NS3006
- Joel Stern - Objects, Masks, Props
mp3 sample - Dead
Lakes (track 6)
Brisbane based but often found wandering throughout Australia and regions
far further out, Joel Stern, has been restlessly, compulsively, devising,
capturing, constructing this album on and off over the past 6 and a
bit years (2001-2008). Created from instrumental debris, snatches of
environmental sound (Ethiopia, India, Toowoomba, his lounge room), and
a poetic sensitivity for incoherence, Objects.Masks.Props, is the clearest
and most potent reflection yet of Joel's musical and artistic approach
- somewhere between music concrete, art brut, free noise, cinema, abstraction,
and the farmyard..
Well known as a catalytic figure in the Australian experimental music and film scenes (organiser of Audiopollen, OtherFilm, Glee Club), Joel cut his chops in the concept-heavy nonsense atmosphere of early 00's London, collaborating with many of the Japanese and English artists connected to the 'reductionist' and 'onkyo' movements (let's not name name's) and attending workshops given by AMM legend Eddie Prevost. Since returning to Australia, Joel's has collaborated widely, most notably in electro-acoustic duo form with Anthony Guerra (resulting in numerous cd's on impermanent, absurd, pseudo arcana) and in expanded cinema form with 16mm filmmaker Sally Golding as Abject Leader (resulting in tours of NZ, USA and appearances at major film and art fests around Australia).
In recent years, Joel
has been a central player in the burgeoning Brisbane underground scene
(featured in the Wire, Signal to Noise), in bands such as no guru and
sunshine has blown as well as creating large scale chaotic sound sculptures
as part of Watthaus.
ABJECT LEADER
- OTHERFILM
a psychotropic travelogue of an unmapped realm between Jon Hassell's
fourth world and Pierre Henry's laboratory throat singing bees rabid
dogs minimalist patterns looped chants a fevered dream a mournful lament
the hum and crackle of decaying beauty tickle the inner ear fragments
of
melody detuned strings sound swept through an open window seeds passing
one hand to the other an ebbing accordion
tapestry of the found
and created
a cinema for the third eye
(Leighton Craig - August 08)
fucking
gorgeous man...like dropping e and laying in the grass while friends
and animals wander amongst musical flashes...insects slowly filling
the mind with secret tones while the persistent memories of earth give
solace amidst the dissolution...or something like that...
(Michael Donnelly - August 08)
It's much like a radio play--evoking places, situations and actions
that go beyond sound. i realize upon intentionally listening--headphones,
no visual inputs, home alone, etc.--that this record solicits my imagination
to get involved with it in very concrete ways....
the ruins left behind a carnival...poor children who never got in to
the tents to see the show are now scrambling in the debris (a discarded
rainbow wig--mounds of elephant feces--an accordion key) left behind
in a great field. and yes...beginning it all with a crackle!
(Loren Chasse August 08)
The voices of far and wide are carefully placed
in the music, music is played like it part of the field recordings,
and music that is perhaps played 'outside', all carefully constructed,
selected and edited to make this excellent release.
(Vital Weekly 648)
Like some Southeast Asian fever dream, Stern's constructions throb,
mutate and insinuate themselves under your skin. Wielding a range of
sound sources from rabid dogs to accordion to dirt, skirting the ground
between noise and melody, he comes up with a really fun recording and
a couple of stellar tracks ("Dead Lakes" and the closing "Fortitude
End", for me). Different from what I've heard from Stern before
(which I've generally liked a bunch) and very enjoyable
(Just
Outside)
Self invented narratives form almost instantly
when listening to ‘Panda Box’ or the aptly titled ‘Wake
In Fright’ – Stern’s use of curious sound effect-like
elements creating cues as to where the mind might leap next. Taking
equally from histories of musique concréte and field recordings
as well as dabbing in a casual stroke of improvisation to his auditory
paintings, this record is by far Stern’s most accomplished effort
and opens the way for a more measured and versatile range of audio to
come
(Signal To Noise Magazine)
The emphasis on melodies, however fractured and disjointed, on Objects,
Masks, Props is additionally fascinating, with one able to imagine snatches
of an otherworldly radio transmission of Saharan bazaars, Daintree rainforests
and inner suburban jam sessions alike at various junctures. With a strong
grounding in the beauty of naturally occurring sounds and simple acoustic
instrumentation, Objects, Masks, Props could well be the future of pop
music in a post-apocalyptic, electricity starved world.
