‘Agency’ is a document of the hold music for a Canadian Government helpline, and a text about quantum mechanics and the notion of free will seen through the lens of Miles Davis’ 1959 album Kind of Blue.
Hand-numbered edition of 100
*
Recorded live 22/05/18 on hold to the Canadian Government agency ‘Service Canada’ Social Insurance Registration Office.
Side A (20’22”) Freddie Freeloader (part) Blue in Green All Blues (part)
Side B (18’16”) All Blues (part) Flamenco Sketches Flamenco Sketches (alternate take) Die Kleine Kneipe (part) *
*Perdu LP by Piezo After releases on Idle Hands, Version, Wisdom Teeth and his own Ansia label, Piezo lands on Hundebiss Records for his first full length. Perdu is all about stark contrasts: raw & dirty sub–frequency pulsating beats VS crystal–clear digital sounds and atmospheres. Piezo’s non-synthetic approach to sound design conveys a sense of ‘realness’ of the displacement, a dust blow cut by razor blade FM synths, pervaded by a sense of restless hypnosis.
*Kamil Manqus كَامِل مَنْقوص by Muqata’a ‘Kamil Manqus’ means “whole imperfect” or “perfect imperfect” in Arabic, referencing Muqata’a’s way of working that incorporates mistakes into the fabric of his work. The concept for the album’s construction is Simya’, an ancient Arabic science of combining numbers and alphabets to communicate with the unseen.
When starting to work on the 25th issue of our magazine, we were discussing whether there should be some sort of content to celebrate this milestone and the past ten years leading up to it. But, as further reading will indicate, there are no texts praising past issues or reflections on the musical developments we documented over the years. However, the anniversary helps in presenting the underlying theme of this issue. As loyal readers might know, zweikommasieben started out as a fanzine and aspired to keep this character somewhat alive. Therefore, in zweikommasieben #25, we would like to reflect on various aspects of what fandom entails.
As fans, the authors, editors, and photographers of this magazine are dependent on artists — niche or mainstream — to be willing to have their practice documented. To put it bluntly: if they don’t want to speak to us, there is not much we can do. Likewise, and without overestimating the impact of our small publication, it might have positive consequences for artists to be featured in zweikommasieben, which is not simply a unidirectional channel between fans and artists: over the years some artists highlighted their own fandom, interviewing other artists they admire for this very magazine, while some contributors developed artistic practices which led them to having fans on their own.
Such an ever-changing web of dependencies is highlighted on the following pages. This edition features a text by media theorist and artist DeForrest Brown Jr. dedicated to the multiple talents of singer-songwriter Dawn Richard: an exploration of why fans could be drawn to her practice over the past 15 years. Jasmin Hoek visits a new museum in Amsterdam that is dedicated to techno and club culture to investigate whether such an institution can be true to something we all have been fans of. In Anna Froelicher’s interview with Price, the artist elaborates on how he plays with both institutions’ and fans’ conceptualization of his music. The complexities of being a fan not only relate to other people and institutions but also to oneself and one’s personal development. In a new essay, Friedemann Dupelius uses his ever-evolving fascination with trance to reflect on the genre’s current status quo.
INFO is pleased to announce Voices Fill My Head, Kristin Oppenheim’s second double LP release on the label documenting her early sound works from the 1990s. Recorded between 1993 and 1999 in her Brooklyn studio, Voices Fill My Head features eight pieces composed solely of the artist’s voice. For listeners who were fond of Night Run, Oppenheim’s first release on the label, this record reveals yet another important chapter in Oppenheim’s oeuvre.
Since the early 1990s, Oppenheim has produced vocal compositions for gallery and museum settings, making compositions not as music, but as repetitious sound installations designed to drift back and forth across wide stereo fields. Oppenheim’s installations saturate space, touching on fragmented memories that blur the lines between reality and abstraction.
Kristin Oppenheim is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for installation art based in writing, performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York.
Since the early 1990s, Oppenheim’s work has been exhibited internationally. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including the 45th and 46th Venice Biennale, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Among others, She has had solo exhibitions at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva; at Secession, Vienna; KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; at FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Oboro, Montréal; the Jewish Museum, New York; and at the Villa Arson, Nice.
