'Double Exposure' Janek Schaefer 12 commissioned compositions
Crónica Electronica Portugal. Oct 30th 2011 [cat:062]
Track listing : Digital Double Album
Side 1
A1 'Spark rising over the lights of Scarlett Heights' [2:35][2011]
Composed for the site specific play 'The Mill - City of Dreams" presented in a deserted weaving mill in Bradford
A photo of Bradford city night-lights was laid over the score paper for a music box to produce the central theme
Accompanied by Mark Haydn Robinson [piano] and Martin Couzin [cello] More info here
A2 'Broadstairs Childrens Piano Trio' [4:56][2008]
A composition for the Croinica v/a compilation "Mus*****c"
A3 'Requiem for West Wittering' [8:00][2010]
A composition for the Panels sound symposium CD organised by Paul Devens, Holland. More info here
Side 2
B1 'City of Dreams' - theme tune [14:00][2011]
Composed as the entrance title music for the site specific 5* play 'The Mill - City of Dreams"
Presented in a deserted weaving mill in Bradford by Freedom Studios to sell out audiences
B2 'Coda for John Dankworth' [5:00][2009]
Composed for the ::Room40:: v/a compilation CD '10' for The Wire subscriber edition
Became the soundtrack of the installation version. More info here
B3 'Fields of the missed' [7:00][2009]
A composition for the ::Room40:: v/a compilation CD 'Fabrique'. More info here
Side 3
C1 'Unfolding Honey' [6:06][2010]
A compsotion for the ::Room40:: v/a compilation '10' digital download edition
Album edit of the installaion soundtrack for the exhibition 'Future Beauty - 30 Years of japanese fashion.
Held at the Barbican Gallery, winter 2010. More info here
C2 'Inner Space Memorial [for J.G.Ballard]' [20:57][2009]
Installation soundtrack that I produced as a tribute while reading his autobiography at the same time as him passing away.
More info here
Side 4
D1 'Asleep at the wheel...' in-car soundtrack 7 [featuring Richard Heinberg] [20:40][2010]
A key track from the Installation soundtrack for a ghost road of cars in a deserted supermarket.
Where is our culture heading. More info here
D2 'Crossed Wires' [5:22][2005]
Commissioned by Canadian Radio for the 8 part series 'The Wire' on the origins of music from electricity.
This track is a remix of samples from episode 7. More info here .
D3 'Tinkerbelles' [0:52][2011]
Interlude composiiton for 'The Mill - City of Dreams'
D4 'Exposure' [7:50][2008]
A composition for the Arctic Circle v/a CD compilation 'Explorers Club'. More info here
'Double Exposure' is a studio album, written over six years in Janek's career as a composer, sound artist, and musician [2005-2011].
Each of the twelve tracks is a response to an invitation to write a piece of music for a compilation CD or installation etc.
This then is the second time for them to have been exposed, but collected as a coherent series of album tracks.
The source sounds are produced using location recordings and manipulated vinyl, which are simply processed through a
collection of foot Loop/Reverb/Pitch/Eq pedals & mixing desk, and then assembled on screen.
Anamnesis refers to the ability of sound to trigger mental images in our minds eye. Each new series of images will be
specific to each of us - and they are all uniquely generated and framed by these evocative compositions.
Where there is a strong story or concept there are further links.
The album is a two and a half hour Audiofile Album availabe as a download.
With thanks to all who commissioned the pieces:
Special thanks to Catherine who has been such a supportive listener from the very beginning.
Reviews :
Boomkat [UK]
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Collecting six years' worth of commissioned pieces for installations, theatre and compilations, Double Exposure is Janek Schaefer at his best.
There's a generosity of spirit to Schaefer's work; he's a sound artist who chooses to communicate directly through melody and atmosphere,
rather than obsfuscate through conceptualisation, and that really comes across here: from the gentle, crackle-wreathed telling
of 'Broadstairs Childrens Piano Trio' to the droning high drama of 'Crossed Wires', via the magnificent 'Inner Space Memorial [for JG Ballard]'
and ''Requiem for West Wittering', which hang stately and water-logged in the air like GAS.
