Lobith

Saturday, 6 January 2007

Ed Veenstra collects records from painters, actors, ventriloquists and other artists. And animals. When the famous Re/Search book Incredibly Strange Music Vol. 1 came out, he said that “there is only one really Strange record mentioned in the whole book*; the rest is pretty mainstream.” From his standpoint (that is: with his record collection!), he is right.
I received a few cassettes with material from his incredible collection. Recordings of wooden records with grooves made of string and glue, people banging on metal
sculptures, a Chinese Kung Fu actor playing a drum solo, etcetera. Not the kind of records to play on parties, but I learned to love this so called art records. And there are many of them!
Most of all I like them when there is an esoteric idea behind the recording. Like the CD “Lobith”, made by Peter te Nuyl in 1999 (released by Traditio Sine Qua Non). Peter made a 68 minute double mono recording of the spot where the river Rhine crosses the German/Dutch border. Peter wrote in the liner notes: “The editing of recordings has become so easy with a computer, that the consideration not to do it seems to have ceased to exist. But when i listen to it, it creates always a certain nervousness. Would there be something like a Harmony and a Rhythm of Spheres? A continuum of slowly changing inaudible vibration. Every moment in time would have it’s own vibration, that functions as a carrier wave of all sound. Every time an audible sound is recorded, this inaudible carrier wave is also recorded. Editing/montage would then cause a cut in the continuum of Spherical Vibration, or an interference of two separate moments of the Spherical Vibration. Lobith, the first of four audio graphs, is also a study in the time aspects in audio”.
Here is an excerpt from the CD, about 13 minutes from the start.

_{( Ed meant the LP “*L’s GA for Gassed-Masked Politico, Helium Bomb and Two-Channel Tape*” by *Salvatore Martirano)}