'In the last hour'

60 minute performance composition for Huddersfield Town Hall
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival - 20th Nov 2005

Performed late sunday night in a blackout hall with the audience lying on cushions on the floor
immersed in an installation style set of 8 speakers in front of, behind, and above them.
Sound reacitve lights illuminated the wonderful gilded ceiling from time to time.
Everything fitted into place, with the audience and venue making it a magic night.

"We really were all left quite speechless!"
[audience review]




The project started as a sentence from the novel 'The Bridge' which I began reading years ago.
I got a few chapters in and read the following; 'Between the two, half submerged by each, the ruined city'.
I stopped reading novels at that moment as I loved the sentence so much and wanted to make a new piece of
work with each phrase becoming a track title & theme. 3 years on, after collecting appropriate sounds
from all sorts of countries and instruments, and then receiving the commission, 'In the last hour' emerged.




Released by the wonderful
::Room40:: label in Australia in a divine fold out card sleeve

  Track 1  In the last hour............................ >Short Extract in Real Audio<
  Track 2 
between the two.......................... >Short Extract in Real Audio<
  Track 3 
half submerged by each................ >Short Extract in Real Audio<
  Track 4 
the ruined city.............................. >Short Extract in Real Audio<

<<< Buy the CD here from the audiOh! Kiosk >>>

Catalogue Number RM419
Released September 2006
Running Time: you can easily guess

Press Release

Janek Schaefer first surfaced 10 years ago with his sound-activated tape recorder installation ‘Recorded Delivery’. He followed that with a range of award winning turntable and vinyl related projects including the random playing Skate LP, and the Tri-Phonic Turntable which he hand built to transform sound. In recent years, Schaefer’s work has expanded into areas revolving around composition, installation, and the exploration of site specific instrument and location recordings.

‘In The Last Hour’ is by his own confession, his favourite album, and the result of years developing his approach to installation concerts. A deeply moving and harmonious work inspired by a sentence from the Iain Banks novel ‘The Bridge’ [as revealed in the track titles]. It is easily Schaefer’s most accomplished solo album, and reveals his increasing interest in the combination of live instrumentation with his trademarked textured electronics and vinyl manipulations. This is not an improvised recording but a carefully constructed live composition that unfolds through four distinct phases. Floating melodies glide across tense textures, while exhilarating chord structures disperse into drifting fields of drone that inhabit many dark spaces. A mournful and uplifting celebration of freedom.

The piece was commissioned as a site-specific work for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2005, and was recorded in the local Town Hall with the audience lying down in the dark with the sound coming from above and all around. An immersive experience with sound sources including a Magnus mini chord organ, grand piano, bell, music box, clarinet, vinyl manipulations, town hall organ, and numerous location recordings all intricately stitched together.

This is a truly spellbinding hour that confirms Schaefer’s presence as one of
the most evocative sound artist composers. His finest hour.

 


my equipment on the concert hall floor

magnus chord organ, location recordings, piano, wind organ, music box, bell, clarinet, vinyl & town hall organ.
mini discs, loop pedals, mixer, editing software and sound reactive light.
8 speaker PA, live recording via room microphone and mixer output.

thanks to tom service and all those who helped me to create the work in huddersfield,
jack barker for clarinet source material in track 3, and the most wonderful audience.
dedicated to my new daughter, Scarlett, who was born a few weeks later.

(c) audiOh! Recordings

 


Pipes from the town hall organ


In the last hour




between the two





half submerged by each





the ruined city



Review of the Concert


I go running up the stairs inside the town hall to the auditorium. I've been here many times before, so I feel comfortable in the safe knowledge that I know what awaits me upstairs. I burst into the main room and instead of an usher asking me to take my seat, I'm asked to take a matt. It seems that tonight, is that little bit different to what I'm used to. Facing me is the town hall that I know, only there's no seats in it, everyone is laid down on their backs. Janek is not sat on the stage but instead sits cross legged on a little box in front of the stage. I'm so surprised, I forget to take a matt and end up using my coat and jumper instead.

Then the lights go out. The hall is lit only by the fire exit signs, the spotlights around the organ and a little torch Janek uses to see his instruments. As I lay there on my back, I suddenly noticed the cable stretched across the balcony above my head. The speakers for tonight's performance were suspended above us. I feel suitably chastened for presuming I was off to a typical gig.

