1 Stratus
2 Cirrus
3 Nimbus
It is deceptively easy to characterize Seth Nehil's first album as a drone album. Tracing the Skin of Clouds explores the microscopic variations in long organic soundscapes, with a relatively constant pitch originating from Tibetan bells as an ever-present underpinning. But whereas other drone artists, such as Eliane Radigue or Jliat, emphasize the electronic nature of their sonic origins, Nehil is closer in spirit to the field recordings at the base of the work of Ora or Michael Northam (who worked with Nehil in Orogenetics, an art and music collective active in Austin, TX, in the late '90s). Nehil's music is based entirely on natural sounds and the manipulation of physical materials, and he uses little or no processing on the sounds, differentiating himself by the methods of sound collection. "Cirrus" features wooden chimes, Tibetan bells, scraping percussion, rubbed drum skins, and rolling glass, all gently mutating without any significant events. "Nimbus" is quieter, rustling leaves with distant snaps, with a more ominous electronic-sounding drone fading in and out. The backdrop of "Stratus" is a series of slow-moving, low white-noise waves, possibly originating in wind sounds, with a growing layer of continuous bell sounds moving into a clear shimmering at the end. Nehil's use of ordinary substances to create the album's ephemeral sounds sets his work apart from many others in the contemporary electro-acoustic field, and the paradox of the album's title is reflected in the music's connection between the mundane and the imagination.
Caleb Deupree, All Music Guide
Sound artist Seth Nehil (who has worked with John Grzinich as Alial Straa and with the Orogenetics arts collective) here explores the nature of sound as texture in Tracing the skins of clouds, released on the Kaon label in 1998. Electroacoustic, musique concrète, call it what you like, this project takes a close look at all manner of sounds and aural textures through the use of contact microphones [sic]. The sources are left undefined, which leaves the imagination free to roam for metaphors and guesses as to the objects Nehil is using in these recordings. With a few words on the disc's sleeve - "our bodies trace the tactile tension between ground and sky" - we sense that there is a certain magic at work here. Close scrapings, as if dragging an object on a concrete floor, drones of sounds, seemingly stretched with effects but Nehil has been known to abstain from using any superfluous effects in his work, preferring instead to coax a wealth of sounds and drones from the objects themselves. The three long pieces on the disc are quiet, with rumblings and scrapings layered carefully in complex yet seamless arrangements (this is most clear in the aptly titled third piece, "stratus"), and the results are rather relaxing. My body and my mind are at ease with these sounds, exploring with a strange sort of calm the nuances and details in these uncanny sounds. Highly recommended, and another fine release from Kaon, with an attractive sleeve featuring woodcuts from a seventeenth century text on the history of rare species of plants.
Richarddi Santo, incursion.org
seems to be sold out visit Seth Nehil, Orogenetics & Kaon (Kaon did the CD release)
try
