Review of Barges & Flows at The Field Reporter on 22-01-2012
The overiding impression of Akos Garai’s Danube recordings is detail and space. Although we are close to the water’s surface, so that every splash and swirl becomes a well defined foreground event, cars crossing bridges, other vessels on the river and barely heard voices suggest a rich, expansive riverscape.
Savouring events occuring in close proximity to the ear. Listening out into the distance. Picking up threads of sound to the left and right. Homing in on activity that previously went unnoticed on a first listen. There are many strategies required to fully appreciate a release like this. We are hearing fragments of stories.
Where are the ships bound for? Whose voices are they? What equipment is being used? A winch? A pump? We are invited to build narratives.
Never having seen the Danube, the imagination creates a picture of imposingly grand Eastern European buildings on sloping banks, huge barges moored against fragile looking jettys, bridges conveying people and goods over the water, and the river itself, vast and implacable. A glistening arterial route that passes through no less than four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea.
Never delving below the level of the water, Garai points his microphone towards it to produce an intimate portrait of the surface. Whether slooshing through pipes or gently lapping against the hulls of barges, the dynamic nature of this living river is what Barges and Flows centres around. It is a constant motif.
Far from being documentary recordings, the six tracks could be considered as songs. Each has a different rhythm and character. Despite being divided like this, Garai has opted not to give descriptive titles to the pieces. Again imagination must help us navigate.
Contrasted against the sparkling fluidity of the water is the very physical presence of heavy machinery, every movement of which creates a sound. Track two for example is a study in metallic ostinato. Notes like bowed iron ring out over the landscape, possibly the endless lament of a road bridge.
At other times there is seemingly no movement save these barges gently rolling at their moorings. The water as always responding and reflecting every shift in the crafts’ hulls with its subtle poetry. Against this quiet lyricism, on the final track, which seems concerned with rhythm and distance, three huge tympanic booms signal an ending. A closing volley. A coda.
One of the most difficult actions an artist can perform is to take no action at all. To exercise restraint. To leave things as they are rather than to alter and manipulate the song of the world. Akos Garai is a deep listener who wants us to hear what he hears, and to find within these songs the soul of his river.
- Chris Whitehead -
Review of Vertikale Skift at The Field Reporter on 17-01-2012
Terje Paulsen and Ákos Garai are both widely known artists whose work is formally very different: the sound of Terje Paulsen is more artificial while the sound of Ákos Garai is more natural and phonographic.
On the notes for the release it reads: “Tracks 1,4,5,7,8 recorded and composed by Terje Paulsen August 2010. Tracks 2,3,6,9 recorded and composed by Ákos Garai September-October 2009. This album edited, compiled and mastered by Ákos Garai October 2010″
From the notes (written by Christopher McFall) it’s unclear how involved each artist was on the other artist’s piece but when you listen the whole release together there is a formal unity that creates an ambiguous sonority where the artificial and the natural exposes the tension between reality and fiction. What is quite interesting here is how the listener experiences artificial / processed sounds and field recordings when juxtaposed.
The sounds used by Ákos Garai although captured, have this abstract nature that sometimes make them impossible to link to its causality: they drive the listener right to his reduced hearing where sound build this objects made with sound and nothing else.
In the other hand the sounds of Terje Paulsen although processed, present this environmental nature that the listener could easily link with “things” such as machines, wires and insects; the relation between the casual and reduced hearing becomes blurry while this sounds expose some tendency (at least on me) to give visual properties the sound object.
When the sounds of dropping water appear on Waterworks II (piece number two) the tension / balance between the artificial and the natural becomes quite strong, the listener now listens to familiar sounds placed in an unfamiliar context, sort of like water leaking on a spaceship: the poetical value of this image explores the strong poetical value of Ákos Garai and Terje Paulsen working together, combining their methods, processes and perceptions to build a sound universe of deep artistic transcendence.
“Vertikale Skift” is a great example of how sound and in particular the sound object can create this amazing link between fiction and reality, of how sounds from our daily life can become universal in both senses of the word: universal in regard to the astronomic universe, and universal in regard to the “universal” to something that is common to all.
When exposed to the sound object the process of imagine becomes the bonding element between the individual listener and the listened sounding universe; the capacity to reduce when exposed to sound is what establishes this universal sense of the universe; the listener is linked to the universe he is part of and the containing universe is linked to the listener through the sensible experience that is general and specific simultaneously. It’s the universe listening to itself through the listener and the listener listening to himself through the sounds around him, through the cosmos he is part of.