Peter Wullen [Belgium]
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Excellent new concept double album by Janek Schaefer on Crónica. His best to date.
12 commissioned pieces that range from dreamy to truly hairraising. 'Asleep at the weel...' is absolutely fabulous.
An installation consisting of ghost cars & in-car soundtracks. The 20 minute piece on the album documents the
dangers of overconsumption & overuse of natural resources from inside the biggest culprit of the last century: the rise & fall of the car.
It's like praying for survival inside an erupted vocano. It's really quite spellbinding.
One of my favourite albums of the year 2012.
Was ist Das [UK]
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Getting up for work before dawn is not really a pleasant experience but with this album as your in-ear companion, you can see things in a slightly different light. Schaefer was conjuring up dazzling minimalist other worlds when the current crop of experimental ambient producers were probably still listening to Blink 182 and failing to kiss girls. The experience is very much in evidence here, displayed a restrained but skilled confidence, clear vision and sparkling production.
This download compilation takes twelve pieces made of installations, compilations, soundtracks and other such projects. The format is crucial to the structure of the album as it would not fit on a single CD, would be too little for two CDs and would not fit on a double LP without diminished sound quality. This is a digital album full stop. The music collected here is a hearty feast of musical gems. There is the sparkling but slightly haunting piano of 'City of Dreams'. The vinyl hiss underpinning the sublime dreamscape of 'Coda For Dankworth' will haunt your memory as you lay on the edges of sleep. 'Inner Space Memorial (for J.G.Ballard)' is an epic work of celestial drone. There are the sobering ecological warnings of 'Asleep At The Wheel' taken from an installation Schaefer created in a car in a disused supermarket. 'Crossed Wires' has a surprisingly dark horror film vibe to it and then explodes into a domineering, fluttering heavy drone but keeps suddenly cutting out to other things. It comes as quite a shake-up but that's Schaefer for you, ever the unpredictable.
Long may he reign that way.
D-Side Web [France]
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Artiste versatile, le Britannique Janek Schaefer évolue en permanence sur la ligne entre la création musicale et le monde de l'art, son oeuvre pouvant tout autant être destinée à une publication « traditionnelle », qu'à accompagner une installation in-situ. Dans ces contextes très variés, Schaefer n'hésite en outre pas à s'adapter aux circonstances et au contexte pour créer une oeuvre polychrome, au sein de laquelle les manipulations de vinyle et les fields recordings se taillent souvent la part du lion. Présenté comme un double vinyle organisé en quatre faces distinctes, alors qu'il n'est disponible que sous la forme d'un téléchargement, Double Exposure prend un malin plaisir à brouiller les pistes, à se jouer du statut même de l'objet, physique ou sonore, puisque nombre de ces titres ont eux-mêmes été composés au départ dans un contexte purement virtuel, et de la reconnaissance, ou non, d'éléments déjà croisés par ailleurs. Car comme toute compilation, Double Exposure propose en grande partie des titres composés pour d'autres supports au cours des six dernières années, comme un « Broadstairs Children Piano Trio » tiré de la compilation digitale Mus*****c, où une boucle trouvée et fortement dégradée évoque une mémoire faillible, un « Unfolding Honey » mélancolique et lumineux offert initialement sur la compilation anniversaire 10 qui célébrait les dix ans du label Room40 ou le très chargé « Exposure » composé pour le site Arctic Circle. Mais à côté de ces titres, que les fans de Schaefer connaissent sans doute déjà, se cachent ici d'autres merveilles introuvables jusque ici, comme le requiem pour J.G Ballard, « Inner Space Memorial » écrit pour une installation à l'occasion de la mort de l'auteur anglais, un « City of Dreams – Theme Tune » joué dans un moulin désaffecté de Bradford ou un titre composé pour une installation dans laquelle des voitures servaient de système de diffusion dans un supermarché désert et consacré à la problématique du pic pétrolier à travers un spoken word de l'auteur et militant Richard Heinberg. Autant de concepts qui viennent ici nourrir les paysages sonores denses et mélancoliques de Schaefer, où des nappes érodées, des fragments de mélodie et des détails magnifiés (le craquement des platines, le souffle de la poussière), forment des surfaces hypnotiques et comme réchappées du monde. Une « double exposition » qui incite à bien plus, à chercher, dans la jungle des liens internet donnés en accompagnement tout le contexte, visuel et sonore des oeuvres présentées et réunies ici. [Jean-François Micard]
Hi-fly [Denmark]
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The new album from Schaefer, 'Double Exposure', is a studio album, which was conceived over a six year period between 2005-2011.
