About
by Richard di Santo
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Not a compilation but collaborative works generated by Goem, at their
hotel room while at Mutek 2001, 11 microsound unreleased tracks.
“All of the tracks on this release were recorded adjacent to the
2001 edition of MUTEK, a five-day festival of music, sound and new
technologies in Montréal. It was on this occasion where I met with Goem
members Frans de Waard, Roel Meelkop and Peter Duimelinks. When we
weren’t in the concert halls we took our time to explore the
restaurants along Saint-Laurent, among which we sampled some of the best Thai
food many of us had ever tasted (I seem to remember Taylor Deupree raving
about the papaya soup). On Sunday, with I8U as our guide, we took a short
drive to see a sound installation by Carsten Nicolai at the Silo #5, only to
be thwarted by barricades and the unstoppable rain. Sitting in the van along
with Martin and Drew of Matmos, Richard Chartier, Taylor Deupree and Mitchell
Akiyama (it was a large van), disappointed but not discouraged, we initiated
our own impromptu performance by jamming to the sounds of the windshield
wipers, each of us adding a different sound by whatever means within reach.
And finally, between the food, the concerts, the walks and road trips, we
would often find our way back to Goem’s hotel room, where they invited
us to create original mixes of their sound material. They set up their mobile
studio on a small table by the window. The room overlooked a parking lot and
the side of a building fraught with discoloration and graffiti, the colours
of which seemed to grow more salient when wet with the spring rain. The setup
was deceptively simple, and yet there existed a near infinity of
possibilities with any given mix. While each track carries something of
Goem’s sound aesthetic - exploiting the subtle tensions fabricated
between minimal pulses and short loops - it’s also clear that each one
carries the particular mark of its creator. Further, and more to the point,
each track has managed to capture a small part of the creative spirit which
marked our time together in Montréal, a spirit now celebrated and documented
in this release.”
Richard di Santo
[xi-01]
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