CD Feature/ Sebastien Roux: "Urban Field Muzick"; Bidibop: "Urban Field Muzick"; Gerald Fiebig: "Public Transport"
TobiasSebastien Roux’ contribution is especially revealing in this respect, because its creator is by no means a usual suspect or a monothematically interested perpetrator. Rather, his oeuvre can be characterised by simultaneous immersion in radiophony, sound art, drones and environmental recordings, thereby uncovering the typically hidden confluence between “sound” and “music”. “Stereo Rider”, the single, track constituting his version of “urban field muzick” is the epitomisation of the original narrative qualities of the genre, which had been slightly overshadowed by its documentary pendant over the past few years.
The main compositional tool here is juxtaposition, with Roux placing fundamentally unrelated recordings from different countries and locations side by side to gauge their symbiotic potentials: Unashamedly concrete sections (featuring distinct vocal hollers, conversations and fairground muzak) are counterpointed by weightless birdsong, creeking doors and distant traffic noises and the arrangement flows from a nervous opening into an almost completely silent middle section and a finale, which magnetically pulls the listener in with a string of concisely realised scenes.
In opposition to the often academic tendencies of some of his colleagues, Roux has a much more mundane – yet all the more agreable intention: Allowing listeners to retrospectively partake in his holidays. The original installational presentation of the music invited audiences to lie down on a bed and listen to the sounds on headphones – if you’ll do the same, a richly detailed listening experience will be your reward.
While Roux’ vaguely specified sources almost begged to be freely tranformed by his public, Vincent Nicolas (aka Bidibop) has attached painstakingly exact descriptions to the three tracks of his homonymous “urban field muzick” release. “Walking downtown” samples the “Empire State building antenna radiations, Time Square noise, Union Square shopping, Ground Zero yard, Washington Square Park kids and beautiful people”, “lazy sunny afternoon” bathes in the resonance of the “Washington Square Park banjo guy and other beautiful people”, while the “ACE train songs” was obviously taped on the title’s mobile location.
It is all the more surprising, therefore, that Nicolas should embed these transparently delineated recordings into heavenly oneiric musical structures: “Walking downton” builds an agile ambient daydream from Guitar and Theremine, “ACE train songs” sees him pick his guitar in “electric counterpoint”-style, with dark drone ruminations gradually thwarting the rhythmical impetus. A chilled-out country-mood, finally, is permeating the “lazy afternoon” sounding out the EP.
Throughout. unprocessed acoustic instruments blend with atmospheric electronics and field recordings are organically fused into inviting soundscapes. The worlds of “music” and “sound”, which were already collegial in the oeuvre of Roux, are completely complementary on this occasion and it is an additional boon that it not just the thought, but the music as well which feels consoling. At the end, snippeted fragments of dialogue are even used as an accompaniment to a relaxed Banjo & Drums beat and all borders have been gently wiped out.
On Gerald Fiebig’s “Public Transport”, long sold out by the time you are reading this, field recordings with a high degree of speech have been left almost entirely untouched, with layering and repetition creating rhythmical repetitions, metaphorical abstractions and an increasing degree of estrangement. Fiebig’s perspective is fascinating, because it suggests that it is not so much timbre or knowledge about a sound’s origins which awards it a familiar feeling, but rather its intonation, the “way that things are expressed”.
This realisation goes a long way in explaining why these passages, filled to the brim with everyday sounds, appear so utterly alien. In the long run, however, “Public Transport” offers an appeasing appendix to its initial observation: Our sensory system can adapt to the most surreal environments and safely find its way through foreign spaces if only awarded sufficient time. Rest assured: You don’t arrive at this kind of confidence-building conclusion just by taking a hike or opening the window.
By Tobias Fischer
Homepage: Sebastien Roux
Homepage: Bidibop
Homepage: Gerald Fiebig
Homepage: Field Muzick Records