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alm 63
christopher mcfall & asher
"an amber hollowed night"
13 january 2010

photography & artwork: delphine ancelle-b.

a multi-layered track created by two prolific and very talented us sound artists.
christopher mcfall first issued a bunch of netreleases on respected labels such as alg-a, conv, earlabs or test tube then physical releases on entr'acte, 1000füssler, mystery sea or sourdine (asher's label). he likes to collaborate with other sound artists too (with ben fleury steiner or more recently with luigi turra on mystery sea's sister-label unfathomless). he's known for his rich soundcsapes full of treated field recordings.
asher's output shares many labels with his partner (earlabs, conv, homophoni, mystery sea, and/oar...) and also produces multi-media dvd releases...

here's what christopher mcfall says about this track made with four hands:
"this release is entitled 'an amber hollowed night.'  the reason i proposed this title is that it accurately describes the feelings and environment that i was experiencing when I was assembling the tracks that comprised the final multi-track format. i was composing late at night in my studio and then taking the work that i had done for any particular evening and walking with it in the streets of kansas city to listen and access the results.  effectively, this collaboration came to fruition as a result of asher sending me piano fragments taken from a series of recordings entitled 'passages' that was recorded in vermont in 2007 and audio from an installation entitled 'materials for spaces'. i worked extensively with these tracks and combined them with a series of field recordings that i had compliled and recorded to treated tape. the source material for the field recordings were primarily from the train yards here in kansas city, whereby the digital field recording was eventually transfered to treated audio tape. the individual tracks were then manipulated more in the computer and multi-tracked together to form the final recorded track. these recordings were compiled and rendered into 'an amber hollowed night' in the fall and winter months between 2007 and 2008."

tracklisting :
1. an amber hollowed night

reviews :

Vital Weekly
What Drone Records does with 7"s, does Taalem with 3"CDR releases. Quite a success and getting more and more great names added to the series. People that we know otherwise from the real CD releases, which aren't afraid to put something out on a 3"CDR. [...]
The final new release is by Christopher McFall and Asher, both highly active with numerous releases in various formats (mp3, CDR, CD). They both have sound input, Asher gives his piano music and McFall field recordings from Kansas City. In the first stage the sounds were treated on tape and then later on the computer. Its probably exactly the kind of piece you would expect from them. Hissy, low in volume, but also highly beautiful. I don't think it adds that much to what you may already know from either of them, but as so often with things like this, that hardly matters. People like McFall and Asher have carved out a very specific sound of their own and work within that very well. A highly atmospheric piece of music. (FdW)

D-Side
Après la sélection 100% japonaise du bimestre dernier, Taâlem se tourne aujourd'hui vers les Etats-Unis dont sont originaires les trois artistes de cette série de sorties. [...]
Le prolifique Christopher McFall s'allie pour sa part à son compatriote d'Asher pour un titre à quatre mains autour des field recordings de Christopher McFall, enregistrés à Kansas City et composés essentiellement de sons de train, qui se marient à des fragments de piano retravaillés d'Asher. L'ensemble, d'une densité angoissante, se révèle comme une dérive dans une nuit noire, peuplée d'échos indistincts et de réminiscences du passé. [...]
Cela devient une habitude de l'écrire, mais une fois encore, cette nouvelle série de CD-Rs s'avère être une totale réussite, que tous les amateurs de musiques aventureuses se doivent de posséder dans leur discothèque. (Jean-François Micard)