Various Artists - Touch. 30 years and counting

    Quote

 

CD - 4 tracks - 70:16
Edition of 1000 oversized digifiles

 

4 tracks - DLP - 70:16
Gatefold full colour sleeve with black inners
Limited edition of 1000

 

Compiled, edited, mixed and produced by Mike Harding & Jon Wozencroft
Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye, 26th October 2012

 

 

Tracklist:

 

1 - 16:58

 

Touch 33 - Pont Saeson
Fennesz - 55 Cancri e
Bruce Gilbert - Apis
Rosy Parlane - Awhitu
Oren Ambarchi - Merely A Portmanteau

 

2 - 17:15

 

The Book Depository
ELEH - Over Woven
BJNilsen - The cackle of dogs and laughter of death
Nana April Jun - High And Low And Mid Plane Mass

3 - 18:14

 

Chris Watson - Brussel-Nord
Mika Vainio - Erstwhile
Carl Michael von Hausswolff - Cleansing of the Cruel Tyrants Chamber
Jana Winderen - In a Silent Place

 

4 - 17:49

 

Philip Jeck - Saint Pancras
Francisco López - untitled#286
Z'EV - the inreadables
Hildur Gudnadottir - Just This
Senescent
Biosphere - Gryfici

"30 years and counting is an echo of a time when the world was in a critical condition, and potentially about to blow itself into oblivion at the tail end of the Cold War. As such the title is a wry reflection on the situation we find ourselves in today, where the final curtain is less likely to close, but the stakes somehow seem to be more extreme and polarised than ever.

 

As far as Touch is concerned, it is an expression of our youthful relationship to the work. Mike Harding and Jon Wozencroft invited each of the Touch artists to contribute a glimpse of their current practice to what is effectively a group show rather than a compilation. The brief was not only to celebrate a situation, but to remind each other why we are doing it, and make a kind of documentary realism.

 

Some artists responded quickly with significant twists and returns to their signature sound and others left it to the last minute. The net result was that Mike and Jon mastered the LP/CD more or less as live performance in the cutting room, Transition, as an expression of the vitality of the project rather than some pre-ordained historical item.

 

The history is built into the cover with two images of the first computer, the ‘Colossus’, built in Bletchley Park during the early 1940s as a means of cracking the Enigma codes… Here the pressure of time is at its most compressed. Two contra-punctal images were shot only recently, backstage moments of Touch 30 situations which as historical events, pale in comparison – they are just personal, memories in a flash.

 

30 years and counting is a filmic/time-based response from a collective of artists who have made a distinct impression on contemporary music and the way things go. Fennesz, Eleh, Hildur Gudnadottir, Chris Watson, Philip Jeck, Biosphere… We should really list everyone. That’s what they try and do on hip-hop albums.

 

We started with cassettes; this project commenced as a dedication to vinyl rather than digital, a question concerning the art of recording. 30 years and counting is a manifesto after all these transformations. It is available on CD and download. The vinyl flares with the crackle of the present." Jon Wozencroft, November 2012

 

FLAC download available later in December…

Amazing! Nice to see new Nana April Jun. Will be picking this up for sure.

Of course I'm gonna bloody buy it! Can't believe it's been 10 years since the last compilation I bought from them. Time moves fast.

I like Touch, and this will probably be good, but this press release...

Anything with new Hildur Gudnadottir or Jana Winderen stuff is an automatic purchase for me.

Yeah I'll be picking this up as well. Interested to see what Rosy Parlane is up to, and Fennesz, Philip Jeck, Hildur, and Chris Watson always deliver the goods. Still need to go through Jana Winderen's work. I hope the Biosphere track is nothing like what was on N-Plants.

  On 12/2/2012 at 11:16 PM, mcbpete said:

Of course I'm gonna bloody buy it! Can't believe it's been 10 years since the last compilation I bought from them. Time moves fast.

Well, that was Touch25, 5 years ago. For lovers of the Touch family, there is this fascinating Fairy Tales DVD with the whole bunch (more than 2 hours of new music), sold at their site.

  On 12/3/2012 at 9:51 AM, k h o v said:

 

  On 12/2/2012 at 11:16 PM, mcbpete said:

Of course I'm gonna bloody buy it! Can't believe it's been 10 years since the last compilation I bought from them. Time moves fast.

Well, that was Touch25, 5 years ago.