News

Philip Jeck and Jonathan Raisin Live in Ormskirk | 5th February 2018

5th Feb 2018, 8:00pm

The Arts Centre
Edge Hill University
St Helens Road
Ormskirk
Lancashire
L39 4QP
United Kingdom

Philip Jeck and Jonathan Raisin are revisiting the BBC commission “The Long Wave” previously performed at The Music Room, Philharmonic Hall last year and presenting a new piece they have been working on this year.

www.edgehill.ac.uk/events/2018/02/05/the-long-wave/

FOLIO 002 – Various Artists/Jon Wozencroft “Touch Movements”

76pp full colour book + CD
33 tracks – 78:59
Limited edition of 1000

Release date: 11th December 2017

Track listing:

Into the Open
Mika Vainio – Behind the Radiators
AER – Just Before Dawn
Bethan Kellough – Twelve
Wire – A Year A Second [For BCG]
London in a Week
Carl Michael Von Hausswolff – Sine Missing One
Chris Watson – Deepcar
Jana Winderen – Bronx Tunnel
The Magical Land of the North
Claire M Singer – Storr
Hildur Gudnadottir – Death 200AD
Three 20 – Four Twelve
Philip Jeck – Deed of Gift
Walking on Water
Simon Scott – Storm of the Fens
Eleh – Overt One
The Love Train
Russell Haswell – Demons
Heitor Alvelos – Expectant
I’m a Schoolteacher on Holiday
Johann Johannsson – Mingyun
Mark Van Hoen – Prescient
Fennesz – Paint It Black (remastered)
Sohrab – JV Dream
It’s Enough to Make You Weep
Strafe FR – Virgin
Before The Sea @ Falasarna
Jim O’Rourke – Despite The Water Supply
Situation Stabilised / BJ Nilsen – Atom Mother
Peter Rehberg – Cinecom
Gateway to the Garden
Oren Ambarchi – Testify
The Sound of Eleven

In a 24/7 world there is no greater challenge than “to be in command of one’s own time”. Is it true that the ability to download anything, at any moment, constitutes freedom? Has the ‘value’ of music, art and design been stripped bare? “I Google, therefore I am”…

Touch MOVEMENTS has been compiled over the course of 3 years. It is a response to many requests for Touch to publish a fuller account of Jon Wozencroft’s photography for the cover art of the project. The book follows the music, which was compiled step-by-step, like a jigsaw – there was not an “open call” to the artists, rather a sequential development which gives the CD a special narrative quality. And since our last Touch 30 compilation in 2012, the accuracy of the music has grown and rises to the challenge of what sound can do to transform perceptions about the immediate emotion of musical work and its more difficult, longer term evolution.

Following Touch Folio 001 in 2015, this series is a dedication to finding new ways of audiovisual publishing, somewhere between the twin peaks of a jewel-cased CD and a lavish box-set. The two elements of sound and the visual work in parallel to create the idea of an “Ear-book”, whose interdependency reveals itself over time, and allows the richest of listening and viewing experiences. The music and the photography is fully annotated, alongside a rarely-seen manifesto by the Surrealist film-maker Jan Švankmajer which celebrates the spirit of the creative act.

Pre-order FOLIO 002 | Various Artists/Jon Wozencroft – “Touch Movements” [76pp Book + CD] in the TouchShop

Touch Live at Iklectik | 23rd March 2018

Philip Jeck
Yann Novak
Simon Scott
Touch

iklectikartlab.com

Live Dates November 2017

On the 18th November, 5pm at the Huddersfield New Music Festival
I am playing live with Michaela Grill, a video artist from Austria
and Karl Limieux, an analogue film maker from Canada both projecting
and manipulating their work live.

http://hcmf.co.uk/event/5-michaela-grill-philip-jeck-karl-lemieux/

we are also at Cafe Oto, London on the 20th November
cafeoto.co.uk/events/philip-jeck-michaela-grill-karl-lemieux/

and on the 22nd November, 9pm in The Box at FACT, Liverpool
It’s worth booking if you are attending as The Box has a limited capacity.
fact.co.uk/whats-on/current/performance-philip-jeck-michaela-grill-and-karl-lemieux.aspx

