Isolation Journal, by John Oliver and Stefan Östersjö

Isolation Journal

by John Oliver and Stefan Östersjö

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1.	The Listening Wind 02:22	info	buy track
2.	Mountain Spirits 01:46	info	buy track
3.	Pathways 08:14	info	buy track
4.	Disturbances 05:17	info	buy track
5.	Aerial 04:17	info	buy track
6.	Portal Through Đàn Đáy 03:08	info	buy track
7.	Stefan Östersjö - Mountain Memory 03:35	info	buy track
8.	Echoes From Silence 04:16	info	buy track
9.	Stefan Östersjö - Earth Spring 04:17	info	buy track
10.	Forest Floor Perspective 04:21	info	buy track
11.	Resonating a Flock of Lutes 05:31	info	buy track
12.	Stefan Östersjö - Village Dance 04:37	info	buy track
13.	Village Windows 07:55	info	buy track

about

Isolation Journal is a series of reflections on solitude, and the relation between human and environment, enacted through layers of electronic music and ecological sound art. Swedish musician, improvisor and sound ecologist Stefan Östersjö captured the soundscape on a mountain above the village of Ngang Nội, Vietnam, together with acoustic recordings of his aeolian lute playing. As a response to the lockdown, Stefan Östersjö shared these files with John Oliver, who has drawn track after track out of these source recordings, as journal entries in the time of the pandemic.

Watch the youtube video introduction that we made at John Oliver's YouTube channel.

In September 2013 I visited the village of Ngang Nội in Bắc Ninh, an area north of Hanoi. I came there to work on an ecological sound art project with Matthew Sansom and the Vietnamese dan tranh player Nguyễn Thanh Thủy. The village, characterized by the large ponds next to the rice fields, is surrounded by mountains on all sides. When scouting the area in spring the same year, we found that the mountains were full of pathways. Most of them lead to little burial sites. When we talked to people in the village we learnt that the reason for this is that the area is regularly flooded. The mountains are a safe haven for the ancestors, but also hold the tracks that little children follow on their way to school. I was fascinated by the pathways, and we decided to situate one project on the nearest mountain top. I had brought a đàn đáy, a long-necked Vietnamese lute, and stringed it with extended strings that stretched through the bridge, several meters away around trees further down the slope. This allowed me to play aeolian lute, with harmonics excited by the wind. By alternating the string tension, I can control the pitch of the resulting dense clusters of high harmonics. I returned to the mountain every morning for several days. My recording setup gave me a very detailed representation of the interaction between the wind and my instrument, and of any action I would perform. At the same time my attention was shifting between the background noise of the place and my self-imposed isolation up on the mountain. Certainly, I was isolated but not alone. From all sides, the noise from the surrounding villages was a constant, but distant, presence.

Stefan Östersjö

On hearing Stefan's recordings from a mountain above the village of Ngang Nội, I was struck by the voyage of the ear between the sonic immersion in the wind and the đàn đáy, and the distant buzz of community. Stefan's choice of restrained musical material drew my attention to the colours he was getting from the instrument, the strings, the metal bar (slide). Stefan's delicate and intense noises, and few musical intervals, drew my ear back and forth between his playing and the background sounds of car horns, dogs, birds, the rooster. All sounds became music. I was also reminded of a summer in Guatemala in the high mountain village of Huehuetenango, where a similar soundscape occurred daily. Where there are no highways, but only villages connected by small roads, there is a balance between the sounds of nature and the village activity.

Stefan and I decided to create this album to celebrate the exploration that comes from deep listening. My role, isolated in my basement during the COVID-19 pandemic, was to find more echoes in his recordings, adding to those that already exist there between his playing and the surrounding villages. I transformed Stefan's recordings, creating new sound-worlds: sonic magic realism.

John Oliver

credits

released July 3, 2020

Stefan Östersjö: đàn đáy performance and recording on all tracks; composer on tracks "Mountain Spirits," "Mountain Memory," "Earth Spring," and "Village Dance."

John Oliver: sample library creation, composition and performance on all tracks, except "Mountain Memory," "Earth Spring," and "Village Dance."
Editing, mixing, mastering: John Oliver

Cover design: Seiya Oliver
www.seiyaoliver.com

Booklet design: John Oliver

Cover photo: Stefan Östersjö

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©℗ 2020 John Oliver (SOCAN). All rights reserved.
©℗ 2020 Stefan Östersjö (STIM). All rights reserved.

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about

John Oliver Vancouver, British Columbia

electronic and soundscape music projects, ranging from classic musique concrète, to granular synthesis, and dark ambient. My instrumental and vocal music appears on several other labels and compilations. See my web site for details.

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