In stock
CD
C. Spencer YEH
“1975”
“Intransitive Recordings is extra-proud to present 1975, the debut solo album of tightly-coiled, crackling electronic ambience by C. Spencer Yeh. While “debut” may seem a strange word to use to describe an album by a guy with such a deep discography, Yeh explains that 1975 is like nothing anyone has heard from him before. “One thing is I really wanted to focus on a certain feeling of stasis. So much of what else I do just kinda pushes and pushes forward. 1975 is more vertical than horizontal, even though one can’t escape the horizontal completely.” Taking a confident step away from his familiar work as an improvising violinist and vocalist, from the mythology of his rock/noise band Burning Star Core, and from his recent forays into pop music, the omnivorous Yeh here reveals himself to be a composer of unsettling electro-acoustic miniatures. Yeh approached his source material with a desire to be transparent, even literal, and to avoid straightforward narrative. The literal is there in the deceptively matter-of-fact track titles - “Drone”, “Voice”, “Shrinkwrap from Solo Saxophone CD”, “Two Guitars” - but knowing which sound source is buried beneath these tones does little to remove 1975’s sense of enveloping mystery. This is sensual abstract music with a light touch, a confident minimalism that only reveals its unsettling depth, sharp corners, and playful malevolence with repeat listens. For fans of Eliane Radigue, Hecker, Pita, or Kevin Drumm. Born in Taiwan, and now based in Brooklyn NY, C. Spencer Yeh is the one constant of the “band” Burning Star Core, whose other members have included Mike Shiflet and Trevor Tremaine & Robert Beatty of Hair Police. He has collaborated with a staggeringly diverse range of artists, including John Wiese, Tony Conrad, New Humans w/ Vito Aconcci, Aaron Dilloway, Okkyung Lee, Evan Parker, Yellow Swans, Greg Kelley, Paul Flaherty, Don Dietrich (of Borbetomagus), and Chris Corsano (to name just a few).”
4,00€
Out of stock
LP
C Spencer YEH
“RCA Mark II”
The RCA Mark II is a follow-up to Yeh’s recent vocal work and is focused solely on the non-musical operation of the famed RCA Mark II synthesizer. Built and installed in 1959 at Columbia University, it was the first programmable synthesizer and became the bedrock upon which the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was founded. The machine has not worked since 1997.
While visiting a friend at the university, Yeh discovered the synthesizer and began to make regular trips to work with it acoustically: flipping switches, rubbing surfaces, turning knobs, and plugging/unplugging cables. Using contact and room microphones, Yeh recorded these operations over the course of several sessions, and the recordings became the basis from which he composed this 12-track LP. The artist then further manipulated and processed the material through a series of live performances, which were recorded and edited to complete the album.
The finished tracks are jagged, sparse, and hypnotically rhythmic. In listening to the record, one does not so much hear the original synthesizer, but rather an artist dismantling the historical weight of the source through a composition of its transformation from a legendary machine to a one-ton hunk of scrap metal no longer operational. It is here perhaps that Yeh finds virtuosity and spectacle in the most basic acts of instrumentation, the movement and clank of mechanical parts.
The album was designed by Robert Beatty and includes liner notes by Andy Battaglia.
500 copies.
While visiting a friend at the university, Yeh discovered the synthesizer and began to make regular trips to work with it acoustically: flipping switches, rubbing surfaces, turning knobs, and plugging/unplugging cables. Using contact and room microphones, Yeh recorded these operations over the course of several sessions, and the recordings became the basis from which he composed this 12-track LP. The artist then further manipulated and processed the material through a series of live performances, which were recorded and edited to complete the album.
The finished tracks are jagged, sparse, and hypnotically rhythmic. In listening to the record, one does not so much hear the original synthesizer, but rather an artist dismantling the historical weight of the source through a composition of its transformation from a legendary machine to a one-ton hunk of scrap metal no longer operational. It is here perhaps that Yeh finds virtuosity and spectacle in the most basic acts of instrumentation, the movement and clank of mechanical parts.
The album was designed by Robert Beatty and includes liner notes by Andy Battaglia.
500 copies.
18,00€