ROOM40 is a label and multi-arts organisation based in Brisbane, Australia. Since 2000, ROOM40 has released over 50 high quality editions and multiples in the fields of electronics, improvisation, experimental-pop and sound-art. Curated by Lawrence English, the label continues to publish in and around the margins of each of these fields drawing on a diverse roster of both established and emergent sound-makers. ROOM40 also produces numerous events, festivals and exhibitions in Australia and beyond.
Éric La Casa
For the best part of a decade, Éric La Casa’s attention to sonic phenomena has resulted in some of the finest contemporary Musique Concréte to come out of France.
A listener of the highest order, La Casa’s methodology for sound recording allows for a versatile examination
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Asher
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
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Ben Frost
Since his earliest days, Ben Frost has been fascinated by the cinematic qualities of the guitar. His output to this point has hinted at this, but with Steelwound he makes a bold statement of intent.
Finding his way to a deserted stretch of Johanna Beach along the Great Ocean Road (Victoria, ....
Brandon Labelle, James Webb
Initially presented as an installation at the Netherlands Media Art Institute, which utilized a series of mini-fm radio transmitters located throughout the building, Radio Flirt is a sonic narrative leading a listener in and out of intimate messages, imaginary environments and envelopes of
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Candlesnuffer
Recorded over a series of four Sunday afternoons, Wakool is an interrogation into an expanded range of techniques and gestures applied to instruments including banjo, electroacoustic guitar, bandura, and eukolin. In part an antidote to laborious studio process, this project privileges live stereo
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Chihei Hatakeyama
“Saunter; (sôntr) To walk at a leisurely pace; stroll.”
Tokyo based musician and composer Chihei Hatakeyama has been in a state of transit. Moving to a new home in recent months, he has found a heightened awareness of his surroundings. The clarity of new encounters with unfamiliar spaces and ....
Chris Abrahams
Equipped with a positive organ, a forte piano, a DX-7 and a piano, Chris Abrahams creates an exquisite and detailed extended composition on Thrown. A divergent audio scape is created here – Abrahams shifts moods with a decisive intensity, never willing to settle in to one stream –
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Chris Abrahams & Mike Cooper
"The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out." Annie Dillard
It’s this musical whisper that is amplified on Oceanic Feeling-Like, as Italian based musician Mike Cooper and Australia’s Chris Abrahams unite for the first time to create what ....
Christopher Willits
Christopher Willits is a ceaseless creative force focused on teasing out the most from his instrument of choice – the guitar. With 'Plants and Hearts', he sets out on a divergent exploration of the tonal qualities of guitar, rendering out a composition that references in equal doses the minimal
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D.N.E.
Eugene Carchesio’s renown as a visual artist has unjustly eclipsed his extraordinary output as a soundmaker. Since the mid 80s, the Brisbane artist has steadfastly proliferated a sack full of barely released cassettes and cdrs under the D.N.E. moniker.
Twenty years ago, he emptied his wallet ....
DJ Olive
The first in a series of edition releases from ::ROOM40::, DJ Olive Meets I/O3 was recorded live at Brisbane Powerhouse on Sunday November 11 2001.
Originally spending some of his teenage years in Canberra, Gregor Asch aka DJ Olive has had a long association with Australia, as have Brisbane ....
Brooklyn based artist DJ Olive (aka Gregor Asch) has been working across an array of sound fields for well over 15 years. In that time he has pioneered a number of musical movements, including Sleep parties, which he undertook extensively in Brooklyn during the 1990s. From these lengthy parties,
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As one of the pioneers of 'sleep' parties in the low level apartment blocks and converted industrial lots in Brooklyn during the early nineties, DJ Olive's latest long player collects together his experiments in ambient sound spaces. It's a celebration of filtered texture, hidden melody and
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Over the past two decades, DJ Olive has been a central figure in New York’s diverse sonic underground. As a member of WE(tm), DJ Olive created three stunning records that came to epitomize the Brooklyn Illbient explosion.
In the 00s, Olive turned his ears to a range of other projects – ....
Erik Griswold
Altona Sketches was conceived following a lengthy session of prepared piano improvisations delivered in support of a one-man juggling show with Australia’s highly regarded contemporary circus troupe Circa. The album splits its sound palette between short and sweet excursions into music boxes and
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American born, Australian based composer and improviser Erik Griswold creates elaborate piano preparations Cage would be proud of. A willing and apt experimenter, Griswold’s ‘Altona Sketches’ for the ROOM40 label paved the way for this series of evocative hour-long compositions.
