Michael Delia & Simon Whetham - Live At Školská 28 (Crónica, 2011)

1 Live At Školská 28 23:14

Michael Delia and Simon Whetham collaborative performance recorded at the Školská 28 gallery space in Prague Saturday 20th November 2010.

Simon Whetham was invited to perform at Školská 28, Prague, on 20th November 2010. In addition to playing his signature solo field recording composition, using only recordings captured in Prague in the week preceding the concert, he also requested to be introduced to local musicians in order to collaborate and improvise with them. Miloš Vojtěchovský, Director of Školská 28 put Simon in contact with US artist and sometime Prague resident Michael Delia.

After a brief meeting and an exchange of CD's they played an improvised collaborative set, Michael playing various instruments through effects and Simon playing field recordings and processing some of Michael's sounds.
Crónica

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Simon Whetham - Cold Shoulder (Audio Gourmet, 2011)

1 Cold Shoulder (Part 1.1) 02:51
2 Cold Shoulder (Part 1.3) 07:19
3 Cold Shoulder (Part 2) 06:45

Simon Whetham has been capturing and composing almost primarily with field recordings since taking part in a research trip to Iceland in 2005.
Since then he has been gaining a steadily increasing profile: exhibiting in Iceland; recording in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil; performing at a large number of festivals and events, both nationally and internationally, notably the recent Madeiradig 2010; having work accepted for release by labels such as Cronica, And/OAR, Dragon's Eye, Con-V, Trente Oiseaux, 1000fussler, Mystery Sea, Entr’acte, Install, Lens and Gruenrekorder; commissioned by Creative Labs to build a surround sound installation to demonstrate their equipment and software; commissioned by painter Kathryn Thomas to compose a surround soundtrack to accompany her ‘Lightyears’ series of exhibitions; producing radio works for Resonance FM, Overlap.org and Kunst Radio Austria; and invited to participate in two residencies at the Art Container in Tallinn, Estonia, the second to compose new work, collaborate with other artists using sound and run deep listening, field recording and compostion workshops.
This residency has resulted in ‘Active Crossover’, a touring exhibition and exchange project which continues to tour through 2011 in four further exhibition spaces across the UK.
Future events and projects also include a performance at Experimental Intermedia in New York, and running field recording workshops in Bogota, Columbia.

Simon is based in Bristol, UK, where he has lived on and off for 14 years. Whilst much of his work is based around his travels, Simon took time out to record some sounds within his locality to make up an Audio Gourmet EP called 'Cold Shoulder'...
For four months Simon lived facing an industrial area of Bristol called St. Philips, where on quiet evenings he would wander around the buildings, listening to the city, but from somewhere very still and lifeless compared to it's daytime activity. Of course, as we all know, these areas are never silent. These nocturnal sounds of an area, normally crashingly loud, are the raw materials of 'Cold Shoulder (Parts 1 and 2)'
Simon has also put together a bonus track continuing from where he left off with this EP and it will be available to download as part of a forthcoming compilation album here on Audio Gourmet.
Audio Gourmet

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Simon Whetham & Paul Khimasia Morgan - The Grey Area (CONV, 2010)

the live collaboration between paul khimasia morgan and myself, documented as 'sanctuary' (con-v catalogue number cnv63), was so successful we decided to record an improvised session together while i was in brighton. we used the grey area gallery early on a rainy sunday morning. i employed field recordings, radio transmissions and electromagnetic signals all captured in the gallery space we recorded in, working with paul to create something truly beautiful.
Simon Whetham

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Simon Whetham & Paul Khimasia Morgan - Sanctuary (CONV, 2010)

1 Sanctuary

knowing paul and his work only over the space of a year, i invited him to perform at an event i organised at the sanctuary cafe, hove, brighton, as part of the project 'active crossover'. i decided we should play as a duo, using the format of the events where one artist plays a short solo set, then is joined by the second artist for a short collaboration. the first artist then leaves the second to continue playing their own solo piece.

my thanks to paul, the grey area, arts council england, miguel and the artists who contributed to the continued success of 'active crossover'.
Simon Whetham

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Simon Whetham & Various Artists - Active Crossover (Impulsive Habitat, 2010)

VA are:

Douglas Benford, Gints Birznieks, Jez Riley French, Iris Garrelfs, John Grzinich, Joined By Wire, Jaanika Kakluse, Kaspars Kalnins, KIWA, Shawn Pinchbeck, Merilyn Püss, Piibe Piirma, Maksim Shentelev, Toms Siklovs, Silver Stairs of Ketchikan, Sound Meccano, Toomas Thetloff and Alexander Thomas.

