Stanier Black-Five will be releasing two albums on Entr’acte this month (September 2013): Avast! and Body Waves, the latter a collaboration with Zeug Gezeugt. The release coincides with the Body Waves tour of Europe.
Stanier Black-Five
Avast!
Entr’acte CD (E158)
Avast! was created from field recordings made between 2009 and 2012 in Lyttelton, a volcanic harbour on the South Island of New Zealand. Sounds were captured at sites around the natural ampthitheatre of this extinct caldera: from abandoned wartime bunkers on the top of the crater rim to the port and its cacophony of cargo ships, tugs and workshops. The work is also haunted by the resonance of buildings such as the Timeball Station, which were destroyed when the town was at the epicentre of a major earthquake in 2011.
Stanier Black-Five & Zeug Gezeugt
Body Waves
Entr’acte CD (E157)
On 22 February 2011, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter Scale hit Christchurch, which combined with a series of massive aftershocks destroyed huge swathes of the New Zealand city. At its epicentre in the port of Lyttelton, sound artist Jo Burzynska (Stanier
Black-Five) grabbed a recording device as she ran from her home, leaving it running on her doorstep capturing the aftershocks that ricocheted though her house and the disaster unfolding on the street outside. This unique recording of the first hour after the earthquake, as well the sounds of seismic and related phenomena of the months that followed, became the main source for Body Waves. The album is a series of three collaborative live performances made around the world with electro-acoustic performer Zeug Gezeugt, who used feedback to tune Body Waves to the unique resonant frequencies of each acoustic space in which it was performed. In this vibroacoustic environment, the audience/listeners are immersed in music that goes beyond the auditory system to be felt in the body, akin to the experience of being in an earthquake.
Global Ear — Christchurch (The Wire, January 2013)
New Zealand TV report about Body Waves