U53 | Jérémie Mathes | In[Core]Wat[t]
In[Core]Wat[t]_excerpt1
In[Core]Wat[t]_excerpt2
format : CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies
all copies come with an additional art card on 300gr satin paper
release year : 2018
length : 39’53
track :
In[Core]Wat[t]
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 :
For the past three years, living in Cambodia gave me the opportunity to visit traditional Buddhist Temples across different areas of the country.
These edifices are dedicated to spiritual practices, studies ,worship and serve as moral and cultural hub for the Khmer People. I‘ve realized a series of recordings inside and around the enclosure of Pagodas in various provinces separate geographically. During an unique passage, I spent a brief time to capture the singularity and atmosphere of each site that I’ve visited. The main central temple, the « vihara », was an anchor point to extend my discoveries to annex buildings, gardens etc…Depending on the topology and acoustic properties of each place, I’ve collected raw elements and hidden sonic matter with variable approaches and techniques. I found it important to integrate in my recordings on location the outskirts of each area, and the interconnection with the local environment. I was interested to have a wide angle of representation of the surroundings. Also, I’ve tried as much as I could to minimize my interaction inside the location with the daily activities, the studies, practices or ceremonies. The sonic fragments captured in the zone of Pagodas, and the converging points from one place has been merged together. All these elements constitute the substrate of each movement inside my piece. My process in my composition has been to interleave the different regions and localities distant spatially. A recombination of disparate moments in a new continuum form as a figment of altered realities, pushing the boundaries of each location, linking the interstices into a ‘sfumato’ of a different perception and remembrance.
In[Core]Wat[t] represents the sum and the trace of my wandering in these specific places, the cross sectional movements from one location to an another, the shift from one state to an other level.
(Jérémie Mathes, 22 July 2018)
: reviews :
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For the past three years Jérémie Mathes has been living in Cambodia where he has been visiting various Buddhist temples and pagodas in different parts of the country, mainly in Phnom Penh, and Siem Reap, Battambang and Kep provinces, making field recordings within these institutions and in their immediate surrounds. The result is this surprisingly dramatic and complex collage soundscape in which the various recordings are layered over one another. In spite of the restless and constantly changing nature of this sonic tapestry, the dominant mood throughout is calm, even relaxing. This applies even when one underlying soundtrack here is daily life as lived by the people Mathes met: conversations, a crackling radio or TV set, the sounds of people working or playing music (actual music or playing radio music, I can’t actually tell) and what seems to be a train accelerating away. Birdsong and the sounds of other creatures may be heard as well. The soundscapes are often veiled in a mist of soft noise or actual rain shower that seems to soften any jarring or unpleasant sound.
No matter how much the original field recordings differed from one another, and had seemingly nothing in common – if anything, Mathes seems to have selected particular recordings on the basis of their contrasts in relation to one another – he presents the material in a way that stresses the unity of life in Cambodia. Perhaps the Buddhist orientation of the culture in that country and how it has influenced the character of the Cambodian people and their values and outlook on life, how it may have helped them to survive foreign rule, war and invasion, chaos and genocide, has made a deep impression on Mathes. In the cacophony of modern life and Cambodia’s struggle to raise its people’s standard and quality of living, to eradicate poverty and to maintain political stability, a serene attitude may be found. Listeners would do well to adopt such an attitude while listening to this recording, to fully appreciate the richness, complexity and dynamism of what Mathes has created here. Life is in constant flux, what may seem real now will not last long, and in embracing that principle, people embark on the path of finding true meaning and purpose in life.
Jennifer Hor
The Sound Projector
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Here we have a return of Jérémie Mathes to Unfathomless, following his ‘Fallow Memory’ (Vital Weekly 1010) and ‘Efequén’ (Vital Weekly 872), and maybe the first to have a third CD on this label. He also had a release on Mystery Sea, the parent label to this little empire, which is seemingly in hibernation these days. Mathes is since three years living in Cambodia and has visited various traditional Buddhist temples. He recorded a whole bunch of sounds in several of these pagodas as well as the surroundings of these places. All of these are stuck together in one solid forty-minute piece of music, of many layered sound events. There is both the layered, empty room recordings that work now as a drone, or even a massive set of drones, while around that there is the sometimes busy rumble of temple bells, human activity, percussive sounds of an unknown origin and perhaps also some animals were captured by the recording devices. You could believe there is some kind electronic processing going on, but that, so I believe is not the case here. Because it is at times a massive gathering of sounds it is this illusion of being electronically processed but it might not. Sometimes he uses shrill sounds that sound like a bow playing cymbals, or an aeolian harp, but these might be some form of electrical transport systems, especially judging the voice that goes along (around twenty-nine minutes). Delicate is perhaps not a word that applies to this release, with all its layers of sounds, but it is a truly fascinating one, because there is so much happening here, all the time. You can go over and over this release and discover new sounds, new patterns and more richness throughout. Mathes provides the listener with a great on-going flow of sounds in which there is a common thread running through all of it, as well as a constant popping up of new sounds, going from inside pagodas at the beginning and being totally outside at the end.
