steve roden
schindler house , 2001


schindler house

label: new plastic music / mak center for art & architecture
printed folder with 3 color postcards and cd in printed sleeve.
edition: 1000

1. garden (man trembles facing the universe) 12:21
2. a quiet flexible background for a harmonious life 17:30
3. pathway (it was a lovely sight against the sky) + 4' 33" 36:30

this cd documents a series of 3 sound installations originally presented at the schindler house / MAK center for art and architecture los angeles in 2001. garden was placed near the back of the lot facing the house in a bamboo grove via 8 small speakers. a quiet flexible background for a harmonious life was placed in a small hallway of the house on headphones. pathway was placed along the front path to the house on 4 larger speakers. the outdoor works were set to relatively low volume levels for listeners to discover. the indoor work was set on headphones so that it would not disturb the natural sound space of the house. i spent an evening in the house making field recordings which i used as the main sources for the compositions. i also used my own voice, flowerpots from richard neutra's studio, and bamboo field recordings from japan and france.

click here to see the entire text from the booklet as well as documentation of the installations at the mak.

reviews:

Steve Roden is a busy man, who has many new releases. From the various new ones I heard recentely I was especially attracted by this one. It deals with recordings made at the Mak Center Schindler House in Los Angeles, of course built by the architect R.M. Schindler. Again, as with film, I have no idea what the architect Schindler was about, but his house was from the 1920s to the 1950s a magnet for avant-garde activities. One of the people who stayed there was John Cage. I note this, because the CD ends with a 'dry' recording of the environment of the house, Roden's own interpretation of '4:33', Cage's known silent piece. The other three pieces (although '4:33' is hidden inside the third piece) are the sounds of an installation held at the house and uses sounds from the house and the garden (bamboo, fireplace, springs, flowerpots, voice, window panes, airplane and wooden beam). These sounds are sampled, looped and presented in long ambientesque pieces. Superficially there is not much change going on, certainly if one is following Rodens instruction to play this at a quiet volume, but played at a volume were one is able to follow all that's going, one is also able to hear the smaller detail and the subtle changes. Music like this is an environment by itself. The CD comes with a folder describing the whole project, plus per piece a postcard describing each track and how it was recorded and which ideas lie behind it. Even without being a witness to the installation, one gets a beautiful documentation.
(FdW) vital, 11/2001

...At this stage, the Schindler House (the sound of architecture/the architecture of sound) release is probably as close as I will get. R M Schindler was a modernist architect, possibly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright looking at some images here. Steve Roden participated in an exhibition at the house, and spent an evening in the house, recording sounds. the cover has an excellent essay which Roden expands on some of his processes and influences, and there is a card for each track explaining the site and including photos. You can almost imagine yourself there. Tracks get successively longer. It opens with garden. ("man trembles facing the universe") which is 12 minutes of bamboo (from the garden, France and Japan) layered as tapping hollow gong-like ringing and a susurrus building to an orchestra, tapputting along, a high ringing sliding in the second half. A quiet, flexible background for a harmonious life (titles are quotes from a manifesto) is focussed on Roden singing this line through a ring modulator, creating a rapid pulsing tone (he compares it to an insect) that creates a melodic heart: surrounded by drones a metal tapping that emerges throughout and a general ambience. Finally, pathway. ("it was a lovely sight against the sky") is a wondrous 30 minutes of scrapey rumblings creating a drawn out music with small tapping punctuations pings of metal, ebbing and flowing like water. Then as a sensitive coda, a performance of Cage's 4'33" in the house allowing the building to express its own ambience. Both these recordings continue Roden's subtle and sensitive exploration of sound sources. While he draws out of these most unusual instruments a sound which is recognisable, the delicacy and delight of each of his releases entrances you anew. It is impossible to suggest a preference - Schindler has more obvious variety, while Forms constricted dynamic impresses differently. Both can be listened to or with and add a fascinating texture to an environment.
jeremy keens, ampersand etcetera

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