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Click on the titles to listen. All compositions © christophe charles and authors see also Discogs |
2021 Yellow Mountain Yellow Mountain was first composed in 2015 using actual sounds of Lake Guy and Bogong Village, and was designed for headphone playback while traversing Lake Guy by canoe. It is also an homage to Henning Christiansen, who was fond of birds. It commences with a mix of sounds of the lake’s surroundings, including various birdcalls of varying intensities, mixed together with the hum of Clover Dam Power Plant and some trombone notes played around the lake by Miyamoto Kazuyuki. Sounds of insects and lawnmowers gradually appear, before we plunge beneath the surface of Lake Guy to hear the underwater activities of streams and air bubbles, modulated by the vibrations of the power plant, eventually returning to the surface where the birdcalls are calmer. Some of these sounds are hidden, or too far away to be heard by the human ear, but nevertheless present enough to delineate the Bogong Village soundscape. The piece forges a relationship between the under and above water spaces, through different sound events sustained by the continuous hum of the electric power plant, which also suggests the deep, latent presence of a non¬human, non¬animal presence. Yellow Mountain (2021) reshapes the 2015 piece, and uses previously unreleased material, providing new perspectives on the Bogong soundscape. |
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2020 Toneshifter I was invited by TJ Norris to compose a 30 minutes playlist for his radio program: |
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2020I was invited by Kim Cascone to make a composition for the 2020 release of "From Here to Tranquility- Volume 12 - Horizonte Aeternitatis" on |
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2020 Five Minutes for John Russell and Mopomoso Jul 19, 2020, second edition of Mopomoso monthly webcast, presented by John Russell. |
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2020 hommages-radio On May 07, 2020, I was invited by Samon Takahashi to play for his Antivirus radio program on ∏-node [https://p-node.org/]. |
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2020 with harajuku - shiseido floor sound design Shiseido Floor Sound Design direction by Onodera Yui and Oguro Junichi with sounds by Christophe Charles. |
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2020 Introduction to Haydn Variationen Exhibition AUDIOSPHERE / AUDIOSFERA |
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2019 DubLab Interview - Japanese Ambient Journey https://dublab.jp/2019/10/japanese-ambient-journey-vol-3/ |
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2019 John Russell Lecture, Concert and Workshop John Russell Visiting Professor: |
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2019 Yokohama-Cave 15 min ground tone with guitar and bass parts inspired by The Fall. |
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2018 Tokyo-Marseille-Barcelona TMB, an international project in two parts: |
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2017 Christophe Charles + Inada Kozo i[] On the making of i[] |
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2017геометрия настоящегоGeometry of Now |
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2016 Define Festival: Christophe Charles with Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, dirigent: Jesper Nordin 1- Mozart Ouverture til Figaros Bryllup |
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2015 Yellow Mountain This compilation presents an overview of commissioned sound works produced for the BCSC since its inception in 2010. Included are compositions by Christophe Charles, Byron Huang-Dean, Rosalind Hall, Geoff Robinson, Michael Vorfeld and Philip Samartzis — comprising direct responses to the ecology of the Kiewa Valley and its attendant infrastructure. |
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2015 Christophe Charles / Cal Lyall Sunday Night String Theory All music by Christophe Charles / Cal Lyall |
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2015 Christophe Charles + Shibata Satoko Nagoya Sound Performance Platform 2015 duration: 20'21" |
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2014 Karkowski in Amazonia
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2013
Christophe Charles, Tamaru and Opitope duration: 10'36" |
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2013 Christophe Charles, Christopher Willits, Taylor Deupree, Tetsuro Yasunaga, Toshimaru Nakamura and Opitope duration: 13'09" |
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2013 Telofossils The exhibition is oriented around a trilogy of works titled “Destruction,” dealing with the end of the world. Following the unfolding of the exhibition itself the “End of the World Crisis” appears first and is an overture to destruction, composed of a series of economic, ecological and political crises. “At the End of the World”, the second movement, reveals the different forms and processes of destruction through four individual pieces in two exhibition rooms. Within the vast emptiness of Room 201, in a quiet yet oddly sinister atmosphere the third piece “Imagination of the End of the World” is displayed. This is an installation comprised of real objects―made on-site―and futuristic multimedia, which transforms the gallery into a hypothetical simulation of an archeological excavation site in a future where humanity is already extinct. This highly immersive, sensory exhibition experience is perhaps a little like an alternative chapter in an apocalyptic novel or film. The narrative is structured so that true/false, genuine/fictitious elements are mingled together, and so that spectators wandering through the exhibition will find it difficult to tell fact from fiction. |
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2013 Sculptures musicales The playlist duration is 18 hours and 17 minutes, in homage to the "Vexations" concert of September 9, 1963. |
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2011 sansujuku live: boris hegenbart vs christophe charles duration: 29'12"
Recording of the concert of November 24, 2011 at Tensai Sansujuku in Asakusabashi, Tokyo. Free improvisation by Boris Hegenbart and Christophe Charles. Stereo recording direct from the main mixer to a Zoom H1. No overdub or editing. |
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2011 nvscc (NUMB vs Christophe Charles - TMUG release) duration: 13'35"
alternative version of track 6 from: compilation VEIN [MUS-002] http://plumus.tokyomax.jp/release/mus-002 https://plumus.jp/track/nvscc ℗ 2011 +MUS [ Compilation, Digital ] Released: 2011/09/24 1 DUB-Russell: Adam Steals Payment 2 Daisuke Tanabe: You are climbing a telephone pole 2 3 Katsuhiro Chiba: elegant slope 4 Lluviasonido: Sabbath 5 hazcauch: scept 6 NUMB vs Christophe Charles: nvscc Mastering : NUMB (EKOUNE SOUND) Artwork : Taiyo Yamamoto 断続的に行われて来たNUMB,Christophe Charlesという電子音楽界の巨人二人によるセッションの初音源化。それぞれの音への聴取と繊細なオペレー ションの手つきを伺わせる緊張感に満ちた時 間が持続し、くぐもるような都市のサウンドスケープの中に、現れては消える輪郭を持たない電子音や具体音が点描 される。(Satoshi Hattori) This is a reconstruction of the concert by nvsc (Numb vs Christophe Charles) at Bullets, Tokyo, in September 2008. I have selected different sequences from that concert, enhanced parts of my contribution (recordings of respiratory devices, lawnmower and spring mechanism, voices treated with delay, convolution techniques and heavy reverb effect, etc.) and added them to the original recording, defining the timeline. Then Numb has remixed and mastered the result, adding stereo panning effect on some parts. Below is a link to my original mix, which is very different from the Numb mix used in the compilation. I personally prefer the Numb mix, which focuses more on textures and timber than on rhythm patterns. I think it is interesting to compare the two. (Christophe Charles) |
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2011 For Julius duration: 20'00"
COMPOSING WITH PROCESS: PERSPECTIVES ON GENERATIVE AND SYSTEMS MUSIC #3.2. Exclusives. 14.06.2011 (50' ) Exclusive
music by Yasunao Tone and Christophe Charles.
Each episode of this series is followed by a special accompanying programme of exclusive music by leading sound artists and composers working in the field. This show presents two works, the first by Japanese media artist Yasunao Tone, followed by a new piece by French composer Christophe Charles. 01:33 Yasunao Tone 'MP3 Deviation', 2011 (28'20'') 29:50 Christophe Charles 'Music for Julius', 2011 (20') Composer Rolf Julius passed away on January 21, 2011. He is known for his concept of 'small music' – a combination of multiple layers of electronic and natural sounds played through tiny speakers at low volume. He would use all kinds of small sized containers and receptacles (cups, little plates, flowerpots, etc.) together with the speakers to let them resonate in different ways. The experience of listening to his live music required active participation from the audience and was thus always very challenging. Julius' attitude and works have been of great inspiration for Charles, who through this 'Music for Julius', has tried to capture some of the characteristics of the colours and density of his music, in order to recreate a kind of 'small music' as he understands it. Some of the sounds were selected from Charles' own archives, others were recorded at night 'when insects and frogs are most loquacious, and combined with minimal electronic treatment'. The confrontation of those complex sound layers produce unexpected results and the listener has to find his/her way through a dense world of vibrations which merge into the real time environmental sounds where the listening experience is to happen. |
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2010 mirages duration: 6'00"
This track is a re- or de-composition of "mirages" by Olivier Alary / Ensemble (duration: 3'44", featuring vocals, strings, saxophone, percussions, guitar and mellotron), commissioned for the release of the album "Excerpts". The album was released in January 2011 by Fat Cat records (UK), but for an unknown reason this composition has not been included. The composition concentrates on the atmosphere created by the strings layers and the saxophone breathing sounds. Other ethereal ingredients such as planes, thunder, rain, cymbals, piano, have been added. The music was used by Gregory Chatonsky for a time-lapse movie of his exhibition "Telefossils" (Taipei, 2013). |
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2010 unterwegs duration: 28'12"
composed for the installation secret sound at Sheffield's Winter Garden from http://www.markfell.com/wiki/index.php?n=Mf.SecretSound "a sound installation for children in sheffield's winter garden taking place on the 13th of june. sounds by artists including Ryoji Ikeda, Florian Hecker, Mira Calix, Evol, Francisco Lopez, goodiepal, christophe charles and taylor deupree will be 'hidden' around the indoor gardens for children and families to discover. produced and curated by mark fell and mat steel for lovebytes festival 2010." |
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2008-2010 hcdc duration: 10'00"
This is a 10' version of the original 42' composition (2008). This version was published in 2010 on the DVD "Daniel Charles et les mondes multiples" (Nouvelle Revue d'Esthétique, no.5, Paris, PUF). The original 42' version was released on Murmur Records in 2013. https://murmurrec.bandcamp.com/album/hcdc HCDC is dedicated to Daniel Charles (November 27, 1935 - August 21, 2008) and Henning Christiansen (May 28, 1932 - December 10, 2008). Some of the sound material has been composed in collaboration with Henning (birds, bells, pipes) from the time I met him in 1985. Other material has been composed during live events in Fall 2008. The ending part is made of sounds of Daniel breathing through respiratory devices, recorded during his last days in August 2008. The whole composition has been assembled in November 2008, using the four 1038b Genelec speakers of the Rymer Auditorium at the Music Resaerch Center of the University of York (UK), during a residency organized by Mark Fell and Tony Myatt in the framework of the New Aesthetics in Computer Music Research Project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. http://www.music.york.ac.uk/mrc/na-cm/ Played at loud volume, the sounds move around the listener, and give impressions of contraction and expansion of outer and inner spaces. The wide range of frequencies and their movements make the work physical and immersive. Many sonic events happen in the low register, requiring thus this composition to be played through loudspeakers with a good response in low frequencies, and possibly extra subwoofers. This music is conceived as an interpenetration without obstruction of multiple and transparent time-spaces. (Christophe Charles) With gratitude to: Mark Fell and Tony Myatt, assisted by Peter Worth and Thom Blake, for organizing the residency at MRC, Emma Ota and Juan Carlos Blanca Avilés, for organizing the concerts where most of the sound material was recorded, Eero Tarasti, for his text, Shida Ayaka, for the sky photography as a notation of the composition, Blixa Bargeld, John Cage, ILIOS, Inada Kozo, Alvin Lucier, and Area - International POPular Group (Paolo Tofani, Demetrio Stratos, Giulio Capiozzo, Ares Tavolazzi, Patrizio Fariselli) for their ideas and music. [Below, a text by Eero Tarasti about the 42' original composition] Wanderings through Musical Spaces - Notes on HCDC, a composition by Christophe Charles I heard the electronic work by Christophe Charles for the first time in a most inspiring ambiance, namely at the Musée Marc Chagall and its chapelle-like auditorium at a symposium to commemorate the life of Daniel Charles (in May 2009). I was immediately taken by the sonorous landscapes realized with most refined skils and electronic tools. I was not quite able to situate the work in the proper genre but I approached it or, rather, it approached me as musique concrète, electronically elaborated musical fresco. As a semiotician I had the strong feeling of getting surrounded by sound events, which made me like float in a gravitationless musical universe. A.J. Greimas launched the terms englobé/englobant (surrounded/surrounding) as