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cds


2005
title: re:TAU
duration: 5'37"
format: compilation CD plastic-box-rebels/[3/TAU]
label: Boris Hegenbart / Quecksilber / Staubgold

"plastic-box-rebels/[3/TAU]" 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.



2005
title: undirected/placode
duration:
format: compilation CD Placode
label: n160 (Tokyo)

Aluminum packaged cd compilation curated by Nibo [LINE/Raster-Noton], a former student of Musashino Art University. Artists on this compilation: Carsten Nicolai, Christophe Charles, Frank Bretschneider, Nibo, Byetone, Richard Chartier, Sachiko M., Sogar, Steve Roden, Taylor Deupree, and Otomo Yoshihide.



2005
title: undirected/sur_terre
duration: 7'23"
format: 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.

« 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)



2004
title: undirected/loom
duration: undetermined
format: audio SOFTWARE Loom
label: 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.



2004
title: Sisyphe
duration: 10'08"
format: compilation CD nu:2003-04 / sonic films
label: nu:

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 edited the nu: concert and studio sessions which were performed according to an analysis/reconstruction of Stan Brakhage movies. 


solo :
個人制作

collaboration :
二人以上の共同制作

compilation :
数人の作曲家が参加しており、
それぞれはオリジナル曲を制作

2004
title: und [i] rected
duration: 08'00"
format: 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 with sounds by Inada Kozo (who has remixed my own sounds with his original max/MSP patches) for a video by Utsumi Akiko (Kobe, Japan) presented in a gallery in Finland. The video shows a paper window (shôji) with very delicate shadows of trees, appearing and disappearing.


2004
title: undirected/mobile opinions
duration:
format: compilation CD Erratum#4
label: erratum (Paris)

to see the picture 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.
http://home.att.ne.jp/grape/charles
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. »

2004
title: next point / cour vitrée
duration: 25'00"
format: 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.


2004
title: Verena
duration:
format: audio for software Sonimage
label: SONY QUALIA (Tokyo)


2004
title: interaural saucer
duration: 10'16"
format: 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



2003
title: Undirected 1992-2002
duration:
format: solo CD
label: SUB ROSA (BELGIUM)

Two compositions made between 1992 and 2002: 1.Next Point - Hommage à Henning Christiansen (21'15") 2. Deposition (45'45")

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 Å\ 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



2003
title: Narita
duration:
format: 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 twentty 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 yet.



2003
title: re:distillation
duration: 11'40"
format: compilation CD Readapt
label: Cross (Osaka - Paris)



2003
title: undirected/coran
format: compilation CD 60 artists protest the war
duration: 60 seconds
label: ATAK (Tokyo)

compiled,produced by keiichiro shibuya[ATAK]
directed by maria[ATAK]
designed by myeong-hee lee[ATAK,matt]+ryoji tanaka[ATAK, semitransparent design]
mastered by kimken at kimken studio tokyo

distributed by inpartmaint inc.(japan)
東京都渋谷区宇田川町19-5 山手マンション804
tel/03-5457-3264
fax/03-5457-3279
http://www.inpartmaint.com/plop/

distributed by digital narcis ltd.(overseas)

includes tracks by those artists below:
roel meelkop / shirtrax vx.shirtrax / keith rowe+toshimaru nakamura / stephan mathieu / pomassl slipped disk bernhard gÜnter / kim cascone / doron sadja / yamataka eye / numb / steve roden / steinbrÜchel / go taneda / akira yamamichi / tiziana bertoncini+ thomas lehn / yuji takahashi / freiband / cm von hausswolff / keiichiro shibuya / motor / stilluppsteypa / coH / mikael stavÖstrand / radboud mens / miki yui / andreas tilliander / minimalistic sweden / nao tokui + take3tsu nagano / frank bretschneider / evala / taeji sawai / fennesz / kenneth kirschner / i8u / john hudak / aoki takamasa / mitchell akiyama / burkhard stangl / goodiepal / hideki nakazawa / aelab / christof kurzmann / jos smolders / masahiro miwa / janek schaefer / tv pow / pix / kimken / saidrum / merzbow / m.behrens / maria / klon / mondii / richard di santo / christophe charles / william basinski / carsten nicolai / yasunao tone



2002
title: Voyager
duration: 16'00" (4 x 4'00")
format: permanent sound installation at Tokyo Narita International Airport / Solo CD+ Book Cosmos
label: Narita Airport / Town Art Inc (Tokyo)