And on the 30th November, 7.30pm at The Capstone Theatre, Liverpool L6
I am playing some pieces with the wonderful Merseyside Improvisers Orchestra.
ticketquarter.co.uk/Online/philip-jeck

Tone 58 | Philip Jeck – “Iklectik”

CD and download – 1 track

Release date: 22nd September 2017

Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft
Recorded and mastered by Jeff Ardron of St. Austral Sound

The 6th in the series of limited edition compact disc live recordings (after Thomas Köner & Jana Winderen, Simon Scott, Bethan Kellough, Yann Novak, Robert Crouch) brings Philip Jeck live at Iklectik, London.

Philip Jeck studied visual arts at Dartington College of Arts in the 1970’s and has been creating sound with record-players since the early 80’s. He has worked with many dance and theatre companies and played with muscians/composers such as Jah Wobble, Steve Lacy, Gavin Bryars, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, Sidsel Endresen and Bernhard Lang.

He has released 11 solo albums, the most recent “Cardinal”, a double vinyl release on Touch. “Suite”, another vinyl-only release, won a Distinction at The Prix Ars Electronica, and a cassette release on The Tapeworm, “Spool”, playing only bass guitar. His CD “Sand” (2008) was 2nd in The Wire’s top 50 of the year. His largest work made with Lol Sargent, “Vinyl Requiem” was for 180 record-players, 9 slide-projectors and 2 16mm movie-projectors. It received a Time Out Performance Award. Vinyl Coda I-III, a commission from Bavarian Radio in 1999 won the Karl Sczuka Foderpreis for Radio Art.

Philip also still works as a visual artist, usually incorporating sound and has shown installations at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, Hayward Gallery, London, The Hamburger Bahnhof Gallery, Berlin, ZKM in Karlsruhe and The Shanghai and Liverpool Bienalles.

Philip Jeck has won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers 2009. A presentation ceremony took place at The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, on 9th November 2009.

He has toured in an Opera North production playing live to the silent movie Pandora’s Box (composed by Hildur Gudnadottir and Johann Johannson).He has also worked again with Gavin Bryars on a composition “Pneuma” for a ballet choreographed by Carolyn Carlson for The Opera de Bordeaux and has recently made and performed the sound for “The Ballad of Ray & Julie” at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool.

Pre-order Philip Jeck – “Iklectik” [CD + Download] in the TouchShop
www.philipjeck.com

Interview with Jaki Liebezeit

Carlson Ballet

Live at Tusk Festival, Newcastle 2014

Philip Jeck began his artistic life in the visual arts but then was diverted by explorations into using turntables to compose music in the early 1980s. The phrase ‘turntablist’ doesn’t seem quite right for Jeck’s approach to vinyl appropriation though and insight into his technique and its sublime lightness of touch may come from merely examining his table top. Vintage Dansette turntables (he has a store room full of hundreds of them), primitive sampling keyboards and minidisc recorders reveal an artist who’s found the perfect tools for this work – and hearing his compositions really is like being given the keys to a secret garden. The nearest comparisons to the world he creates are possibly the work of Ekkehard Ehlers, Fennesz or Tom Recchion but Jeck’s sound has a tender sumptuousness that’s all his.

In 1993, Philip Jeck and Lol Sargent won the Time Out Performance Award for their Vinyl Requiem, a performance involving 180 Dansettes and numerous projectors. Since then he’s released a raft of great recordings, largely via the Touch label, and developed a great reputation as an unmissable live performer. At TUSK in 2914, Philip Jeck performed a piece specially commissioned by the festival.

LISTEN: Philip Jeck’s Favourite Music

A fascinating personal guided tour of the avant multi-media composer’s extensive vinyl collection… including reggae housed in cream cracker packets [John Doran]
Julia Dempsey of The Art Assembly travelled up to his house in Liverpool and talked to him about his roots playing disco in clubs in the late 70s and early 80s, the joys of the rough DJ mix, discovering Arthur Russell’s music in New York, reggae album sleeves printed on Jacobs Cream Cracker packets and the power of Frank Sinatra’s bossa nova influenced work.

