Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy // local exoticism TAPE

This is a cassette released in January 2023 by the sound artist Emmanuel Mieville in Paris, France with a limited edition of 1 from the experimental label Forms of Minutiae in Berlin, Germany.Includes field recordings, hurdy gurdy, and concrete 60 songs using open reels. Comes with DL code.Below is an explanation by the label. In "Four Towers and Bridges", composer and field recordingist Emmanuel Mieville shares his bridge between the incantation of musique concrète and the sound of mechanoacoustics. Among the four tracks, electro-acoustic sculptures and drone-square gestures intersect to form a seemingly continuous investigation into the passage mechanics.The album is at the mercy of sounds recorded around technology that traverses from the Eiffel Tower in Viana do Castelo (Portugal) to the elevators and automated rail systems of the BnF (Bibliotheque Nationale de France) in Paris. The system, called the TAD, is a hidden transport device made up of hanging cases for moving books and materials from the BnF stock area to lecture rooms.Track each type of movement or object, such as bridges and vehicles, elevators and people, TAD and printed matter, precipitation and water.Its rhythms, hums, vibrations and creaks intertwine, sometimes accompanied by the sustained murmuring of stringed instruments and electric hurdy-gurdies, giving it the air of a recontextualized French folk song.Unexpectedly, the album ends with a rural scene where the machines stop and the sound of rain reverberates.This short soundscape offers a peek into the strange microscopic world brought about by getting wet in the rain.But from its title, "Four Towers and a Bridge," the album inevitably suggests an architectural context.But architectural impressions expand beyond the sites and techniques explored as the concept of bridges is brought to life by music and the artist's compositional methodology.Through field recording material and studio manipulation, the album forms a wire that connects real-life sounds with sculpted electroacoustic interventions, providing a passage from the concrete to the abstract.This is further accentuated by a blend of machine hum and hurdy-gurdy.Drones transport like containers. Mieville is aware of that, and his musique concrète has created a crossover music that transports us from one place (or state) to another.And finally, this bridge comes back to the visible, embodied in the composer's reel-to-reel tape, or even the cassette tape you're listening to.In the composer's own words, "the movement of both listening and sculpting creates tangible material, and decontextualization provides a space for new listening." Four Towers and a Bridge invites us to dwell on the limits of our connecting mechanisms while exploring the ambiguity of that space.This is the music of passage.Click here for labels and other works /// Click here to see more...

Manja Ristić, an experimental musician born in Serbia and living in Croatia, released this record in May 2021 on the experimental label Forms of Minutiae in Berlin, Germany, in a limited edition of 5 copies. Contains 200 electro-acoustic drone songs made from field recordings on Korcula Island. Click here to see more Forms of Minutiae releases available...

This cassette was released in March 2024 by collage artist/documentary filmmaker Alëna Korolëva from Toronto, Canada, in a limited edition of 3 copies on the Forms of Minutiae label in Berlin, Germany. This is a cinematic collage soundscape created from field recordings. DL code included. Below is an explanation by the author himself. "Every time I go, I can't help but feel the signs of impending change. I eavesdrop on the conversations of creatures large and small, and like me, they feel anxious and uncertain about what's to come." Something is in the air, dark clouds are gathering, and the wind is about to change course. Amidst the chaos and calm, voices from the non-human and human worlds mix together to create a worrying symphony. This piece is an ode to hope and the beauty of life on the brink of the sixth mass extinction. Joining in the chorus are the American Toad, the North Wind, the Old Kettle, and Mr. - Cats, owl, crickets, domestic chickens and pigs, trumpeter swans, bees, truck horns, cormorants, seagulls, and other elements and creatures.

Pablo Diserens, head of the experimental/field recording label Forms of Minutiae in Berlin, Germany, released this cassette in a limited edition of 2023 in December 12. This is a sound collage/dronescape work made from field recordings. DL code included. Below is an explanation by the label. "Forms of Minutiae" and TBA100-Academy present a joint happening and aqueous sound piece "upstream ensemble" composed by field recording writer, artist, and f-o-m co-founder Pablo Diserens. During the 21/21 digital residency hosted by TBA2022-Academy's Ocean-Archive.org, pablo...