early as in his Sémantique structurale in 1966, yet borrowing them in fact from the existential philosophy of Karl Jaspers. To put it in later ‘biosemiotic’ terms, the composition by Christophe Charles constituted a kind of musical Umwelt, to which it invited its listener to step in. In later reflection another philosophical evocation came to my mind, namely the famous metaphor invented by the great Persian philosopher Avicenna, to prove the existence of a subject, namely a man floating in the universe without any sensory stimuli: would he then be able to say to exist? In going through the piece by Christophe Charles I first encountered elements which I could only verbalize as follows: birds, nature, clocks, echoes, murmurs, barking, waves of a sea, winds, ocean. Obviously signifiers having their ‘first articulation’ – to recall the old debate of Lévi-Strauss whether musique concrète was a language or not – to his mind it was not: since it lacked the second articulation (whereas neither serial music was language missing the first articulaton i.e. recognizable musical shapes as its ‘words’). I remember having once discussed with Lelio Camilleri, Italian colleague and expert, how difficult it is for an electronic composer to write narrative pieces. Narrativity presupposes of course events ordered in time. In most general terms: something must become something else, x must become y. However, the work by Christophe Charles is very Cagean: it does not impose or force upon the listener any temporal scheme, disengagement and engagement in Greimassian terms, forming what we call a narrative tension or arch. We are rather like making a journey in a sonorous transcendence without time, beyond our Dasein, and meeting in this huge space expanding to us hitherto unknown and alien phenomena. But when I say ‘ we’ where is this subject? There is indeed not much actoriality in the traditional sense in this music i.e. anthropomorphic human-like ‘themes’ or sounds. Nevertheless when we recognize something like ringing bells or a flute coming closer and the distanciating we have at least some traces of human signs, so a kind of vague actoriality. We are moving like on pre-symbolic level of units by cognitive scholars like Marc Leman. There is also a feeling of absence of actors, i.e. loneliness amidst huge space with a kind of water-like natural element. This is something like creation of the world: there is first only water and then comes a bird of the air and searches for a place to rest..and lays her nest and eggs on a knee of a water nymph. Such is the myth in Kalevala, which inspired once Sibelius for his Luonnotar. Christophe Charles shows us a modern version of this creation myth. We hear drops into water, and then distant sounds of machines, like approaching us from somewhere, the idea of a crescendo like in Wagner’s ouverture to Lohengrin. At the moment 7’57’’ we hear falling down of trees, something like shooting at a distance, maybe with a laser ray – if it had a sound. In the moment 9’07’’ we hear rain, and visually something very bright, dazzling, then penetrating sounds like emitted by robots, like machines left alone giving still signals endlessly. Here I thought that this music is truly transcendental, there is no movement up/down in the outer space, this is like pure virtuality. There is something like a type writer, bird and then twisting stones, movement gets deeper, all sounds are heard like in a jungle, not tropical but fictive. But I notice: how strongly rooted is our habit to search for meaningful elements of first articulation! In 14’ there is a change into a metallic sonority in high register. We hear like church bells of space time, age from Sirius. Followed by sounds of helicopters. At 21’45’’ there is whistle which stops the previous section, as an index sign. Indeed, we are here like wandering through various atmospheres – in the sense of Ligeti, or through semiospheres or biospheres. There are up/down gliding signals, metallic pedal point and iconic up/down with whistles against this. Then we distanciate. There is long vanishment, only upper penetrating line remains, We are in timelessness. At 26’38’’ new universe opens to us. Again murmur and like a rebirth. Another counterpuntal pedal point. At 27’26’’ machines, airplains, strong feeling of getting down, plunging, lower and lower. But ultimately the machine disappears in the horizont. At 31’00’’ a new start from distance like tapping some strings of a koto or doublebass every 10 seconds. This picking up of strings gets louder and lead us to a new universe. The sound has more and more resonance and vibration – it is like Buddhist ritual and death bells. In the air we hear a chord like stemming from a string instrument which approaches us as a counterpuntal treatment. This music does have kinetic movements, climaxes and cadences, if it is not narrative it is at least functional in a certain sense. At 38’52 a diminuendo takes place, picking up of string becomed threatening – like in a Japanese movie by Yasujiro Ozu from 1953 (Tokyo monogatari) where a young man has to rush out from a funeral ritual of her mother because he cannot stand the sounds of the bells.We hear wind blowing… In fact, what we have met in the music by Christophe Charles is exactly the same as what Marcel Proust said we always face when listening to music, namely we are like making a journey to an unknown star, we are looking at the reality with another’s eyes – and note: he said that about music. Altogether the composition by Charles is somehow implicitly also visual, which is certainly not anything against the pure essence of music as a sonorous art. Eero
Tarasti
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2010 unter den linden duration: 20'21"
http://www.nonvisualobjects.com/label/ NVO_022 split cd Christophe Charles : unter den linden i8u : und transit unter den linden « The “Grundton” of this 30-minute composition is the recording of the concert given at SND STUDIOS SHEFFIELD (UK) in March 2009, entitled “Why is there something rather than nothing?” by Mark Fell and powered with d&b speakers by Tony Myatt (MRC, University of York). The sounds of planes have been recorded in Mallorca (Spain) in 1987, and in Pilat (France) in 2009. This music comes after HCDC, composed in November 2008 after the death of Daniel Charles – his last days were darkened by breathing difficulties, hence the overall presence of the “wind”. The last five minutes were composed in 1987 with telephone bells, a silo and a Spanish garbage truck, under the name “unter den linden”. The piece is not related with Berlin, but with Jules Massenet’s “Sous les tilleuls” (from “Scenes alsaciennes” where bells are heard in a distance and thus modified by the wind), and evokes a peaceful atmosphere just before the bombs begin to fall. » Christophe Charles, September 2009 « This world of ours is one relative world. Any number of other possible or actual worlds are conceivable. Each such world is able to reflect all the others without ceasing to be the real world that it is of itself. » Nishitani Keiji « Non, ce n’est pas une collaboration, mais bien un CD partagé entre Christophe Charles et i8u (la Québécoise France Jobin) qui ont droit chacun à une demi-heure. Charles propose une unique pièce de 30 minutes, concoction d’enregistrements de terrain et ambiants placés à l’extrême frontière de l’audible - je dois absolument réécouter pour m’en faire une bonne idée, elle est passée épouvantablement inaperçue. La proposition d’i8u est plus substantielle (du moins, au premier coup d’oreille), tout en respectant l’esthétique très microscopique de l’étiquette (qui correspond à la sienne, d’ailleurs). Cinq pièces donc, aux bourdons plus présents, aux couleurs froides, aux sons parfois en creux - “Montag” est très agréable. Mais ça ne vaut pas son dernier album chez Room40. No, this is not a collaboration. It is a split CD with Christophe Charles and i8u (Quebecer France Jobin) contributing a half hour of material each. Charles offers a single 30-minute track, a concoction of field and ambient recordings arranged at the very threshold of audibility – I’ll have to listen again under perfect conditions to figure it out, as it went by almost completely undetected. i8u’s proposition is more substantial (at least on first listen), while keeping close to the microsound aesthetic of this label (which happens to fit her own too). Five tracks with heavier drones, cold colours, and occasionally hollow sounds. “Montag” is quite enjoyable. But it’s no match to her recent full-length on Room40. » (francois couture, Monsieur Delire) « An der Untergrenze der Wahrnehmungsschwelle beginnt dafür die Aufnahme von Christophe Charles, unter den linden (nv°22). Das Stück, das ursprünglich den schönen Titel „Why is there something rather than nothing?“ trug, bezieht seine Umbenennung nicht auf Berlin, sondern auf einen spanischen Lastwagen gleichen Namens sowie auf den Filmtitel „Sous les tilleuls“ von Jules Massenet, der – wie auch dieses Stück gegen das Ende zu – Glockentöne und ihre Veränderung durch Windgeräusche hörbar macht. Komponiert nach dem Tod seines Vaters Daniel Charles, schafft Christophe Charles aus vielen field recordings eine Computermusik in stiller, friedlicher Atmosphäre. Teil zwei dieser 22. nv°-CD entstand während dreier Monate, als i8u, bürgerlich: France Jobin, in Krems/NÖ artist in residence war. Der leere Raum des Minoritenplatzes inspirierte sie zur Quadrophonie-Komposition und transit. Von der Struktur und dem Gestus her ideal zur Arbeit von Christophe Charles passend, öffnet auch die Klanginstallation von i8u ruhige akustische Räume. In Summe zwei wundervolle soundscapes: skulpturale Elektronik an der endlich abgeschafften Grenze zwischen Musik, Architektur und Bildender Kunst. (felix, freistil) This is one of nonvisualobjects’ three new releases, all of which are collaborations, or split eps, by two artists. Here we have the latest by both Marseille’s Christophe Charles and Canadian sound sculptor i8u respectively. Starting with Charles’ Unter den Linden, a wonderfully atmospheric 30-minute composition which was performed in concert at SND Studios (UK) in early 2009. By using the sounds of wind ― and of flying things like planes and birds ― the skies are heralded. The above and beyond sounds pay homage to his recently deceased father, Daniel Charles. There’s something of a spirited rumble, though this is quite low-flying and vibratory. A transitional piece that lulls and suspends throughout, like a haunting reminder, or a flickering light at the end of a dark cavernous space that you gravitate towards curiously. Once through you are out on a bustling street, walking through the din of the city. Worlds slowly collide, politely shifting as an ascending craft swallows the scene, leaving behind a semblance of trickling water and whisper. On Und Transit i8u (France Jobin) paints a restrained world with sine waves by bending elegant sounds, paired with the echoey hollows of a passageway in Lower Austria. During an art residency she found a certain inspiration in the Minoritenplatz, in a long corridor towards her studio. Within these sounds of emptiness Jobin recorded a certain reverberation here, a path that shuttles you in secret. The five pieces that comprise the work are a collection of manipulated field recordings in and around the city of Krems known for its eye-popping riverscapes and historical architecture. Unlike most North American cities contemporary art is integral to the social structure of daily life here. i8u helps draw from daily walks through the city in what may be better described as a micro-encoded mapping of her meanderings. It is on Donnerstag that this becomes most evident in this very elusive work. It lifts gently, opens with an airy drone, rises and glides away. » (tj norris, toneshift) « Für den Split unter den linden / und transit (nv° 022) taten sich CHRISTOPHE CHARLES & i8u zusammen. Als Motti wählten sie Follow your bliss (Joseph Campbell) und von Nishitani Keiji, dem die Philosophie eine Gedankenbrücke zwischen Heidegger, Existentialismus und Zen verdankt, einen Gedanken über die Relativität unserer Welt. Hinter dem Kürzel i8u findet man die Kanadierin France Jobin, die sich zu ihrem extrem dröhnminimalistischen, von nadelfeinen Clicks und Gesirr durchsetzten Konstrukt, wenn auch nur sehr implizit, anregen ließ durch alltägliche Eindrücke bei Gängen über den Minoritenplatz in Krems, wo sie sich im Winter 2008/09 als Stipendiatin aufhielt. Charles webte zuvor ein Klanggespinst aus feinem Gedröhn und Gezirpe, gelegentlichem Flugzeugdonner, Wind, dumpfen Wassertropfen. Der ‚Grundton‘ der halben Stunde basiert auf einem Konzert von Mark Fell, das betitelt war Warum ist überhaupt etwas und nicht vielmehr nichts? - nach Heidegger die Grundfrage der Metaphysik. Das klanglich scheinbar nur ambiente Beinahenichts entpuppt sich als Memento Mori für seinen Vater Daniel Charles (1935-2008), hierzulande bekannt durch seine Merve-Bände über Musik, Cage und Transzendentalismus. Charles suggeriert dabei die Stille vor dem Sturm, oder wie er schreibt: a peaceful atmosphere just before the bombs begin to fall. » (rbd, Bad Alchemy) « The second new release is also a split one, this time between I8U and Christophe Charles. He opens up with a piece called 'Unter Den Linden' and it uses various sounds of airplanes, telephone bells, a silo and a Spanish garbage truck. It lasts thirty minutes and it takes a while before it unfolds. The processing seems to be minimal here, but you're never sure then about these sort of things. Its an alright piece of music based on field recordings, but also the best I ever heard in this field. Canada's I8U has five pieces, which she recorded while doing a 3 months artist residency in Krems, Austria. While walking to the studio, she noticed some particular passageway at the Minoritenplatz, which seemed 'lonely', ignored by those who used it. She collected field recordings around the small city of Krems and did a four channel installation based on the emptiness of the passageway. These five pieces are typical of the current interests of I8U: high pitched sine waves, but not high in volume, and down on the ground there are bits of low end sound. Field recordings are hard to recognize here, if at all. Here too I have the idea that I am listening to something that is actually quite good, but also not very surprising. It might be due to the fact that I8U uses a too similar approach to treating her sounds. The outcome, in both cases is however nice enough. » (frans de waard, vital weekly 732) |