Each based on ....
American born, Australian based composer and improviser Erik Griswold creates elaborate piano preparations Cage would be proud of. A willing and apt experimenter, Griswold’s ‘Altona Sketches’ for the ROOM40 label paved the way for this series of evocative hour-long
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American born, Australian based composer and improviser Erik Griswold creates elaborate piano preparations Cage would be proud of. A willing and apt experimenter, Griswold’s ‘Altona Sketches’ for the ROOM40 label paved the way for this series of evocative hour-long compositions.
Each based on ....
Erikm
Between his reputation as swift shifting improviser, concréte composer and turntable deconstructionist, Marseilles based artist ERIKM has earned himself an enviable position in the European music community. With Stéme, his most ambitious and fully realised compositional work to date, he devolves
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erikm (Luc Ferrari) & Thomas Lehn
This recording is taken from a live concert which took place at the Musique Action Festival in France on Thursday the 26 of May 2005. Initially Luc Ferrari and erik.m were invited to present "Les Protorythmiques" at Musique Action 2005, a work composed around a new 'open working process' in
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For Barry Ray
For Barry Ray is the duo of Carina Thorén (Sweden) and John Chantler (Australia). After a number of compilation appearances, long gone CDrs and lathe cut records under various guises, the pair bunked down over the winter of 06/07 to lay the foundations for ‘New Days’, kicking off things Christmas
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Greg Davis & Jeph Jerman
The act of conjuring remarkable sound from found objects is at the very heart of this recording from American musicians Greg Davis and Jeph Jerman.
Having met in Arizona some years back, Davis and Jerman commenced working together on a series of recording projects. Improvising with a range of ....
Hear
Hear is the blessed union of Hannes Strobl (bass), Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) and Tony Buck (drums). Individually recognised and indeed revered for a range of solo and group activities, this trio’s debut undertaking ‘5 Pieces’ is a work that is powerful yet poignant.
Each of ....
I/O
Recorded in part at Burrum Heads, a small coastal community in North Queensland (Australia), calm is an album of environments. Underscored by field recordings, the album is deeply reflective of the spaces in which it was created.
Featuring all manner of atmospheric soundscapes, from the ....
i8u
I8U’s 10-33 cm is a audio work of varied proportion and calculated shape. Based on the ideas associated with String Theory, this latest offering from Canada’s France Jobin is a compelling meditation on the nature of sound in time.
“10-33 cm is the theoretical size of the strings that makes up ....
Janek Schaefer
Janek Schaefer first surfaced 10 years ago with his sound-activated tape recorder installation ‘Recorded Delivery’. He followed that with a range of award winning turntable and vinyl related projects including the random playing Skate LP, and the Tri-Phonic Turntable which he hand built to
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John Chantler
Debut mass-market release from John Chantler beamed out of the depths of the rural Japanese island of Shikoku in 2003. Analog synths, muted rythm programming and host of found sounds. John Chantler now resides in London and has recorded with Tenniscoats, played drums on Tujiko Noriko's 'Blurred
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Keith Fullerton Whitman
Over the past few years, Keith Fullerton Whitman has been responsible for producing some of the most engaging electronic music to emerge from the United States. Informed by traditional musique concréte as much as contemporary DSP, his work remains provocative without relying on overt actions
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Leighton Craig
Since 1995, Brisbane resident Leighton Craig has etched out a varied musical existence, from solo keyboard studies to an extensive body of collaborative work. His solo works, which span delicate ambient keyboard excursions through to site specific live documents and most recently song based
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Lloyd Barrett
For well over a decade, Australia's Lloyd Barrett has been issuing all manner of intricate sound works – from diligent examinations of postconcréte sound and abstracted rhythmic projects to spacious ambient works.
In 2005, he committed himself to create Mise en Scene, a work drawing on the ....