Thanks to Julia Dempsey for presenting and producing and to editor, Robin The Fog.

thequietus.com/articles/19008-listen-philip-jeck-favourite-music-podcast

One Minute of Listening

Minute of Listening is an exciting and innovative project that has the potential to provide all primary-aged children with the opportunity to experience sixty seconds of creative listening each day of the school year. By downloading a simple application to their laptops, desktops or interactive whiteboards, teachers can bring a wealth of sonic resources into their classrooms.

www.minuteoflistening.org

For a full list of contributors:
www.minuteoflistening.org/pages/partners

The Skinny, Liverpool

skinny

Vinyl Requiem Revisited | FACT Magazine October 2013

WAXWORK:

PHILIP JECK ON HIS LANDMARK TURNTABLE PIECE VINYL REQUIEM

Anyone with an interest in the historical moment where vinyl tilted from mainstream format to collector’s concern should spend time with Philip Jeck’s 1993 audiovisual piece Vinyl Requiem.

Read here

Semibreve Festival, Braga, Portugal

Philip Jeck on WFMU | 15th September 2012

Philip Jeck & Mike Harding (Touch 30th Anniversary Special)
Saturday, September 15th, 9pm – Midnight

on Daniel Blumin’s show on WFMU

Premier UK experimental label Touch turns 30 this year. To celebrate, Touch has been organizing events in Europe, and from September 13th to the 16th the celebration lands in New York City with a series of events at Issue Project Room, Anthology Film Archives, and Experimental Intermedia. Afraid of leaving home? Not to worry – the festivities also hit WFMU as label co-owner Mike Harding and composer Philip Jeck drop in for a visit!
Tune in as Harding discusses the label’s history and spins tracks from the imprint’s long out-of-print cassettes, recordings from the label’s roster of hit makers (e.g. Fennesz, Mika Vainio, Oren Ambarchi), and music that served to inspire the founding of the label!
Then, Philip Jeck, a Touch mainstay and artist primarily known for his mesmerizing work with prepared vinyl, performs live! Layers of creaky loops, hints of long-forgotten melodies, and echo-chamber strings meld with crackle, bass hum, and recombinant wormholes of sound. A Saturday night to remember. Do not miss!

You can hear the show archived here

Philip Jeck | Self-Titled

You can see a film of Philip Jeck performing live at Altmusic, May 23rd 2008 here

“I’d been reading The Wire casually for years before I actually got around to hearing Philip Jeck’s music (who’s name-checked in every issue). When I did finally hear it, I was blown away by its visceral aspects. Jeck’s turntablism can be as menacing as Wolf Eyes or as soothing as Popol Vuh, sometimes within the same piece. In terms of sampling, Jeck rarely borrows a whole melody or phrase; instead processing and breaking his source material down into its elemental form—basic building blocks for composition. And perhaps more than any DJ-centric genre, Jeck’s music could be the ultimate example of vinyl fetishism, with the actual music pressed in the grooves at times being less important than the crackles and noises of the wax itself. I guess Christian Marclay is usually credited with bringing turntablism to the avant garde, but it’s Jeck’s music that brings the, well, music.”

www.self-titledmah.com

Interview in The Liminal

You can read an interview with Philip Jeck in UK-based publication The Liminal

An ark for the listener… wins The Uranus Music Prize

The Uranus Music Prize // And the winner is…

Philip Jeck’s An ark for the listener…

You can read more about this album here and buy it in the TouchShop

Adam Curtis | All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Philip Jeck is chuffed to hear his music used in 3rd part of Adam Curtis’s latest amazing BBC documentary, which could be seen on iPlayer here.

Pieces used included “All That’s Allowed” from “Suite: Live in Liverpool” (see below, and extracts from his latest album, “An Ark for the Listener”.

