Jeph Jerman // registro de piedra CD

American sound artist Jeph Jerman from ArizonaThis is a CD released in September 2023 by the experimental label Unfathomless in Brussels, Belgium, in a limited edition of 9 copies.

This is a deep listening sound drone work with no melody.

The following is a commentary by the writer himself.

"Registro de Piedra plays with the idea of ​​memory of place.
I've heard several stories of people spending the night in or near ancient ruins and witnessing strange sights and sounds.Some might call it a ghost.Modern science has no way to explain these ghostly appearances, calling into question the authenticity of the experience.Other researchers have proposed the idea that these places contain memories of past events that can be revived under certain circumstances.This idea, sometimes referred to as the "stone tape theory", has been featured in several old books and British television shows.To this day, no one knows what these sightings and testimonies mean or whether they are actually real, and there is no hard evidence.Adding to the confusion, it has become relatively easy these days to fake a convincing ghost encounter with audio or video, so even if there is evidence, it may not be faked. That means it might be something.
Will modern-day ghost hunters be able to find anything at these locations?

I have a friend who takes photos without looking at what he is taking.Most of them are very interesting, hiding images of faces and strange clouds of light.In the same house where he took many of these photos, I made a collage of distorted faces by scraping the floor.Is this just pareidolia, or is there some other mechanism at work?This is an old plantation house that is said to be haunted, and another friend and I saw some strange things there.I don't know if it was recorded in any way.

Most of the voices were recorded by me.Sometimes I hear voices that I didn't put in.I believe this is a type of audio pareidolia that occurs because the timbre and rhythm of the sound are similar to human speech.Layering these sounds seems to amplify the effect, bringing to mind inaudible conversations and incomprehensible languages.
This is exactly the kind of sound I had in mind when I started working on this project.But looking back, it's not all that surprising.I'm pretty sure I didn't record any ghost voices.What we have here is a crude representation of the idea that it might be possible. "

Unfathomless Other worksplease use this form. ///Click here to see more Unfathomless releases available at Tobira. 

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Glass mastered CD. Packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert and additional art card on 350gr satin paper. Limited edition of 145 hand-numbered copies.

Tracklist:

1. registro de piedra 38:05

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Description by the artist 

" Registro de Piedra plays with the idea of ​​place memory.
I have heard a few stories of people spending the night in or near ancient ruins and witnessing strange sights and sounds. What some might call ghosts. Modern science has no way of explaining these apparitions, casting doubt on the authenticity of the experience. Other researchers have propounded the idea that these places may hold memories of past occurrences, and that under certain circumstances, these memories can be re-animated. This idea is sometimes referred to as the “stone tape theory”, and has featured in a few old books and even a British TV show. To this day no one knows what these sightings or hearings represent, if they are in fact genuine, and hard evidence is nonexistent. To add to the confusion, it's relatively easy these days to fake a convincing ghost encounter on audio or video, so even if there were evidence it may have been faked.
One wonders if modern day ghost hunters would find anything at the sites featured here.

I have a friend who takes photographs without looking at what he's taking a photo of. Most of them are very interesting, harboring images of faces and weird clouds of light. In the same house where he took a lot of these photos, I made a floor rubbing which produced a collage of contorted faces. Are these just incidences of pareidolia, or is some other mechanism at play? This was an old plantation house which was said to be haunted, and I and another friend did see some odd things there. I don' t know if those things could've been recorded in any way.

I think the pitfall in the “paranormal” viewpoint is it's insistence on our technology's ability to detect something, which is then used to support the viewer's ideas. Thinking of these occurrences as “recordings” might be the wrong way to look at them. A misapplied frame of reference. What if the truth is much weirder than that?

Voices can be heard on registro de piedra, most of which I put there. At times it seems that voices I did not put there are heard. I believe this to be a case of audio pareidolia, brought about by the similarity in timbre and rhythm of the sounds to human speech. The layering of these sounds seems to have amplified the effect, conjuring up conversations we can't quite hear, in a language we do not understand.
I find it extremely funny that these are exactly the kind of sounds I had thought about as I began working on this project. In retrospect, not all that surprising though. I'm reasonably sure that I haven't recorded any ghost voices here. What we've got here is a rough-hewn representation of the idea that it might be possible."

(Jeph Jerman, July 2023) 

Artist: Jeph Jerman

Label: Unfathomless