The Squid's Ear Magazine


La Casa, Eric / Eamon Sprod: Friche : Transition (Swarming)

Making something out of "nothing", audio explorers and sonic organizers Eric La Casa from France and Australian Eamon Sprod spent a week on the waste grounds in the North East of Paris along the Canal Ourcq, capturing field recordings which they used to develop these active compositions, captivating by morphing everyday sounds into something intriguingly mysterious and remarkable.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Eric La Casa-performer, composer

Eamon Sprod-performer, composer


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UPC: 9782955958148

Label: Swarming
Catalog ID: 2019
Squidco Product Code: 26970

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: France
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded in Paris, Bobigny, and Pantin, France, in March and April, 2015.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"During Spring 2015, Eamon Sprod and Eric La Casa spent one week to record on waste grounds, at the north east of Paris, and along the canal Ourcq. Spaces which are somehow both inside yet apart from the city; waiting spaces from which to listen to the threshold of the city."-Swarming



"For an album built entirely out of field recordings, the most surprising quality of "Friche: Transition" is how industrial it sounds. "Friche: Transition" was assembled out of field recordings taken at the outer edges of Paris over the course of a week, "on waste grounds... spaces which are somehow both inside yet apart from the city; waiting spaces from which to listen to the threshold of the city." A series of photographs and hand-written notes bring the spaces to life; looking at them as you listen certainly colours how the sounds are understood by tying them to specific environments. For me, that actually made the music more evocative. If I'd only read that these were urban field recordings from the outer edges of Paris, I might not have really known what was meant. I'd imagine auto repair shops and highways. The images show a variety of locations and acoustic spaces that both La Casa and Sprod explored with microphones and digital recorders. That these guys would work together so seamlessly is no surprise. Both composers deal with field recordings in a similarly hands-on manner; not as objective documentary, but as poetic raw material for extremely detailed and dramatic music. The locations' peculiar character remains legible throughout, but "Friche: Transition" is ultimately music and not ecological exercise. To listen to this all the way through is wonderfully unnerving; just when you're lulled by the static metallic rumble, sharp cuts and clanks leap across the stereo field and jolt out in sharp-angled jump-scares. Listening to a big city from its ignored edges means capturing the menacing acoustics of tunnels, the drone of distant traffic and faraway voices, active trash-heap clatter, threatening low-frequency drops, oncoming trains, cell phone interference. The lengthiest section, part 3, bashes rocks around at a steadily rolling density while skittering plastic and water attack from all sides until flurries of activity in discrete channels give an impression of overwhelming movement that constantly speeds up, stops, switches to something entirely different... bends plastic in your ear then throws you down a well, only to instantly teleport you to the centre of an auto scrap yard and then plunge you back underground. So much is happening each second that a single listen doesn't do it justice. I've experienced "Friche: Transition" intently all the way through on headphones about six times so far, and have come away with latching on to new details each time. This album is exhilarating and thrillingly exhausting."-HS, Vital Weekly



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Get additional information at Vital Weekly

Artist Biographies

"968: Born in Tours, France.
1987-91: Studied history of art (University of La Sorbonne, Paris).
1988: Starting sound experiments.

Since 1991: Sound artist.

(award: Festival "Soundscape before 2000")

- tape music composer
A research based on the landscape, its sound substances, its inner language, within a sensitive listening of the world.
[7 solo CDs, many CDs compilations : Japan, Germany, Taiwan, usa...]
+ Previous releases CD:
L'empreinte de l'ivresse (Digital Narcis Ltd, Japan), The Stone of the Threshold (The Ground Fault, Usa).
+ New CD (October 2000): Les Pierres du seuil part 4-7.

- "sound plastician"
(sound environments and installations: Clepsydre, Chute, mi-lieu...)
A research dedicated to the concept: the place - the sound/one place - one work.

- radio producer

(sound essays for the national radio program ACR-France Culture)
New work: Vent sur Ecoute (dedicated to the wind).
Work in progress: Ward Weis (a portrait of this sound artist).

Since 1996: Journalist for the french magazine of new musics: Revue et Corrigée.

Interviews with Pierre Marietan, Claude Schryer, Eric Cordier, Yann Paranthoën, Cédric Peyronnet, René Farabet, Slavek Kwi, Jocelyn Robert, Jean-Luc Guionnet,...
1989-1998: Director of La Légende des voix (label of experimental music).

10 releases (Arsenije Jovanovic, Jim O'Rourke, Syllyk, ...)"

-Kunstradio (http://kunstradio.at/BIOS/lacasabio.html)
3/13/2024

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

"TARAB (né Eamon Sprod) has been working on the fringes of the Melbourne sound world since 2001, primarily examining the interplay of field recordings and sounds generated from found objects. His work explores the possibilities of personal chartings and reactions to the urban environment, revelling in the decay and detritus to be found there. Interested in more than documentation, tarab attempts to sonically trigger, form, and recreate the interior environments which occur through our interaction with the commonplace and often overlooked.

His first album surfacedrift, was release on Naturestrip in 2004, and has performed and exhibited in various galleries, festivals (Liquid Architecture, Immersion, Variable Resistance, and Whatismusic?) and other spaces around Melbourne, and has collaborated with, among others, Ernie Althoff, Tim Catlin, and Rod Cooper.

Tarab performed at 23five's Activating the Medium festival in 2007, and published his albums wind keeps even dust away (2007) and Take All the Ships from the Harbour and Sail Them into Hell (2009)."

-23Five.org (http://www.23five.org/tarab/tarabbio.html)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Untitled 7:02 2. Untitled 2:42 3. Untitled 5:04 4. Untitled 5:11 5. Untitled 1:41 6. Untitled 1:08 7. Untitled 2:34 8. Untitled 2:32 9. Untitled 4:20 10. Untitled 7:03

Related Categories of Interest:


Electro-Acoustic
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Field Recordings
Electroacoustic Composition
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Australian Improvisers, Composers and Experimenters
Duo Recordings
New in Experimental & Electronic Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Swarming.


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