six sound cards – not on label

The “substance” of this release is not just metaphorical: the package of Vingt is as big as some deluxe collection boxes. All the six paper boxes are differently colored and apparently include at least one CD each. At a more careful glance, we notice that every box contains a different package, where there is a sound card. Every card can be started when every single module is opened as a book and can be disabled when the packages are symmetrically closed. Every music consumer experienced with the epochal transformations of the last two decades can immediately refer to the sound loop concept and to the making of an autonomous composition due to the combination and mixing of these “syntactic elements”. Actually all the DAW samples and the groove machines share this standard, which crosses extra-musical fields too, like the visual arts and the vjing. But this preliminary background is not strictly necessary for the listening experience: today even a child, being a digital native accustomed to interacting with modular structures, may intuitively acknowledge the project concept. It’s a clear invitation to use with no mediation all the sounds set by the “authors”, the members of the collective martiensgohome (necessarily written in small letters). The artists are all experienced in field recordings, free form improvisations and circuit bending contraptions (all techniques used in an FM radio program in Bruxelles, one of the world capitals of this kind of sound research). Vingt was originally created for an installation which celebrated the twenty year career of this unconventional and eclectic ensamble. Some listeners may have the feeling of a funny sound divertissement, but few minutes of “syntony” are enough to be swallowed into a vortex of sound plays and manipulations. The listener will be nicely surprised to open and close the different “menù”, all characterized by obscure and often incomprehensible sounds. However, the sounds are a hymn to some kind of electronic craftsmanship and suggest some atypical sound archives, which the listener can discover almost magically, without any wire or connection.

 

martiensgohome – Vingt