Throughout May 2009 I participated in a residency at the Polymer Factory Culturehouse in Tallinn, Estonia, to compose new work, collaborate with other artists using sound and run deep listening, field recording and composition workshops.

This residency has resulted in ‘Active Crossover’, a touring exhibition and exchange project which has been hosted by the Arnolfini in Bristol and The Grey Area in Brighton, incorporating a large scale sound installation in two sonically treated chambers, creating three separate listening experiences.
In one you hear my composition created during and following the residency, in the other work by all the artists i worked and performed with. When outside the enclosed spaces, the listener will hear both, combining my work with that of the guest artists. The track released by Impulsive Habitat is a composed approximation of being in the exhibition space and moving around the three chambers. You will hear my work in isolation, and that of the guest artists, but also a combination of the two.

Tracks included are:
Simon Whetham: 'Active Crossover II'
John Grzinich: 'Sentience of Spring'
Jez riley French: 'Pelure #10'
Maksim Shentelev: '16-36';
Sound Meccano: 'Walking through'
Kaspars Kalnins, Toms Siklovs, Gints Birznieks, Maksim Shentelev and John Grzinich: 'Bungu Tanks / Turbine Hall'
KIWA: 'Structural Divisibility'
Toomas Thetloff: 'Buckwheat on Steel Brushes'
Shawn Pinchbeck: 'Ajulennuline'
Merilyn Püss: 'From Butterflies to Crows'
Piibe Piirma: 'Sound for Babies'
Jaanika Kakluse: 'The Walk'
Silver Stairs of Ketchikan/Joined By Wire: 'Active Crossover 18Oct09'
Alexander Thomas: 'Active Crossover 18Oct09'
Iris Garrelfs / Douglas Benford: 'Active Crossover 18Oct09'

My thanks to all the artists and galleries involved so far, all at Polymer during my residency, John Kannenberg, Patrick McGinley, Arts Council England and Impulsive Habitat.
Simon Whetham

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Simon Whetham - Landlocked (Gruenrekorder, 2008)

1 Landlocked 23:04


"Landlocked" comprises various recordings of water sources, recorded on a visit to Mongolia in November 2006.
The work features recordings of the holy spring in Dulaanhaan, a water run-off from a power station in Ulan Bataar, droplets of meltwater on a metal window sill and colliding ice floes amongst the sources.
Water sources were the focus of the work as Mongolia is a land that is known to be mainly arid, and landlocked by Russia to the north and China to the south.
This work is also significant, as it is all that is left of hours of recordings collected over a two week period, the rest of which were lost due to a faulty external hard drive.
Gruenrekorder

Unlike Simon Whetham I've never been to Mongolia but I believe him when he says that this massive country hasn't got much water. Wetham got struck by this and, oddly enough, all the recordings he made in Mongolia, only the water recordings survived. With these he recorded a pure soundscape piece of water flowing and various types of rain (or so it seems) and created a very nice, if not a bit short at twenty-three minutes, piece out of it. Silence, near silence and massive water sounds are mixed together into a soundpicture of a dry country. Quite nice at that, this Lopez like work.
Vital Weekly

That the latter’s release is dominated by water sounds isn’t in itself so unusual but it is when one discovers that the material comes from recordings Whetham made during a 2006 visit to Mongolia, an arid country that, caught between Russia to the North and China to the south, is completely landlocked. The EP, part of Gruenrekorder’s Field Recording Series, presents a twenty-three-minute episodic piece that moves from pure water sounds to percussive episodes (created by droplets striking a metal windowsill) and from micro-sound passages to ones where water barrels forth with crushing force (sound sources include the holy spring in Dulaanhaan, water run-off at a Ulan Bataar power station, and ice floes). The submersive Landlocked offers an interesting, almost diametric contrast to Whetham’s 2006 Ascension_Suspension EP where cable cars in the French Alps provided sound material.
Textura

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