Susanne Skog - Siberia / Sirens [Fylkingen Records - 2019]Siberia / Sirens is the latest work by the Swedish sound artist Susanne Skog. Her work in the field of sound art and composition has its roots in narrative art forms such as experimental radio, radio plays, and documentaries. Skog sound-works are created from her own field recordings from all around the world. She converts the sound material into new sonic forms- full of expression, friction, and correlations. On Siberia / Sirens the artist is presenting two new compositions that have emerged from this very interesting concept of sound creation.
The first track, "Siberia", is based on material from 205(!) hours of field recordings from a 9288 km train ride from Moscow to Vladivostok. The piece, about 25 minutes long, begins gently with ultra minimalistic ambient textures and booming static of background atmospheres. The different texture variants gradually and increases into an inescapable, almost hypnotic level. You are literally in this isolated bubble of the train compartment, shielded from the outside world, and looking for all the noises that seem to be deeply hidden in this piece. When you dive so deep into the piece that you begin to believe that this journey will never end, but in the end the sound structure does lose its intensity and slowly comes to a standstill ...
"Sirens", the second composition on this album, is based on field-recordings of sirens that were recorded in many locations around the world between 2013 to 2017 and includes field recordings from Tokyo, Naha / Okinawa, Hiroshima, New York, Athens, and Rotterdam. Like in the first piece "Siberia", the individual, edited recordings are merged into one continuous, dynamic structure. But there are also, adding layers that increases the intensity. The combined sirens merging into a haunting soundscape, a noise-blanket that covers everything around you and slowly turns into a fragile, icy cold ambient drone. The isolated ambient atmosphere paired with a slowly up-building and penetrating low-frequency impulse creates a certain kind of uncanny that makes this almost 20-minute composition a real dystopian sound story.
Siberia / Sirens was composed, edited and improved by Susanne Skog at VICC (Visby International Composers Center, Visby, Sweden) and in the Electronic Music Studio (EMS, Stockholm, Sweden) and was released on November 18, 2019, via the very interesting Swedish label Fylkingen Records....and I'd say if you enjoy sound-art/ dense field recording mapping check this out    Jan Warnke
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