U51 | Mathieu Ruhlmann & Joda Clément | Sound Diary of Quiet Pedestrians
1. Crook of Land_excerpt
2. Gore and Hastings_excerpt
format : CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies
all copies come with an additional art card on 300gr satin paper
release year : 2018
length : 34’24
tracks :
1. Crook of Land (3:50)
2. Gore and Hastings (17:59)
3. Point-No-Point (4:40)
4. Middle Arm (7:55)
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 :
This project represents a distillation of our field recording and life adventures during the course of 5 years that we have known each other.
Over those years, we’ve spent countless hours on field recording missions, recording sessions, concerts, and touring together.
With this in mind, we decided to narrow our focus for this project. Initially seeking out sound environments in and around in East Vancouver, we became focused on large transportation hubs such as shipping yards and train yards in the area. In these environments, we began listening to various ‘man-made’ sound events and observing their relationship to the relative ‘stillness’ during periods of inactivity. In a series of long form recordings made with multiple microphones placed in static positions, it was possible to explore the characteristics of very specific ‘durational’ sound events, as they slowly unfolded in relation to our microphones over an extended period of time. Rather trying to portray the essence of these experiences through a documentary or representational style, we took advantage of the natural timing of these events, in relation to the spatial and dynamic conditions revealed in the process of recording, to inform the structural properties of what became these compositions, our Sound Diary of Quiet Pedestrians.
(Mathieu Ruhlmann & Joda Clément, 16 March 2018)
: reviews :
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Canadians Ruhlmann and Clément constructed the four pieces that comprise their “diary” in Vancouver. A photo in the accompanying sleeve shows the pair on a beach, but there’s something vaguely industrial about the sound-world created here, a hint of ozone in the air. At the beginning of ‘Crook of Land’, deep thrums are offset by a distant buoy (?), steamy hisses and bell after-tones. ‘Gore and Hastings’, the longest track, is very expansive, unfurling in a multilayered array of burred, marbled sounds before migrating to harsher tones that recall bowed cymbals, then sputtering, returning to a harborlike area with softly booming foghorns and urban hums. The anxiety level ratchets up a bit on ‘Point-No-Point’, with higher pitched, keening whines set against (again, faraway) machinery clanks and groans; a very strong track. The disturbingly titled, ‘Middle Arm’ extends this mood, a kind of inky, billowing darkness emerging, swallowing the bay. Excellent work, fine soundcraft.
Brian Olewnick
Just Outside
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DISTORTED + DETACHED: Regular collaborative duo Mathieu Ruhlmann & Joda Clément have recently released one of their most obliquely provocative records to date with Sound Diary of Quiet Pedestrians. Over four tracks they lay out an atmosphere that is filled with atmospheres ranging from earthy natural elements to floating particles of open air acoustics, all lined with a slippery aura. The opener, Crook of Land, leaves the listener in a somewhat ambient listening space, with sound effects that purr into Gore and Hastings, a work of elusive drone as if you were lost mid sea with only the dense fog surrounding your periphery. There are distant screeching systems at work that seem to cry out loud while a blunt horn slowly howls. This is a coordinated composition of noises, effectively being organized, separated, paced.
The collection of creaking, high pressure starts and stops, are actually all quite understated, though it’s utter action, in constant motion. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease“…literally! The flow into Point-No-Point is fairly seamless, and the track, with its field recordings of light crackle and passing jets, brings back the high-pitched metal on metal squeaks that drag, mimicking atonal wind instruments. This record more accurately offers a sense of unquiet than evenness. It’s a poker-faced long stare.
While most of this record is below mid-range in terms of noise, this is far from easy listening. Finally, Middle Arm, delivers the impacting drone whir. It’s misshapen, distorted, low-fi, but it’s about the set-up. Though it doesn’t build too much, sparse whistling emotes and recedes, and other signals flash briefly to clear the plume of drawn mechanical breath. It’s all slight of mind, illusory, and gone in seconds.
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TJ Norris
Toneshift
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2018 has been a quiet year for field recording labels, as many major players have slowed pro-duction or gone on hiatus. Not so Brussels’ Unfathomless, which celebrates its 50th and 51st releases this season and shows no signs of slowing down. Sister label Mystery Sea is also stir-ring from a long slumber. One of the few physical labels left in the field, Unfathomless continues to produce high-quality CDs with a unified cover aesthetic.
Sound Diary of Quiet Pedestrians is not what one might expect from its title. One expects to hear footfalls and conversations recorded from metal grates; instead, one encounters the sounds of transportation. By separating human voices from human-generated sound, Mathieu Ruhlmann & Joda Clément create a sonic environment in which it seems machines are communicating with one other: bells and trains, foghorns and boats. In “Gore and Hastings”, trains screech, slow and halt without discharging a single passenger, or even a conductor. Repairs are made without commentary; sparks fly as if created by robotic revelers. One might want to avoid Vancouver for a while; Skynet is awake. The deep bellows of the shipyard are a reminder of the blooper at the end of “Maximum Overdrive” ~ machines have taken over, and the surviving humans escape by boat. That wouldn’t happen here.
The album offers an unusual type of soundscape: a collage of field recordings that are unnatural, yet imitate nature in their ebb and flow. These “characters” are anthropomorphized to the extent that we assign them intention, if not emotion. By “Middle Arm”, the sounds have turned peaceful; the systems seem to have been oiled, and are running smoothly without us. Perhaps we’re not so necessary after all.
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Richard Allen
A Closer Listen
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The inaugural release on Unfathomless was by Mathieu Ruhlmann (see Vital Weekly 707) when it was announced that Mystery Sea had a little sister. Now the mother ship seems to be silent and Unfathomless is the main thing that keeps them busy. A little later on Joda Clement also had a solo release and now these two Canadians join forces. They have known each other for five years now, and in that period they did a lot of field recordings, sessions, concerts and touring. The sounds on ‘Sound Diary Of Quiet Pedestrians‘ were taped in East Vancouver, were they “became focused on large transportation hubs such as shipping yards and train yards in the area”. Sometimes, apparently a very quiet area and sometimes quite noisy, and that’s something they want to capture on the four pieces on this CD. It is quite an interesting work of very still music. Over a vast terrain of seemingly very little activity, they picked up very few sounds, rumbles merely over an empty landscape, but also very few rusty objects. A ship coming into the harbour, a plane flying over, and the squeaky of metal on metal, not unlike those on train tracks. Apparently they used a whole bunch of microphones, set up all over the place and used quite a bit of time to tape their sounds, and somehow in a very clever way, combined all of these sounds into these four relatively condensed pieces of music. It lasts only thirty minutes but captures some fine beauty. It is, as said, all very quiet music, requiring quite a bit of your attention, but if you open up your ears you realize there is quite a bit going on and because of this being silent, it allows you to play around with the equipment settings and add a bit of filtering of your own, to emphasize certain frequencies and create the optimum playback for yourself. Quite the beauty this one..
Frans de Waard
Vital Weekly