Her work has also been seen in exhibitions including “X”, at FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou (2021); “Sound Museum” at D MUSEUM, Seoul (2020); “H(a)unting images. Anatomy of a shot” at Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona (2017); “Never Ending Stories” at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva (2014); “The International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias”, (2014); “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, ‘Nuit Blanche’, in Paris (2013); “NYC 1993: Experimental, Jet, Set Trash and No Star” at New Museum, New York (2013); “Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou” at Seattle Art Museum, (2012); “Volume” at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2011); “Silence. Listen to the Show” at Sandretto Foundation, Turin (2007); “Don’t Call it Performance” at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2003); “Voices” at Witte de With, Rotterdam (1998); “Young and Restless” at Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997); “29’ – 0 / East” at New York Kunstahalle (1996); “Threshold” at Fundacao de Serralves, Porto (1995); “Murs du son” at Villa Arson, Nice (1995); and “Encounters with Diversity” at PS1 MOMA, New York (1992).
Kristin Oppenheim’s work is included in public collections of the Art Foundation Mallorca Collection, CCA-Andratx in Mallorca; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the FNAC Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; the FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; MAMCO Museum d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York.
INFO is a label and interdisciplinary platform highlighting unique applications of sound in the field of contemporary art.
Please join us for a release party, listening session and conversation with Kristin Oppenheim, for her latest LP release, Voices Fill My Head, at Motto Berlin.
Friday 3 June 2022 from 6 to 9pm
Motto Berlin Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhof) 10997 Berlin
8pm > Listening Session (musical selections from INFO and friends throughout the evening)
//
Voices Fill My Head is Kristin Oppenheim’s second double LP release on the INFO label documenting her early sound works from the 1990s. Recorded between 1993 and 1999 in her Brooklyn studio this record features eight pieces composed solely of the artist’s voice. For listeners who were fond of Night Run Run, Oppenheim’s first release on the label, this record reveals yet another important chapter in Oppenheim’s oeuvre.
//
Kristin Oppenheim is best known for installation art based in performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York.
Oppenheim was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1959 and currently lives and works in New York City. Her work is included in public collections of the Art Foundation Mallorca Collection, CCA-Andratx in Mallorca; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the FNAC Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; the FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; MAMCO Museum d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York.
Reading Group is very happy to present Oceanic/E.L.M., the third solo record by New York-based sound artist Sydney Spann (b. 1994, Baltimore). Sydney’s previous recorded work has appeared on Ehse Records, She Rocks!, and live work has been commissioned by Issue Project Room. Oceanic/E.L.M. is a meticulously assembled passage through various half-inhabited interior spaces, a dreamlike series of rooms and corners that teeter on the edge of sliding into nightmare. Strikingly detailed but always understated, spilling into uncanny pools of song that dissipate into accumulated layers of dusty wallpaper. A really fascinating and strange document.
Released December 3, 2021 Recorded by Sydney Spann (May 2019 – December 2020) Drawings by Aidan, Reece, Jackson and Grier Spann Mastered by Matt Bachmann Released by reading group, readinggroup.co, rg20, in December 2021
Tracklist: 1. October 2 at Home 08:37 2. All that Wonderful Rot 05:02 3. Dry Creek Well 09:44 4. Fog Off Cedar Bonnet 11:40 5. Seikilos Song during Thunderstorm 05:59
Written and conceived by Stephan Crasneanscki, ‘LOVOTIC’ is a concept album by Soundwalk Collective, composed in collaboration with lauded actress and singer/songwriter Charlotte Gainsbourg, Featuring veteran techno stalwart Atom™, rising singer/composer/performance artist Lyra Pramuk, celebrated actor Willem Dafoe, and writer/philosopher Paul B. Preciado, the album will be available from April 1st via the new Berlin-based Analogue Foundation.
Inspired by a relatively new field of research that seeks to explore and develop the possibilities of sexual and emotional relationships – and even love – between humans and robots, ‘LOVOTIC’ interrogates the impulses, ideas, and needs underlying this phenomenon. The project ventures into a future where sex, intimacy and desire are reformulated through the connection of humans, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
In an age of such hybrid entanglement with the machine, human identity requires the construction of new forms of intimacy, gender, and sexuality. At present, however, such technologies are primarily used to produce programs of limited sexual iterations that do not question the preformatted categories of gender and sexual orientation. In contrast, on ‘LOVOTIC’, Soundwalk Collective ask whether the future of sex and sexuality could instead be an exponentially expanding kaleidoscope. Where does the impulse of preference come from? What sets of words from our vocabulary can be communicated to the AI mind to generate a new identity for desire? Could the machine be another technology that brings us closer together?
