The Squid's Ear Magazine


Steenberge, Laura: Piriforms (Sacred Realism)

""In medieval chant, music seems to have come from elsewhere. It is the angels that are singing, they said, like gourds hung up for purple martins. By the time notation started coming around, hundreds of chants were already hundreds of ...
 

Price: $19.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 3.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Rebecca Lane-bass flute, voice

Catherine Lamb-voice

Julia Holter-voice

Yannick Goudon-voice

Evelyn Saylor-voice


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Label: Sacred Realism
Catalog ID: SR022
Squidco Product Code: 36246

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: Germany
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
"Piriforms", "72 Verses", and "Toile" recorded by Bryan Eubanks.

"Light & Chant studies" recorded by Sam Dunscombe.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

""In medieval chant, music seems to have come from elsewhere. It is the angels that are singing, they said, like gourds hung up for purple martins. By the time notation started coming around, hundreds of chants were already hundreds of years old. New chants followed in their footsteps, trying to seem unwritten. In some monasteries, the monks sang for six hours a day. Through the daily toil of reenacting eternity, subtler shapes become audible. Sometimes the angels show up when the consonants are taken away, or some other change is made that renders the language unintelligible. Swedenborg said there are some angels who speak with U and O and other angels that speak with E and I, but that in the center, inmost heaven, language is made of patterns of numbers. The labor required to hear the angels is mundane and physical. Singing for hours a day sounds idyllic but also laborious. Singing for so long in such reverberant spaces, I wonder about the complexity of harmonics, combinationtones or whatever other sonic artifacts that the monastic singers gained sensitivity to.

In this collection there is a piece for one performer, a piece for two performers, a piece for three performers, and a piece for four performers. But even in the solo it is about relationships, as the two parts are created with the same breath. The demonic energy is in between things, the sounds cast shadows upon each other."-Laura Steenberge


Artist Biographies

Rebecca Lane is a flute and bass flute performer from Melbourne who is currently based in Berlin.

-Squidco 5/28/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Following interacting points within expanding harmonic space, Catherine Lamb has devoted her structural work to the inner life of tonality, constantly searching through the limits of human perceptions and resonances in overlaying atmospheres.

Lamb's continued series Prisma Interius (2016-ongoing), made with her partner and frequent collaborator Bryan Eubanks, filters the outside environment into a harmonic field, basso continuo, tanpura, or bridge between the musical form and the perceptual listening space. Her first orchestral work, Portions Transparent/Opaque (2014), was premiered by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the 2014 Tectonics Festival in Glasgow, Scotland. After an extended tour of her solo work Shade/Gradient (2012) through North America in 2012, Lamb received a travel grant from the Henry Cowell Foundation, allowing her to pursue work with Eliane Radigue and to form new relationships with European musicians.Earlier in her career, Lamb studied under composers James Tenney and Michael Pisaro at the California Institute of the Arts, where she also met director and dhrupadi Mani Kaul. It was during this time that she began diving deeply into her own practice of what she later termed "the interaction of tone."

Lamb is the co-founder of Singing by Numbers (2009-11), an experimental vocal ensemble formed with Laura Steenberge that focused on pedagogical research around pure ratio tuning. She has written for ensembles such as Ensemble Dedalus, Konzert Minimal, the London Contemporary Orchestra, NeoN, Plus/Minus, and Yarn/Wire. Lamb is involved in ongoing research with Marc Sabat on intonation; with Johnny Chang on Viola Torros; develops work regularly with musicians such as Rebecca Lane, Dafne Vincente-Sandova, and Frank Reinecke; as well as taking part in Triangulum with Julia Holter and Laura Steenberge.

Lamb is the recipient of a fellowship from Akademie Schloss Solitude (2016); an Emerging Composers Grant from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations (2008-09); and was a Staubach Fellow at the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany (2016). Lamb's writings and recordings have been published by another timbre, Black Pollen Press, Kunst Musik, NEOS, THE OPEN SPACE Magazine, Q-O2, sacred realism, and winds measure recordings.She received a B.M. from California Institute of the Arts, and an M.F.A. in music/sound from Bard College."

-Foundation for Contemporary Arts (https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/catherine-lamb)
5/28/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Julia Shammas Holter (born December 18, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, composer, artist and academic, based in Los Angeles. Following three independent album productions, Holter released Tragedy as her first official studio album in 2011. Ekstasis followed in 2012. After signing with Domino Records in 2013, she released the albums Loud City Song (2013), Have You in My Wilderness (2015) and the live-in-the-studio album In the Same Room (2017). Most recently, her double album Aviary was released in 2018.