Joel Stern's CD is very accessible. My immediate reaction was to interpret, to make stories from these aural vignettes. They seemed like tiny movies to me . . . and this is what they look like:
The sound of someone standing on a guineapig, but I could be wrong. The little squeal of feedback near the end is great. Stringed instruments strummed in an almost rhythm, the birds are relentless and I think someone is poking a hankie down a pigeon's throat. Call the RSPCA. The rooster however, seems happy. Rainstick is cultural vandalism. I love the reedy harmonica cross rhythms, the backwards stringed thing is almost a voice and the frogs and crickets take us away. Someone eating the packaging from a 40" Sony Bravia and then polishing off a couple of expensive microphones as dessert. I love the low frequencies in this piece. I feel as though four people dressed up as bees and then crawled in to my chest as I was sleeping. Look, now they've crept up into my head , emptied two of the cupboards, let the bath overflow, tied saucepans to their legs and are re-enacting what they saw yesterday on Slapdown. A cougar is loose in the aviary. The rain beats down on the tin roof as the wolves close in. I don't care, I play my simularium and chant the words I've heard since I was a baby "nah nah nah nah nah nah nah". Release the mice, for soon the end will come and the colour of the end will be pale orange or possibly a light brown. In the forest, a woman with a violin bow in her throat talks to the birds, the birds. Jane Rutter is in a tree trying desperately to find 4RPH. She is distracted by the woman, finds it hard to concentrate, the words are familiar and yet not. She finds something eventually but it's simply annoying so she leaves it on, hoping that the violin lady will stop. It doesn't work. A man arrives with a snare drum in his nose and leaves with the violin woman. They will be happy. But not Jane. The microphone is tied to an animal in a folk club whilst tuning is underway. A box of crickets has been left under the third table on the left. The room is sad. Four people have received parking tickets. Only one will contest their legality. A passenger plane arrives to buy takeaway and is not served. Why?
I think you can see how
much I enjoyed this CD. I'm equally sure that your movies will look
very different.
(Media
Culture)
This is bizarre in every sense of the word. Naturestrip is a
label that has dedicated itself to propagating all sorts of
composition through field recording, with sound artists like Tarab and
Loren Chasse crafting impeccable scores directly from the earth, and
rural psychedelic practitioners like Leighton Craig and Eugene
Carchesio crafting skeletal song against an environmental backdrop.
Australian sound artist Joel Stern has taken his field
recording tactics into an unusual place of thickly collaged signifiers
with hints of song, rummagings for texture, and straight recordings
from out the in the field. It sort of comes across as a ramshackle
radio play, as if some genius lunatic outfit like the Starving Weirdos
were given permission to fuck around in the INA-GRM studios. Stern
offers up some improv clamor in the woods with sticks, twigs, and bird
chorus playing equal part in the noise with squeaking horns,
concertina strum and squabbling noises. He's also found scraping upon
styrofoam, and steel springs for an unnerving background of
skincrawling textures that counterpoint tension-loaded pops of long
wire manipulation and the occasional heavenly ring of chimed bells.
Feral dogs bark and howl in the rain while Stern overlays a simple
melody line from a thumb piano coaxed into harmony with a distant
chanting of unknown origin. He's at his best when an unsettled
musicality seeps through the field recordings; and perhaps he saves
his best for last, with the plaintive strum across the guitar and
harmonica set against a distant wailing of children becoming a tragic
end to this Fellini-esque album. Remarkable to say the least.
Aquarius
Records
It makes me feel like I'm dreaming in fragments with the window open.
A fascinating album.
Boa Melody
Bar
The Wire - December
2008
'Objects.masks.props. " is a suite of studio
daydreams (2000-2007), a compulsive
wandering revealing a strong poetic sensibility, a re-enchantment of
the world via the musical composition of abstractions. Melancholy and
sometimes harsh, but most often tender.
Metamkine