Sonically ‘LOVOTIC’ is unidentifiable, artificial, and genuinely futuristic, occupying an amorphous androgynous netherworld at the borderlands between biotic and android. Traditional musical signposts are virtually non-existent, instead offering a mercurial, formless sound which mirrors the flourishing of gender fluidity it suggests could be on the horizon.
‘LOVOTIC’ is available as an artist edition double LP pressed on transparent vinyl, featuring a hand engraving on each side. It includes a 16-page booklet containing lyrics and painted artwork, both by Stephan Crasneanscki.
High gloss jackets with resin stickers on the front. Each copy comes with two double-sided paper inserts featuring drawings by Alex Bienstock & Johanna Owen.
Limited to 30 copies.
Alex Bienstock aka ‘Doctor-of-fine-artz’ aka ‘Dummy-data-in-the-omni-cringe’ is a ‘Post-Artist’ Get with the program & read the manifesto ‘We, the post-artists’ if you want to understand.. or in this case overstand – www.alexbienstock.com/files/we-the-post-artists.pdf – An answer to your disenchantments in creative pursuits? Remember that your day job is art. Here’s something to unravel – As a post artist – forget about ‘pedigree, money, laborious ambition, or skill – the only things that matter are ideas, attitude, seduction, compulsive will and unfettered energy’
‘I would say that I work from a mentally amoral place, people can think of it what they want. Sometimes it’s just a feeling and I just need to make something so I can look at it. I try not to judge what I am doing. I want to embarrass myself more, and entertain myself. Occasionally I think I am doing something smart, but to me nothing is smart. Sometimes what I’m saying is like a thank you and a middle finger at the same time. Sometimes I am confusing a message’ – Alex Bienstock
These two cuts emerge as dense atmospheric dirges. A syndicate of sound & stream-of-consciousness spoken word deliveries caught in the flow-state, probing and riding the sensor ’Poetic logic in chaos’ A seepage of information, jumbled buzz words, thoughts & statements, humor & doom. Processings from the overload, floating in the concentrated sonic space of elucidated pathos. A vivid monologue in fleet, where nothing lands on concrete. It doesn’t matter what it ‘means’, as long as we can get between things.
After a call for collaboration at the tail end of 2020, these vocals were screen captured by YS from one of Bienstock’s now Zucc’d instagram profiles. This release is a diverging path from his project ESCBAS, in which Bienstock forms many groups with different concepts and people. “This is done even if collaborators used shared material differently for their own purposes, or sees the project as something completely different. The philosophical purpose of doing this is to create and support an anarchic anything-goes mentality. The result is an etheric and intimate collective, with works remaining highly personal and singular. Works that are post-genre at it’s core and meta-schizophrenic in it’s post-ironic awareness” These recordings eventually became – ‘Free’ & ‘Apples’ – Available digitally and on a limited edition run of 7inch Records. A sound of the times – Bless
Kapriole is the debut album by Zurich- and Hamburg-based artist Leo Hofmann– after working in music theatre, sound art, and performance contexts. Central to the album, which refers in its title to a joyous jump, is the ambition to translate an ephemeral practice into recorded matter. Fixed but never static, Kapriole is informed by intimate and detailed listening situations and sound practices like ASMR or the acoustically sheltered world of noise cancelling headphones. And while it is apparent that Hofmann has a deeply rooted understanding of technology and its abundant possibilities, Kapriole is a tender and almost analogue feeling affair. The human voice occupies a central role in the musical configuration of the album: quirky repetitions, hushed fragments and poetic statements, circling topics like communication, mobility, and immersion occupy the album’s eight tracks. The result is a sonorous sensation, which, in its scarcity, paves the way for meticulously crafted and delicate soundscapes.
Written, recorded, and produced by Leo Hofmann.
Mastering: Stefan Betke (Scape Mastering Berlin) Graphic Design: Karan Kobel
Published in 2007 as a catalogue for the solo exhibition of the same name by Ina Wudtke at Studio Voltaire London, edited by Dieter Lesage. 4-colour print with 56 illustrations. Limited, signed editions available. Supported by the Berlin Senate Scholarship to London.