Janek normally improvises but for this evening he had prepared a special piece. A huge, epic soundscape washed over us. As I lay there on my back, gazing up at the roof of this impressive building and adrift on the extraordinary waves of sound, it felt as far away from a conventional gig as possible. The music at times sounded akin to the analogue electronics of Cluster, at other times when he was using pre-recorded samples of the Town Hall's mighty organ, it sounded akin to Phillip Glass. The continuous music evolved through many phrases and kept me entranced throughout. Sometimes, a soft red light gently illuminated the ceiling, most of the time we were in the dark.

Then it ended. The lights came softly on and Janek stood up and thanked
everybody. People sat up blinking and bewildered but gave a huge applause.
Slowly, the crowd gathered around Janek to peer at his instruments and try
to work out what they'd been listening to, prompting Janek to say
"I see a lot of questioning faces but hear no questions".
We really were all left quite speechless!
".

review by Ned Netherwood



CD Reviews

The Wire featured CD of the month [Nov 2006]
>


Vital List [The Netherlands]
>

Probably it was noted before, but let's do it again: Janek Schaefer is a busy bee. Ever since he surfaced with his tri-phonic turntable, he expanded his work into the world of sound art, installations and more conceptual approaches to playing around with vinyl, CDs and such like. His latest album, 'In The Last Hour' is to his own saying, his favorite album, and was made after years of 'developing his approach to installation concerts'. I am not sure what an installation concert is, but in this case it was an entirely dark room, and sound coming from all around. Schaefer uses to that end a mini chord organ, grand piano, bell, music box, clarinet, vinyl manipulations, town hall organ, as well as field recordings of his own making. The work is not improvised but strictly composed. And it's a great recording! Starting out in a very dark and deep, drone like manner, this quickly evolves into a fine work of blending the organ and clarinet to a rich tapestry of sounds moving in and out, the careful crackling of old vinyl, people walking about, and a serene melody in the closing piece. Rich textured sound - a form of drone music in which something more happens than in some of the other works around in that area, and yes, one could say,
this is indeed his best work.


Boomkat [UK]
>

Divided into four parts, this piece was commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2005 as a site-specific work, performed and recorded in the local town hall. Schaefer himself cites this as his favourite solo album, and it certainly takes in the breadth of his recorded work over the course of its hour-long duration. All manner of instruments were used for the piece: piano, organ and clarinet as well as turntable-derived textures - key sonic components of virtually all Schaefer’s work. Schaefer’s vocabulary as a composer is as erratic as it is vast: the piece begins with sustained organ chords before shifting into what sounds like recording of cicadas, and then on ‘Between The Two’, introducing shivering vinyl string loops reminiscent of Philip Jeck at his most grandiose and romantic. An ideal entry into Janek Schaefer’s catalogue, In The Last Hour serves as a superb overview of one of the UK’s most compelling sound artists and composers.


Foxy Digitalis [USA]
>

To these ears, the greatest impact music has is when people come up with genius ideas for recording. Like Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting In A Room”, Steve Reich’s “Pendulum Music”, a John Cage recording or 40, and more recently William Basinski’s landmark “Disintegration Loops”.

Sound designer and former architect Janek Schaefer explored a similar genius idea some ten years ago. When asked to submit an installation to a Brian Eno exhibition he sent a package containing a voice activated tape recorder to the organisation, the recorder would record it’s own transit through the postal system automatically editing the 15 hour journey to a 72 minute recording, capturing only the most sonically interesting elements of the journey from the 28th to 29th March 1995. According to Brian Eno it’s an idea he wishes he thought of himself, calling it economical, witty and elegant.

For “In The Last Hour” elegance is key as well, it’s a consistent and respectfully used characteristic that runs throughout the album. The sounds here are put together with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker without losing the personal, intimate touch of the composer. It sometimes appraoches the sound decay style of Philip Jeck or Basinski’s “Disintegration Loops”. Schaefer not only respects sound, he understands it and it must have been an immense pleasure to see the man at work when he recorded this album as a part of a live performance in the Huddersfield Town Hall.