« 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. » (http://www.townart.co.jp/japanese/project/english/public_narita.html)



2002
title: Undirected float
duration: 14'47"
format: compilation CD Floating Foundations
label: Subrosa (Belgium)

« The aim of the Floating Foundation series is to "create sound objects" with musicians "who are, in most cases, plastic artists too" (from Sub Rosa director Guy Marc Hinant's presentation) - in other words, to walk the thinning line between music and plastic arts. The sound sculptors contributing to this first installment all decided to take its title (inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's sense of architecture) literally. Each piece is a journey through either air or water - not that the artists declare to specifically use sounds derived from these sources, but their music feels airborne, free-floating, gentle, and following its own, sometimes capricious path. Janek Schaefer's "Lithospheric Shifts" opens the CD, but it represents its weaker point. It doesn't take off, offering a limited and uninvolved scope of sounds. Robert Hampson's (aka Main) "Hysteresis" is already more interesting and takes the shape of a British-school electro-acoustic work. Christophe Charles and Stephen Vitiello's contributions make for the best moments, the former vaguely ambient, the latter presenting the most minimalist but sharply focused work, derived in part from his recordings of the World Trade Center (something that cannot help but take an unplanned extra dimension after the events of September 11, 2001). This is where the sense of plasticity, of "sound sculpting," can be felt the strongest. Kurt Ralske's "Au.Taste" provides a suitably calm ending. » François Couture, http://www.allmusic.com

« 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. http://www.ambientrance.org/0102/va-ffv1.html



2002
title: undirected/frequencies
duration: 2'00"
format: compilation CD Frequencies [Hz]
publisher: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

« 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.

My 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.



2002
title: jizai>nextpoint>mari>dorobo>zone
duration: 24'00"
format: audio file, streaming from website FREQUENCitY V
publisher: ORF Kunstradio (Wien)

featuring: 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. » http://www.kunstradio.at/2002A/21_04_02.html

« 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



2001
title: undirected/hoon
duration: 7'35"
format: Compilation CD + Book unfinished#2
label: code (Tokyo)
remix of Sakamoto Ryuichi & Hanno Yoshihiro "Hoon"

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.



2001
title: Verena/On Canvas
duration:
format:
compilation CD April Remix
label: Subrosa (Belgium)

« 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



2001
title: Verena/On Canvas
duration:
format: compilation CD April Remix
label: Cirque (Tokyo)
Hanno Yoshihiro



2001
title: Layeral Intersect #3
duration:
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. »



2001
title:
duration:
format: compilation CD Radical Fashion
publisher: Victoria & Albert Museum (London)

curated by David Toop



2000
title: kura 60 seconds loop
duration: 60 seconds
format: compilation CD Sound Anthology 
publisher: Leonardo Computer Music Journal, Volume 24

curated by Kim Cascone



2000
title: improvisation (live at Podewil 27/09/99)
duration: 10'24"
format: 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!»



2000
title: kura
duration:
format: compilation CD + book Sound Art - Sound as media
label: ICC (Tokyo)

curated by Hatanaka Minoru



2000
title: Verena
duration:
format: compilation CD Maschinelle Strategien
label: Mille Plateaux/Ritornell (Frankfurt)



2000
title: undirected/dok
duration: 55'10" + data
format: collaboration CD undirected/dok
label: Mille Plateaux/Ritornell (Frankfurt)

part two of a soundfile exchange between oval and christophe charles-
sounds by christophe charles, oval & Henning Christiansen-
all (de)compositions / reconstructions by christophe charles-

« 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 Å\ 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)



2000
title:
duration:
format: collaboration CD + LP Magnet Roman
label: Cross (Osaka, Paris)

collaboration with Kako Yuzo



2000
title: Ear as Eye
duration:
format: compilation CD Fuji
label: Cha-bashira (Tokyo) / A-Musik (Köln)

from a live collaboration with Steve Roden & Brandon LaBelle

The track released on this compilation (produced by Pol Malo in Tokyo) is an remix of the concert which happened at Kobe Design University in 1998. I edited the recorded material and reinforced some of its layers.

« 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). »


1999
title: shim-ke
duration:
format: 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.»



