Steve Roden - Translations & Articulations (Griffin Contemporary Exhibitions, 1997)

1 Of Space Enclosed By Planes Or Surfaces (23:10)

this cd comes as part of an exhibition pamphlet entitled 'translations & articulations'. this was in turn the name of roden's solo exhibition at the griffin contemporary in venice california, who are in turn the publishers. the cd, which comes in only 996 of the 2000 copies published, "was composed entirely of sampled & electronically manipulated (sound) fragments" all recorded from the lower and upper gallery spaces of the griffin contemporary as roden's exhibition was being erected. roden recorded a ten minute segment of hammering, sawing, footsteps and voices. these he then loaded into his sampler. the intention, as described in the pamphlet, was to create a
kind of "imaginary sound installation - a sort of portable & inflatable space - that one can listen to, rest upon, or wander around in". to do this roden used the recorded sounds of the first space, the galleries, in the construction of the second space, the imaginary installation as found on the cd. he stretched and manipulated the 10 minutes of recorded material into the finished 23:12 disc. the brevity of the disc, which facilitates repeat playing, helps the listener to mentally construct a strongly defined picture of the sound space being delineated. as has been said the
foundations of this space are the original field recordings. however they are virtually unrecognizable because of the manipulating and stretching they have endured at the hands of roden's sampler. the spaces in between these sounds have been infilled with resonating clunks and low end drones. the resulting 'imaginary sound installation' is quite perfect and positively encourages repeat playing. an exhilarating release!
...From the Bunker...

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Steve Roden - Forms Of Paper (Line, 2001)

1 Forms Of Paper (54:01)

Presqu'une heure de manipulation de pages d'un livre, pièce créée pour l'exposition Art in the Libraries Exhibition...

Los angeles artist steve roden often reconfigures physical objects and spaces in his recordings and installations, in pursuit of 'possible landscapes'. that is, by abstracting objects, architectures and field recordings through electronics, he creates new audio spaces. he refers to his microsonic aesthetic, which at times shares affinities with bernhard gunter's hushed work, as "lower case sound" or "sound concerned with the subtlety and the quiet activity of listening". fittingly, "forms of paper" is an expanded version of a recording initially designed for installation in the los angeles public library which dealt with the materiality of the printed page. all of the sounds on "forms of paper" are derived from the turning and touching of book pages, but the way that they've been processed and reconfigured with protools strips out any obvious sonic hallmarks. what's left is a shifting constellation of crackles, rustles, and static, swirling together eddy upon eddy of clicks into a pouros drone. it's certainly not a vast imaginative leap to imagine these sounds as a sort of sonic metaphor for the surface of paper viewed under magnification, cratered with the natural grain of compressed pulp, littered with dust, and scraped with angled light. Indeed, the narrow scope of roden's conceit contributes the work's success. his philosophical interest is summed up in a quote from hiroshi ogawa: " when you hold a clean immaculate piece of paper, no matter what size it may be cut or folded into, you can find the meaning of its form there. it is clear that the surface of the sheet encloses infinite space." like the object that it takes as its point of departure, "forms of paper" unfolds from a nominally two dimensional plane into a space shot through with hidden depths and cavities, each one a wormhole leading to a realm as full of possibility as silence itself.
The Wire

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Steve Roden & Brandon LaBelle - The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm (Meme, 1999)

1 A Torn Element (6:45)
2 Within The Clearest Stem (2:47)
3 The Quiet Mist Drones (2:36)
4 Raw Star Calm (2:27)
5 Water Messiah (5:16)
6 Shoe Steam Drowns (5:32)
7 Soon Has He (2:58)
8 The Alm Die (2:21)
9 A Hidden Hour (2:05)
10 With Calmer Word (7:15)
11 Drawn Low Material (10:09)
12 Wood Hiss (5:10)

Steve Roden et Brandon LaBelle assemblent des field recordings domestiques aux limites du silence....

Everything you need to know about this record is contained within the title. ID Battery member Labelle's courteous "take only memories; leave only footprints" approach to field recording nuzzles gently against the resourceful Roden's scavenger-hunt sound discoveries. Labelle stakes out the yard, flat on his stomach, discerning ear to the ground, sampling the bouquets of natural statics the way a vintner tastes for the perfect marriage of earth, wood, flower and fruit. Roden (in between noise) pads about the house, rubbing, prodding, tapping and flicking mantlepiece bric-a-brac and other manufactured miscellania like an appraiser testing leaded crystal for the correctly pitched 'ping.' They're both the fussiest of collectors, searching high and low (but mostly low) for sounds to add to their archives of little noises. When they pool their very well recorded collections - Labelle's antenna-twitches, hairy- wing scritches, rustling reeds and sighing stems with Roden's brushed bowls, bowed splints, prepared wheels, souvenir gongs, thumb-pianos and makeshift string-things - they gently bring together the unheard worlds within the walls and without; to the point where sounds become untraceable. The clicking on "the quiet mist drones" may be that of an ant washing its mandibles with feathery feelers. Or it could just be Roden playing with a retractable pen. Too many of the so-called sound archivists are quick to go for the gusto, funneling the grandest of natural phenomena and showiest of domestic and artificial events into their pocket tape-recorders. Labelle and Roden think small - Roden even refers to such work as "lowercase music." One imagines the artists piecing together their perceptive collage with a jewellers' loupe and steady fingers. Even without clamor and din, their art reveals wonderful secrets, about the place of things in this world and about the hidden worlds within commonplace things. Maybe the volume and contrast have been turned down, but Labelle and Roden's work could hardly be more populated. The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm is filled with sounds so easily overlooked (or, even more embarrassingly, mistaken for silence,) - a fastidious spider swinging between radii on her web; water-bugs excreting and hugging their dear, tiny air-bubbles before the splash and descent; the inner hum of wood, metal, plastic and glass coaxed forth with strokings, thumpings and bowings; the shallow reverberations of a dusty gong; a leaf's annoyed response to sudden changes in wind-direction. If you dismiss these riches of quietude as "minimalism," you've missed the point entirely. Toned down? Yes. Stripped? Hardly. Between what is audible and what has been left to inference, ten minutes of "dawn low material" - or the tensile whine of "wood hiss" - vibrate with drama, color, texture, emotion, tension - all the seeds of music in its most exhibitionistic, string-drenched and opulent state. So, go ahead. Turn up the volume, if you need to, and you'll find that it's all there. Remarkable.
Sonomu

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Steve Roden - Winter Couplet (New Plastic Music, 2002)

1 Winter Couplet (25:16)

Réalisé pour une installation, 'Winter couplet' a «utilisé deux petites tasses à thé comme sources sonores de départ. Le son était diffusé sur de petits haut-parleurs installés dans des tubes en carton. Fin, délicat et simple.
Sub Rosa

Steve Roden's Winter Couplet is a 25-minute single-track recording that uses the sounds of tea cups (as chimes) as a source. By mixing and sampling repetitive tones, Roden has created a sound collage symphony that is engaging and romantic. The instructions read to play softly or at a low volume - but even at full throttle the effect is effervescent. The cover artwork includes two watercolor illustrations depicting couples - one of two cylinders with tiny speakers at the bottom pointing upward and the other is of two different color cups and presumably an instrument similar to a drumstick. These are reflective of the materials used by Roden in the creation of his often organic sound works. Winter Couplet was inspired by the work of architect Shigeru Ban. Simplicity and beauty, sparse and zen.
Igloo Magazine

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