RELEASES
ARTIST ALBUM TEXT
asher




Landscape Studies

During the late part of 2007 I was working on materials for a multichannel composition, which dealt with interior spaces in several ways. One of the main elements of the this work was recorded using electronic sounds in my home studio, and after finishing with this collection process I was left with many ideas relating to the intrusion of outside sounds into my home environment. Particularly late in the day and in winter with the windows closed I was struck by certain frequencies and events which I would notice and respond to strongly. I began trying to capture these sounds making recording in my home at these times, and was frustrated by the difficulty of translating any of these sounds into my working environment. I believe it was these efforts, which led to some of the methods and choices of sounds used for this album.

One of the ways that I tend to describe the concerns which are investigated in my work is the desire to create recordings which have the unique characteristics of a particular room or space which only exists in the context of that recording. another way of describing this which I've been using lately is the idea of a landscape, though its very difficult for me to explain this without using visual metaphors.

The way in which I work is very heavily reliant on recording and rerecording material through a series hardware devices which causes the original sounds to become subjected to all manner of transformations with the intention of bringing a number of discrete recorded moments into a system of controlled interactions. This type of composition to me is somehow related to an idea of a landscape with particular elements interacting, the quality of light, the weather and time of year, and the soundmarks of a specific location.

In continuously working with similar methods I have become quite comfortable with particular frequencies and dynamics structures, the thing which continues to inspire and intrigue me is the unlimited possibilities available to me within these narrow confines. These landscape studies are the result of a relatively short period of concentrated work, but are also reflective of a much longer period of time spent thinking about and working with a small area of intentions.

AVAILABLE NOW:

DIGITAL RELEASE DISTRIBUTED BY IODA
REVIEWS:

"Inasmuch as the pieces do bleed into one another and engender a strong hypnotic state, there nonetheless remains a plurality of elements that, particularly when listened to on headphones, may often be heard shifting and communicating like masks to create a charged memory space. It is doubtlessly one of Asher’s more unified and complete efforts. In settling upon sounds of the interior, he secures a salient perspective from which to display the world, and all of the ways in which it escapes, is enlisted, and enjoyed in that valiant vestibule, the home." Cyclic Defrost

"Asher brings into being ambient drones of soothing character. Gossamer, crepuscular tones gently drift in slow motion through fields of vaporous static, with each one of the six pieces (all in the six- to seven-minute range) a variation on the common theme. The whistling tones resonate and shimmer against thick masses of softly churning noise, suggestive of a coastal lighthouse's light piercing through heavy fog during an otherwise peaceful night. Though subdued in character, Asher's becalmed evocations succeed in realizing their intended effect." Textura.org

"The pieces all have a great circular like synth playing to them and adds in the background some very obscure field recording - the empty amplified room, perhaps? Of course the Brian Eno ghost, the earliest ambient records, hang like a heavy cloud over this, but it makes a pretty strong work of his own too. Surely one of the more refined moments by Asher I encountered." FdW, Vital Weekly

Related ROOM40 titles:
Tomasz Bednarczyk - 'Summer Feelings'
i8u - '10-33cm'
Friedl/Vorfeld - 'Pech'
Lawrence English - 'Ghost Towns'

asher - Landscape Studies
asher