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2009 Pour le LIVRE de Mallarmé duration: 64"
contribution de Christophe Charles pour 0000 En 1957, Jacques Scherer édite le LIVRE de Mallarmé pour une première publication (désormais épuisée) et en 1967 Jacques Polieri réussira à en créer une scénographie électronique. Hasard spatio-temporel et symbolique, c'est justement entre 1957 et 1965 que Frederick Kiesler transfigure les codes scéniques et construit une «grotte du Livre» à Jérusalem. L'écriture contemporaine est depuis déterminée et déterminante face aux technologies numériques quand tout semble débuter par un langage là où le livre semblerait s'éteindre ? C'est à partir du LIVRE dont le manuscrit reste aussi ésotérique - comme le langage informatique qui nous connecte avec l'univers - que Franck Ancel a tissé un réseau de collaborations pour le projet «0000» à partir du manuscrit du LIVRE de Mallarmé. Comme le LIVRE taoïste du destin, un échiquier repose sur le chiffre 64 et seule la mise en jeu suffit comme réponse. A partir des feuillets du manuscrit original conservé à Harvard aux USA, Ancel va mettre en espace, de manière aléatoire et en montage, l'ensemble des feuillets autour du chiffre 64. Quand toute l'histoire des arts depuis Mallarmé semble n'avoir été au monde que pour aboutir à un échec. Une CONSTELLATION de créateurs et auteurs ont accepté de participer à une mise en jeu de 64 sons de 64 secondes à l'invitation de Franck Ancel : Annie Abrahams - Rodolphe Alexis - Art of failure (Nicolas Montgermont - Nicolas Maigret) - Joseph Attié - Jean-Pierre Balpe - Pierre Beloüin - Hervé Binet - Dinah Bird - Julien Blaine - Philippe Bordas – Jean Bordé - Antoine Boute – Philippe Castellin - Laurent Chambert - Christophe Charles - David Christoffel - Thierry Coduys - Michel Corvin - Sylvain Courtoux - Laurent Dailleau - Magali Daniaux & Cédric Pigot - Mathias Delplanque - Dina Douieb - Vincent Epplay – Erikm - Yvan Etienne - David Fenech - France Info - Bertrand Gauguet – Nicolas Gimbert - Michel Giroud - Bernard Heidsieck - HP Process (Hortense Gauthier - Philippe Boisnard) - Joël Hubaut - Marc Hurtado - Etienne Jaumet - Alice Keller - Pierre-Yves Macé – Stéphane Mallarmé - Léonardo Marcos - Bérangère Maximin - Pierre Ménard - Jean-Claude Moineau - Montagne Froide (Valentine Verhaeghe - Michel Collet) - Jean-Marc Monterra - Joachim Montessuis – Cécile De Montigny - NG - F.J. Ossang - Julien Ottavi - Tibor Papp - Serge Pey - Richard Pinhas - RadioMentale (Jean-Yves Leloup - Eric Pajot) - David Ramsamy - Jean-Philippe Renoult - Jocelyn Robert - Julie Rousse - Gaël Segalen - Emmanuel Sévigny - Black Sifichi – Ghedalia Tazartes - Kasper T. Toeplitz - Valérie Vivancos - Wild Shores (Evelyne Hebey - Fred Nouveau - Marc Roques) - Bertrand Wolff – Christian Zanesi. Ces CONSTELLATIONS sont des visions d'un univers où chaque échec passé est une victoire sur les étoiles. Franck Ancel http://cuberevue.com/author/ancel http://droitdecites.org/2011/10/16/franck-ancel-sur-websynradio/ |
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2009 Christophe Charles + Zbigniew Karkowski TT22 duration: 5'30"
from: Test Tone Anthology Disc One Texture, rhythm and movement in all of its disguises, this anthology disc captures the myriad of expression that has become the hallmark of the Test Tone series at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe. Focusing on riveting improvisation and stark electronica, the music collected here covers a lot of ground, from balloon duets to helicopter compositions and other experiments in noise. Challenging and evocative, this presents wide-angle snapshot of Japan’s current wave of international sound pioneers. About Test Tone In the fragmented urban playground of the city, free barter and the unexpected encounter of ideas creates a wellspring of creative engagement. Drawing from this, the Test Tone series aims to offer a venue for diverse and challenging artists to bring their ideas to a larger community. As a free event open to the public, we hope to bypass the old economies in order to create new ones, while encouraging collaboration in all forms. A collage of media, sound and art in a space available to anyone off the street, the event is a bazaar of potential collisions, where passersby are treated to the unexpected. For all of this, we found our home base at Super Deluxe, a unique space in Tokyo’s midtown, providing a relaxed atmosphere within its modular interior. The event continues to be a celebration of off-kilter creativity in the city: from installation pieces to performance art and visual collaborations; from noise, electronica, ambient sounds and free rock to disorderly jazz and manipulated field recordings. To date, close to 500 artists have been a part of the event, together creating opportunities for unexpected improvisation, collaboration, and festival spirit. |
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2008 breathe duration: 5'24"
from compilation CD AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE edited by Jamie Drouin label: INFREQUENCY 005 "...earns its recommendation for bringing attention to a valuable historical document but also for being, on its own terms, an inspired and splendid conceptual recording. It's especially fascinating to witness what results when two such extreme audio poles―the earliest known recording and the vast potential of modern technological methods―converge." TEXTURA Nine internationally acclaimed sound artists create new compositions based on the earliest known recording of the human voice. The original recording was made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville on April 9, 1860 using his own invention, the phonautograph, and consists of a series of scratches on a roll of blackened paper. Scott had never developed a way to play back his recordings and they went unheard for 148 years. In 2008, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory converted the thin lines back into audio, allowing us to hear a woman singing a segment of the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune”. The two CD compilation is a conceptual extension of breathing life back into this document through modern technology; deciphering a voice that was etched into a thin layer of oil lamp smoke, and featuring a diverse group of international contemporary composers, creating new works from this ten second piece of history. The Édouard-Léon Scott recording is licensed by Firstsounds.org "breathe" was composed in August 2008 in Antibes, France. |
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2008 Christophe Charles Quintet at Mopomoso Free improvisation night with Christophe Charles, Yasutaka Watanabe and Hoonoda Kim on laptops and electronics, and dancers Lisa Koiso and Woo Kyung Son. The Momoposo events are organised by John Russell at the Vortex jazz club in London. |
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2007 A brief life duration: 9'38
from compilation CD Airport Symphony label: ROOM40 (Brisbane) https://room40.bandcamp.com/track/christophe-charles-airport-symphony-a-brief-life "Airport Symphony, commissioned by the Queensland Music Festival and Brisbane Airport Corporation, documents and synthesises the experiences of travel. Each piece represents a personal meditation on aspects of travel in the modern age and suggests ways in which we control, augment and ultimately exists in a time where almost no part of the face of the planet is inaccessible. Each of the pieces features a source recording made in and around Brisbane Airport between March and June 2007 –in a raw form or transformed by processing. Audio diary entries cataloguing the epic possibilities of flight, aero-passage and human bodies in motion and even at rest." comment by Lawrence English, June 2007 All field recordings + photos by Lawrence English |
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2005 C smip C duration: 5'37 from LP/ CD instrumentarium label: Boris Hegenbart / Staubgold (Berlin) https://youtu.be/4RMFzEpgwaM "instrumentarium" on the Staubgold label is an exciting cooperation of artists from multifaceted areas like New Music, Sound Art, song writing, improvised music, and dub music. 18 guest musicians have recorded exclusive overdubs for boris d hegenbart: Michael Vorfeld, Fred Frith, Bernhard Guenter, Marc Weiser, Ed Osborn, David Grubbs, Georg Zeitblom, Stephan Mathieu, Sascha Demand, Martin Siewert, Martin Brandlmyer, Oren Ambarchi, Christophe Charles, F.S. Blumm, Felix Kubin, Boris Hauf, Hanno Leichtmann & Hannes Strobel. ...) to produce compositions with the material of his second Solo-CD [2/TAU] (released in October 2003 on Quecksilber). The [2/TAU] CD contains 13 "interviews": the concept of the remix is to remove the human voices and replace them with other sounds, preferably acoustic instruments. There would be 2 mono-channels on the [3/TAU] CD: channel-01, Hegenbart's remix of the [2/TAU] CD without the human voices; channel-02, guest musicians' remix of the voices... A tribute to an early DUB-LP by Lee Perry. For my contribution I have extracted all voices from all original 13 tracks and convolved them with guitar, violin, and stone rubbing/scrubbing sounds. I have then superimposed all convolved tracks to fit the channel-02 concept. -- Hegenbart
used the exclusive recordings of 19 invited
musicians and sound artists from several
tendencies of the present creative scene
(improvisers, electronicists and exploratory
instrumentalists), and the results are not simply
a remix or a processing of the material. He
dissects everything in detail and brings the more
obscure components to the foreground, like in a
zooming operation. The most astonishing thing is
that Hegenbart goes through exactly the same
process in live, real-time performances. So, what
we have here are the sketches resulting from
instant reactions to the musicians' input. The
contradictory nature of the sound sources keeps us
alert and makes us smile with intriguing surprise.
Nothing is forbidden, and the consequence is an
incredibly rich concept and praxis, complete with
the unique Boris Hegenbart mark.
(Text by Rui Eduardo Paes) Boris Hegenbart with: Oren Ambarchi, Fred Frith, Felix Kubin, David Grubbs, Stephan Mathieu, Christophe Charles, Michael Vorfeld, Martin Siewert, Jan Thoben, Bernhard Guenter, Sascha Demand, Hannes Strobl & Hanno Leichtmann, Marc Weiser, Martin Brandlmayr, Christophe Charles, Ed Osborn, F.S.Blumm, Boris Hauf and Ulrich Krieger. Mastered by Rashad Becker Artwork by Yumiko Hegenbart-Matsui |
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2005 undirected/placode duration: 11'49" from compilation CD placode (unreleased) label: n160 (Tokyo - Berlin) Aluminum packaged cd compilation curated by Nibo [LINE/Raster-Noton], a former student of Musashino Art University, now member of Raster-Noton in Berlin. Artists on this compilation: Carsten Nicolai, Christophe Charles, Frank Bretschneider, Nibo, Byetone, Richard Chartier, Sachiko M., Sogar, Steve Roden, Taylor Deupree, and Otomo Yoshihide. "undirected/placode" is the original version of "Interaural Saucer" from the "Bergbahn: Flux Figure Transform" compilation by Yamamichi Akira. It is also the basis for the "undirected/sur_terre" track on the "Sur Terre" compilation by Gregory Chatonsky & Nicolas Rousseau (see below). |
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2005 undirected/sur_terre duration: 7'23"
from compilation CD Sur Terre producers: Gregory Chatonsky & Nicolas Rousseau (Paris) A compilation of 11 compositions by 11 composers (Fennesz, Scanner, Pure, Vladislav Delay and others) on the theme of people meeting on railroads. My contribution was made with samples of the music of Kako Yuzo and Inada Kozo, and recordings of the Howrah-Puri Express (South Eastern Railways in Bengal, made in 1984 with a cassette tape recorder). The voices of two actors (a French man and a German woman) were processed with a convolution patch in Max/MSP using samples of the Sibelius 4th symphony. "Chaque musicien a composé un morceau original après la remise d’un DVD audio comportant un ensemble de sons provenant des archives de la SNCF. De plus, il a été remis un court synopsis de sur-terre et la description détaillée d’une scène à explorer: le couloir, la gare, le wagon-restaurant, etc. On retrouvera chacun de ces morceaux dans la partie concernée sur le site Internet sur-terre.net." « Sur terre, projet multi-supports, existe sous forme de performance. Sa configuration est variable et consiste habituellement en trois ordinateurs reliés entre eux. Deux gèrent l'image, offline et online, l'autre le son. Un switch permet de passer d'une image à une autre et le son est généré en temps réel. Cette performance se présente comme une projection vidéographique classique, toutefois sa variablité devient sensible suivant la durée de l'exercice. De surcroît si le public suit plusieurs performances d'affilées, certaines différences apparaissent. Ces différences ne sont pas des chemins multiples à la manière du "livre dont vous êtes le héros", mais plutôt d'infimes variations qui signalent que la fiction se construit autour d'un stock disponible d'images, de sons et de textes et que son montage n'est pas prédéfini mais suit le cours d'une improvisation structurée. De la sorte un thème émerge progressivement: l'histoire n'est pas racontée, au sens où elle n'a pas un lieu d'énonciation localisé, mais elle se laisse imaginer par le public, de performance en performance, car un thème, comme on parle de thème musical, apparaît de façon progressive dans les interstices des représentations. Ainsi "Sur terre demo" n'est pas à proprement parler une fiction, au sens d'un récit, mais la bande annonce à chaque fois renouvellé d'un récit possible qui n'aura pas de lieu d'inscription défini une bonne fois pour toute. » (Gregory Chatonsky) |
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2004 Deep Acoustics Live Act Vol. 1 01 Christophe Charles 02 Christophe Charles + Hirao Yoshiyuki + Okazaki Toshihiro Concert
at KD Japon, Nagoya, on Jan. 30. 2005, organized by
Okazaki Toyohiro and Hirao Yoshiyuki, with Akamatsu
Masayuki, Okazaki Toyohiro,
Hirao Yoshiyuki, and Christophe Charles.