Holter has also collaborated with other musicians, including Nite Jewel, Laurel Halo, Ariel Pink, Ducktails, Linda Perhacs, Michael Pisaro, and Jean-Michel Jarre."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Holter)
5/28/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Piriforms 10:17

2. 72 Verses studies 19:53

3. Toile 1 06:00

4. Toile 2 02:44

5. Toile 3 04:07

6. Light and Chant studies 1-7 13:19

Related Categories of Interest:

In Stock, Not Yet Cataloged

Compositional Forms
Unusual Vocal Forms
Woodwinds
Solo Artist Recordings
Duo Recordings
Trio Recordings
Quartet Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Sacred Realism.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Lamb, Catherine
Curva Triangulus
(Another Timbre)
Inspired by the geometric and illusory work of artist Bridget Riley, Catherine Lamb's "Curva Triangulus" borrows from Renaissance music that she "warps" by interjecting geometric musical figures, performed by the Proton Ensemble of Bern using traditional, new and historic instruments, all underpinned by the 16th century microtonal Vicentino arciorgano organ.
Lamb, Catherine / Kristofer Svensson
Translucent Harmonies - two duos for violin and viola, performed by andPlay
(Another Timbre)
The New York-based andPlay duo of violinist Maya Bennardo and violist Hannah Levinson perform two extended works commissioned for their performance series, Translucent Harmonies: first an acoustic rendering of Catherine Lamb's "Prisma Interius VIII (Melodic Duo)"; then Kristofer Svensson's work of contrasts, surprises, modulations, and transformations.
Lamb, Catherine
Parallaxis Forma
(Another Timbre)
Two works for voice and chamber orchestra performed by the UK Explore Ensemble under the direction of Nicholas Moroz, and a multi-tracked vocal work by Lotte Betts-Dean, rich and understated works of rich harmonics and atmospheric overtones composed by Catherine Lamb, placing phonetic vocals in space and ambiance, eschewing words for tone, texture and motion; mesmerizing.
Pisaro-Liu, Michael / Julia Holter
Tombstones: Live in Brooklyn
(Editions Verde)
Six songs from Michael Pisaro's "Tombstones" project--experimental songs developed from recontextualized fragments of popular songs--heard in this 2012 Brooklyn recording directed by guitarist Jason Brogan, with Julia Holter (voice), Tucker Dulin (trombone), Andrew Lafkas (bass), Katie Porter (clarinet), Sam Sfirri (piano and melodica), and Ron Wiltrout (keyboard & percussion).
Pateras, Anthony
A Dread of Voids
(Another Timbre)
Two works written for a group of Australian performers living in Berlin--Jon Heilbron, Rebecca Lane, Jess Aszodi & Sam Dunscombe--by Australian composer and pianist Anthony Pateras, A Dread Of Voids developed for a residency at the Archipel Festival in Geneva after enduring a pandemic quarantine; and Patterned Language, composed for the Astra Chamber Music Society.
Sugimoto, Taku
Octet
(Meenna)
Part of Japanese composer Taku Sugimoto's Solo for Strings series, these works focus on bowed stringed instruments played only with natural harmonics, arranged with clarinets and flute, using long tones and repetition that allow the performer decisions on their length, performed by a Berlin-based octet including Catherine Lamb, Johnny Change, Samuel Dunscombe, &c.
Lamb, Catherine / Harmonic Space Orchestra
Prisma Interius VII 7 VIII
(Sacred Realism)
Two hauntingly beautiful works in microtonal composer and violist Catherine Lamb's "Prisma Interius" series, the first a duo with violinist Johnny Change and Xavier Lopez on the "secondary rainbow synthesizer", which channels the sound outside of the performance space as a generator of ambient sound; then a sextet of strings and winds with two secondary rainbow synthesizers.
Oceans Roar 1000 Drums
[VINYL]
(Sacred Realism)
Their first proper vinyl release since forming in 2008, this studio album recorded in Berlin finds Berlin saxophonist and electronic artist Bryan Eubanks, double bassist Andrew Lafkas, and NY drummer & cymbal player Tod Capp in an extended and dark improvisation, with Catherine Lamb's "secondary rainbow synthesizer" interacting and filtering their work as a 4th member.
Houben, Eva-Maria / Rebecca Lane / Sam Dunscombe
Observing Objects
(Edition Wandelweiser Records)
Composer Eva-Maria Houben in a collaborative work with bass flutist Rebecca Lane and bass clarinetist Samuel Dunscomb, the composer performing on piano and orgran, for two renderings of "Observing Objects", a patient work of long notes and tones interspersed with silence, lower registers in the winds balanced by the piano or organ's upper register.
Rasten, Fredrik w/ Asterales
Fuse Modulations
(thanatosis produktion)
Eternities
Rides Again [CASSETTE]
(Sacred Realism)
Brown, Dan / Dan Reynolds
Live At The Grange Hall [unauthorized][CASSETTE]
(Sacred Realism)
Meehan, Sean
Magazine
(Sacred Realism)
Working only with a cowbell from a charity shop in NYC, percussionist Sean Meehan, whose performances often take place in locations of unique resonant properties, discovered the Fort Jay powder magazine at Governor's Island--a compartment once used to store ammunition and explosives--using its sonic properties to capture these two recordings reflecting the original purpose of that space.
