yan jun and ben owen – swimming salt 游泳的盐


organized music from thessaloniki; cd; 2017

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颜峻 Yan Jun: 反馈 feedback
Ben Owen: 电子、运算放大器、收音机 electronics, op amps, radio

Recorded November 2014 in Brooklyn, NY
Mastered by Samuel Rodgers

review by joe posset:
Thirty-eight minutes of slowly uncoiling silver fern recordings.

This unabashed and confident record exerts a steely glaze trained on the empty and distantly imagined absence. The tools? Electronics, feedback, op amps and radio are working busily – coaxing tiny, granular sounds from their private holes in fine detail.

In many ways this is a classic two-layered recording: the hiss of a cracked pot vs the faint thud and rattle of movement. Like equal partners in an equation each voice leans in to each other, supporting and bracing a structure that organically sprouts five distinct limbs. Like this…

。Fidgeting static, a canvas for the meek feedback tones, drops away to allow some dub-like drops in pressure. The white throb, once a rude thumb in the ear, slips into complete silence.
。Breath like water fired through a hose is captured in a watchmaker’s basement. Dexterous hands move with purpose, delicately balancing the tension between cog and spring, engineering the never-never of potential energy – delayed power gratification.
。A faint voice is heard through the ionosphere’s thick blanket; sick tones are peeled off like dollars from a grubby, foul-smelling, bundle to eventually settle into one citric slice.
。Pure harmony spirals out of the miasma – bone dry. A warm purring and some form of engraving machine start seriously flirting; finishing each other’s sentences, coquettishly playing with their hair.
。Sucking dull solder from an antique circuit board. The collapsing death of once electric sounds.

Lovers with hot new ears. Apply yourselves!