1998
title: Yuketsu 幽契
duration: 14'00"
format: video tape
label: Kirensha (貞練舎, Yamanashi-Japan)



1998
title:
Architecture of the Year
format: sound installation of the exhibition '98 Architecture of the Year (アーキテクチャー・オブ・ザ・イヤー展) by the Association of Architecture of Japan (建築学会).


1997
title: oval/dok
duration:
format: 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)-

«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."
  


1997
title: undirected_9702
duration: 10'00"
format:
broadcast audio file
publisher: WDR studio "ars acustica"

undirected_9702 est une pièce d'une longueur de 10'00", qui a été composée en février 1997 pour le concours "Acustica International Competition 2 pour courtes pièces" du WDR–Köln. La pièce consiste en un mixage de plusieurs fragments composés entre 1986 et 1996, dont certains figurent sur des compact-discs déjà publiés.

Un fragment de la pièce "shim-ke", que l'on entend dans les premières minutes, a été composé en 1994 à l'aide d'un ordinateur Macintosh muni du programme Max, d'un échantillonneur Akai S-1000, d'un générateur de sons Yamaha QY-10, et d'enregistrements de la gare et du quartier de Shinjuku à Tôkyô. Différentes versions de cette pièce figurent sur les disques compacts "Deposition Yokohama" (Yokohama Museum, 1994) et "undirected 1986-1996" (Mille Plateaux, 1996). Le deuxième fragment, "Kazakura" (grenier du vent) provient de l'enregistrement d'une performance avec Kazakura Shô à Fukuoka en 1994, joué avec le système Macintosh/Max/S-1000 avec des échantillons de bruits de rues thailandaises et d'un silo à grain. Celui s'enchaîne avec un mixage de "Der Hirt auf dem Felsen", une performance effectuée dans le port de Hamburg en 1986–dont les sons de claves (on entend leur écho sur les murs des entrepôts) ont été échantillonés par la suite avec un synthétiseur-échantilloneur Kurzweil K-2000–et de deux pièces intitulées "undirected/statics" (publiée sur le disque compact "statics" par CCI Recordings, Tôkyô, 1995) et "undirected/continuum" (publiée sur le disque compact "In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze" par Mille Plateaux, Frankfurt, 1996), toutes deux composées également à l'aide du système Macintosh/Max/K-2000. En superposition, on entend alors la pièce "Kalkutta Kreis", composée à Hamburg en 1986 avec des échantillons de paysages sonores de Calcutta et Puri (Inde), et deux pièces pour piano: "dialectic chords" (1986) et "undirected sonata" (1996). D'autres versions de "Kazakura" et de "Kalkutta Kreis" figurent sur les disques compacts "Deposition Yokohama" et "undirected 1986-1996".

Les pièces qui constituent la composition "undirected 9702" apparaissent ici dans un contexte différent de leur précédentes parutions. Pour certaines, seuls certains échantillons sont identiques. Il ne s'agit pas ici d'un ensemble de compositions mises bout à bout, mais d'une nouvelle composition, dont la structure et la dynamique sont inédites.


1996
title: undirected1986-1996
duration: 60'00"
format: audio+data solo CD
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)

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


1996
title: feld_c
duration: 8'45"
format: compilation cd microstoria_reprovisers
label: Mille Plateaux, Frankfurt / Thrill Jockey, Chicago / Tokuma Japan Communications

« Although Microstoria began as something of a low-budget distraction, the Oval/Mouse on Mars side project has steadily become one of the Mille Plateaux label's highest profile groups (thanks also in part to American indie label Thrill Jockey's committed reissue program). Reprovisers suggests as much by gathering together an impressive range of remix talent to attack tracks from the group's two LPs. The results are, as expected, fascinating, ranging from the humorous, structured abstractions of Ui and Stereolab to the refractive minimalism of Jim O'Rourke and Mouse on Mars, to the stuttery, disjointed spasms of Christophe Charles. » - Sean Cooper (http://allmusic.com)