The four tracks on this album move from minimalistic and introvert to sustained orchestral with faint piano melodies hovering in mid-air, short interference of tape hiss and lush textures. Calming, even meditative and so very carefully constructed it sounds like what a cathedral made out of glass would look like. For Schaefer himself, “In the Last Hour” is his favourite work and without having heard every single recording he’s made I don’t hesitate for one split second to agree with him. Completely essential. - Joris Heemskerk 9/10



The Australian national newspaper
>


Chris Watson [Touch]
>
...beautiful keyboard harmonics in a wonderfully rich acoustic. Congratulations.


Musique Machine
>

In the last hour is organic come electronic shifting ambient soudworld with mystique concrete elements- inspired by Iain Banks novel The Bridge . Primary commissioned for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2005, recorded in the local Town Hall- with the audience lying down in the dark with the sound coming from above and all around.

Schaefer utilizes and meddles with all manner of sound to paint rich and often melodic canvas of living sound, included are: Magnus mini chord organ, grand piano, bell, music box, clarinet, vinyl manipulations, town hall organ, and numerous location recordings. The atmosphere seems to constantly evolving and changing slowly- from slow eruption of warm ambience drift into rhythmic location recordings, drifting into sweet piano pitter patter, to jazzy smoked licked atmospheres, to fields of restful drone craft. There seems so much detail and clarity of sound , one feels as if there on a audio adventure out in the plains of sound strange and oddly formed world. But this is never particular threaten or creepy this is lush skin warming territory , though it does dip into more melancholy air here and there. It all lasts coming on for an hour ,split into four tracks that real act as markers more than anything. This has to be experience all in one sitting with a clear and relaxed mind, that’s ready to drift off new and mystifying places.

This is the first of Janek Schaefer works I’ve heard, but it certainly wont be my last – he really seems to mix sound elements and musical mood in a way that’s very much his own. An endless rewarding and intricate sound world, you’ll want to relive again and again. All rather charmingly packed in a very red shelve with a great fold out land scape in the middle


Bagatellen
>

Even before I researched the background of this disc, my first impression was of a clear literary quality in both the music and its packaging. The sleeve interior depicts a landscape painting, its creator unidentified but the representation is Bierstadt-ian in Romantic grandeur, an ancient single-master facing a cliff-lined watery canyon. The four track titles, “In the Last Hour”, “Between the Two”, “Half Submerged by Each” and “The Ruined City”, also exuded a novelistic air. So I wasn’t very surprised to discover that their source was indeed a literary one, stemming from Iain Banks’ novel, “The Bridge”. The Schaefer piece was initially presented at the November 2005 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, in the Town Hall there, wherein the audience lied down in the center of the large space, in near darkness, surrounded by speakers, the handsome, gilded ceiling of the hall occasionally illuminated by flashes of light. (more detail can be found here)

Stripped of its proper environment and consolidated onto a CD, the work still retains a good bit of power. A couple of the pieces make substantial use of the hall’s organ, including languid respirations on the first track, eventually accompanied by far-off bird cries, possible gunshots and, at the very end, the sort of jostling sounds you might hear below deck in an old trawler. After the brief, misty “Between the Two”, things come to something of a boil, a bass clarinet line (sounding a bit out of early Reich), darts among the birds before the water sounds hinted at earlier flood the area. A range of dull bell tones and hissing washes appear, a mournful clarinet motif alongside, all evoking a passage through mysterious, dangerous climes. The sensation of uncertainly drifting upriver is quite haunting and effective here. The final track summons up an old (?), romantic orchestral track, vinyl pops galore, flickering out into a succession of noise slabs, before the organ returns, its lengthy tonal chords evoking a fog-enshrouded sea. The organ becomes positively majestic toward the end of the piece—cliffs looming up from the clouds lit by a single ray of light?--(You sink into this kind of thought process with this music….) though the avian life and lapping water have the final say.

It’s an interesting, often stunning and unusual set of music, another one I’m betting will allow various readings on subsequent listens. Worth a shot.