“Vertikale Skift” is a publication that not only rewards the listener with a meaningful experience but that also reveals pertinent and relevant questions and reflections in regard to the experience of listening in an artistic and phenomenological level.
- John McEnroe -
Interview with Ákos Garai at The Field Reporter on 13-01-2012
Ákos Garai is a sound artist who also runs the label 3LEAVES. His works “Barges and Flows” and “Vertikale Skift” (with Terje Paulsen) and the releases published by 3LEAVES during 2011 all were positively welcomed by the press and the listeners and were featured by many artists, curators and journalists among the most important works of the year. We invited him to answer a few questions about his work, his label and their line of work, that we hope serves our readers to have an insight to Ákos’ work and to his label 3LEAVES.
We would like to thank him for his words and in general for his supportive attitude with The Field Reporter through our first five months.
- Alan Smithee -
Do you have a particular memory about how you started to get intrigued by sound?
Yes. It started when I was a young child, long before I started to listen to any music from vinyl or cassettes. I think I had a kind of sensitivity to observe, in fact, to enjoy the sounds of the world were around me at that time. Of course, it was not a conscious thing but it was enough to capture my attention for hours. When I think back now, I still have something somewhere from these sound experiences (even in its degraded form) in my memory, and it is a good and interesting thing for me.
Is there a specific subject, issue or question or that you feel you are trying to articulate through your work with sound?
Yes, definitely. There is always a starting idea or premise of what I would like to achieve with my sound. But these are not narrow limits to me, because when I am working in the fields life often overrides these ideas which I never stand against. So it is also the case to find out more or something completely different. I could compare this a little to when you walk in an open meadow and the rain suddenly starts falling, you will adapt to this changed environment and you will go to do something differently than before the event. Of course, I do not think it would be possible to create something, anything with “no footprint”; however, I also try to subordinate and to skip myself and placed into the background. With field recording, this attitude is more than expected; when working with processed sound it is a little bit different where a different kind of creativity is required.
How important is the action of capturing sounds in your work nowadays?
Important to me out there – as far as possible. Practically, I like to care about every detail when I go to make recordings. I think the technical stuff and everything that entails. Field work is always interesting even if I return with an empty card or something useless.
What disciplines other than sound art and music (Ex. fine arts, science, political science-journalism, philosophy, literature, film, architecture-design,…) have had influence on your sound work and how?
In fact, it is hard to tell. Mainly I could specify time i.e. events I spend with active observation. I cannot emphasize or get rid of anything from it. Obviously, we record all that we can hear or see or above our senses. But film certainly is something that is very far from me. Not interested at all.
What lead you to start a label? How you articulate the label manager work with your process as an artist?
The motivation of starting 3LEAVES was a bit complex. Around years 2007-2008, I did not see a label other than the highly respected Gruenrekorder which, clearly committed itself to field recordings and operated as a traditional label and also represented high artistic value. It seemed to me, there is a little “white hole” between the labels to fill so I decided to begin to create a creative publishing forum for artist who are committed to nature & environment and works primarily as a recordist. On the other hand, I wrote a little history with my label because this is the first label which deals and releases phonography works in Hungary. But the greatest pleasure is that I can manage new recordings from all over the world and to transmit them to others through my releases. I really like to give something good to people, and I cannot imagine a better way than with music!
How would you measure the balance between intuition and knowledge in your work as a 3LEAVES curator?
Both are equally important to me. Something like the left and right.
What are your thoughts about the importance of the figure of the “label” and the physical release in a world that sometimes turns to more DIY and digital dynamics?
Perhaps because of my age, I think a label that releases in physical formats is still important. The good thing with vinyl and compact disc and its artwork not only that you can hand something lasting to your listeners, in addition, to listen to music on CDs, LPs is assuming a quiet environment paired with at least a good-quality stereo playback system in an acoustic space; plus a comfortable sofa or seat where is a good thing to lay down and listening to music. Perhaps all this is just an anachronistic romantic approach now… but it works; Many people including me do like to have a release on their shelf; others prefer a digital copy only – but that is alright. Yes, it is widely believed that everyone can be their own publisher today, since only two clicks – and you are done. Despite of this, I know a lot of artist who never would do so rather find a label that they appreciate and like to have a release on. Maybe this is a strange paradox: to have something invisible (music) on something visible (physical release) but I definitely believe in this.