Interpretations and reworks of microstoria's _snd album. the tracks were not remixed, the source material was only derived from the _snd cd itself. "Reprovisers assembles stars of the avant buzz bin mod squad―much-annotated panasonic youth like Jim O'Rourke, Mouse on Mars (half of whose membership is Microstoria), Oval (ditto), Stereolab, Ui and more. Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier adds a little Frere Jacques mumbo-jumbo to microlab: endless summer. Ui approach the hysterically titled, Run? I jolly well won't run. I'll be happy to get you chaps another ball with the determination of winning the junior high science fair. Run? cuts between humpback whale hissy-fits, Haitian Fight Song-style Mingus bass, and Planet Rock escapades. Violent Onsen Geisha earns their name with a turbulent turn on endless summer NAMM, sounding like a film editor forwarding and rewinding a reel." (columbusalive.com) "The surprise is that the album works as a whole, that instead of making allowances for a high percentage of clinkers and the intrinsic conflict of approaches, the variety actually strengthens individual tracks. Minimalism alongside kitchen-sink maximalism, aggression snuggling up to meditation -- it all creates a twisting story of sorts.Reprovisers turns out to be so intriguing and even fun, mainly because it's not just another Microstoria album." (cln.com/archives/)
Description: Reprovisers is a presentation of revivals of tracks from their recent snd. Reprovisers is intended as a tribute to an outstanding approach to electronic music in general as well as an extension of the concept of improvisation.

 The Microstoria approach always centered around a contemporarily refined, augmented version of improvisation - even though not necessarily in the strict musical/artistic sense of the term. "Improvisation" rather denoted a navigational effort, describing the delicate task to coordinate, synchronize and shift between multiple interrelated desktop-workspaces - steering through tons of options, devastated by bugs, encouraged by features, keeping a constant workflow all whilst making musical concerns a priority. On their previous albums init ding and snd, Microstoria brought back an intuitive feel by relying on musicality rather than on the mere execution of implemented features and pre-installed presets - transforming awareness for the digital sound design workflow into improvisation. Composition was not abandoned and occured in the legnthy and detailed editing process.

 Reprovisers takes Microstoria’s exploration of improvisation and composition a step further. The collaborators were given full artisitic liscense to alter tracks through manipulation (remix) or augmentation. The response depended greatly on the artists and their prefrence for improvisationand/or composition and their choice of instrumentation and/or mechanation. The results deliver snd reconsiderations in styles ranging from painstaking approximations to drastic tranformations; utilizing a whole variety of approaches and methods from live electronics to songwriting, from orchestral arrangements to software authoring. There is the first ever remix by Stereolab, a Microstoria emulation by electronic sound innovators Oval, an orchestral version by US-composer Jim O'Rourke as well as interventions by the likes of Mouse On Mars, UI (New York), Tokyo-based composer Christophe Charles, Japanese noise/tape loop merchants Violent Onsen Geisha, the cologne-based Otaku music wiz F.X. Randomiz and more. All this adds up to an exceptional 70+ minutes documenting the state of art in cool contemporary freestyle.

broadcast:
Tokyo FM "New Wind From Asia" (Tokyo), 1997



1995
title: shim-ke (live version)
duration: 10'00"
format: soundtrack of the 16mm film Manresa Hbf by Manuel Cusso-Ferrer (Barcelona).
distribution: Kronos s.a., Barcelona 

Most of the film material was recorded during the "Manresa Hbf" action (4th November 1994), a performance by composer Henning Christiansen and sculptor Bjorn Norgaard, organized by Pilar Parcerisas in Manresa the town near the mountain of Montserrat where Ignatius de Loyola experienced spiritual illumination.  In 1966, German artist Joseph Beuys had performed "Manresa" with Christiansen & Norgaard in Köln. The two former collaborators of Beuys have carryed out the action Manresa Hbf in a dual homage to Beuys and Loyola. Christiansen asked me to use freely some of his sound material (including Beuys' voice) together with my sound material. The music which Cusso-Ferrer chose for the film is the live version of shim-ke (other versions have been released on Mille Plateaux' Modulation & Transformation 4 and Ritornell undirected/dok) - probably because it features train sounds which illustrate the concept of "main station" (Hbf = Hauptbahnhof).



1995
title: Yamaguchi Katsuhiro Document Video
duration: several versions : 15'00", 60'00", 90'00"
publishing: Locus Yamaguchi (Tokyo)
山口勝弘ドキュメントビデオ(ロクス山口、東京)

The music has been composed in parallel for Ikeda Ryoji's "statics" album and Yamaguchi Katsuhiro's document video. It is a max/MSP patch which triggers a sampler loaded with 22 sounds and plays automatically the sound samples at random, with settings which don't repeat. The music is thus constantly recycled.



