, Matterings. But I quickly lose touch with that album completely while listening to this one, confronted with its new, fully-realized world of fascinatingly enigmatic sound art.
I think what eludes me most about Versatile Ambience is how I can never tell exactly where it is. Matterings offered lots of clarity and presence, with sounds right up front to observe and touch. Here stretches of static, building oscillations, chopped-up vérité mutterings, and restless rumblings all seem to exist at some undetermined distance from your speakers, kind of in a nether realm that feels neither far nor close, neither past nor present. It can’t be that I’m listening to the future, because in some ways this record is about recording itself – about replicating and documenting something that already happened. Yet when I’m staring myself blind listening to Versatile Ambience, it can’t shake the feeling that the future is where I’m gonna understand it all, if I just listen one more time.
– Marc Masters
(Note: Tumblr allows only one Soundcloud embed per post, so rather than post music from the album discussed, we’ve embedded an audio piece that Jeph Jerman & Tim Barnes made exclusively for “200 Words”, see below. To listen to an excerpt from the album itself, go here. Thanks!)
JEPH JERMAN & TIM BARNES on Versatile Ambience
a play dough thing on a carpet of leaves
...money, just, no right?
and take on the ad space an' no really, played records to and uh, called me up an' he...
y'know where they uh (laugh)
be so great if you had a recording of that man-
i wish-
a lot in a small amount of time that they could hold on, needy people like, let's go music
there was this rich, he was up for the task, there's some sort of a vocal thing
do we know anyone like that?
was just like talking.
right (exhales) i'm all for it man.
i don't know if i have...hang on...whoop...chaining...
you wanna hear not looking at it as this genre-specific thing.
coffee?
yeah.
so what's the (clears throat) what's the hip hop filter?
engaged in shit they (unintelligible) there's like a (clears throat) went on to begin some other...
oh yeah...
we could, i don't know it's this fucked up punk-jazz
i'm so harsh ugly
(laughs)
thing
yeah (laughs) right
actually made a record
yeah
got it right here
(plays record)
man that was cool
yeah?
was like this like sorta grrrrrmmmmmmmph and like these breaks and stuff it was like it was cool.
Versatile Ambience is out now on Idea Intermedia. Buy it here.
