Presenting an installation of field recordings and a new ambisonic composition at Coaxial in LA next Monday, 24th February. The installation will play from doors open (7.30pm) to the start of the program, which features my short new work “From Antiquity”, before performances from Sublamp and Precious Child.

DOORS AT 7:30p, SHOW AT 8p
$5-15 SLIDING SCALE, TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE: https://withfriends.co/event/4013552/bethan_kellough_sublamp_and_precious_child & AT THE DOOR

Coaxial, 1815 S Main Street, Los Angeles

VOLUME and Coaxial are pleased to announce an evening of sound installations and performances by Los Angeles-based artists Bethan Kellough, Sublamp, and Precious Child.
Featuring a diversity of approaches to organizing both sound and its relationship to the audience, whether mediated by a performer or not, this program expands on VOLUME’s interest in the politics of perception and the relationship of sound to place.

Bethan Kellough is a composer and sound artist known for releases including 2016’s Aven EP on Touch, as well as her work for film, including a contribution to Terrence Malick’s 2019 A Hidden Life. Field recording is a central part of her work, and she enjoys learning about the Earth through listening. For this event, Kellough will be presenting a sound installation of her field recordings that will be active from the moment doors open to the start of the event program, which will commence with the debut of a new ambisonic work entitled “From Antiquity” by the artist.

Sublamp is Ryan Connor, a sound artist and engineer who has been active since 2005. He recently returned to Dragon’s Eye Recordings, run by VOLUME member Yann Novak, with Sister Maps, his first release for the label in a decade. Inspired by a three-week tour of recording live episodes of ‘Comedy Bang Bang’ through 19 cities, Sister Maps contemplates the impossibility of knowledge or understanding place when presented with only fleeting glimpses of it. While listening to an album is generally considered a linear experience, the six tracks of Sister Maps, each exactly twelve minutes in length, flow into one another in a manner that complicates the idea of placing works in parallel. The listening experience transforms, like moving through space while a möbius strip of the same twelve minutes repeats around you, or like meandering through an unfamiliar city with only your personal experience available to understand it.

Visceral and surreal, Precious Child’s prolific body of work exists at the convergence of conceptual art, alternative pop, and psychedelia. Via music and visual media, the Los Angeles-based artist culls sonic inspiration from soulless mainstream trash, synthy industrial, and ornate metal to create audiovisual work that confronts transformations in identity, perception and the nature of existence. Their recent music video “WHOLE” premiered via PAPER Magazine. “WHOLE” marked the latest work resulting from the artist’s close collaboration with multimedia digital art/director Cade, whose work explores the worlds of fetish, gender deconstruction and post-internet intimacy.

Place Language, a compilation of 28 different artists’ works inspired by Robert MacFarlane’s book Landmarks, is out now on Bandcamp. It includes “Black-east from the Crow” – a new work made for this project, and all proceeds go to War Child UK, helping children displaced by conflict. Read more about the project on the Bandcamp page.

Listen again to The Field Recording Show episode 3, featuring interviews with Chris Watson and Polly Stanton, and a new short piece entitled ‘Dunes’, based on recordings from Eureka Valley.

Dunes

The Eureka Dunes in California are one of about 40 sites around the world where the sand dunes ‘sing’ or produce a resonating tone, given the right conditions. When I recorded this in June 2019, the sound occurred a number of times, each time following a similar pattern of events. The wind picked up, blowing across the face of the dune and whipping grains of sand into motion. This movement of the sand grains is what causes the resonating sound to build, but while the wind was still buffeting my ears and the microphones, it was almost inaudible. As the wind eased, a tone, around F (peaking at 87Hz and 174Hz), emerged clearly in the soundscape. I heard it first through the hydrophones buried in the sand, but as the air became still, I was able to hear it without mediation, taking my headphones off and listening as the tone continued. After the wind stopped, the singing didn’t die away, but instead built to a crescendo during which I could clearly hear the tone, and also feel the vibration through my body as I sat on the surface of the 700ft sand dune. Positioned around half way up I could see for many miles down Eureka Valley – a view that takes in the two mountain ranges that enclose the valley, stamped with the marks of the processes that produced the forms currently visible, including the particular structure of the Eureka Dunes that produces this incredible sound. As the resonance finally stalled, with a slight rise in pitch as it did so, I was left in near silence with this image extending out into the distance. Moments later, the wind rose – again disturbing the surface of the dunes into rolling clouds of sand particles, and the process began once more.

 

Dunes is a short, ‘first impression’ piece, made shortly after recording this environment, and drawing upon the experience described above. The sound the listener is left with toward the end is the recording of the singing dunes as it emerged, crescendoed and stalled.

 

 

 

 

Episode 3 of The Field Recording Show airs on Resonance Extra on Sunday 8th September, and features a new short work entitled Dunes.

Excited to announce that I will be performing live for A Night of 100 Solos, the largest Merce Cunningham “Event” ever staged, taking place at BAM in New York, CAP UCLA in Los Angeles and Barbican Centre in London on April 16, 2019. I will be taking part in the UCLA production, staged by Andrea Weber and featuring live music from Stephan Moore, Madison Greenstone, Stephanie Richards, Suzanne Thorpe and myself. With specially curated set design by Jennifer Steinkamp and new costume design by Reid & Harriet. More information and tickets available here.

WOLAKOTA by Tim Sessler features two tracks from Aven – “Low” and “Vision”.

WOLAKOTA from Tim Sessler on Vimeo.

Spheres is nominated in the Special Venue category of the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards 2019. For full list of nominees click here