How relevant and useful have been the reviews and press in general written on regard of 3LEAVES and its published releases?
It is always a pleasure to me to get to know someone’s impressions, opinions regarding any of 3LEAVES releases. Yes, it is important, relevant and can be useful too. It is a wonderful thing to imagine that someone is listening to your music, maybe on the other side of the world, and something happens to him or her which, then reacts back to the entire world. It is like dropping a small stone into the ocean and watching feedback circles created by. Wonderful.
Review of Barges & Flows at Textura on 11-06-2011
Garai’s unprocessed field recordings document sounds collected along the Danube River during the autumn of 2010 in Budapest, Hungary. His recording immediately corrects any thought that there might be little sonic activity in play during even the earliest hours of the day, as the air is filled with the rhythmic creak and groan of moored ships rocking against the docks and water splashing against the heaving vessels’ sides. The scrapes and groans of the ships at times seem almost violent as they convey the immense weight of the boats. Burbling water, garbled voices, and the hum and clatter of nearby traffic intermingle to form detailed sound paintings that bring the locale to life in aural form, and lest anyone doubt the musical dimension of such source material, the eight minutes of to-and-fro creaks heard during “U-10134-30” suggest nothing less than the primitive, high-pitched sawing of a novice cello player.
A comprehensive portrait of the geographical area emerges over the course of the recording’s forty-four minutes, with the six tracks documenting different settings along the river. Some areas appear congested with people, ships, and traffic noises, while others seem almost devoid of human activity altogether, the primary sound the rusty song of a single ship. As one listens to Barges & Flows, a clear contrast comes into focus (during the closing piece most directly in its pairing of bridge-related noises and splashing water) as the recording spotlights both the industrial sounds associated with human production and activity and the unadulterated nature sounds that exist in a realm unto themselves and do so regardless of whether humans are present or not.
- Ron Schepper -
Review of Barges & Flows at Tokafi on 10-05-2011
“Songs of the river: Stunning confluences of chance and patience.”
If, as Helmut Neidhardt of [multer] once suggested, the ocean is „the world’s biggest drone musician“, then perhaps rivers are the planet’s most inventive sound artists, moulding and bending water into a cornucopia of timbral variations and rhythmical patterns. To an artist like Ákos Garai, whose oeuvre inherently deals with the relationships and feedback processes between pure field recordings and carefully sculpted composition – his previous full-length Pilis, taped in a sacred mountainside in his native Hungary documented a mysterious inner journey through their spiritual intersection – the Danube must therefore by default constitute not just one of the world’s historical, ecological, economical and cultural jugulars, but a creative lifeline as well. Along its almost three thousand kilometers, it both connects and, as a natural border, separates ten countries, growing from the confluence of two tiny streams into a panoramic waterway and offering a plethora of sonic impressions ranging from the pastoral and intimate to the industrial. Garai wasn’t the only one to be impressed: In 2008, Australian composer Annea Lockwood released A Soundmap of the Danube and to this day, this triple-CD-set of acoustic impressions has remained the most extensive and in-depth portrait ever presented on the subject. And yet, Garai’s Barges & Flows is never indebted to Lockwood’s cross-breed between radio play and organic soundscape. Rather, it complements, comments on and occasionally counterpoints her perspective, further enriching an already colourful panopticum.
The main difference between the two approaches consists in their conceptual departure points. Lockwood, after all, regarded the Danube foremost as a cultural symbiosis between a natural resource and the people living along its shores. To her, this symbiosis expressed itself in the fine gradations of dialect and vocabulary of the manifold languages spoken on its trajectory from Germany to the Ukraine as well as the endless stories amassed through the centuries, from its days as an outer fortification of the Roman empire up until the 21st century. To Garai, on the other hand, the Danube is less a conjurer of stories, but a muse of song. His focal point is less on socio-political aspects, but pointed at the cohabitation between the river, as a biological habitat and natural reserve, and the ships and boats ploughing its waves. If there is a narrative to be sought here, it is to be found in the specialised constructions of these barges, gradually adapted to the Danube’s particular qualities, as well as at its harbour sites, where the conflict between man and machine, between ecology and economics is brought to an acme. And if there’s music in these conflicts, then its melodies are developed by heavy hulks of rusty steel, wind-torn riggings and the splashing of water along the ships’ bodies, fascinatingly transformative metrums determined by the slight irregularities and subtle variations in wind strength and ship speed. And so Garai took to „areas filled with people and ships on a daily basis“ and „others only visited occasionally or never at all“ to record this symphony of nautical folk as an homage and analysis – and perhaps as a personal document of the sonic landscape influencing his personality as well.