Ergun, Cenk
Inseln
(Sacred Realism)
A multi-channel sound work by Turkish-American composer Cenk Ergun, Cenk Ergün, first realized as an installation for six loudspeakers at Zionskirche, Berlin in March 2021 using the vocal work of UK countertenor Rupert Enticknap, who recorded long tones and melodic fragments that Ergün composed into works of dense choirs contrasted with periods of silence.
Eubanks, Bryan / Xavier Lopez
Natural Realms
(Sacred Realism)
These 2016 recording between Bryan Eubanks and Xavier Lopez demonstrate the analog networked sytem they developed, based on the harmonics of random feedback, using this information in real time to shape generative rhythms and other juxtapositions from soprano saxophone and percussion, in four recordings improvised live at Studio 8 bar in Berlin.
Mighty Cloud, The (Dave Quam / Joe Foster)
Especially Songs
(Sacred Realism)
An unusual journey in abstract sonic narrative and environments from Portland's Dave Quam (FKA Massacooramaan, Modern Melodies) and Seoul's Joe Foster (English, Don Brown and Dan Reynolds), their four pieces using concrete & acousmatic sources, field recordings, enigmatic errata and instrumental elements presented as sentences in sound that imply and defy intention; gripping.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Svendsen, Christian Meaas
Body Of Sound - Body Of Music
(Nakama Records)
O'Farrill, Adam
For These Streets
(Out Of Your Head Records)
Brooklyn trumpeter Adam O'Farrill leads a superb octet — Mary Halvorson (guitar), Patricia Brennan (vibes), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), and others — through dramatically inventive compositions inspired by the literature and arts of the 1930s, balancing angular rhythmic intensity, rich melodic lyricism, and expressive improvisational depth with adventurous sophistication.
Courvoiser, Sylvie / Mary Halvorson
Bone Bells
(Pyroclastic Records)
Their third album in collaboration, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson deepen their intuitive musical dialogue in a set of alternately composed pieces — melding percussive piano, swirling guitar effects, and poetic abstraction into a haunting, fluid, and visceral soundworld shaped by mutual experience, instinct, and a sense of sonic adventure.
Kahn, Jason / Magda Mayas
Night
(Editions)
Captured live at the Werkstatt für Improvisierte Musik in Zurich, Switzerland, this debut release from Jason Kahn (electronics) and Magda Mayas (piano, objects) presents three improvised pieces that blend their complementary palettes into a poetic and intricately detailed electroacoustic dialogue, reflecting their 13-year collaboration with a mix of introspection, spontaneity, and mutual respect.
Haino, Keiji / Natsuki Tamura
What Happened There?
(Libra)
An electrifying 1st-time meeting between guitarist Keiji Haino and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, captured live at Tokyo's Shinjuku Pit Inn, where the duo shape an unpredictable set that veers from reflective stillness to wildly passionate outbursts, their extended techniques and visceral vocals — sometimes urgent, sometimes outrageous — fueling an exhilarating and uncompromising sonic adventure.
Sharp, Elliott (w/ Coleman / Dulberger / Green II / Insell / Jiang / McKenzie / Salomon / Wooley)
Hudson River Compositions 1973-74
(zOaR Records)
Inspired by fireflies, birds, and the flow of the Hudson River while living in Germantown, NY, Elliott Sharp developed these compositions using traditional, graphic, & conceptual scores, presented here in a collage of sessions featuring Sharp on reeds & strings with Anthony Coleman, Nate Wooley, Shayna Dulberger, Hao Jiang, Terry L. Greene, Don McKenzie, Terry L. Green II, Sara Salomon, and Judith Insell.
Sharp, Elliott
Mandocello
(zOaR Records)
A tour-de-force exposition of the mandocello, acoustic and electronic, an instrument evolving out of the 18th century mandalone into a louder instrument intended to take the bass role in mandolin ensembles, which Sharp demonstrates through strings that ring with powerful resonance as he performs original compositions with references to Derek Bailey, Kinshi Tsuruta, and Harry Partch.
Kahn, Jason
Every Hand Is Lunatic That Travels on the Moon
(Editions)
Recorded live at Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich, Jason Kahn's voice presents four improvised pieces blending voice, modular synths, and electronics, creating immersive soundscapes that explore sound's spatial and psychological dimensions, released in a limited edition of 100 hand-painted CDs by Editions.
Kordik, Daniel / Eddie Prevost
End No End
(Earshots)
Legendary AMM drummer/percussionist and Matchless label leader Eddie Prévost meets with Earshots co-label leader and improvising synthesist Daniel Kordik for five remarkable dialogs, both using a full range of creative techniques that complement through alternating percussive and sonic approaches to their instruments, taking listeners into unforseen territories.




The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC