U77 | João Castro Pinto | faux naturel
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format : glass mastered CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies/Digital
Regular edition of 170 copies packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert + an additional art card both on 350gr satin paper
Special edition of 30 copies packaged in black mass-tinted cardboard digisleeve with frame.
it holds a set of 2 double-sided art cards with a different artwork from the regular edition on 350gr satin paper.
+ more to be announced
Inner sleeve features a strip of paper mentioning edition number, artist’s name + title.
release year : 2022
length : 45’03
tracks : a) dawning / into-out-of-silence (00:00 – 04:51)
b) platform / aquatic introjection / outer – inner (04:52 – 11:29)
c) trans-portation / or a boat that is a train (11:30 – 14:36)
d) dock / serene preamble (14:38 – 16:56)
e) dramactions / fence et al. (16:57 – 22:06)
f) dock / orchestral autopoiesis & other forms (22:07 – 31:09)
g) stealth practices & manipulations / indistincta materia / quiet shore (31:10 – 36:54)
h) an opening towards light / stasis-polyphonic-hypnagogic-voyage (36:55 – 45:00)
status : OUT NOW !
>>> order via Paypal : chalkdc@unfathomless.net
Regular edition
(Belgium) : 14 € (inc.postage)
(Europe) : 15 € (inc.postage)
(World) : 16 € (inc.postage)
Special ultra ltd edition : SOLD OUT !
(Belgium) : 17 € (inc.postage)
(Europe) : 18 € (inc.postage)
(World) : 19 € (inc.postage)
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: info :
Faux naturel is a piece composed around the sonic and musical exploration of two axial ideas: that of falsehood and that of natural / nature.
In general terms, we take as false what appears to be not true, that is, we consider false something whose truth value is negative (the logical expression or correlate of a negation). By contrast, we regard something as true as having a positive truth value, as constituting the expression of a true statement.
As for the word natural, one of its strongest connotations is that of birth or spontaneous / self-determined sprouting, a fact confirmed by the etymology of the word that derives from the Latin natura (from the verb nascor). The most common use we make of the word natural indicates a fundamental split between the field of objects constructed by man and everything that is spontaneously created by nature. If this split corresponds to a kind of formal operative delimitation of distinction between what is self-generated and what is produced by man, the term artificial corresponds to the expression of everything that exists and is not natural. But could we easily accept such a conclusion? In reality, and despite the fact that the word artificial is etymologically related to artifice – from Latin artificum / artifex [ ars + fex ], i.e., what is produced through a certain way of doing – it is easy to understand that, considering the natural world from a macro-scale perspective, the aforementioned split is not only equivocal but also factious. Indeed, and in ontological terms, if we accept that everything which is natural belongs to the plan of nature and that man is a creation of nature, we can conclude that what is created by man is nothing more than natural. Consequently, artifice is no longer regarded as a mode opposed to natural creation or causation (autopoiesis), but rather as the pragmatic (productive and creative) expression that – by nature – is constitutive of man. Splitting man and nature is like making a fundamental distinction between a thing and nothing, it isn’t, in short, possible. In this sense, and giving a modest but enlightening example, an anthill or a building are equally natural creations. In conclusion, and in this sense, there is nothing that corresponds to a false natural or a false naturality, and this album is an exercise that meditates on this very conclusion.
Faux naturel is a soundscape composition that intends to give an aural and musical expression to the idea of non-scission between man and nature, between the so-called artificial sound environments and natural sound environments. It also intends to represent a musical expression guided by the principles of ambiguity and the dilution of the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, between the acoustic and electroacoustic planes. Faux naturel is, therefore, a meta-soundscape, a composition that explores elements of geophony, biophony and anthropophony in a free way, i.e., not conditioned by the observance of the spatiotemporal coherence of the gathered field recordings for this composition. The sound palette of this composition was captured in different latitudes and geographical spaces, being one of the main objectives of the piece to give concreteness to the idea of an imaginary itinerary, of a sonic journey constituted by the acoustic exploration of spaces that are, in certain cases and moments, similar (sharing formal semantic categories, for example: geophonic sounds [water in harbours / docks], or anthropogenic noise sounds, coming from vehicles, traffic), and, in others, totally different.
Faux naturel presents soundscapes that depart from the acoustic material of the explored places to the phenomenological space of an audition that is embodied in moments of tension and liberation, of different perspectives of distance and magnified proximity, of unusual contrasts between euphonic, noisy and hypnagogic sound plots; dense and organic sound masses, textures and pronounced / unexpected musical gestures, seeking to involve the listener in a captivating and aesthetically variegated listening.
The sounds of faux naturel were recorded by implementing various recording techniques: stereo (AB, XY, ORTF, Binaural and MS) and mono (shotgun, hydrophone and contact microphones). Regarding the audio recording devices, various equipment were used, such as: an iPhone SE and the following digital recorders Tascam DR-70D & Sound Devices MixPre-3.
Finally, and although my work in compositional terms is mainly focused on exploring the idea of potential ambiguity between mimetic and abstract musical discourses, I must mention that the title of this composition was inspired by reading a set of texts by Bernard Parmegiani about his magnum opus – De Natura Sonorum. When talking about his attempt to conciliate concrete and electronic elements, Parmegiani mentions that, and we quote:
“L’artifice du montage matérialise cette volonté de conciliation, en fabriquant un faux naturel. Toujours dans cette perspective de conciliation, les sons électroniques […] s’ajusteront docilement […] aux sons concrets.” (Jean-Christophe Thomas, Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Philippe Mion, “L’Envers d’une Oeuvre – De Natura Sonorum, by Bernard Parmegiani”, p. 35)
(João Castro Pinto, 26 August 2022)
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