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The 12k Promo Sampler is a cd that features one track from the 10 most recent 12k releases (from 12k1046 back). We are giving this cd away in December 2007 and January 2008 and selling it at a low cost afterwards. It’s a great way to introduce a new listener to the sounds of 12k or for our experienced listeners to catch a tune from a release they’ve perhaps missed.

As Alain De Botton suggests in his book ‘The Art Of Travel’, the act of transit between social, cultural and geographic circumstance is far more than mere bodily movement. Language, architecture, food, gesture, landscape and sound all play a part in travel and ultimately contribute to the sensations of excitement, exoticism, disorientation and even fear that occupy the daily life of the traveller.

At points of departure and arrival on these journeys increasingly lies an airport. Like business hotels across the globe, the airport acts as a uniform presence – rotating gates, the clunk of baggage, the vague chatter of tourist and traveller alike and the occasional interruption of muffled announcements. Vast halls echoing with the shifting of bodies intent on exodus and return.

As Socrates wrote, ‘Man must rise above the Earth – to the top of the atmosphere and beyond – for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives [sic]’. Indeed, as the choreography of pre-flight checks is conducted following the gentle rock of the plane leaving the air bridge to a soundtrack of gentle pressurised drone and air conditioned hiss, a meditation commences. This moment of consideration is heightened, as the reflected sound of the engines scorching the tarmac surface is vacuumed into the void of open air and as the plane leaves the earth there is (in every traveller no matter how still experienced) a sense of silent awe at the marvels of the physics of flight.

Airport Symphony, commissioned by the Queensland Music Festival and Brisbane Airport Corporation, documents and synthesises the experiences of travel.

Each piece represents a personal meditation on aspects of travel in the modern age and suggests ways in which we control, augment and ultimately exists in a time where almost no part of the face of the planet is inaccessible. Each of the pieces features a source recording made in and around Brisbane Airport between March and June 2007 –in a raw form or transformed by processing.

Audio diary entries cataloguing the epic possibilities of flight, aero-passage and human bodies in motion and even at rest. Lawrence English, June 2007

All field recordings by Lawrence English

The collaborative efforts of Athens native Savvas Ysatis and New Yorker Taylor Deupree were well known in the early and mid 1990s through their work as SETI, Futique, and Arc, as well as their soundtrack to Japanese architect Toyo Ito’s famed Tower of Winds building in Yokohama, Japan. After going their separate ways – Ysatis to recording for Tresor in Berlin, and Deupree to founding the 12k label – they have united again for their first project in nearly 10 years.

Almost all of Ysatis and Deupree’s projects were founded not only on conceptual ideas, but on technical processes as well, setting rules and restrictions on themselves to help focus their creative energies in the endless playground of the studio. Whether it was the complex sound design of SETI or the cassette-tape-sourced sample manipulation of Tower of Winds, Ysatis and Deupree continually reinvented themselves, moving from ambient, to lounge, to minimal techno.

Their new EP, The Sleeping Morning, was created during a week-long visit from Greece to the US. Ysatis and Deupree wanted to freely create and see what came naturally after a 10-year hiatus from working together in the studio. However, their session quickly turned into an album guided by a select set of instruments and methods which led to their most unique work to date. The music flowed naturally, and the 10 years disappeared into a day.

All of the instrumentation; acoustic guitar, autoharp, various bits of percussion, and analog synthesizers, were performed directly to multi-track with very little editing (they preferred to re-take rather than edit). The duo recorded much of the sound with with microphones to capture roomtone which created a warm, organic and often playful mood. Loose drums, the squeak of a monosynth and lush pads from the Jupiter-8 make The Sleeping Morning appear at first as an experiment in micro-folk but when vocal tracks are added a whole new world of song-structure and post-something is created.

The four tracks they recorded hint at a variety of new avenues that Ysatis and Deupree can explore. Their extensive music careers and long history of collaboration and friendship have given them experience rich with insight and experimentation – and with the low price of airfare and the affordability of decent grappa, there will certainly be a chance to continue what they began 14 years ago.

Listening Garden was developed as a sonic alteration of two quiet indoor/outdoor tea spaces installed at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media in Yamaguchi, Japan in June of 2004. The audio installation was designed to heighten visitor’s senses and alter the sonic space as they sat, read, or had quiet conversation amongst the trees. Taylor Deupree and Christopher Willits composed a number of short, randomly sequenced multi-channel soundworks using guitar and electronics. The fragments of sounds, while both gentle and subtly rich, are intentionally weathered, eroded and understated, generating a sonic bridge between the digital world of sound and the audiosphere of nature.

The audio on this CD is built from location recordings taken in the garden over the course of a week during the exhibit. The environmental and incidental sounds played a large part of the physical work and are captured and utilized in the recording. Listening Garden is meant to enhance the experience of simply sitting and enjoying one’s place in time. This CD is best heard in a similar situation and at a low background level. Headphones are not recommended.

With ‘Landing’ American sound artist Taylor Deupree offers another vision of subtle shifting audio. A progression from the full-length Northern (12K), Landing matches acoustic instruments across broad washes of warm sonic texture and floating spatial movement. Removed from the falling sheets of silent snow swelling outside his home, Deupree’s Landing creates a generous and temperate sonic environment – both reflective and measured. An audio escape from chillier climes.