Frans de Waard
Vital Weekly
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The Unfathomless label continues its stellar run with a sonic study of Cambodia, courtesy of Jérémie Mathes, who has called the nation home for the past three years. Living in the country of the recording lends this project an authentic tone: not the discovery of where one is visiting, but the desire to know where one is. A great respect for place is shown in this collage, in particular for Buddhist temples and their ceremonies. The sound artist attempted to disappear as much as possible from the recordings, echoing the concept of emptiness that suffuses Buddhism; if the self pops in eventually, it’s only to ground the recording rather than to let it float away.
This single, 40-minute piece is packed with nuance, graced by the intricacy of complex sound. Creating contrasts between crickets and prayer bowls, birdsong and loudspeaker announcements, rain and temple percussion, Mathes exposes Cambodia as a land of contradictions seeking to form a unified whole. The recording is a parable of the nation’s history. Forty years have passed since the Khmer Rouge ruled, yet the nation still bears its scars; most Westerners still associate Cambodia with the killing fields. Yet with religion no longer outlawed and both “a constitutional monarchy and a multi-party democracy” in place, the Kingdom of Cambodia is on the way up, slowly gaining notice on a global scale. The very existence of this album is a testimony to the distance traveled.
Many of the expected Cambodian sounds are here: gongs, thunderclaps and horns. The difference is in the presentation, as Mathes makes everything seem like a meditation: human and animal, traffic and nature, metal and water. The artist smooths these sounds over, helping them to find harmony without obscuring their intrinsic clarity. Construction workers hammer, children shout, roosters crow, and all the while the peacefulness of the pagodas shines through. By showing no partiality to floating village or temple, river or sacred song, Mathes presents less of a mirror than a vision. Every sound is given its own sonic space and the ability to express itself fully. Societal parallels are easy to find. The surprise is that Mathes has been able to adopt such a specific set of geographically based sounds and expand them to fit the world.
Richard Allen
A Closer Listen
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A singular composition by intricate field recordist Jérémie Mathes, just out from Belgium’s top-notch imprint Unfathomless — In[Core]Wat[t]. These recordings were made while the artist was living in Cambodia over the past several years, traveling to pagodas and temples. The hollow drone and jangle sounds endless. It’s a completely meditative mix of murmur and hum reminding me of the moments when nature and humanity find a certain synergy. Cicadas and percussion and the pure howl of the wind, all fused into a reflective work that centers you. In the swirl of wind ghosts are awakened by lucid strings of a traditional instrument, perhaps a sitar. But it is the au naturel percussion of rain that truly puts the mind and body at a certain ease. Having just had a massive range of thunderstorms just yesterday, this is a much more balanced setting, though he arranges his layers in such a way that it becomes quite chilling. And by that I mean both by way of relaxation and as a conundrum unfolding before our ears. I can certainly appreciate that he takes the whole of forty minutes to do so, opening layer by layer, and intriguing travelogue. He weaves passing voices of kids on the street with a decadent industrial drone from a tractor trailer that mirrors various small gestures of the artist as he captures the moment. The dappled rustling becomes a secondary sound source after a while, falling to the background like white noise as other small actions are emphasized – but the inclement skies open up as an announcement can barely be heard over a loudspeaker in the distance. This one gets in your head, especially for active listeners, so if you are traveling while listening remember to “mind the gap”. Enigmatic harmonics vaguely infiltrate the setting as if a gong were being explored from the inside out. Mathes brings a certain sensibility, this continuous fleeting sense of falling or rising, hard to tell which, offering this beguiling sense of breaking through some unexplored cognitive pathway.
TJ Norris
Toneshift
Unfathomless 