The common denominator of the twelve tracks was that of the creative process of writing a piece of music for a compilation CD, installation or similar, which ties the entire album together. The music is a glorius sonic pastiche of different methods and expressions, ranging from piano dominated pieces within the modern classical realm, to field recordings over space generated outbursts and the glitchy Curator's Wet Dream srunches evident on the breathtaking album highlight 'Inner Space Memorial [for J.G.Ballard]'
Blissful, listenable and captivating music for the new generation. [Klaus Boss]
Hi-fly [Denmark]
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Auf Double Exposure (Crónica 062-2011, audiofile) sind 12 Kompositionen von JANEK SCHAEFER versammelt, die bisher auf den Kompilationen 'Mus*****c' (Crónica), 'Fabrique' (Room40), '10' (Room40/Wire Magazine) und 'Panels. An Inquiry Into The Spatial, The Sonic And The Public' (NAIM/Bureau Europa) verstreut oder nur live in einer raumspezifischen Aufführung oder im Radio zu hören gewesen waren. Einen Schwerpunkt bilden die drei Ausschnitte seiner Musik für 'The Mill - City of Dreams', wo bei 'Spark Rising Over the Lights of Scarlett Heights' sehr stimmungsvoll der Wind über Toypiano und Cello streicht und beim 'Theme Tune' kleine Pianowellen melancholisch arpeggieren. Ähnlich rührend ist 'Broadstairs Childrens Piano Trio' mit ebenfalls überknisterten kleinen Pianoloops. Es wird in der melancholischen Stimmung aber fast noch übertroffen von 'Requiem for West Wittering', mit Strandgeräuschen und einem an- und abschwellenden Molldrone, wiederum vinylüberrauscht, als wär's Regen. Schaefer macht die allertraurigste Musik, in der letztlich selbst Nostalgie noch in Tristesse untergeht. 'Coda for John Dankworth' war schon 2009 sein zu Basspizzicato und verrauschtem Swingnachhall gesummter Nachruf auf den 2010 verstorbenen Komponisten der Titelmelodie von 'Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone'. 'Fields of the Missed' ist danach ein Ausflug ins Horrorgenre, zu Hitchcocks Vögeln, unter schwärmende Killerbienen, während ein Sturm Glockengeläut verweht. Den dystopischen Akzent verstärken noch der Noir-Soundtrack 'Unfolding Honey' mit klacken–den Stöckelschuhen im Regen, das große Orgelbrausen 'Inner Space Memorial [for J.G. Ballard]' als Schaefers Tribute an den 2009 verstorbenen Meister des Futurum II, und der mit 21 Min. ebenso lange 'Asleep at the Wheel... in-car soundtrack 7'. Mit dem nimmt er eine zombieeske Zukunft der Consumer Society vorweg, in der Geisterautos zu Super–märkten rauschen, während Richard Heinberg, Autor von The Party 's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies und The End of Growth, tauben Ohren predigt. Schaefer ist Minimalist im maximalen Sinne, seine Musik ein mnemotechnischer Zauber, der die Furie des Verschwindens ebenso beschwört wie die drohenden Ruinen der nahen Zukunft. [BA 72 rbd]