1995
title: undirected/statics
duration:
format: compilation CD statics
label: CCI Recordings, produced by Ikeda Ryoji, Tokyo

« Statics gathers is an excellent sampling of 1995 creations by a variety of modern electronic composers from around the world, including Ryoji Ikeda (who compiled this release), Paul Schutze, Jim O'Rourke, Akira Yamamichi, David Toop, and more. A few of the selections utilize sine waves, which are especially prevalent in Yamamachi's "Phenomenized Soundscapes." A gentler beauty infuses some of the standout compositions, such as O'Rourke's warm, space track, "Sinking Lights in Lambeth," the short version of Alan Lamb's "Beauty," David Toop's heavily panned, yet light "Iron Perm," and the stellar, calm achievement of "Rain," by Andrew Lagowski and Toru Yamanaka. » Joslyn Layne



1995
title: undirected/continuum
duration:
format: compilation CD In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze
label: Mille Plateaux (Frankfurt)

« 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



1994
title: MacBeth
duration:
format: collaboration CD MacBeth
label: SSE Communications (Tokyo)

An opera by Furudate Tetsuo 古舘徹夫 with Merzbow, Juri, Reiko A., Christophe Charles, Pneuma, etc.





1994
title: Ancient Chant
duration:
format: collaboration CD Juri & Lisa - All Things Are Quite Silent
label: SSE Communications (Tokyo)

A 10 minute composition using samples of the voice of Juri (Kuroyuri Shimai) with deep percussion songs. Inspired by John Cage's "Ryoanji" and Arvo Pärt "Fratres". About Kuroyuri see their site.



1994
title: De-sign 5
duration:
format: video soundtrack Visual Brains : De-sign 5
publishers: Visual Brains (Tokyo)



1994
title: L'étant d'en bas
duration:
format: video tape Bauduin L'étant d'en bas
publishers: Bauduin/ Charles (Paris/Tokyo)

I shot and edited the video according to a sound composition by myself. Bauduin did a performance of carrying stones around a pond in the Shinjuku Gyoen park in Tokyo, during a Japan Foundation residency in 1994.


1994
title: Deposition Yokohama
duration: 52'00"
format: solo CD
publisher: Christophe Charles/ Yokohama Art Museum

The composition (52 minutes) was produced for an installation presented at the Yokohama Museum in 1995. It had to fit not only the real space, but also - and mainly - the political and administrative conditions which are specific to a Japanese museum institution. In the exhibition hall, six loudspeakers were switched with infrared sensors sensible to the movements of visitors in a 200 square meters space. The sound was electrically transmitted to the loudspeaker when the sensor was activated, that is, when someone or something moved around it. By walking in the space, the visitor could thus experiment different angles of hearing, different ways of superimposing the music, and different sound spaces. The global composition was thus closely linked to the presence and the movements of the listeners, and thus realized as plural and "undirected".

Deposition Yokohama features about 11 main parts of different lengths, according to a dynamic of tension and release, crescendo and decrescendo. The first crescendo (0'00" -ca. 15'00"), from insects singing to urban sounds, opens on the voice of Demetrio Stratos singing Cage's Mesostiches re Merce Cunningham, recorded in Gallery HAM (Nagoya), using the Alvin Lucier's re-recording technique of I am sitting in a room.
The second long crescendo begins with flutes and dogs barking, a part which was composed on a four channel sound system during a concert in 1993, at Jôfukuji Temple of Kanagawa Prefecture, which introduces the sounds of the Hamburger Fischmarkt and the "Ke" (dog) piece which was composed in 1994 for a theater piece of Korean performer Shim Cheul-Jong, with the amplified voices of Tokyo Kabukicho.

There is no story, but different "scenes", where a human becomes a dog, and becomes human again. He wakes up, being not sure if he is a dog or a human. He goes then through several states of mind, being seduced by the dog women's winks of Ginza and Shinjuku, becomes drunk and crazy (with the "Head-music" of the Kayagum), barks to a peaceful moon, through a hot cold desert (with tabla rhythms, the Sibelius 4th Symphony sample and the voices of the Chinese Ice-cream vendors), and walks through a mountain, full of insects and drums.