The field recordings gathered from these trips are anything but the kind of sweetly bubbling and gently gurgling water sounds one has come to expect of similar endeavours. Quite on the contrary, Barges & Flows lends a particular ear to the noisy and the scraping, to the wildly fluttering and flapping, to the sudden outbursts, the momentous momentary releases of energy as well as the seminal silences following in their wake. At the same time, there is a degree of clarity and a love for the microscopic character traits of each location, as though these were acoustic portraits of the barges captured on them. The sheer musicality of the result is astounding. On one occasion, Garai documents an eight-minute long monody of rusty harmonics, a shifting trail of intervals coalescing into an endless theme. On another, he listens breathlessly, as the waterplay against a backdrop of crackling micro-noise textures creates a quiet oasis. In the background, one can clearly hear the surrounding environmental noises, including the din of distant cars, conversations of passers-by, bird song as well as the ceaseless hum of civilisation – clearly, the songs of the barges don’t just submissively blend into the scenery, but urgently demand attention, both charming their audience with delicate arrangements and tearing at their nerves. But as one listens one’s way through the album, it is becoming increasingly clear that these sonic signals are actually not intrusive, but constitute an integral and grown part of the Danube’s organism – for better and worse, they belong together.
To drive his point home, Garai has gone for the moments when the confluence of chance and patience yields spinetinglingly stunning results. Already the first few seconds of the album, unfolding in front of the listener like the opening sequence of a movie, express its intent of communicating not just raw data but sonic events of poetic import: Water sounds slowly fade in, gradually enriched by dripping noises and the hiss of a close by motorway. Then human voices reach the ear and, finally, the heaving and sighing of the first barge – one has arrived at the heart of the narrative. The fifth episode, meanwhile, takes on the traits of a minutely constructed work of sound art, with rhythmical, chromatic and melodic impulses lovingly strewn across the canvas and a continuous ebb and flow of events creating a sense of what someone like Schoenberg might have called „developing variation“: The building of complex compositions from a tiny set of motives. On closing „U-10241-30 (2)“ (not much poetry in the highly functional track titles, admittedly), Garai hits his pinnacle: For eight and a half minutes, he catches what are presumably car wheels driving over a bridge made of metal rods, creating a grid of forever changing rhythmical patter. No drum machine in the world could have been programed with such a sequence and Garai carefully builds it into a spellbinding and hypnotic track. Towards the end, suddenly, tidal activity picks up, the carwheel-groove segueing with liquid splashings until, almost like a percussionist striking the timpani in a symphonic finale, three expressive thumps seem to suggest a natural conclusion.
Of course, Garai is never just a passive spectator here and it is his selection process which turns Barges & Flows into an immersive and cohesive experience. Still, his approach is neither academic nor particularly complicated: „I find a place and set up my recording equipment“, as he dryly explains in the liner notes. There is no hidden magic here: When you’re dealing with the world’s most inventive sound artist, all you have to do is record and listen.
- Tobias Fischer -
Review of Pilis at Tokafi on 10-12-2010
“Games of the mountain: One of the more mysterious albums of this year.”
As aesthetically pleasing and thought-provoking as field recordings may be, their public perception is prone to a popular fallacy: Even by minutely documenting your hikes into the countryside and backing them up with a truckload of photographs, sketches and journal-entries, you can never fully recreate the sensory experience. More disturbingly, many of the great musical moments mother nature has in store for us are only rarely susceptible to the minute preparations of a field recorder and have a rare talent of occurring at the very moment the microphone is pointed into the opposite direction – or in none at all. Perhaps it is rightly because his previous output has characterised him as a careful drone-builder with a knack for emotional and precise tone-placement rather than a field-purist, Akos Garai may have an inbuilt sensitivity for putting things right. Over a decade after switching from his former position as an axeman with various Grindcore-bands to his new calling as a Sound Artist, he has arrived at a surprisingly convincing solution to this dilemma – and managed to bridge the regularly quoted divide between field recordings and music while at it.