"01" is a solo act where different compositions are remixed live: Dying For (samples from the nvsc collaboration), undirected/sur terre, and other elements. duration: 31'19" "02" is a free improvisation of Hirao Yoshiyuki, Okazaki Toshihiro, Christophe Charles. duration: 15'37" |
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2004 undirected/loom indeterminate duration audio SOFTWARE Loom by SONY QUALIA (Tokyo) This composition consists in 42 short (30 seconds to 2 minutes) compositions which are to be played on three tracks simultaneously, continuously, and randomly. Qualia was a boutique brand of high-end electronics, created by Sony to showcase their best technology. Some Qualia products are brand new while others are upgraded and rebranded versions of regular Sony products. The line was launched in Japan in June 2003 and the U.S. in April 2004. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia_(Sony) |
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2004 sisyphe duration: 10'08" from the compilation CD nu:2003-04 / sonic films label: nu: (Tokyo) nu: is a collaboration unit with musicians from Tama Art University (Kubota Akihiro seminar) and Musashino Art University (Christophe Charles seminar). Members are: Soichiro Mihara, Akihiko Taniguchi, lalalila, Yuki Kaneko, Akihiro Kubota, Satoshi Yashiro, pico pico stomachs (Kikuchi Haruma, Koyanagi Junji, Fujino Takatoshi, Kudo Masayuki), Atsushi Tadokoro, Christophe Charles. On the 1st CD, Charles' solo contribution consists in "Sisyphe", a new version of "hean" (from ritornell 13) with unreleased material from the "continuum" series (cf. Mille Plateaux 22). The piece was composed for a collaboration work with Kawaguchi Takao and Kai Syng Tan, using images of the Ryoan-ji garden. On the second CD, I have edited the "nu:" concert and studio sessions which were performed according to an analysis/reconstruction of Stan Brakhage movies. collaboration tracks : 01lovesong.mp3 02mothlight.mp3 03lovesong2.mp3 04commingled_containers.mp3 lovesong score by Kubota Akihiro: lovescore.mp4 |
CD jacket by Kudo Masayuki |
2004 und[i]rected duration: 08'00" from the compilation CD "...as..." label: resonance FM (London) 28 tracks on two CDs taken from Ben Green's 'as...' series. Contributions include music from Steve Roden, Michael J. Schumacher, Tetuzi Akiyama, Yannick Dauby and many more. The CDs come wrapped in uniquely designed wax-proof paper. A composition using sounds by Inada Kozo (who has remixed my own sounds with his original max/MSP patches) for "Window Scape", a video work by Utsumi Akiko (Japan) presented in Turku, Finland. The video shows a paper window (shôji) with very delicate shadows of trees, appearing and disappearing. |
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2004 undirected/mobile opinions duration: 11'32" from compilation CD Erratum#4 label: erratum (Paris) edited by Joachim Montessuis see the notation bigger « CC : born in 1964, Marseille, France. Lives and works in Tokyo. Since 1983, production of installations, concerts, CD, using sound, space, light. Since 1987, historical & theoretical research on media arts. HC : born in 1932. Studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Copenhagen 1950-54, clarinettist at the Royal Guards 1955-60. Further studies with Vagn Holmboe. From 1964 cooperation with prof. Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Academy. His production includes a number of compositions in free style. http://www.ubu.com/sound/christiansen.html Decomposition/remix by Christophe Charles of a concert by Henning Christiansen (voice & metronome) & CC (soundscape) at Hamburg HfBK (1997) organized by Ernst Kretzer. « Erratum : an errant and irregular publication. 2004 : 3 CDs, 53 artists. Poetry of sound / sound of poetry. Erratum brings together personalities both atypical and unclassifiable : outriders, stalkers, survivors of the sonic crash zone, those transgressing the strictures and clichés of unimaginative sound habits. Visual and sonic artists, bards, iconoclastic noise makers come together to create a subtle, hybrid, ever-changing, disseminated collective sonic psyche. From the time of Marcel Duchamp's Musical Erratum and Luigi Russolo's Art of Noises in 1913 to the latterday recuperation of software bugs, hardware crashes, along with the eclectic array of contemporary poetical noise praxis, there is a rich, complex and poorly understood history. Erratum's aim is not so much to associate poetry and music as to seek out their potential to merge : the crossovers, the openings, the interzones, meetings and fault lines, the ineffable yet tangible open fusion, that blends the different vibrations of voice, noise and electronics. Erratum tends to create bonds between otherwise diametrically opposed tendencies, in a spirit of broad-mindedness, alliance, impurity and cross-fertilization, while keeping a critical distance from sectarian and incestuous factions. Erratum weaves a lively and diagonal concretion, an alternative to restrictive and mechanical technological visions and it stands out as a realm of a possible Utopia of the indivisible that leads towards active questioning. Edited and compiled by Joachim Montessuis. » |
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2004 undirected/cour vitrée duration: 25'00"
from compilation CD + catalog Setsuzoku label: ENSBA (Paris) / Musashino Art University (Tokyo) This track has been played during the concert at Cour Vitree on April 25, 2004. This is not a recording of the concert, but the material which has been heard through a Bose 402 system with the two full range speakers placed in front of the two doors in the middle of the shorter walls, and the subwoofer 502 placed in the middle of the hall. These materials have been chosen and readjusted for several hours before the concert in order to fit the long reverberation of the hall. The hall has very particular acoustics, and it was necessary to make precise adjustments to make it sound properly. setsuzoku Projet d’échange croisé ("setsuzoku" signifie connexion, relation, communication) entre étudiants d’art japonais et français. Un catalogue tout carré et en images des expositions, performances, sets musicaux (d’où la présence d’un cd audio), présentés dans les deux capitales. Le catalogue Setsuzoku retrace en 80 pages et un compact-disc la double rencontre de deux groupes d’étudiants et jeunes artistes issus de l’université Musashino à Tokyo et de l’Ensba, orchestrée par Christophe Charles et Guillaume Paris, tous deux artistes de renommée internationale, respectivement professeurs et responsables des départements « Nouveaux Médias » au sein des deux universités. Ce catalogue à double-entrée reprend, à la manière d’un livre d’images, les deux expositions du projet (à Tokyo et Paris) en 2003 et 2004, ainsi que les évènements (performances, concerts à l’Institut Franco-Japonais de Tokyo, Batofar, Science-Po Paris, ENSBA) qui ont ponctué cette double rencontre. Le compact-disc présente une série de pièces sonores créées ou jouées à l’occasion des différents concerts liés à Setsuzoku 1 et 2. Auteurs : Christophe Charles, Guillaume Paris Éditeurs : École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris / Musashino Art University, Tokyo Année : 2004 Format : 15 x 15 cm (avec un cd) Illustrations : 107, en couleurs ― Pages : 80 Langue : anglais ISBN : 2-84056-166-2 |
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2004 verena - sonimage duration: 8'00" audio for software Sonimage by SONY QUALIA (Tokyo) A spatial remix of the basic elements of former composition "verena", using an unreleased speaker system conceived in Sony laboratories, enabling sounds to move 3-dimensionally. Qualia was a boutique brand of high-end electronics, created by Sony to showcase their best technology. Some Qualia products are brand new while others are upgraded and rebranded versions of regular Sony products. The line was launched in Japan in June 2003 and the U.S. in April 2004. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia_(Sony) |
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2004 interaural saucer duration: 10'16"
Compilation CD Bergbahn: Flux Figure Transform label: CODE Inc. (Tokyo) A concept compilation CD by producer Akira Yamamichi a.k.a. Bergbahn. The individual tracks take a few samples by Bergbahn as their starting point. Unlike in the traditional remix approach, the artists were invited to use digital signal processing to mix, alter and transform the given samples into something entirely new and unique--even to the point of unrecognizablity as compared to the original sample. The artists then used the outcome of their individual processing as part of mixing a new track in click house / minimal style. http://www.discogs.com/release/823501 |
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2003 undirected/coran A 60 second
loop inspired by sound recordings made by Mike
Hentz / Minus
Delta T (The Bangkok Project) in Afghanistan
and Irak in the early 1980s.
From the compilation CD "60 artists protest the war" duration of each track: 60 seconds label: ATAK (Tokyo) Art Direction – Maria Compilation Producer – Keiichiro Shibuya Design – Myeong-Hee Lee, Ryoji Tanaka Mastered By – Kimken |
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2003 Undirected 1992-2002 Two compositions recorded between 1992 and
2002:
Next Point - Hommage à Henning Christiansen duration: 21'15" Deposition duration: 45'45" label: SUBROSA (BELGIUM) https://subrosalabel.bandcamp.com/album/undirected-1992-2002 https://www.subrosa.net/en/catalogue/soundworks/christophe-charles.html 1- 'Next Point - Hommage à Henning Christiansen', is a performance given at the MANCA festival in 1992, it is an extension of 'Media Opera' organized by Yamaguchi Katsuhiro in October 1992 on Awaji Island to celebrate the foundation of his 'Village of the Arts'. One can hear the rain falling in the south from Majorca, the voices of salesmen of coffee and boiled eggs of the station of Howrah, beside Calcutta, the chants of the monks of Todaiji in Nara, and the calls of the merchants of ice cream of Hangzhou (recorded by Martina Diestel). Other sounds were sampled among the works of Henning Christiansen: sporadic chords of the piano of the cave of Penthesilea, the very particular sound of the long pipe which Christiansen hits more or less regularly on one end, 'in order to give a certain feeling of time', or the bells and the tuba of the 'garden of the yellow mountain' where low frequencies make almost inevitably vibrate the ceilings of the rooms where it is played. 2: 'Deposition' contains ten episodes of various lengths which are connected according to a dynamics of tension and relaxation. There is no particular narrative dimension, but 'scenes', featuring soundscapes from various cities and countrysides, as well as musical (instruments) sounds: voice, flutes, or percussions, which reflect an interest for the fundamental actions of breathing, or hitting objects with the body -- rather than praising the mastery of a particular technique. The sounds generally come from an action which does not have any musical claim, for example, the Senegalese women who crush the millet. The voices are those of the salesmen from the Fischmarkt of Hamburg, the children of Calcutta, Italian dogs howling in the night, or insects of Japanese mountains. Other sounds come from a collaboration with Ryoji Ikeda, from 'In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze' and from the music of the two permanent sound installations of Osaka and Tokyo-Narita international Airport. « In his extensive liner notes (eight booklet panels in fairly small type), Christophe Charles spends a lot of time explaining that his conception of chance operations goes back to John Cage, that the music in both "Next Point" and "Deposition" is the result of a long sequence of recording, performing, re-recording, restructuring, re-performing, etc., and that the resulting works stem from a two-headed process of computer-(un)controlled chance algorithms and sound/experience-aggregation through time. But that doesn't explain the beauty of the music. And "Next Point" and "Deposition" can be described as two extended works, respectively 21 and 46 minutes long, consisting of a widely variegated assortment of field recordings and treated sounds, presented as if they formed a narrative except that they don't (see chance operations mentioned above). But that doesn't explain the beauty of the music either. In Cage's music, for example in Roaratorio, one can appreciate the richness of the concept, the monk-like work that went into the preparation, and the chance arrangements of the results, but one still feels the hand of chance, the arbitrary. Here, the listener doesn't. The elements conspire to create the illusion of a narrative, an evolution. In every nook and cranny one can hear an acute artistic sense at work, chiseling sound meetings in order to keep the listener trapped inside a fascinating electro-acoustic world - especially true of "Deposition," which technically allows you to leave and come back, except that it offers too much to the attention to justify the desire to step away from its force of attraction. » François Couture / http://www.allmusic.com « If the fabled "global village" mutates into an actual city, Christophe Charles has the soundtrack. He collages field recordings into a scene in which Hamburg businessmen chat with Calcutta schoolchildren in a Bangkok traffic jam, while Japanese crickets and Italian dogs bicker into the night. In Undirected's liner notes, Charles insists that everything here is unmusical, as he lets a computer randomly play his sound files. Yet the result is awfully symphonic, as drones and field noises saunter at a meditative pace. This is raw psychedelia for the Information Age. » Cameron Macdonald / XLR8R |