Distinction for “Suite: Live in Liverpool” at Ars Electonica | 26th May 2011

We are delighted to announce that Philip Jeck has received a Distinction for “Suite: Live in Liverpool

Also, Touch artist Jana Winderen has won the Golden Nica for Digital Musics and Sound Art at Ars Electronica 2011. Her entry “Energy Field” was chosen by the jury out of 717 original entries into the category and Sohrab an Honorary Mention for “A Hidden Place“.
Since 1987, the Prix Ars Electronica has served as an interdisciplinary platform for everyone who uses the computer as a universal medium for implementing and designing their creative projects at the interface of art, technology and society.

The Prix Ars Electronica, the Ars Electronica Festival, the Ars Electronica Center – Museum of the Future and the Ars Electronica Futurelab are the four divisions that comprise the Ars Electronica Linz GmbH, whose specific orientation and long-term continuity make it a unique platform for digital art and media culture.

The competition is organized by the Ars Electronica Linz GmbH and ORF’s Upper Austria Regional Studio in collaboration with the OK Center for Contemporary Art and the Brucknerhaus Linz, and the prizes are awarded during the Ars Electronica Festival each year. The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the most important awards for creativity and pioneering spirit in the field of digital media.

Previous Distinctions have been awarded to Gescom for their MiniDisc release, which was released on OR, and Chris Watson for his album “Outside the Circle of Fire“.

You can buy Suite: Live in Liverpool in Bandcamp

“There is a Place” | Prize Winner at SFDFF 2011

Philip Jeck contributed to the soundtrack of the film ‘There is a Place’, which won the Jury Prize for the Best Screendance Short at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival 2011.

More information can be found at Goat’s website.

Discussion on the soundtrack of the film “Inception”

Inception brings the trend for slow music to the big screen

Composer Hans Zimmer’s ultra-slow manipulation of an Edith Piaf song displays the beauty in bringing the BPM right down

Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Photograph: Stephen Vaughan/Warner Bros

The malevolent, booming horns that sound throughout Inception are one of the film’s finest features. Their power lies not just in volume and repetition, but also in rebuilding part of the film’s architecture, just as Ellen Page and Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters rebuild the architecture in their dreams.

Without giving away the plot, Edith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien plays a crucial role in linking Inception’s real and dream worlds. Now it’s emerged that Hans Zimmer, who composed the music, extrapolated his entire score from the Piaf song. In keeping with the atmosphere of blurred consciousness, Zimmer slows down the brass sounds to a somnambulant trudge.

What was once human, defiant and romantic is now lurching, formidable and unstable. Zimmer does something that numerous artists have also recently realised – that slowing music down dissolves and recasts it.

Games, the duo featuring Joel Ford and Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin, have been releasing mixtapes of slowed-down 80s hits over the past year. For Lopatin, who has railed against the often limited sonic palette of underground music, these tapes are proof that slowing down music dismissed as cheesy reveals its weirdness, beauty and potential.
Chopped and screwed is a form of hip-hop from Houston that slows tracks down to a crawl. Perhaps the sweltering heat of Texas encourages this lethargy? The muggy clarity of the weed and cough-syrup highs sought on the scene also heighten the music’s sensuality. As Scott Wright noted on this blog, chopped and screwed has been influential on “drag” artists, while mainstream rappers often use a few bars of a screwed, ultra-deep vocal to push their masculinity into the red, a fast-track to thuggishness. Meanwhile Ciara’s recent return to the sound is canny; set against the uptempo European house beats of chart rap, her slowness thrills.

As much as I love Zimmer’s music for Inception, I wondered what Philip Jeck, the master of the musical subconscious, would have done with it. Jeck resurrects battered vinyl classics, slowing down and looping the likes of Aaron Copeland to create fragments of songs echoing across time and sleep.

In a hyperactive digital world, slowed-down music pushes you back into your chair and demands you sit still; it forces you to consider the structures built and choices made. As with Inception, it casts light on a potential world where music sounds different and life runs in an unfamiliar gear.