The third crescendo uses Henning Christiansen's "Rør" (sound of the pipe used in Klopfen op.20) and some parts of "Der Hirt auf dem Felsen" before ending on the Sibelius violin. This composition has been released on a CD, which has been then divided by ID points in 23 parts of exactly 2 minutes, without direct relation to the content of the music. The ID points define nevertheless a new structure into the original structure of the music. The two minutes parts can be thus renamed after the fields which have been newly determined, and played in a random order in the shuffle mode of a CD player.

Most of these parts have been composed and performed live, in collaboration with dancers and performers : the above photographs are snapshots of performances by Shim Cheul Jong, Takei Yoshimichi / Office Trip. Kazakura Sho and Ishii Mitsutaka. One of them happened at Jofukuji Temple (Kanagawa) with Isshue Haruakira, During the performance one could clearly hear insects, wind, a train passing each fifteen minutes, a real dog responding to barking dog samples and many other sounds, as the doors were all  opened : the whole performance was based on a sense of balance between the music and the outside sounds / events. The duration of each part is in relation with its own content, that is timber, pitch and density of the sounds that are used, and is also related with the outside events that cannot be heard on the recording. Some unexpected sounds or visual event can become the occasion for a change in the music. When listening to the piece, the doors and the windows should remain open, in order to let the sounds mix together, because it is not necessary to hear the same sounds that were heard in that temple in september 1993 : the music should anyway be heard together with unpredictable sounds from the outside.

some comments here.



1994年、「Visual Brains : De-sign 6」ビデオ・テープ・サウンドトラック(Visual Brains、東京)



1993
title: let it hold itself up
duration: 21' + 45'
format: solo CD
publisher: Gallery HAM (Nagoya)

First solo CD: 700 copies released on the occasion of CC's one-man show at Gallery HAM (Nagoya) in July 1993. One month residency in the gallery space with a Macintosh SE30, one AKAI sampler and several other devices: pipe speakers and AKG microphones-- 4 hours concerts, one day concerts, lots of sound-space experiments -- and messages  from many friends about the CD, including a letter from Mrs Teeny Duchamp. See the comments here. And the liner notes here.

The first composition of this CD ("next point") was broadcasted by the German radio WDR in 1997.



1993
title: Macbeth
duration:
format: collaboration CD Blank Tapes 、古舘徹夫ユニット参加(SSE Communications 、東京)



1990
title: Sampler
duration:
format: solo tape
Stepple and Globe, Nagoya


1989
title: Touch For Sound
duration: 10'00"
format: video tape

Shooting and audio-visual editing of a painting performance on an amplified canvas sounding like a drum. The sounds of the brush and the ink on the canvas are magnified by contact microphones and Takehisa Kosugi beloved RX50 Yamaha reverb unit, directly plugged into the camera which shoots closely the brush's behavior of calligraphy trained Korean painter Ahn Sung Keum. Other performances took place live at Apollohuis Eindhoven (1990), Gallery Naito Nagoya (1990) and Japan-Korea Performance Festival in Asakusa (1990). The video tape was shown at Tokyo Image Forum "Young Perspective Festival" in May 1991, chosen by jury Michael Snow for its "interesting sound-image situation" (cf. Image Forum catalog).



1989
title: Touch for Sound
duration:
format: compilation tape
label: Der Gute Ton zum Schoenen Bild (Kunsthaus/ HfBK Hamburg, exhibition curated by Ernst Kretzer)

This composition was made from a recording of the "Touch for Sound" interactive installation presented at Gallery Naito (Nagoya) in 1988 (together with painter Ahn Sung Keum). Exhibition director Ernst Kretzer chose 5 minutes for the compilation, including pieces by Henning Christiansen and Claus Böhmler. It consists in loops (Digitech 8 seconds loop machines) of sampled sounds and live sounds produced and triggered with contact microphones on bamboos and metal instruments.



1986
title: L'étant de l'autre
duration: 6'00"
format: video + sound composition
label: private release Bauduin/ Charles, Paris

I shot and edited the video according to a 6 minute composition made with sounds of a pond where Bauduin exhibited floating sculptures in wood and stones (Bretagne).



1986
title: Haben und Halten
duration:
format: compilation LP
label: Freie Kuenstler Hamburg

A LP which was created for the exhibition "Haben un Halten" organized in Hamburg Harbour in 1986. About 40 artists participated and exhibited in various places including the docks of the old harbour of Hamburg. Each artist contributed with a short composition of about 1 minute, and designed the cover of 5 copies of this LP.