Luc Ferrari
Luc has always been deeply interested in society, in people one can see in the metro, in the street, in popular places. We can be aware of this interest in the majority of his works, but in addition he made several pure sound reports, in particular in Algeria. One beautiful sunny day of 1976 we
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M.Rösner
M.Rösner’s Alluvial is without question one of the finest abstract electronic releases to come forth from Australia in 2005. Crafted throughout 2004 and early 2005, Rösner’s original source material stems largely from instruments (guitar, percussion, analog electronics), and through his detailed
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Marina Rosenfeld
Over the past decade, Marina Rosenfeld’s work has come to represent one of the most progressive approaches to experimental sound emanating from New York.
Rosenfeld is equally known as a composer for large-scale performances and groundbreaking turntablist. Her sonic palette - entirely drawn ....
Mike Cooper
Oren Ambarchi & Robbie Avenaim
"Raised on a diet of several decades' worth of renegade creatives and neglected masterpieces, we're all wise to the disappearing-act that an artist's back catalogue can perform - doubly so if their financial and/or artistic imperatives lead them to micro-release and micro-format their
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Philip Samartzis & Lawrence English
The turntable has enjoyed a varied history in the realm of performance
and experimental music. From the early phonographic works of John
Cage to the spliced cut-ups of Christian Marclay in the 1980s, the
device has proven to be a versatile tool for the creation and
transformation of
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Phillip Samartzis & Kozo Inada
Australian electro-acoustic composer Philip Samartzis is an increasingly vital presence in the Australian sound community. His work over the past decade and a half has offered a prophetic vision for each of his chosen formats and aesthetic approaches.
On h [ ] Samartzis is joined by minimal ....
Reinhold Friedl & Michael Vorfeld
Pech is the latest duo recording from inside pianist Reinhold Fried and avant percussionist Michael Vorfeld. Over the past five years, (2001-2006) this pair of German musicians have created some of the most engaging and imaginative electro-acoustic music, exploring the potentials of subtle
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Richard Chartier
Richard Chartier’s sound installation and recorded pieces evoke a state of aural awareness. Working with a variety of minimal structures and refined sound sources, Chartier has been responsible for some of the most austere audio works of recent years. Aesthetically refined and creatively
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Robbie Avenaim
Robbie Avenaim’s RMD has been a long time in the making. His debut solo release to surface in a career that stretches back to the late 1980s, collects together the better part of a decade’s worth of experimentation with the possibilities of prepared percussion, irregular rhythm, modulated pulse and
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Robin Fox & Clayton Thomas
Apart from being recognised as two of Australia’s leading improvising musical forces, Clayton Thomas and Robin Fox are also acknowledged for their unrelenting experiments and divergent acoustic approaches in relation to their instrument of choice.
Over the past 3 years, Robin Fox has ....
Rod Cooper
"Friction is the culmination of over a decade of instrument building practice and design. My predominant choice of material is metal. I am attracted to its qualities like a shiny lure that reflects light and filters sound.
Each instrument can take up to three years to design and several ....
sébastien roux
"This is the story of a man marked by an image of his childhood …” Or perhaps is it the story of this woman coming here to meet a beloved stranger, at the Grange-Auloup street? or maybe their story?” - Sébastien Roux
Revers Ouest* is a radiophonic work based on text fragments drawing a ....
Steinbrüchel
In spring 2003 Steinbrüchel received an invitation from the Swiss music festival Taktlos, in Berne, to contribute a track for their listening room, equipped with a surround 5.1 sound system. During the two-day festival in November, Steinbrüchel's track entitled Opaque was played back in cycle mode
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'Basis' is based on recordings of acoustic instruments. All sounds were processed and layered into compositions by Steinbrüchel. Through this processing Steinbrüchel revealed hidden structures and melodies and isolated them, creating new melodic and organic textures without losing the soul of the
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Taylor Deupree
With ‘Landing’ American sound artist Taylor Deupree offers another vision of subtle shifting audio. A progression from the full-length Northern (12K), Landing matches acoustic instruments across broad washes of warm sonic texture and floating spatial movement. Removed from the falling sheets of
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Taylor Deupree, Kenneth Kirschner
May is the latest collaboration between New York composers Taylor Deupree and Kenneth Kirschner. Recorded on May 9, 2008 at the OFFF Festival in Lisbon, Portugal, the album represents the first available live recording of Deupree and Kirschner's concert performances. Continuing in the direction of
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Tenniscoats
In essence Tokyo’s Tenniscoats celebrate all that makes song vital in our collective conscious. Matching emotive live performance against delicately psychedelic folk songs, the duo of Saya and Takashi Ueno (assisted by a plethora of floating members), create some of the most compelling music
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I visited Saya and Ueno at the Majikick house in June last year to catch-up, hang out and chat about what another record from them on ROOM40 might feel like. I'd come fresh from RM40 HQ in Brisbane, working with Lawrence on Noriko's 'U' and was packing a clutch of his recent solo stuff. The
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Text Of Light
Recorded at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in January 2005, this explosive piece from Text Of Light typifies their abilities as a vivid freeform improvisational unit. Ranaldo and Licht’s measured guitar work sets a basis on which Kreiger’s blaring saxtronics, Barnes’ percussive
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Tim Hecker
Recorded at the Norberg Festival (Sweden) amidst the mineshafts and cluttered buildings strewn throughout parts the city, this 21 minute live piece summarises much of what makes Tim Hecker’s music so vital and compelling.
