SeReN
Roland System 100
Andy B
Posts: 7,682
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Post by SeReN on Nov 1, 2007 14:09:27 GMT
Arhythmia: Recorded July 2005. 70.05 mins Released on the Umbra label under catalogue number Umbra 044. When I had been recording in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s I had experimented with tape loops, creating rhythmical sounds that flowed around each other, patterns without beat. I also enjoyed turning the tape over so the sounds played backwards. Using a reel to reel I added a switch into the erase head so I could turn it off and allow slow build up of sound over a period of time on really long loops. I would record these sounds onto a four track cassette portastudio and keep mixing them until the sounds washed and moved through each other creating dark soundscapes. Arhythmia was my first foray into recreating these experiments with a digital recorder, having realised some of the possibilities of the modern technology. Cycles, patterns and rhythms, the world is full of them. Not the steady beats prevalent in most music, but subtle interlocking rhythms that dance and move through each other. The daily cycles of the tides and the monthly phases of the moon, stellar precession and the turning of galaxies, the pulsation of neurons, blood and breathing. Arhythmia is an exploration of rhythms that can be heard and felt but not danced to. Patterns and movements of Sound that draw the mind and spirit into other places of dreaming. Arhythmia received the following review on electroambientspace in 2006. Seren Ffordd “Arhythmia” (Umbra, 2005) 1 track, 70.05 mins Interestingly with a title like Arhythmia, the artwork on the front of this one looks much like the inside of a heart valve, albeit softened in both texture and color. As for the music, hopefully it won’t give you any cardiac trouble. Darker and more experimental than his other discs, here Seren Ffordd takes us into what he calls “an exploration of rhythms that can be heard and felt but not danced to.” Rumbling and churning sounds are joined by a steady rain in the background. Seren Ffordd notes that the music is divided into five parts, although it plays as a single track. The movements are distinct and easily identifiable. The rain and rumbles fade away and are gone within 15 seconds of the start of part II, which takes a long slow descent to parts unknown. It plays like an infinite downward spiral, a rather creepy but cool effect. Unusual brushing sounds pan back and forth forming a unique percussive element. Its clear by this point that the disc is more sound collage than music in the conventional sense. Metallic bells ring out to start part III, and we breathe a sigh of relief as the ominous rumbling drones from part II gradually disappear. Though still quite stark and minimal, this part is bright and cheery by comparison. Part IV swirls similarly to part II, though in more of a holding pattern than a deep dive. I’d call it grey noise rather than white. This one plays like a blank canvas for your mind to imagine various subtleties that may or may not be there. The last part follows a similar pattern, creating another unique sound world to explore for the last 15 minutes before coming back to reality. Arhythmia is daring adventurous fun. This is not music to relax to. Both I and a couple of friends thought we would be able to drift off to sleep listening to this but we were wrong! After about 50 minutes I found myself really tense and thinking “I will listen to all of this if it kills me” and I was unable to sleep all night. It’s not disturbing, chaotic or even grating sonically, but it sort of shifts the body into another space in the same way music often shifts our emotions or thoughts….just not in a way that is expected or regularly experienced. It got a bad review in Editions – the reviewer only got the CD without any cover and so had no idea what was coming or what it was about. He said it gave him a headache so he turned it off. In a way this showed the music actually worked in the way I had intended. Still available in the Umbra edition from Oophoi via the www.deeplistenings.net website. The cover art for Arhythmia is my own design.
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SeReN
Roland System 100
Andy B
Posts: 7,682
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Post by SeReN on Oct 5, 2010 6:56:14 GMT
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SeReN
Roland System 100
Andy B
Posts: 7,682
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Post by SeReN on Nov 23, 2010 19:14:45 GMT
Review on Vital Weekly bit.ly/fTjnMyOn CDR we find the second re-issue of work by Seren Ffordd, just like 'Stellar Nurseries' (see Vital Weekly 712), which was also first released by Umbra. Like before the instruments are listed here: singing bowls, chimes, voice, gourds and Korg 016. The idea behind the release is about cycles, patterns and rhythms, but do not expect some beat related music, but simple patterns that slowly evolve and revolve. The fourth part of this has rhythm 'as we know it', but in the other four pieces Ffordd uses loops of varying lengths which he cleverly layers together in ever changing patterns. Not just some isolationist droning experience, but an always changing pattern of a wide variety of sounds. Streetsounds, bells being strum with a bow, rhythmic playing of chimes and such like gives us five examples of how this relatively simple idea is worked out. Quite a different album than 'Stellar Nurseries', but throughout a very fine album of changing, cyclical mood music. (FdW)
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Post by Ross Bullfinch on Nov 26, 2010 22:10:34 GMT
It's review time!
I'm a sucker for atmosphere conjured up by samples, so the rainy sounds at the start of Seren Ffordd's Arhythmia put me in a positive mood to get into the album. Not that positive is the most obvious word to describe this music - this is sinister stuff. The rain continues through the first track (simply titled I), its pattering slowly forming a quiet loop that causes a rhythm so slight it is most comparable to catching something out of the corner of your eye. Similarly, as the ever-descending moaning drones that appear as the album morphs into part II continue to fall into a dark ambient abyss, a feeling of endless repetition occurs, and the unnerving rattling that slowly fades in around the halfway mark acts to punctuate this looping feeling. This music truly delivers rhythm and pace without ever approaching beats or drive. Bell chimes introduce the third movement and very slowly we begin to ascent from the mire into an open, airy sound that reflects the acoustic nature of the album (as with the best abstract works, all recordings are acoustic sounds electronically treated). Bell sounds reverberate all around, constantly suggesting rhythm and form but without ever succumbing to loops or repetition. A slow, broad wind draws upon us and introduces the penultimate section of the album, drawing us back towards the darker aspects of the record's first half. Quiet, echoed sounds appear in the background, suggesting some sound far off being carried towards us on the wind. Sinister whispers swirl around and approaching a rhythmic nature but always suggesting a more formless, amorphous sound. Suddenly, rain reappears, announcing the final quarter of an hour, this time accompanied by what sounds like a loop of car swiftly passing by on the rain-soaked road; a loop which begins as a pedestrian sounding sample but becomes sinister and even intimidating after continual repetition. Another tapestry of dark droning and rumbling occurs somewhere in the background, adding a further sense of unease to the increasingly disturbing car loop. This texture fades away incredibly slowly, easing you back into reality. Arhythmia is a fascinating and incredibly mature work of sound design and audio manipulation which flirts with isolationist drone and dark ambient but never submits to its clichés, instead following a path of its own; a path which is not necessarily easy to travel, but is ultimately incredible satisfactory.
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SequenceC
Polyfusion Modular
Kaptain Karma
Noise, glorious noise
Posts: 17,648
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Post by SequenceC on Nov 27, 2010 8:24:02 GMT
Great review Ross.
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SeReN
Roland System 100
Andy B
Posts: 7,682
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Post by SeReN on Nov 29, 2010 22:31:44 GMT
Thanks Ross, very nice review.
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Post by Ross Bullfinch on Nov 29, 2010 22:37:42 GMT
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SeReN
Roland System 100
Andy B
Posts: 7,682
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Post by SeReN on Jan 24, 2011 21:09:38 GMT
another review - this time from Textura www.textura.org/reviews/ffordd_arhythmia.htmAs a follow-up to its earlier release of Seren Ffordd's Stellar Nurseries, Hypnos continues to re-issue work by the Wales-based ambient sound sculptor with the release of the out-of-print 2005 recording Arhythmia. It makes good on its wish to explore rhythms and movements that are heard and felt—though not of the dance-based but of the more fundamental kind, like those of the planets and tides and of the body's inner workings, that are threaded throughout our lives in ways of which we're often unaware. Ffordd could exploit such movements to create a relaxed and hypnotic dream-like work but instead opts for a much more unsettling one that features turbulent episodes as a counterweight to the expected calming ones. The sound sources (all acoustic) used for the seventy-one-minute piece include field recordings (rain and thunder) and singing bowls, voice, gourds, and chimes (effects and sound manipulations executed using a Korg D16 digital portastudio). After rain drizzle and thunder introduces the five-part work, the rain sounds persist throughout the first part while the thunder recedes and is replaced by intermittent rumbles. Though the collective sound is pitched at a low level of intensity, there's nevertheless a wealth of detail on display at any given moment. The second part follows without interruption, the change signified by the disappearance of the rain and the advent of a series of downward spiraling tones that gradually swell in number and volume. Adding to that density, rippling percussive accents, wind-like swirls, and ghostly moans appear in turn as the intensity steadily builds throughout the part's fifteen minutes. In a move that echoes the transition between the opening tracks, the change from two to three occurs when the former's ominous sound mass is supplanted by bell strikes (the singing bowls and chimes, presumably) whose prolonged reverberations fill the spaces between them. The fourth initially focuses exclusively on natural sounds—rumbles and whooshes—before faint, wavering musical figures appear in the distance. Though the sonic design differs from part to part, there's similarity in the way each builds gradually, growing ever denser and fuller as the part in question unfolds, and the recording comes full circle when the final chapter reintroduces the rain drizzle and rumbles of the opening part. January 2011
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SequenceC
Polyfusion Modular
Kaptain Karma
Noise, glorious noise
Posts: 17,648
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Post by SequenceC on Jan 24, 2011 21:12:36 GMT
Nice review, and congrats for Arhythmia being on Stars End recommended releases of 2010
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SeReN
Roland System 100
Andy B
Posts: 7,682
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Post by SeReN on Jan 25, 2011 12:29:25 GMT
Thanks Ben.
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