without owl's presence, somehow

archiving minidiscs, stumbling across these actions and situations, documented pleasures
working only with the recordings themselves, one piece of software and extracts from the contemporary dance collage when owl first spoke to me

this is simple
without the filters applied
believed or not
it represents a love that was there
it represents
a need for memories to be free
to be untranslated
re-translated as they are again through the creative act
that which was inside the realities and fictions woven

the source recordings have been left as they are & all digital artefacts and processing distortions are intentionally retained; a metaphor for the translation of narratives and memories

Jez riley French; field recordings, guitar, keyboards


review;
"Some readers of this blog might know Jez riley French as an expert in field recording and also as someone who produces specialist microphones. Others, particularly from the north of England, might know his sound work as well. Jez is also a photographer, and an art curator. He runs a record label and a magazine; he used to run the ‘seeds and bridges’ concert series in Hull, which sadly no longer exists. My experience has been that people are often aware of one or two aspects of Jez’s work, but perhaps not all of it. He certainly meets the definition of the modern, multi-talented and multi-disciplinary artist.

(ghost) owl is a sound art album released on Jez’s engraved glass label.

The music is drawn from found recordings in Jez’s archives. The recordings constitute memories, fragments of speech and activities. The page for the music notes that these ‘archive’ small parts of the relationship that has inspired the project in the first place, and that noise from processing and recording has remained as a part of the work, denoting the fragility of the situation and the memories themselves (a kind of wabi-sabi, I suppose).

Even without knowing any background, the quietness and gentleness of the music is intriguing. It feels like part field recording, part composition. There is a sense of observing, perhaps unnoticed, situations from the outside, but also this feeling is often disturbed by another compositional element reminding the listener of their voyeurism. This unobtrusive and introverted beauty is really striking, and this album offers an experience that I haven’t had from music for a while." (Lauren Redhead)

"On a week-long loop around the Vaché offices...French's field recordings are gorgeous artefacts- postcards of his ethereal journeys: (Editions Vaché)