Category: sound

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RIP Steve Roden

Steve Roden changed my life. His music, paired intimately with that of his uncle Jeffrey Roden, detonated in my mind and soul in such a profound way that everything about the way I thought about art making—sound in particular—shifted forever. Their treatment of sounds, silence, space, and time inspired me in countless ways. My mature work, particularly my current long poem, would be impossible without them.

I first met Jeffrey and Steve at a concert in Los Angeles, called ‘A Day of Listening,’ I think, organized by Josh Russell for his bremsstrahlung label, an early home for what Steve called lowercase music. This may have been in 2000 or 2001. Also on the bill were Civyiu Kkliu and j.frede, I believe, but it was Steve and Jeffrey who knocked my socks off. I later invited them to appear on my radio show, Repeat After Me, on KUCI 88.9 FM in Irvine.

Steve eventually, graciously, agreed to serve on my committee for my MFA in Drawing and Painting in 2004. I curated Steve and Jeffrey into nearly every sound show I organized, including quiet., a house concert series in 2004, and more public festivals such as so.cal.sonic in 2005 and the Slow Sound Festival in 2009. Steve brought me in for a series of live scores to silent films at LACE (where I met Robert Crouch and Yann Novak) and Otis College (where I met Meg Linton).

For one particular gig, Steve invited me to join him in preparing a live soundtrack for a performance by Swiss artist Yann Marussich who reclined in a heated plexiglass box and sweated blue pigment through his pores. We later met in his garage in Pasadena and recorded an improvised follow-up that we released as a two-track EP, “water in the hollow eyes of the blue, finally,” on a now-defunct Russian Bandcamp label.

I last saw Steve at soundpedro 2017 for a concert and panel discussion I organized on sound in Los Angeles. When Jeffrey and Shelley Roden shared that Steve had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, we tried to set up a visit, but it never worked out. I’m okay with that. I’ll remember Steve in his prime: kind, generous, funny, and sweet, and the most humble person I’ve ever known. If I ever faced an artistic hurdle or some kerfuffle in the sound/music scene(s), I would always ask myself, “what would Steve do?”

There is so much more to say about Steve and Jeffrey, but I’ll end for now with the signature line that Steve included in his emails:

easy – to know
that diamonds – are precious

good – to learn
that rubies – have depth

but more – to know
that pebbles – are miraculous

Josef albers

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Atlas Place @ soundpedro

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Atlas Place @ soundpedro, a program of sound and dialog, will take place on Saturday, 3 June 2017, 5-11 PM, as part of soundpedro, an evening of sonic happenings, Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, CA. The program will feature sets by Yann Novak, Robert Crouch, Steve Roden, and the Southern California Soundscape Ensemble. At 6 PM, I will moderate a panel discussion, Atlas Place: Living Sound in Los Angeles, with Yann, Robert, and Steve. Admission is free.

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SCSE at WE Labs

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Southern California Soundscape Ensemble (SCSE) will perform two sets at a preview party for the next iteration of Flood‘s multi-genre installation event planned for multiple sites in 2017. SCSE hits the stage at 6:30 and again at 8:00, 1 October 2016, WE Labs at the historic Packard Building, 205 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Admission is free, but RSVPs are required.

 

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Radia: Review on The Field Reporter

“Standing on a rocky ridge looking out over a vast expanse of landscape in one of Wisconsin’s State Parks beneath an endless sky. The clouds are great citadels of enormous height moving slowly and casting their shadows over the grasslands below. The air is cool and the sun is high.

Long Beach, California sound artist Glenn Bach recorded Radia at various State Parks in California and Wisconsin. The field recordings were then combined with guitar feedback in an extremely subtle way. Released on Brian Lavelle’s Dust Unsettled label, the work is decribed as ‘an exploration of the blurred boundaries of geography, place and memory’, which pretty much nails it.

Radia is a subtle, organic paean to the vast North American wilderness. Rather than grandeur and monumentalism (tropes which have been done to death by numerous painters, photographers and composers), Bach focusses on the clear air and expanding horizons. The solitary figure in the landscape, attentive to the languages and nuances of his environment. Maybe at times there is no figure at all?

Tendrils of guitar generated sound hang in the air like vapour trails, dissolving and reforming in the lucid atmosphere. Sometimes like streamers being twisted in the wind, sometimes like a mist clinging to the ground.

Somehow the music generates these expansive spaces in the listener’s consciousness too. Of course this requires some effort on the listener’s part, but what work of any worth doesn’t? It is a two way process and deep listening yields rewards. Time dilates and the mind is cleansed by clear North American air. I would encourage using headphones and just surrendering.

The field recordings are presented as understated and intimate signs. Rain, grass, birds. At one point a plane flies over, the sound of it’s engine mirroring the drifting feedback that often arches across the tracks on this CD. Planes always draw attention to the spaces above. The extent of the atmosphere, and the fact that wherever you are, the human world is still liable to intrude.

This type of work is often described as ‘lowercase’ music, along with the output of such artists as Steve Roden and Bernhard Günter. However, other than being quite quiet and having few dynamic peaks, it is hard to see the similarity. Although there is space in Radia, there is actually very little silence and there is plenty of detail and development. Also all playback devices have volume knobs these days. You can always turn it up a bit.

Certainly one of my favourite recent releases due to the way it unfurls and the images it conjours. To be able to make a little 5″ silver disc carry such a huge amount of land and sky is quite something.”

–Chris Whitehead, The Field Reporter, 13 May 2012