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2003 inter/action for laptop orchestra: audio inter/action for laptop orchestra: score duration: 19'39" original score and reconstruction by Christophe Charles. Performers: AOKI Takamasa 青木孝允 Christophe CHARLES クリストフ・シャルル HANNO Yoshihiro 半野善弘 HOSOMI Sakana 細海魚 KAKO Yuzo 加古祐三 NARITA Masaki 成田真樹 NIBO 2 days of performance, 30 minutes each, introducing SALVANILLA dance performance: "Inter/action", Roppongi Hills Arena , Tokyo, on June 28 & 29, 2003. --- This composition suggests to use six general types of sounds, in various orders and combinations: A- organic (complex) sounds B- non-organic (complex) sounds C- fast rhythmical sounds D- slow rhythmical sounds E- high pitch static sounds F- low pitch static sounds For each pattern will be defined the unpredictable (variable) aspect and predictable (controlled) aspect of frequency, timbre and amplitude of each type of sound. vf- variable frequency cf- controlled frequency vt- variable timbre ct- controlled timbre va- variable amplitude ca- controlled amplitude At any moment, the performers are free to produce sounds which are not from the category which has been chosen for a specific pattern. Therefore, the different patterns defined above are combinations of two, three, four, or six performers and do not feature the number one. Each pattern will be performed using a specific type of sound with specific aspects, with no repetition. During the performance of a specific pattern, performers belonging to a same line of a same color will use the same type of sounds. For example in pattern 01, performers 1 and 2 will use the same type of sound, while performers 3 and 4 will use another type, and performers 5 and 6 yet another type. The performance duration is 32 minute on both June 27 and June 28, 2003. The laptop orchestra will perform 16 patterns of a duration of two minutes on each day. Each pattern, sound type and aspect has been chosen using the "urn" object of the Max/MSP software (which generates random numbers without duplicates). In hommage to John Cage's Williams Mix (1952) |
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2003 narita duration: 2'00"
compilation CD + Book Sound Cultures label: Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt) Mille Plateaux label director Achim Szepanski collaborated with the publishing company Suhrkamp on a paperback book on "Soundcultures", which included a mini CD (20 minutes) with 20 one-minute compositions by twenty artists (including Terre Thaemlitz, Carsten Nicolai and others). A "soundcultures" compilation CD with longer compositions was planned by Mille Plateaux but has not been released. « Die Musik hört nicht auf, ihre Fluchtlinien ziehen zu lassen, gleichsam als «Transformations-Vielheiten», und dreht dabei ihre eigenen Codes um, die sie abrifizieren une strukturieren; die musikalische Form ist so bis in ihre Brüche und Wucherungen hinein dem Unkraut vergleichbar, ein Rhizom. » (Gilles Deleuze / Felix Guattari) Soundcultures "Über elektronische und digitale Musik" herausgegeben von Markus S. Kleiner und Achim Szepanski Suhrkamp Verlag SV 2303 Frankfurt 2003 Taschenbuch: 240 Seiten Verlag: Suhrkamp Verlag; Auflage: 2 (28. April 2003) Sprache: Deutsch ISBN-10: 3518123033 ISBN-13: 978-3518123034 |
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2003 undirected/soundcultures duration: 08'05" unreleased long version of the compilation CD + book Sound Cultures. |
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2003 dying for (in five poems) duration: 38'01"
Dying For (in five poems), including "on set", "consumption and resistance", "dying for", "on going", "in(ter)dependency (undirected)" is "a hauntingly beautiful and expansive, multi-textured music composition set to the score of visual collage by Kai-Syng Tan. Amidst violently cut-to-1/24-of-a-second montage, slowly-drawn landscapes that allude to Tarkovsky, and a dense deluge of text obsessively layered like a Naumen-Beckettian dirge". This weighted mediation on man's relationship with his environment was premiered live at the Institute of Environmental Art & Design's International Environmental Art Festival in Onahama Performance Live, Iwaki, Japan, October 2003. The music score uses the recordings of a concert with Numb at Roppongi Zone. The Numb-vs-Charles collaboration was planned to be released on a CD by Headz (Tokyo) but for unknown reason has not been released. Kai has done a large number of works during her stay in Tokyo (2002-2005) and this is one of the collaborations with Christophe Charles. |
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2003 pre-texts duration: 16'42
PRE-TEXTS: RE-FORMULATED STRUCTURES, a work in 3 movements by Kai Syng Tan, premiered as a 17-minute live performance at the Musashino Art University Open House 2003, with music (live audio mix, by Christophe Charles), text (rendered by 2 live performers) & image (video projection). Ready for other live gigs/ Japan tour in stadiums, rock-band style. Other formations/modes of presentation of the work include a 3-projection installation (5 minute loop each), single screen looped installation (at the Tokyo Tower, Kyoto Tower, Eiffel Tower, Singapore Changi Airport and Merlion at Sentosa etc) at as well as single-channel projection at cinemas. "On preliminaries/ preludes/ preoccupations/ presumptions/ prepositions/ presence/ presentation & non re-presentation/ present/ perfect tenses/ Levels of imitation/ another copy of copy of another copy /severe themes & acute variations of yellownessness/ (a)typical dis-eases/ defiance & stubbornly resisting & refusing to be properly determined & defined/ unwillingness to subject & subjugate itself to interpretation/ shaped as yet another formless & structureless structure in the epidemic proliferation of systemless systems of to day." (Kai Syng Tan) |
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2003 re:distillation
duration: 11'41
from compilation CD readapt label: +cross (Osaka) reconstruction of the DISTILLATION CD by Kako Yuzo |
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2002 FREQUENCitY: jizai>nextpoint>mari>dorobo>zone duration: 24'
A 24 minute composition from the FREQUENCitY series curated by Steve Bates for orf kunstradio "Glocken von Henning Christiansen, Samples von Hoon, Gitarre von Jinmo und Soundscapes aus Calcutta, Hangzhou, Puri, Senegal und Taegu. Material für den Beitrag von Christophe Charles zu "FREQUENCity" sind die farbigen Soundscapes der Märkte und Strassen aus verschiedenen asiatischen und afrikanischen Städten. Dabei verfolgt er den Rhythmus der Städte, der manchmal "real" ist, wie das rhythmische Schlagen eines Hammers oder der Lärm von Kolbenmotoren, manchmal aber auch abstrakt, wenn Christophe Charles etwa Töne und Klänge von Musikinstrumenten sampelt oder Sounscape-Frequenzen filtert und neu komponiert. Sehr unterschiedlich in ihrer Wellenlänge, reflektieren sie doch alle das "Auf und Ab" eines urbanen Lebens. Diese bipolare Situation findet ihren konkreten Ausdruck in der Verwendung kontrastierender Sound-Elemente: hohe und tiefe Tonlagen, dichte und lose Texturen, schnelle und langsame Wechsel, die in einem weiten und transparenten Klangraum zusammenfliessen." (Kunstradio website) « Radio, at its best, projects the life of a city. It communicates the passions and concerns of its inhabitants. Radio is fully switched on when it is a social tool. When it builds culture. It does this by engaging the community in a dynamic collaborative where the listener is active participant. There must be a distinction made between commercial radio and public or community radio. While the latter is vital as a vehicle for public discourse, commercial radio, exists primarily for the trade of goods. Public access radio has the potential to be an organic tool of a community and it is here where my interest lies. Integral to radio and something that often separates it from other art-making practices, is its multiplicity of voices. This capability and the fact that radio exists alongside our daily activities gives it unique potential as a tool for development, dynamic art production and dissemination. People listen to radio at work, while preparing meals, lying in bed, working in the garden, driving in cars. This project asks artists to consider the notion that radio be a conduit that transmits the movement of a city, its ebb and flow, its noise and its melody, its church bells, speeches, transmissions, barking dogs, parades. In this series, artists will use city sounds to create and perform works that reflect a social reality. Cage and Schaefer have asked us to think of these sounds as part of an ongoing composition. With this in mind, I move through the city differently, ears open wide, not always searching, but always discovering. The ringing bell of a shovel scraping concrete, the haunting sound of a siren in the distance. How do these sounds feel projected back to us through the radio? What does this information tell us of ourselves? Contemporary online radio projects are creating new spaces for collaboration and network building and for the first time in radio's history - visual content. For FREQUENCitY, artists will develop their work within this new model of online broadcasting where content continues to expand and new systems of interaction and production are developed. FREQUENCitY will archive these works created for broadcast and will feature an ongoing stream of archived files that listeners can contribute to. » ) (Steve Bates) |
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2002 undirected/frequencies duration: 2'00"
from compilation CD Frequencies [Hz] publisher: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt curated by Carsten Nicolai フランクフルトを拠点に活動する、アート、インターメディア集合体、Exhibitionsがその展示会等でイ ンスタレーションに使用したサウンドを2分 ずつ全28曲収録したもの。 « The series of concerts staged on occasion of the exhibition Frequencies [Hz] Audio-Visual Spaces Frankfurt, February - April 2002, documents the exhibited artists work with sound in space as a performative enunciation of their practice. It also introduces a range of other artists and musicians who work in similar contexts and who relate to the exhibiting artists´ use of sound as a core element of their installational work. All artists involved have contributed to developing a new language of electronic sound and continue to push the limits of art and music production. The exhibition and the concert series provide a platform for exploration and experience of different approaches to sound and art. » http://www.raster-noton.de/catalog/ltd008.html Artists include: Achim Wollscheid/Mark Behrens, Alva Noto, Christophe Charles, Con, CM Von Hausswolff, Cyclo., Ekkehard Ehlers, Errorsmith, Farmersmanual, Frank Bretschneider, Hecker, Mainpal Inv., Markus Schmickler, Merzbow, Monolake, Opiate, Pan Sonic, Pita, Pomassl, Random Industries, Richard Chartier, Ryoki Ikeda, Senking, Snd, Steinbrüchel, Stephan Mathieu, Thomas Köner, and Ultra-red. Christophe Charles' contribution is an excerpt from the concert given at the Schirn Kunsthalle on March 8th, 2002, edited to fit exactly the 2 minute window of the compilation CD. |
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2002 undirected/float duration: 14'47"
compilation CD Floating Foundations label: Subrosa (Belgium) In a thematic exploration of the plasticity of sound, five various artists add their malleable constructions to floating foundation vol. 1. With a bit of an architectural bent, these elegant edifices are built as subdued, rambling abstractions most worthy of wandering through. Roughly ruffling layers of janek schaefer's droning electronic dustclouds experience "Lithospheric Shifts" (8:02) into steamier (the rumblier) realms. main : : robert hampson scatters bits of digital debris about the everchanging (sometimes startlingly so) backdrop of sprawling "Hysteresis"; often-eerie planes of alternate existence subtly waver only to be chewed up and spat out in a sudden fit of DSP. Streaming half-music/half-atmosphere soundscenes overlap, merge and morph in christophe charles' "Undirected float" (14:47). Undirected? Hardly... this surreally meandering piece is another masterly display of unpredictable explorations. In what would have otherwise been an obscure footnote, "Salty Lemonade for Falling Water" by stephen vitiello includes field recordings from the World Trade Center (the day after Hurricane Floyd); this and several other sources simply drift in a spacious sprawl, with a few outbursts of weird highs. kurt ralske closes the 57.5 minute disc with "Au.Taste" where almost-choral strands hover in blurred layers which shift, split and recombine in serenely thrumming flows. Aptly titled floating foundation vol. 1 provides a walk-through tour of five smartly-constructed avant-garde projects whose experimental flairs are never obtrusive. B. |
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2001 Voyager permanent
installation
at
Tokyo-Narita International Airport, Terminal 1, Central Atrium. duration: 4'00 each This artwork was realized through the collaboration between three artists of different fields: graphics (Hasegawa Satoshi), light (Osaka Takuro), and sound (Christophe Charles). During the day, the hanging sculpture reflects the colors of sunlight. At certain points, the atrium becomes dark and constellations appear together with sound, inviting travellers to a surreal space tour. « Art work installed at the New Tokyo International Airport has a function to enrich its cultural environment and its value as a gateway to other countries. The art work needs to have innovative expressions that reflects our contemporary values as well as the universal appeal that supersedes any particular time frame. It is also important to incorporate and integrate globalism and Japaneseness within the art work. Given this, Town Art selected two internationally renowned Japanese artists, Takuro Osaka and Hitoshi Hasegawa, and one foreign artist who resides in Japan, Christophe Charles to collaborate on the art work to be installed on the main building of the terminal one. The theme of the art work is "Cosmos." The word, "Cosmos" inherits the concept of "order," "universe," and "the outer space." Three artists' creativity and collaboration visualize the "outer space" as a manifestation of order and harmony. Space, the universal that has been there forever, and that will be there forever, is represented by the combination of visuals and sound effects. The magnificent "COSMOS" is realized. "COSMOS" utilizes different kinds of lights--natural light, artificial light, and black light-- and soundscape to make itself truly multi-faced in time. When the skylight is closed, you hear the sound effects, black lights light up, and murals on the 4th and the 5th floor become visible. Inspired and accompanied by the sound effects, various colors of light dynamically shines through the hanging sculpture at the center. The site itself becomes the 3D art work in which various elements resonate and intertwine. » |
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2001 verena (april) duration: 15'49
from "april remixes" by Hanno Yoshihiro label: Subrosa (Belgium) https://yoshihirohanno.bandcamp.com/track/verena-christophe-charles-remix reworking of the "April" CD by Hanno Yoshihiro, using samples of several tracks and merging them together with new sounds into a new composition. « This CD released by the label Sub Rosa in June 2001 combines two limited-edition albums by Yoshihiro Hanno: the complete April Music (Canvas 1) and a selection of tracks from the album of remixes that followed (Canvas 2). Hanno's original tracks are interspersed with reinterpretations by Oval, Hidenobu Ito, and Christophe Charles. The repetition factor is almost negligible, as the remixers mostly worked on the entire album instead of one specific track (Hidenobu's "Lab Suite Remix" being the exception). Hanno's compositions tend to be dreamy, airborne, and add vocals (Aki Kudo), piano (Esu=Sakamoto Ryuichi), and guitar (Ko Tsuchiya) to the electronics one expects from the artist behind the Multiphonic Ensemble. The remixers' job is almost seamless, their pieces molded in the composer's cast. Oval's glitchy identity is detectable, of course, but not in an intrusive way, and if Charles' construction is somehow more complicated and challenging, it is not at the album's expense. Hanno's own "Trapezoid" brings a delightful noisier touch halfway through the album while still staying true to the general lush mood. April Remixes is not as cutting-edge as some releases on Sub Rosa can be, but it provides a very satisfying and enjoyable listening experience. » François Couture, http://www.allmusic.com Composed by Yoshihiro Hanno (aka Multiphonic Ensemble) and remixed by Oval, Hibenobu Ito and Christophe Charles. Between 1997 and 2002, under his own name or with Multiphonic Ensemble, Yoshihiro Hanno released four records on Sub Rosa. April Remixes is the third one, published in 2001. This record combines two limited edition albums by Hanno: April Music (April Music On Canvas #1), and highlights from the subsequent remix album. |
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2001 verena_on canvas duration: 15'49
from "april remixes" by Hanno Yoshihiro label: Cirque (Tokyo) reworking of the "April" CD by Hanno Yoshihiro, using samples of several tracks and merging them together with new sounds into a new composition - same as above. |
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2001 undirected/hoon duration: 7'36
from unfinished#2 remix of the hoon CD by Hanno Yoshihiro and Sakamoto Ryuichi (ESU) label: code (Tokyo) unfinished #2 CD contributors: Ikeda Ryoji, David Toop, Tetsu Inoue, Christophe Charles, Hanno Yoshihiro, ESU. 「codeから生まれた音楽プロジェクト、hoon。メンバーのESUとクラブ・ミュージック/音響/映画音楽 ク リエイターとして活躍中の半野喜弘が従来の 「音楽」の枠を超えた、新しい音楽を創造。その音源は、codeの機関誌『unifinished#1』に付録 のCDに収録されています。 『unifinished#2』では、池田亮司、デヴィッド・トゥープ、テツ・イノウエ、クリストフ・シャルル らのミュージシャンにhoonフレンズとし てリミックスを依頼し、hoonの世界観を広げました。 」 unfinished#2 contents: 坂本龍一ブラジル写真「ryuichi in rio」、インタビュー: 宮内勝典(作家)/松井章圭(極真空手館長)/久司道夫(マクロビオテック)/フラン ク・ドレイク(宇宙学者)/羽仁カンタ(A SEED JAPAN)/ 日下一正(経済産業省)、鼎談: 村上龍(作家)× 塩崎恭久(国会議員)× 坂本龍一、code report: 地域通貨レポート / コモディティーズ(日用品)ストーリー etc. 季刊 アンフィニッシュド unfinished #2 [編集] code (後藤繁雄、坂本龍一、中島英樹、空里香) [アートディレクション&デザイン] 中島英樹 [発行所] code [シリーズ] unfinished [発行年] 2001年 通巻2号 [言語] 日本語、英語 [フォーマット] A5|ソフトカバー [ボリューム] 136頁 [サイズ] 220mm × 148mm × 17mm [構成] 1冊 [付属] CD |
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2001 kura from
compilation CD Radical Fashion
publisher: Victoria & Albert Museum (London) curated by David Toop "Music is integral to the culture of fashion and many designers collavorate with musicians or use sound on the catwalk. The sound in this exhibition has been specially commnissioned and selected by composer and curator David Toop. The composers contributing to Radical Fashion are at the forefront of digital musics and sound art. In their different ways they are exploring new forms in technology, sonf writing or composition: all exemplify the geographical and stylistic fluidity of contemporary music." Radical Fashion frontpage sound by christophe charles http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/rad_fash/flash.html |
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2001 "World Peace Economy" - Henning Christiansen duration: 65'24" |
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2001 Layeral Intersect #3 duration: 30'00"
format: collaboration CD Layeral Intersect #3 label: Deadtech/Anechoic (SanFrancisco) project by Kim Cascone a soundmix of: markus schmickler christophe charles carl stone stephan mathieu The "Layeral Intersect" project is a series of CD releases whose process of creation was inspired by the work of the late artist Gordon Matta-Clark. Matta-Clark would take imperiled or dilapidated buildings in fringe urban areas and using little more than a chain-saw createnew spaces within them...spaces that might have possibly been implied by the architect and which Matta-Clark would expose. In a similar fashion, composer Kim Cascone has created new works from disparate bits of music that previously had quite different purposes: unpublished tracks, individual samples, rough studies, location recordings, etc were sent to Cascone which he then turned into recombinant compositions. The "Layeral Intersect" series is produced by a collaborative effort of Deadtech and Anechoic. |
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2000 kura 60 seconds loop duration: 60 seconds
from compilation CD Sound Anthology publisher: Leonardo Computer Music Journal, Volume 24 curated by Kim Cascone |
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2000 improvisation (live at Podewil 27/09/99) duration: 10'24" from compilation CD Sampling Rage label: X-tract (Podewil, Berlin) A live collaboration with Steve Roden & Brandon LaBelle: 10 minute excerpt of the concert chosen by Dieter Scheyhing. « Christophe Charles (F, J) electronics- Boris D. Hegenbart (D) soundcatching, processing- Brandon LaBelle (USA) electronics, found-sounds- Steve Roden (USA) electronics, parabolic heater, pedals, sampler- Terre Thaemlitz (USA, J) electronics. This CD is the result of the MontagsMusik series of the same name at Podewil (1998/99). The live and studio recordings of material performed at Podewil showcase the creative possibilities opened up by the use of samplers and computers as musical instruments. In their new pieces, the musicians embark on the microscopic analysis and modulation of sound sources through sampling and sound-manipulation, at times involving "cannibalistic" feedback in which the sampler refers back to itself. » « The Podewil label x-tract started 2001 with the aim to bring cutting-edge music into new contexts and to create a link between different music scenes. It ranges from experimental electronic music to Iannis Xenakis, noise and sound art. The crossover of different genres puts musicians and composers into new contexts. x-tract traces the current change in the perception of music and its production with regard to new developments in sound technology and the dissolution of the borderlines between genres. Digital and instrumental sound is brought into discourse within a new dimension and under popular and contemporary aspects. Well-known artists of electronic music compose for instrumental ensembles, non-European music is being transposed into experimental European contexts.x-tract renounces current terminology. Pleasure in the unwieldy!» |
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2000 undirected/contact duration: 18'53"
reconstruction of the recording of a concert with Brandon LaBelle at FREE SPACE 3 (Tsumura Kousuke), Tokyo, February 2000. This is an unreleased track performed as a solo sound performance with images by Ishidate Yoko and Nibo during the concert "oval and friends", at CAY (spiral), Aoyama, Tokyo, 2001. |
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2000 kura duration: 5'00"
from compilation CD + book Sound Art - Sound as media label: ICC (Tokyo) Exhibition curated by Hatanaka Minoru with David Toop & Max Eastley, Carsten Nicolai, Ikeda Ryoji, Carl Michael von Hauswolff, Christophe Charles - concerts by Terre Thaemlitz, Jane Dowe, Ikue Mori, Disinformation, David Toop & Max Eastley, Carsten Nicolai, Pol Mahlow & Nakahara Masaya, Christophe Charles et al. |
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2000 verena duration: 7'28
from compilation CD Maschinelle Strategien label: Mille Plateaux / Ritornell "Verena" was inspired from "Verena Vogelzymphon op.194", a composition by Henning Christiansen (released on CD by Edition Bernd Klüser 1991), which uses samples of canary birds in Henning's farm: "am anfang war nicht das wort, sondern ein zwitchern." |
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2000 re-constant duration: 8'20
from compilation CD magnetic roman label: +cross (Osaka) reconstruction of the constant.consult track by Kako Yuzo |
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2000 Contemporary Music Festival 2000 "Undirected" Visual Brains+Christophe Charles
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2000 ear as eye duration:
from compilation CD Fuji label: Cha-bashira (Tokyo) / A-Musik (Köln) Christophe Charles' remix of a live concert together with Steve Roden & Brandon LaBelle (1998, Kobe Design University). « A compilation for the start of this label project with mainly Japanese music including tracks by: Kuknacke, L?K?O, Miyahara Hidekazu, Hidalgo?, Hair Stylistics, AOA, Computer Soup, Why Sheep?, Susumu Yokota, Christophe Charles/Brandon Labelle/Steve Roden, Rax Karal, Noise Ramones, Tapes Klar!, Woodman, QofQ,, Vagamoron, American Cherry, Tennessees, yanee hat, Smurf Otokogumi, Evil Moisture, Rudolf Eb.er, Hado Ho, Nagata Kazunao, OM, Pol Mahlow, Moodman. Originally conceived of as the start of the joint label Fuji Rekodsu by Cha-Bashira and A-Musik; no other releases and label discontinued. Supported by ¿Los Apson? (Tokyo). » |
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1999 The Planet I - 惑星 I duration: about 140'
label : there (Kawaguchi, Japan) Live performance at Kid Ailack Art Hall, on January 24, 1999, by Christophe Charles, Kaneko Jutok, Mukai Chie, Muronoi Yoko, Takahashi Ikuro. 1- Untitled 15:11 (video mp4, 167MB) 2- Untitled 5:17 3- Untitled 14:24 4- Untitled 23:06 5- Untitled 34:56 6- Untitled 46:57 Christophe Charles: Computer, Lighting (tracks: 1, 4, 6) Kaneko Jutok: Guitar, Vocals (tracks: 3, 4, 5) Mukai Chie: Erhu, Voice, Percussion (tracks: 4, 6) Yoko Muronoi: Dance (tracks: 1, 2, 5, 6) Takahashi Ikuro: Percussion (tracks: 2, 4, 5, 6) Concert Planning: Chie Mukai Photography/Video: Noriko Seo Artwork: Okuno Kazuhiro |
[ click for larger
image]
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1999
Henning Christiansen "Polar Cirkel - Nord Licht" "Polar Circle - Nord Licht (blau - grün - rot - gelb - weiss - schwarz)" / "Northern Lights (blue - green - red - yellow - white - black)" ) is a performance by Henning Christiansen, Bjørn Nørgaard and Christophe Charles, at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany on October 17th 1999. |
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1999 shim-ke duration: 8'00"
from compilation CD + LP Modulation & Transformation 4 label: Mille Plateaux (Frankfurt) «The fourth collection in the Modulation & Transformation series testifies precisely how powerfully Mille Plateaux has positioned themselves within the growing world of electronic music. While many labels cash in on the genre's growing popularity, this Frankfurt-based label refuses to compromise its brand of challenging electronic music, instead heading increasingly further towards unparalleled artistic heights. The 36 songs on this wide-ranging collection capture many of Europe's foremost avant-garde electronic music composers such as Gas, Thomas Heckman, and Thomas Brinkman in addition to a few non-Europeans such as Paul Miller. The result captures a multitude of previously unconceivable ideas, directions that past musicians had never dreamt of. For example, when Wolfgang Voigt concludes the first album as Freiland on "Blau," the result feels near apocalyptic with its painfully distorted, shotgun blast-sounding bass beats pounding underneath a series of primitive synth melodies. To the average listener, this song is sheer noise, nothing but a banging cacophony. Yet to the more curious listener, a mysterious allure lies beneath this catastrophic demolition; only those in search of fresh ideas and sounds can find the inner beauty of songs such as this. Keep in mind that this is just one example of many. Sure, there are times when even the most open-minded listeners will scratch their head, pondering a particular song's value. Yet for the most part, these brave composers should be trusted by the listener. One may find little melody or rhythm here, but ambition is plentiful.» |
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1998 undirected / dok from
"undirected/dok", part two of a soundfile exchange
between oval / Markus Popp and christophe charles-
sounds by christophe charles, oval & Henning
Christiansen- all (de)compositions / reconstructions
by christophe charles (Mille Plateaux /
Ritornell, 1998)
« The composer's notes accompanying this beautiful experimental CD explain how his music is made of constantly changing sequences. He uses a randomized computer sampling technique that means that the music has no repetition, it is always unfolding in an organic way. When he decided to document this computer music system in action, it must have presented a harrowing process deciding which of these permutations to immortalize on record. Hence, the composer has contained CD-ROM data, with the same randomizing software for the Macintosh included with the audio CD. It is possible to play this CD on the ROM drive, and the listener will never hear the same combination of musical elements. It is not, however, imperative to use this interactive software to fully hear this CD; as a conventional audio CD it is a beautiful record on complex electronic music. Its beguiling ambience sometimes gives way to academic sterility, as with much of the music of the Ritornell and Mille Plateaux labels. But before this minimalism becomes tedium, the composer morphs one event into another - making it a seamless, constantly transforming soundscape. Christophe Charles has produced records in collaboration with another digital experimenter, Oval, as well as a prior CD, Undirected, which often brought him comparisons to Brian Eno, although this music is far more complex than Music for Airports as its sound sources are more varied. From street noise, dogs barking, synthesizers, and sundry field recordings of Eastern instruments, all of these sounds are given a discreet computer treatment rendering them musical, thus transforming them into a futuristic audio cinema.» (Sylvie Harrison, http://www.all,music.com) kura (duration: 4'58): using the recording of a performance with Kazakura Sho (1994), "kura" has been reconstructed several times. This version (4.0) uses seven oval samples. The sound samples are filtered and stretched in various ways in order to emphasize depth in space. Some of the layers have been filtered so that they become hidden or even inaudible, but are nevertheless to be perceived behind. shim-ke (duration: 5'01): A piece originally composed for Shim Cheul Jong's performance "Ke" (dog) in 1994, with samples from Ginza and Shinjuku. The human becomes a dog and a human again. The track is merged with a reconstruction of "Unter den Linden" (1986), a piece based on the recording of a silo and various metal objects. "Unter den Linden" doesn't refer to the Berlin avenue, but to a certain Alsace landscape in 1870 where German bombs are about to fall. A 10 minute version of shim.ke has been released on "Modulation & Transformation #4" (mp61). No oval sample here, but the use of loops refers to a certain oval method. other details here |
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1998 yukei 幽契 duration: 20'00"
format: VHS video tape / DVD label: Kirensha (貞練舎, Yamanashi-Japan) Sound composition with the voice of Maro Akaji (麿赤兒) reading his poem Yukei (幽契), made for a photomovie by Nara Kouji (奈良幸治). Other musics (N-11, NNN/N-11) by Samamoto Ryuichi (坂本龍一). ■N-11 (music: Sakamoto Ryuichi) ■Yukei (voice: Maro Akaji; music: Christophe Charles with samples from Henning Christiansen "In Vino Veritas") ■NNN/N-11 (music: Sakamoto Ryuichi) First - Last : deux points extrêmes mais les mêmes et la même violence. Des textes mystérieux en japonais qui vont s'estompant. Lentement, un transporteur surgit du rien comme un cri modulé entre les deux bombes… Deux bombes ou bien deux témoins muets comme morts dans l'horreur fixe ? Pluie blanche de caractères japonais - kana et kanji - Et, entre les deux poèmes comme deux totems, revient un samouraï farouche. Des corps chutent comme si c'était au fond des enfers. D'autres sont distendus, peut-être des tortues de mer comme celles qui naissent sur le sable aux Galapagos et sont ensuite poursuivies par de grands oiseaux ou des monstres globuleux qui s'en emparent et les dévorent. Un coelacanthe semble surgir du fond des eaux puis le prêcheur lui-même avec ses longs cheveux noirs, le prêcheur au regard farouche. Son mouvement est décomposé, hâché menu . Et les deux témoins deviennent supports de poème. Soudain en avant d'une grotte se dessine le visage d'Einstein et peut-être bientôt celui d’Oppenheimer. Un homme nu , le sexe irradié, surgit et s’essaie à voler comme Icare et il danse dans l'espace vide. D'autres se joignent à lui de la même façon : hommes nus, sexe irradié, avec un mouvement symphonique en arrière fond. Splendeur des images de crucifixion. Un escargot surgit cornes pointées au-dehors, descendant le long du corps à la manière des futuristes qui peignaient les moments différents du mouvement comme Carra ou Balla. Et l'on retourne aux monstres qui s'accouplent : des batraciens immenses, des scarabées qui avancent. Très belles compositions liant le prêcheur à des morts avec une lecture graphique des textes en en japonais, colonnes de signes qui finissent par isoler de nouveau les deux bombes. Et la vidéo se poursuit sur une vision du bord de mer sous la grotte avec des photos en fondu enchaîné, comme si les bombes surgissaient de nouveau dans la mer, sur les galets. Dans la rue d'une ville japonaise le prêcheur -- sa remorque vide - nous conduit sur un marché. Et ce sont des scènes d'un marché nocturne où une mère à l'enfant dans la carriole et une armée des tireurs de carriole surgissent du fond de l’écran . Morne répétition qui vient du fond de scène tandis que se dressent deux champignons parallèlement aux deux bombes atomiques. On retourne ensuite aux images intermédiaires et la silhouette du pêcheur disparaît. Le mot Garden clignote puis s'arrête et l'ensemble de l'écran devient tout noir. C'est là une composition très efficace : ce côté répétitif et quasiment fatal de l'horreur de la bombe, de l'horreur de la violence. Mais René Girard ne dit-il pas que dans l'acte de violence il y a chez la victime elle-même une sorte de violence qui répond . Et la dualité des bombes ne recouvrirait peut-être pas seulement les deux bombes d’Hiroshima et de Nagasaki mais aussi la violence dans l'histoire subie et imposée, parfois par les mêmes. Quoi qu'il en soit, ce qui ressort ici c'est l'impression rendue à la fois par les hachures de la vidéo et par le côté répétitif de la musique qui accompagne les cris des hommes, la voix d'homme qui chante. Et même à travers les sons émis par les hommes, il y a une violence sourde qui martèle l'arrière fond de l'écran et qui marque, elle aussi, l'arrière-fond de l'espace. Puissance forte de ces images qui se succèdent avec un caractère de nécessité et nous font retourner à la fin aux images du début comme s'il y avait une sorte de cercle vicieux de cette violence une fois qu'elle avait été lancée sur la terre. De même que la terre est ronde , il était fatal que la violence revienne sur elle-même, le lanceur à son tour devenant la victime. C'est probablement une réflexion picturale et une réflexion de vidéastes sur l'éternel retour ou plutôt sur le caractère inéluctable de ce re-surgissement de la violence à épisodes réguliers dans le monde. Et contre cela, la lutte de toutes les femmes, et de toutes les filles dès lors qu'elles ont été mères. Elles ont besoin de protéger leurs petits. Elles ont besoin de lutter contre toutes ces forces de mort qu'apporte la guerre, contre tous les grands malheurs que nous promet l'avènement du XXIe siècle. C'est donc un hommage dans la mesure où la vidéo est extrêmement composée extrêmement recherchée, un hommage structuré sur des éléments graphiques ou sonores répétitifs, mais qui ne procurent jamais d'ennui aux spectateurs . Ils suivent, emportés tandis qu’apparaît la vision de ceux qui nous sont chers et qui sont morts. Et c'est comme si nous voulions conserver le contact avec eux à travers ces images. Comme si nous le conservions. Eveline Caduc |
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1997 sound shadow Excerpt from the 4 channel sound site specific installation for the ambit of the Cloister as part of site-specific audiovisual immersive installation by Christophe Charles and Ritsuko Endo in 1997. |
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1997 uncolored (channel 1&2) uncolored (channel 1&2) duration: 10'00" each Unreleased tracks produced for a 4-channel sound installation for a tea ceremony and a demonstration of ikebana in Tokyo, 1997. |
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1997 feld_c duration: 8'45 reconstruction of feld, from CD microstoria_snd, 1996 from CD & LP microstoria_reprovisers label: Mille Plateaux (Frankfurt) / Thrill Jockey (Chicago) |
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1997 undirected_1986-1996 duration: 56'58
solo CD undirected 1986-1996 label: Mille Plateaux (Frankfurt) «This CD by electronic composer Christophe Charles was a groundbreaking release in 1996, not only from the perspective that it contains post-ambient music of the finest variety, but that the audio CD is enhanced with a sophisticated music software program for the Mac. This implement is apparently an integral part of the composition process for Charles, who has collaborated with another revolutionary computer music composer, Oval, on subsequent recordings. Those familiar with the sleepy and tenuous glitch music of Oval will find much enjoyment here. This music is less repetitious, as it is based on a series of "Chance Composition" techniques informed by the music of John Cage and Brian Eno's chance or "Systems Music" strategies. It recalls early electronic music in some ways, and is more in line with academic music than ambient or dance. When released in 1996, this CD fell by the wayside, somewhat foreshadowed by label mates Oval and Alec Empire, who gave Mille Plateaux its identity as the quintessential IDM label. With Undirected, this really is a music of "one thousand plateaus" Å\ the mutations and transformations of layered field recordings and processed instrumentation fold within each other in a most artful fashion, at times cinematic in the images it conjures. This album, which tracks ten years of work, is not a compilation so much as a showcase of a very refined and singular aesthetic. It's recommended to those interested in the more adventurous side of computer music. Its follow-up, Undirected/Dok, is a more radical transgression on the theme, and is a highly regarded work on the prestigious Ritornell label.» (Sylvie Harrison, http://www.allmusic.com) “A great example of music in its abstract form. Normally concrete music becomes concretely representational of a particular situation by using different signals. Abstract music is a simulation of the universal ‘Rauschen’. What defines music today is no longer self evident. Western music of the 20th century has added unprocessed sound and noises until it is an impossible task to define anything as purely musical or unmusical. The organization of sound is no longer a fixed organization, but rather process or operation. 'Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us; when we listen to it, we find it fascinating' (John Cage). The CD invoices a cosmic flow and changes all surroundings of the listener. Coming and going. ‘Sounds from many natural places of the world are crossing in a wonderful way, processed sound and natural sounds are superimposed' (Shiomi Mieko). A masterpiece, 60 min." (from the Forced Exposure catalog) This CD-plus has two parts: a 60 minutes audio part, which notation is printed on the cover, and a data part, which elements are explained here. The audio part consists in several pieces composed between 1986 and 1996. They were gathered on five CDs: "circle" (1986-1994, non published), "dog" (1993-1994, non published), "next point" (1992-1993, Gallery Ham, Nagoya), "deposition yokohama" (1993-1994, Yokohama Museum) and "statics" (1995, CCI recordings, Tôkyô). They appear on "undirected" in the "ready-made" order of these CDs, which is related to the alphabetic order of their name ("circle", "dog"), or the order of their performance ("next point", "deposition yokohama"). These recorded compositions are mixed with samples banks triggered by a Max patcher on the same model as the "undirected.usnd". However, it didn't use the "usnd" object, but was connected to the MIDI-in (program changes, pitch, velocity, duration, controllers, etc.) of a Kurzweil/Young Chang K-2000RJ™. These banks were chosen according to their size (to fit the 16MB RAM of the K2000) and their presence in the pieces: they feature sound samples of former compositions, and new samples which appear according to the alphabetic proximity of their name ("ginza", "glocken", "gong", "hafen", etc.). The 1996 "undirected" composition intends to make clear how the compositional principles of all these pieces are interrelated. broadcast: convex TV (Berlin), 1997 WBKH (San Francisco),1997 Tokyo FM "New Wind From Asia" (Tokyo), 1997 |
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1997 oval/dok collaboration
CD oval/dok
label: Thrill Jockey (Chicago) / Tokuma Japan (Tokyo) part one of a soundfile exchange between oval and christophe charles- sounds by christophe charles & oval- all compositions by oval- cd graphic design by christophe charles & Endo Ritsuko (US and Japanese releases: two different versions, see Adrian Shaughhnessy & Julian House: "Sampler - Contemporary Music Graphics", Laurence King Publishing, London, 1999, p.37) 3- dekon - Rekon anything 4- Bloc 8- vitra desk «Recorded in collaboration with Tokyo-based artist Christophe Charles, Dok continues Oval's manipulation of digital technology with typically innovative results. Beginning with Charles' field recordings of various ringing bells assembled from around the world, these static peals mutate into fluid, linear songs, complete with rhythm indices and bass tones; through extensive processing, beautifully organic music is somehow created, and like previous Oval releases, Dok forces listeners to reassess everything they believe to be true about the nature of sonic shape and form.» (Jason Ankeny, http://www.allmusic.com) Amazon.com's Best of 1998 «In a year that saw the release of many fabulous archival 78s and field recordings, it's great to hear music that creates new, vibrant art from similar, contemporary source material. With Dok, Oval music ceases to be about manipulating existing CDs and instead is made from the manipulation of field/travel recordings by Tokyo-based artist Christophe Charles. Markus Popp's software does some pretty, narcoleptic, nifty things to the source material, recordings of bells heard in public spaces throughout the world.» --Mike McGonigal From Amazon.com A collaborative experiment between Oval's Markus Popp (he of Berlin) and academic sound-seeker Christophe Charles (he of Tokyo), Dok examines the relationship between space and structure at its most fundamental crux. On previous releases Oval proved themselves the Christian Marclay of the digital age; manually "treating" compact discs with scratches and cuts, then documenting and manipulating the naturally occurring results. On Dok Popp puts this modus operandi to a polarizing test. Rather than using linear, rhythmically constructed music as his sound source, he draws on a series of Charles's field recordings of bell sounds--almost entirely devoid of structure or rhythm--from around the world. Popp's intention here is to present the Oval aesthetic as a fluid, adaptable means to a consistently musical end. The result, while less melodic than previous Oval offerings, maintains the sublime appeal of an underwater dream. Dok ambitiously asks us to reassess the parameters of music itself, but theory and practice rarely find such gorgeous intersection. --Matt Hanks «Although Oval are perhaps more well-known for how they make their music than for the music they actually make, the German experimental electronic trio have provided an intriguing update of some elements of avant-garde composition in combination with techniques of digital sound design, resulting in some of the most original, if somewhat challenging electronic music of the contemporary scene. Originally composed of Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz, and Frank Metzger, Oval gradually became the work of just Popp, with Metzger providing most of the visual and design work. The bulk of Popp's work, released through the Force Inc.-related Mille Plateaux label, incorporates elements of what could be described as "prepared compact disc" ― manually marred and scarified CDs played and sampled for the resultant, somewhat randomly patterned rhythmic clicking. Layered together with subtle, sparse melodies and quirky electronics, the results are often as oddly musical as they are just plain odd. Popp brought this approach to bare on the first full-length Oval releases ― Wohnton, Systemische and 94 Diskont ― as well as a number of compilation tracks. Although a rung below marginal in their home country and even more obscure in the States, Oval's remixes of Chicago post-rock group Tortoise brought them in contact with American audiences; both Systemische and 94 Diskont, as well as Markus Popp's work as Microstoria (with Mouse on Mars' Jan St. Werner) were reissued domestically by Thrill Jockey in 1996. One year later, the Dok LP featured Oval's collaboration with Christophe Charles. After 1999's Szenario EP, Popp and co. returned in 2000 with Ovalprocess.» (Sean Cooper, http://www.allmusic.com) The Wire (3/98, p.59) - "...patched together from soundfiles supplied by computer composer Christophe Charles....It is [the sound of] software: a malignant system champing its way through familiar signs, and languages, leaving only disfigured traces." |