Gaz-Eta [Poland]
>

Over the last decade, it was difficult not to come across Janek Schaefer's work. His installations and grand productions were always strong enough to stand on their own merit, without any hype or unnecessary fanfare. It's a tricky thing for an artist to admit they have a favourite album. That's almost like a parent saying they have a favourite child. Thing is, Schaefer has admitted his latest work, "In The Last Hour" to be his favourite. Performed [and recorded] back in November 2005 at the Huddersfield Town Hall, Schaefer insisted his audience lie down on cushions on the floor. The sound emanated from a set of eight speakers in front, behind and above the audience, while lights illuminated the ceiling on and off throughout the performance. Schaefer used a variety of instruments - Magnus chord organ, various location recordings, piano, wind organ, music box, bells, clarinet, mini discs, loop pedals, mixer and various editing software. Hearing this mass of sounds, it's easy to imagine how the audience was given a fully relaxing audio trip. As quiet as it gets, with recognizable sounds still distinct enough. The sounds glide easily, oftentimes moving at a morose pace. Pacing is everything in Schaefer's music - from the intricate sound of the barrelling organ, the sounds of crickets, harsh rainfall, to the sounds of clicks and pops in a scratched up piece of vinyl. It's all in the minute sounds of the details where the beauty is found. Close your eyes. Turn off and become one with these sounds. I'm not one to be easily impressed by a piece of music but could it be that "In The Last Hour" has just become my favourite recording of this past year - Tom Sekowski


Gonzo Circus [Belgium]
>

Er lijkt geen maat te staan op de releasedrift van Janek Schaefer. Schaefer sprokkelde in een korte tijd een indrukwekkend curriculum vitae bij elkaar. Naast deze nieuwe soloplaat verschijnt er binnenkort op het Portugese Cronica een samenwerking met Stephan Mathieu. Op deze ‘In The Last Hour’ krijgen we een liveregistratie van een concert dat Schaefer in 2005 bracht op het vermaarde Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Naast zijn hoofdinstrument, een platenspeler, al dan niet aangepast tot de ‘triphonic’, een versie met drie armen, maakt Schaefer ook gebruik van een piano, een orgel en een fluit.‘In The Last Hour’ is geen conceptplaat of een aftasten van de grenzen. De vier stukken blinken uit door hun sobere aanpak en ingetogen karakter. Net die keuze zorgt ervoor dat ‘In The Last Hour’ één van de de meest toegankelijke plaat in de man zijn oeuvre is geworden. Schaefer laat hier alle overbodige ballast links liggen en zoomt in op essentie. De typische loops en de pure klank doen vaak denken aan het werk van Schaefer zijn leermeester en grote voorbeeld Philip Jeck. Vooral het slotnummer ‘The Ruined City’ behoort tot een toekomstige klassieker in het genre. Schaefer omschrijft ‘In The Last Hour’ als zijn beste werk ooit. Wie zijn wij om hem tegen te spreken? Peter Deschamps.


Textura [Canada]
>

Commissioned as a site-specific work for 2005's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Schaefer recorded In the Last Hour in the local Town Hall with the audience lying down in the dark with the speakers projecting the sound onto them from above. The four-part work—Schaefer himself deems it his favourite solo album—makes for a spectacular headphones experience with virtually every detail audible, from the wheezing chords of the opening piece's Magnus Chord organ to the fluttering strings scuttling into view during track two (the blurry flapping at its start is apparently his daughter's heartbeat). The hour-long piece exemplifies a subtle but constant metamorphosis as it merges delicately poised fields of sound—piano melodies, electronics, organ tones, vinyl passages—into a glacially evolving whole. Schaefer enriches the long-established turntable dimension of his approach with live instruments (grand piano, town hall organ, clarinet, music box) and site recordings, though the shortest piece, “Between The Two,” limits itself to a beautifully sculpted stream of shimmering vinyl atmospheres. There are bold musical gestures (the baritone saxes voicing Glass-like ostinati at the opening of “Half Submerged By Each”) and equally arresting soundscaping passages (the simmer and crackle of elegiac string passages in “The Ruined City”). By turns drone-like, ambient, collage-oriented, and ‘classical' (more by sonic association) in character, In the Last Hour is ultimately stylistically indeterminate yet all the more appealing for being so. There doesn't appear to be a specific theme (though the title and the occasionally funereal ambiance might suggest otherwise) but, in Schaefer's hands, the stately unfurling of sounds remains compelling enough all by itself.