Indeed, everything about „Pilis“ breathes an air of discovery, spontaneity and immediacy. For an artist who has published a mere three solo-full-lengths in seven years’ time (this one included), even its production cycle is infused with an unusual sense of urgency, as though the album not only needed to be made, but also wanted to be published as closely to its compositional genesis as possible. And thus, Garai embarked on his trip in April of this year, finished processing, editing, arranging and post-producing the material as early as July and published it only two months later. It is a technique which one could confuse for a maniacal obsession or a carefree urge to take risks without looking back, but which, in reality, turns out to be the utter confidence of not vaguely believing or guessing but knowing that a particular work has turned out just the way you wanted it to. It should be fitting in this context that Garai chose to take care of every aspect of the release himself, providing images and contributing design as well as founding his own label, 3LEAVES, to remain in full control of every single aspect of the music.
What’s more, you don’t even have to listen to a single second of the album to realise it has turned out his most personal effort to date. When Garai talks of Pilis being a sacred place and of its wondrous mountains and natural habitat“ in the liner notes, he may merely be referring to facts. But when he dotes on the scenery’s “beauties of nature, the fresh forest air, and the presence of positive energies“, it is becoming increasingly clear that he has no intention whatsoever of hiding his uncompromising affection and unabashed sentiments for this place. More precisely, „Pilis“ has turned out a confession of love for an environment which looks, feels and sounds as remote from the lights of the big city as could possibly be. The 50-minute work follows the composer, as he gradually descends from the mountain’s highest peak down to its foot. As he’s walking down, he is passing through various scenes, small spaces filled with colourful variations of the same elements: Rocks, brushwood, grass, trees, stretches of forest, birds and insects. Most importantly, however, there is the ongoing presence of a clear-watered stream, which accompanies the wanderer all the way, like a good friend.
The image of the river is essential to „Pilis“ in several ways. For one, it is the lifeline of the mountains, replenishing its energies and rejuvenating its century-old face, withered and battered by the elements and the gradual force of erosion. Then again, it is a metaphor for the philosophical idea that nothing can ever really repeat itself: As Garai moves forward, he is, in a way, never walking along the shore of the same stream, but observing its continuous metamorphosis. And finally, it is a musical Leitmotif for the album as a whole, reassuringly underpinning these minimalist sonic scenarios. It is the sound of the stream that holds the loose events of the album together, provides them with context and texture, structures their flow and awards them meaning. Some might claim that this essentially simply means that there is an awful lot of water to be heard on this disc. But paying attention to its constantly changing surface, its minute variations and inner dynamics does pay off for anyone with an open ear.
If Garai had decided to simply present his trip without any kind of additions, he might have earned some applause in the scene and that would have been the end of it. Instead, he afterwards decided to complement his recordings with additional layers of electronic processing. These are never of the typical romantic Folk-type or ethereal Ambient-elements. Rather, they act as a conscious contrast with the organic sweetness of the environment: Rumbling, subsonic waves and glitchy micro-ticks, high-pitched, disturbing alarm-bell-like squeals, deep, hollow reverberations like a ghostly combination of chilling wind and the distant drone of airplanes. On the overall scale of the piece, these episodes are few and far between and never particularly long. Occasionally, one doesn’t even notice their presence until Garai has taken them all the way to the foreground and exposed their alien nature. And yet, their presence is of seminal importance. One feels like observing bewildering little spectacles, like stumbling upon whims of nature and the spirit of the mountain playing little games to entertain its visitors and itself alike.
One could of course ask what the purpose of these games might be. That, however, would be completely against the intention of the album. Even Garai himself, when looking back to his trip, could not say for sure, „why there and then, when I felt like it, I stopped, sat down and recorded the sounds of the stream and the environment“ – he just did. This is exactly what one experiences as a listener, too: An epic, encharming, quiet and yet sweeping journey through a magical landscape which takes on great plasticity. You never quite know what it all means, but once you’ve sat down to listen, it is next to impossible to press „stop“ before the music has gently ended on its own accord. It’s not just that „Pilis“ is aesthetically pleasing and occasionally thought-provoking. Its multiple layers of perception offer the rare chance of replacing the actual experience with a different, yet equally fresh, one. By refusing to ask questions and by following nothing but his instincts, Ákos Garai has resolved the inherent dilemma of field recordings – and created one of the more mysterious albums of this year.
- Tobias Fischer -