Adept at counter-pointing the most ferocious of distorted platters ....
Tomasz Bednarczyk
There’s an exquisiteness that dominates much of Tomasz Bednarczyk debut release for Room40 Summer Feelings. Whilst the title might suggest uplifting rafts of melody and shimmering texture baked in the sun - Bednarczyk’s summers are experienced in Poland and ultimately tempered by snowy winters.
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Wroclaw based sound artist Tomasz Bednarczyk has a penchant for capturing the emotion in moments of stasis. It’s this acute sense of expanding fleeting moments and exploring their detail that informs the sonic palette of his latest full length recording Painting Sky Together.
Akin to his ....
Toop, Scanner + I/O3
Echoes of disconnected sound reverberate meshing together into a cascading river of intersecting sound elements – occasionally confrontational, ultimately unforgettable.
The second in a series of edition releases from ::room40::, A Picturesque View, Ignored brings together the talents of ....
Tujiko Noriko
January 2004 in a small hotel room, twenty stories above ground in Brisbane’s downtown, Tujiko Noriko and Lawrence English began a modest recording project with the simplest of tools – a microphone and a laptop. With the din of traffic humming in the distance, the pair recorded four vocal pieces,
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Tujiko Noriko, Lawrence English, John Chantler
Tujiko Noriko joins with collaborators Lawrence English and John Chantler for ‘U’, a record of orbiting themes, esoteric lyrical wordplays and warm analog infused song-forms.
Following on from the acclaimed ‘Blurred In My Mirror (ROOM40), ‘U’ is an LP of phases and exchanges between Paris ....
Ueno
Ueno, along with his partner Saya, is one of the core members of Tenniscoats, who’ve released a number of fantastic discs of straight-up melodic to the core sing-songing joy. 2007 saw the release of Tenniscoat’s ‘Totemo Aimasho’ for ROOM40 and ‘Tan Tan Therapy’ for Häpna/Headz.
In addition to ....
Various
Geography is an ongoing force shaping our understandings of the environments around us and, in turn, experiences ongoing transformation and development. Considering not only the natural world, but also culture, economy and politics in diverse settings and across many scales, contemporary geography
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Various Artists
Melatonin - meditations on sound in sleep collects together a vital and dynamic selection of today's most inventive sound artists and composers. these artists reflect on how sound is envisaged in their own sleeping lives and how these impressions can be used as an artistic reference
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For most of us, our every waking moment (and even those where we are unconscious) is surrounded by sound. From the obnoxiously pitched alarm tone that raises us from slumber to the muted sounds of night-time traffic that merge with natural nocturnal transmissions; there is always sound.
As a ....
The concepts of isolation – in social, geographic and virtual settings have spawned various creative investigations over the centuries. Guided by the philosophical premise of social theorists such as Zygmunt Bauman, ::Room40:: and the University Of Tasmania collaborated in the curation of a series
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As Alain De Botton suggests in his book ‘The Art Of Travel’, the act of transit between social, cultural and geographic circumstance is far more than mere bodily movement. Language, architecture, food, gesture, landscape and sound all play a part in travel and ultimately contribute to the
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Zane Trow
For over three decades, Zane Trow has been fascinated with the potentials of delay systems, echoed reverberations and transformational sound. On 'For Those Who Hear Actual Voices', he sifts through a series of singular sound moments, dropping them into oceans of delay, washing them out in a raw,
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