May 6, 2001 (and/OAR, 2006)

1 Steinbrüchel - Bank 15:41
2 Aaron Ximm - Negative Architectures 5:23
3 Kenneth Kirschner - May 6, 2001 (Abridged) 14:20
4 Tomas Korber - Financial District 22:04
5 Taylor Deupree - Dust 4:15

On the night of Sunday, May 6, 2001, composer Kenneth Kirschner, as part of a series of pieces documenting the sounds of different New York City neighborhoods, took his tape recorder to the Financial District of Lower Manhattan to begin field recordings for a new piece. The resulting
low-resolution portrait captured the sounds of a deserted urban landscape: the empty, winding streets of old Dutch New Amsterdam, its modern, towering skyscrapers -- and a region of the city that, several months later, would be renamed Ground Zero.

and/OAR is proud to present "May 6, 2001", a collection of five interpretations by five renowned contemporary composers of the aforementioned field recording portrait.

With excerpts from Kirschner's original 2001 composition based on the field recording, the CD also includes pieces by Taylor Deupree (USA), Tomas Korber (Switzerland), Ralph Steinbrüchel (Switzerland), and Aaron Ximm (aka Quiet American; USA), all utilizing the 2001 Financial District field recording as their sole source material. The result is a project that obliquely and subtly evokes the source recording and its subsequent meanings, while also standing on its
own as an estimable example of each artist's mastery of his craft.

In conjunction with the release of the CD, and/OAR is pleased to present two MP3s of related recordings. The first is the raw field recording itself, which is the source material for the entire project. This 46-minute, low-resolution soundscape of the New York City of early 2001 is presented here both for interested listeners, and for fellow artists who may wish to make use of it: http://www.kennethkirschner.com/field050601.mp3

In addition, here is the unedited, 36-minute version of Kirschner's composition based on the field recording is available here: http://www.kennethkirschner.com/kirschner050601.mp3
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Quiet American - Plumbing And Irrigation Of South Asia (and/OAR, 2003)

1 Takeoff
2 Oil Drum
3 Rice Pounder
4 Drainage Pipe
5 Hotel Sink
6 Communal Well
7 Prayer Wheel
8 Irrigation Cistern
9 Plumbing
10 Full Moon Well
11 Sprinklers
12 Gurgling Hose
13 Irrigation Pipe
14 Water Pump
15 Grain Grinders
16 Lawn Watering
17 Rubber Hose
18 Village Pump
19 Three Gorges
20 Waterfall
21 Bottles
22 Toilet

Aaron Ximm (aka Quiet American) is a "phonographer" (let's use this term) who's been a lot into the field recordings thing. Unfortunately, I haven't downloaded from his great site the various MP3s he has around, so my first encounter was the Stelzer/Talbot - Quiet American split 3" CDR which I truly enjoyed. Thanks to Dale, I had the chance to get a better idea of his work as dale recently issued his (first, if I am not mistaken) full CDR Plumbing And Irrigation Of South Asia featuring 22 pieces recorded between 98-01 all over Asia (China, Nepal, India, Bangladesh,
Vietnam, etc. Gotta admit that by the time I heard the aforementioned split 3" CDR, accidentally it was the time that "The Quiet American" movie was playing, so I went to see it, and frankly I liked it, needless to say, that upon seeing the film, there striked in my mind a flash that I had Graham Greene's s/t book lying somewhere in the house, purchased some 15 more or less years ago for practice reasons and thanks to Aaron (I guess), I found it rotting somewhere in my basements library (though I still haven't found the proper time to start re-reading it). But I am beating a lot about the bush, well, over here I don't know if Aaron's on Pyle's role or the
"narrator's" but certainly it is a pleasant surprise to see that still there are phonographers (uh, say "artists" or whatever) who evoke questions out of their soundscapes. Aaron has included a very interesting text around the use of water and the future of water supplies in Asia, including, of course, references to the West and East, and the way the two deal w/ the problem. The vast majority of the recordings themselves too deal with this certain problem. Frankly, being in a country that this problem is also discussed (but our state sleeps in its beauty sleep and gives no f**k 'bout that), I found it a really exciting moment both listening and reading. I assume that for being his first full CDR release, Aaron crafted a truly stunning experience, providing food for both the mind & ear/soul. Besides, I always considered as essentials, releases which work as "audio books", how about you?
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