Paristransatlantic [France]
>

Sound artist Janek Schaefer, writing on his ever entertaining website, describes In The Last Hour as his "finest hour". And he's probably right (though I'll admit I haven't heard everything he's done recently, and Chris Sharp's Wire review of his collaboration with Stephan Mathieu, Hidden Name, certainly whets the appetite): it's a beautifully crafted four-movement work for field recordings, piano, wind organ, music box, bell, clarinet, turntables, minidiscs, loop pedals, mixer, editing software and sound reactive light and organs (of the electric, wind and pipe variety) which was premiered at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2005 (there's a terrific photo of the audience lying on the floor on Schaefer's website). Each of the movements takes its title from Iain Banks's postmodernist science fiction novel The Bridge, but Schafer's work, though undeniably more romantic than it used to be (that's fatherhood for you.. but then again, once you've designed a turntable with three arms and released a disc that skates in all directions, what else is there to do?) is no mere programme music. It does, however, tap into a rich vein of English minimalist melancholy, its chiaroscuro bass clarinets and solemn church organs often recalling Gavin Bryars. There's even a touching quote from "Nimrod", from Elgar's Enigma Variations. The instrumental sounds are carefully mixed with Schaefer's impeccable field recordings and sprinkled with vinyl crackle to make a rich, moving and mature work. You might not hear it at the Last Night Of The Proms just yet, but who listens to the Last Night Of The Proms anyway?–DW


Loop
>

This is the latest work of English sound artist known by his tape and vinyl manipulations who has been developing in more than a decade.
"In The Last Hour" piece of music is in four parts, recorded live and commissioned for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. This work was composed in November of 2005 specifically for Huddersfield Town Hall. Schaefer plays the Magnus mini chord organ, local sound sources, grand piano, bell, music box, clarinet, vinyl manipulations and the town hall organ.
The audience was lying down in darkness while Schaefer’s soundscapes came out from eight speakers placed around the room. For sure this is a penetrating auditory and dreaming experience that invokes cinematic images from old classic films due to the circumspect organ sound.
This is a brilliant album that shows Schaefer’s creativity who unfolds his skills for editing and combining sonorous manipulations and noise.


All Music Guide
>

In the press release accompanying In the Last Hour, Janek Schaefer claims this is his favorite album, but this reviewer gets the impression that he has been saying that with each new release since Pulled Under. True, Schaefer has been refining his art for the last few years, regularly reaching new heights, but this reviewer is not quite willing to put this opus above Cold Storage...yet. However, In the Last Hour is a mighty fine record of ambient drones and puzzling sound art. Since Black Immure, Schaefer has been quieting down and uncluttering his sound. On this album, he sticks to a small selection of sound sources, most of them melodic in nature: piano, clarinet and chord organ, along with delicate location recordings and vinyl. Once his weapon of choice, the turntable is here relegated to the role of backdrop provider, occasionally weaving its way to the foreground in ways subtle enough to mistake it for something else -- don't expect tunrtablism wizardry, the man is not there anymore. What you get instead are peaceful landscapes with occasionally troubling quirks, slowly unfolding between your ears. The album consists of four pieces that are actually movements of a single site-specific composition that runs for 60 minutes flat. The chord organ is omnipresent in the first pieces, before being replaced by a town hall organ, truly majestic in comparison. This switch conveys a liturgical feel to the final piece, "The Ruined City," the album's highlight. The first half of "Half Submerged by Each" is also exquisite; however, the second half peters out. In the Last Hour invites and rewards an immersive listen. You cannot be in a hurry to appreciate it. And it definitely takes Schaefer one step further away from the electronica concrète stylings of his early albums. In fact, this is his most contemplative work to date.


comunicazioneinterna.it
>

Pianoforte, organo, clarinetto, music box, elementi elettronici e manipolazioni su vinili per un'installazione audio presentata nel 2005 al Contemporary Music Festival di Huddersfield, in Inghilterra, di fronte ad un pubblico circondato dalle varie fonti sonore ed immerso completamente nel dubbio così da entrare in simbiosi assoluta con la materia musicale. Un'esperienza documentata adesso dalla prolifica label australiana Room40, ormai una solida realtà nel panorama dell'elettronica d'avanguardia e della musica di ricerca.
La vibrante poeticità di "In the last hour" sprigiona note errabonde di piano, soffi psichedelici, borbottii di clarinetto, membrane spugnose, estatiche partiture per organo, luccichii impercettibili, silenzi amplificati. Spengete la luce e premete il tasto play.
Guido Gambacorta


Phosphor
>

Less can be more. Only a few sounds make up for the opening and title track of Janek Schaefer's latest album. But these few long drawn-out
sounds, slowly fading, to be re-born again, create a beautiful sad atmosphere.
The next piece entitled Between the two is just as refined and warm. The 20-minute long third composition is a journey through different
atmospheres. The concept changes each minute, also due to the use of different instruments. It's like travelling through a calm and beautiful
landscape, without any orientation.
This album ends with the longest and darkest piece entitled The ruined city. Again Janek Schaefer creates a diversified and filmic atmosphere.
Although composed for Magnus Chord organ, this sounds contemporary and sophisticated, ending another superb album by this interesting composer.


Surgery
>

Finding titles for its four tracks from a sentence in the novel The Bridge by Iain Banks, this hour long live performance by Schaefer is nothing short of stunning. Commissioned by and performed at U.K.’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November of 2005, the work was conceived for an eight speaker system in the majestic, domed Town Hall. Schaefer, who is primarily known for his forward-looking turntable work, here expands instrumentation to include chord organ, piano, clarinet, location recordings and the hall’s own native organ. Schaefer claims to have gather the source sounds over a period of three years in preparation for a piece to suit Banks’ line, “In the last hour, between the two, half submerged by each, the ruined city.” Opening with repeated slow organ swells and the sinister sounds of digging, the performance progress through a chart of sacred and profane devotions. The slow changes, from organ drone to hints of forest life to distant human noises all rising combing and receding are so gradually immersive that it borders on hypnotic. From within this altered listening state seemingly benign and moderate themes gain an unexpected emotional charge. Without a firm didactic hand Schaefer still guides the experience like a hushed sound tour of a slightly darkened and water-warped English hamlet. To hear it from recorded distance is breathtaking, to have been present for the performance was doubtlessly sublime.


Bagatellen
>

Even before I researched the background of this disc, my first impression was of a clear literary quality in both the music and its packaging. The sleeve interior depicts a landscape painting, its creator unidentified but the representation is Bierstadt-ian in Romantic grandeur, an ancient single-master facing a cliff-lined watery canyon. The four track titles, “In the Last Hour”, “Between the Two”, “Half Submerged by Each” and “The Ruined City”, also exuded a novelistic air. So I wasn’t very surprised to discover that their source was indeed a literary one, stemming from Iain Banks’ novel, “The Bridge”. The Schaefer piece was initially presented at the November 2005 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, in the Town Hall there, wherein the audience lied down in the center of the large space, in near darkness, surrounded by speakers, the handsome, gilded ceiling of the hall occasionally illuminated by flashes of light. (more detail can be found here)

Stripped of its proper environment and consolidated onto a CD, the work still retains a good bit of power. A couple of the pieces make substantial use of the hall’s organ, including languid respirations on the first track, eventually accompanied by far-off bird cries, possible gunshots and, at the very end, the sort of jostling sounds you might hear below deck in an old trawler. After the brief, misty “Between the Two”, things come to something of a boil, a bass clarinet line (sounding a bit out of early Reich), darts among the birds before the water sounds hinted at earlier flood the area. A range of dull bell tones and hissing washes appear, a mournful clarinet motif alongside, all evoking a passage through mysterious, dangerous climes. The sensation of uncertainly drifting upriver is quite haunting and effective here. The final track summons up an old (?), romantic orchestral track, vinyl pops galore, flickering out into a succession of noise slabs, before the organ returns, its lengthy tonal chords evoking a fog-enshrouded sea. The organ becomes positively majestic toward the end of the piece—cliffs looming up from the clouds lit by a single ray of light?--(You sink into this kind of thought process with this music….) though the avian life and lapping water have the final say.

It’s an interesting, often stunning and unusual set of music, another one I’m betting will allow various readings on subsequent listens. Worth a shot.