U24 | Yiorgis Sakellariou | Klaipėda
Klaipėda part 1 : excerpt
Klaipėda part 2 : excerpt
format : CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies
all copies come with an additional art card on 300gr satin paper
release year : 2014
length : 39’22
tracks :
1. Klaipėda part 1
2. Klaipėda part 2
status : still available
>>> order via Paypal : chalkdc@unfathomless.net
(Belgium) : 14 € (inc.postage)
(Europe) : 15 € (inc.postage)
(World) : 16 € (inc.postage)
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: info :
Klaipėda is located in the west of Lithuania, right on the shores of the Baltic Sea. I lived there from September 2011 until July 2012 and during those months I was regularly recording in the city and the surrounding rural areas. I got very fond of these locations and all the sounds I recorded are very significant and dear in my memory. Throughout the changes of the seasons, varying between human-made and industrial to “natural” sounds caused by birds, water, wind or plants, the acoustic environment never ceased to inspire me.
Klaipėda offered an amazing diversity of sonic material, from echoing train whistles, factory machines’ drones and hammering sounds, to the far hiss sound of the sea, the thumps of thunders and the rustling of the leaves on the trees. The album, however, is not a documentation of Klaipėda’s soundscape nor does it intend to realistically reconstruct my acoustic experiences. As a two part composition, it aims to engage the listener with a profound sonic world in which each one can connect with its own memories and create new subconscious thoughts.
(Yiorgis Sakellariou, December 2013)
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: reviews :
Why does Sakellariou‘s offering, recorded in and around the Lithuanian title city, have more resonance for me? Partly, perhaps, the abundance of relative quiet and inactivity as opposed to the overwhelming density of the jungle fauna, possibly due in part to the higher percentage of human artifacts, the mid-distant grind of machinery and the counterpoint it provides to birds, water and wind. It’s bleak but not without beauty, like a brown/gray landscape containing glints of silver and blue. There’s a far clearer sense of the constructor’s hand here as well, including abrupt cuts and (I think) layering of disparate elements, both of which, in this case, I find appropriate and gripping. The sense of Tarr-like poetry is strong here, the abstract washes of sound, the blurred rumbles, the cold harshness–very strong, very evocative. I’ve said before that my aesthetic reaction to many works in the field recording area can be poetic, difficult to quantify, more so even than with “standard” music and it’s the case here as well. Something rings true, valid and worth contemplating. I’d previously heard Sakellariou, under the nom Mecha/Orga, in collaboration with Roel Meelkop, Julien Ottavi and on his own “41:38” and enjoyed them greatly. With this fine work, I’ll be on the lookout for more.
Brian Olewnick
Just Outside
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More and more Yiorgis Sakellariou works under his own name and no longer as Mecha/orga: a development we see with more serious composers coming from the ‘industrial’ music end (a term to be regarded in the broadest sense possible). Sakellariou is from Greece, but lived in Klaipeda (Lithuania) for some time, a few years ago, and now is residing in London. Between September 2011 and July 2012 he recorded sounds in and around Klaipeda and these are used in the two pieces that are on this CD. I have not been to Klaipeda, but to Lithuania and some of that cold, rural, wood country is something that is easily seen in these pieces, along with the harbor/sea side of the city. Sakellariou taped some motorized events (ships no doubt, but maybe also chainsaws in the forest?) so that he can add a fine drone-like layer to the music, especially in the second piece/part. One of the fine powers of Sakellariou‘s music is that one never knows what he does, exactly, to his sound material. Is it just a collage of sound? Does he layer all his sounds in some way? Is there any sort of treatment that he applies to this? It’s not for me to say what he does: I really don’t know (never asked him, I guess). I do know it results in some excellent music that is entirely based on field recordings; imaginative music that opens up a fine sound world and shows us the somewhat desolate world of Lithuanian woods and seaside. Maybe a bit cold, but perhaps that’s just an illusion.
Frans de Waard
Vital Weekly
Unfathomless 