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1997 undirected9702 duration: 10'00"
WDR、Prix Ars Acustica This is a mix of several released and unreleased pieces : shimke (long version), statics, undirected/continuum, and Kalkutta Kreis (the last piece of the undirected 1986-1996 CD). I have also used a recording made at the Fukuoka Museum of Art during a performance with Neo Dada Organizer Kazakura Sho and his baloon in 1994, which is at the basis of the undirected/dok track: kura, and several other pieces. |
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1996 Valhalla - Henning Christiansen duration: 57'46" |
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1996 undirected/continuum duration:
9'39
from compilation CD In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze label: Mille Plateaux « The pioneering German experimental/electro label Mille Plateaux was founded on inspiration from French social philosopher Gilles Deleuze and his book A Thousand Plateaus, so the label organized this two-disc tribute featuring a veritable roll call of the top techno subversives in Germany, Britain and America. The tracks are all exclusives, from the likes of Atom Heart, Gas, J. Burger, Oval, Mouse on Mars, Scanner, Ian Pooley, Jim O'Rourke, FX Randomiz, Chris & Cosey, Gas, Christophe Charles and Kerosene. With an attractive 30-page booklet including the writings of Deleuze, In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze: Folds & Rhizomes is a near-crucial collection for fans of the philosophy or the music. » John Bush |
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1995 undirected/stationary duration:
8'04
from compilatioon CD "statics" (1995), edited by Ikeda Ryoji with Darrin Verhagen, Akira Yamamichi, Ryoji Ikeda, Jim O'Rourke, Kazuhiko Kinami, Alan Lamb, Christophe Charles, Paul Schutze, David Toop, Andrew Lagowski + Toru Yamanaka. |
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1994 deposition yokohama duration: 52'00
from solo CD deposition yokohama CD-catalog solo exhibition at Yokohama Museum Art Gallery Comments about Deposition Yokohama : Henning Christiansen: I am sitting listening to your Deposition Yokohama. The dogs are belling- soundscape around- I like it very much. It is really transport of sound (I am sitting on Møn- Mond- Moon). It has a very good flow and changes my surroundings- Coming and going. Yes, you are on a good way (and don't need Donizetti). (1994-12-29, Møn, Denmark) Dick Higgins: Lucky Yokohama! Sounds super. You should get it distributed here! (1995-01-28, Barrytown, USA) Richard Kostelanetz: I finally heard the CD, which has the undirected, non-hierarchical quality that is truly Cagean. (1995-02-12, New-York) Florence Vatan: I had the impression to penetrate a soundscape which was both interior (to the body) and exterior, probably because of the resonances and movement of the sounds which I imagined (?), besides the human and urban marks, inhaled and exhaled by Void, dilated or retained, sharpened on blades of silence, and vibrating at their contact (1995-02, Chicago) Uehara Kazuo: I could feel a very delicate world and your rich sensitivity (1992-02-13, Chiba, Japan) Malcolm Goldstein: Sorry that I couldn't experience within the installation setting, but I have enjoyed "playing" it- like creating my own realization by shifting from number to number in various sequences. (As well as hearing it through as in your sequence!). (1995-02-22, Montréal) Matsumoto Toshio: I was invited in a fascinating cosmos of meditation, which was very exciting. It is a pity that I couldn't see the installation (1995-02-27, Kyôto)- Isshue Haruakira: I was listening to your CD, and I thought "What a clear development!". As usual, your sentiments are well transmitted. (…) I hope that everybody wakes up for the "trans-artistic"! (1995-03-17, Chiba, Japan) Éliane Radigue: J'ai pris tout ce temps pour vous écrire et vous dire tout le bien de ce que je pense de votre travail, car j'avais besoin d'en pénétrer la profondeur. J'aime toujours et encore plus votre musique, à la délicatesse subtile qui m'avait enchantée dans votre premier CD, s'ajoute ici une puissance et une richesse sonore qui révèle un sacré tempérament !" (1995-04-02, Paris) Eero Tarasti: I am very impressed by your new experiences in music and images. You are really at the avant-garde in this domain. (1995-04-22, Helsinki)- |
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1994
Henning Christiansen - PANDORA'S NEW BOX This performance was held in two places in 1994: |
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1994 Ancient Chant duration: 9'35"
collaboration CD Juri & Lisa - Things are Quite Silent label: SSE Communications (Tokyo) Track composed by Christophe Charles using samples of Juri's voice, stones and bells, processed through digital reverb. |
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1993 macbeth duration: 4'51
from Furudate Tetsuo's Macbeth label: SSE Communications (Tokyo) Performed by Christophe Charles (soundscape) & Juri (reading). One take, no overdub, no preparation. |
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1993 macbeth_live duration:
6'28
from "Blank Tapes" label: SSE Communications (Tokyo) Performed live by Juri (voice), Reiko A. (voice), Furudate Tetsuo (voice, guitar), Suzuki Yuko (voice), Pneuma (keyboards), Christophe Charles (electronics). |
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1993 next point for Kazakura Sho duration: 9'59"
Short version of the unreleased recording of a performance with Kazakura Shô at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, organized by curator Kuroda Raiji. I have collaborated with legendary performer Kazakura Shô (founder of Neo Dada Organizers) eight times: during the Megalopolis Aborigines Tour in 1992 (Berlin, Gent, Eindhoven, Nice), at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in 1993, at NIPAF Tokyo and Nagano in 1995, and at the Neo Dada Exhibition(「ネオダダ一断面」展)in Oita in 1995. Except for the Nagano performance where he used piano strings attached through the theater, he used each time his black balloon. This recording has been used in several compositions, in particular kura from undirected/dok and other compilations. |
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1993 let it hold itself up two
compositions on a solo CD
published by Gallery HAM (Nagoya) next_point duration: 21'17
joyamai
duration: 38'24
from "let it hold itself up" liner notes: These compositions have no beginning or end, and are not based on any kind of storyboard: they are conceived to be looped and heard continuously in a specific environment. Each sound stands heard for itself, and no one covers or eliminates another. The sounds contained in these compositions also permit sounds of the environment happening in real time to be heard simultaneously. By hearing these compositions, the listener is led to pay more attention to the sounds which are not featured in the composition: I am looking for the possibility to make all sounds audible, by the use of specific time structures. comments about let hold itself up: Henning Christiansen: I got next point (let it hold itself up CD) and I have heard it three times- and agree and like. I am also proud of you, because I hear it as your first big form, as a symphonic feeling and of course I like that you use some of my ideas. I think that even from Calcutta sound piece I told you that the form was important, even if it was not in the Calcutta piece. It was interesting to hear, but for other reasons, as an essay about Calcutta in soundscape. But now in next point you have found a form that is very good for you so that you can "let the music hold itself up" for you and for me. I sit down and followed your travel in sound in my room, far away in Denmark. It is always a problem to work with a CD, or tape or other sound sources which have to get alive in another place. But this CD music comes over. There are certain signals who tells us that it is normal music: The instruments and it is necessary to send it back in music sometimes… for a while. But next point is to get it out, to leave instrumental sounds- I have done it, but I had to go back again and use that sound many times. I am happy to hear that you understand what I mean with next point. I think I told you my opinion: that the most important thing today is the form, not the sound, we can use "jeden Geraüsch" (any sound). (…) Let us hold us up! (1993-07-26, Møn, Denmark) Heidi Paris and Peter Gente (Merve Verlag): You reached a new musical dimension, which appears more stronger through the interesting recording technique. When I play the music here, the sounds stand at very different places. The loudspeakers as sound sources have disappeared, at last! Congratulations and thousand of thanks for the new listening experience. (1993-07-29, Berlin) Shiomi Mieko: Sounds from many different places of the world are crossing in a very interesting way, processed sounds and natural sounds are superimposed, this is very pleasant as a spatial counterpoint. In your sound work, visual and audible could be linked. (1993-09-10, Ôsaka) Carl Stone: My comment is simple: the music on your CD is wonderful, I have enjoyed listening to it many times. I realize that, as you say, there is no storyboard (this statement can be taken in several different ways), but for me the music is very rich and filmic, a kind of cinema sonore. Bravo. I wonder if you would have any objection to my broadcasting your compositions on a radio series I produce here in California. Again my thanks for your thoughtfulness and congratulations again for your fine work. (1993-09-15, Los Angeles) Laura Kuhn: It was with great pleasure that I yesterday listen to the CD you so kindly sent ("let it hold itself up"). I find it quite beautiful. It was only after I'd listened that I read your extensive "liner" notes, and was greatly intrigued. (…) Your use of the quote from Cage's Silence from Meister Eckhart is beautiful. Do you know (and you must, given your own work) that Cage changed his view about this some 20 years later, embracing the idea of Marshal McLuhan that modern souls are "…conveniently electronic (omniattentive)." (1993-10-21, Phoenix) Éliane Radigue: It is both refined and subtle, it has a very great power, profoundness and presence, that is, a very great happiness… (1993-10-25, Paris) Anne Cauquelin: I listened yesterday to the rite of the birds and the ritual of the human, that was very beautiful in the atelier where I was painting landscapes (which are not) in length, and in series. (1993-10-25, Paris) Martha Grabócz: Congratulations, this is very pleasant to listen to! The changes of musical "subjects" come according to a good rhythm, a good pulse: they are neither too long nor too short. I have been analyzing a lot of contemporary these days, and it was a real pleasure and refreshment to listen to your recording. The text is well written too. (Paris, 1993-10-26) Alexina Duchamp: Thank you very much for sending me your CD in hommage to John. I have nice memories of you and your father visiting me when John was here. (1993-11-17, Villiers-sous-Grez) comments about "let it hold itself up" in original language here |
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1990 sampler 1986-1990 silo サイロ
unter den linden 菩提樹の下 fanbai 梵 唄 impulse music インパルス音楽 performed and recorded in Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain from 1986 to 1990. Steeple & Globe - COS distribution (Okazaki Toyohiro, Ichinomiya, Japan, 1990) |
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1989 from circle Track recorded at Gallery Naito (Nagoya) in 1988, from the sound installation "From Circle From Sound" (two persons exhibition with painter Ahn Sung Keum), and published on the cassette-tape of the exhibition "Der gute Ton zum schönen Bild" at Kunsthaus Hamburg (January 1989), organized, curated and edited by Ernst Krezter (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg). |
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1986 der hirt auf dem felsen duration: 18'01"
Unreleased track used in the last part of « undirected 1986-1996 ». Music for the performance der hirt auf dem felsen at the exhibition vidéo et multimédia organized by Soungui Kim at La vieille charité (Marseille, France) in Summer 1986, with John Cage, Nam June Paik, Daniel Charles, Philip Corner, Gerard Frémy, Claus Böhmler, Ernst Kretzer, Henning Christiansen, Mike Hentz, Ute Wassermann, Tilman Küntzel, et al. |
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1986 kalkutta kreis duration: 6'30" Unreleased track used in the last part of « undirected 1986-1996 ». recorded in Kolkota, Puri and Hamburg, edited with advices from Henning Christiansen in Hamburg, exhibited at vidéo et multimédia exhibition organized by Soungui Kim at La vieille charité (Marseille, France) in Summer 1986. Letter from John Cage about der hirt auf dem felsen and kalkutta kreis : What I said as I recall is that you sustained your music very well. That is, you let it hold itself up. I found it a pleasure to listen to. Thank you, John (from John Cage, 101 West Street (5B)- New York, New York 10011. to Christophe Charles, 6 rue Cart, 94160 Saint-Mandé, France. July 29th, 1986) |
Notation: pencil on paper, 1986 Notation: ink on book paper, 1990 [click for larger image] |
cd list |
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