Hope, Trace, Zero

I recently re-discovered and have been re-listening to these three CDs over the past couple of days. Hope (1998), Trace (1999) and Zero (2000) were limited edition collections of one-minute, or two-minute in the case of the double CD Trace, soundworks. Contributors were invited to create an original recording of specified duration for each thematic CD. They were published by Audio Research Editions, which was founded by Colin Fallows in 1998 as a limited edition imprint for artists' soundworks.

The Audio Research Editions website tells us that:

“Audio Research Editions CDs contain soundworks by a broad range of international sound artists, experimental composers, noise makers and other audio creators. Using the limited edition print as a formal model, the imprint has to date published over two hundred works by artists from over twenty countries. Audio Research Editions treats the compact disc as an art space with each edition containing a themed audio exhibition that can be experienced in either linear or random modes.”

The CDs included contributions by ARPARP, Joe Banks, Warren Burt, Martin e Greil, The Groceries, Reed Ghazala, id battery, in between noise, The Land Of Nod, Longstone, The Mindwinder, Yoko Ono, Henry Priestman, Project Dark, Lee Ranaldo, Keith Rowe, scanner, Semiconductor, Will Sergeant, Janek Schaefer and Skyray among many others, including me.

The artists range from the well-known, the obscure and the unknown; the shortness, diversity and number of the tracks (68 on Hope, 70 on the two disc Trace, 46 on Zero) and their alphabetical-by-artist-name order, lends an arbitrary egalitarianism to the project which is further enhanced by taking the advice of the suggestion in the sleeve notes that they are ideally listened to in random mode: this is a project made for the shuffle play age. The CDs can be heard in their entirety as Real Media files (unfortunately only in unshuffleable linear order) at the Audio Research Editions website.

Here are my contributions to the three CDs:

Hope Under the Weather (1 minute, 1998, 1.5Mb, mp3) from the Hope CD, is a compacted remix of the soundtrack to my super 8 film Microphone (1994, 24 min). The film centred around the elliptical theme of a shadowy individual who lived in a small back room facing onto Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne recording the weather and making arcane calculations based on the International Dateline. This shadowy individual was of course me and I appear briefly in the film with a shaved head wearing a green dress and ruby lipstick.

Brittle Creek Stalker Track (2 minutes, 1999, 2.9Mb, mp3) from the Trace CD, original sleeve notes: “Original tapes recorded on the foot along Brittle Creek Track, digitally parsed as image files and traced back to sound through a variety of programmes. Retracing the steps and strangely resonant with the haunting presence that haunts the track.” The title is an allusion to Brittlesea which was an early name for Brightlingsea in Essex. The originating field recordings were made on a track alongside Brightlingsea Creek.

Say Zero (1 minute, 2000, 1.5Mb, mp3) from the Zero CD, original sleeve notes: “Digital dub stammers, loping fractures and repeated returns to a zero point – an end in itself. A micro mix of incomplete projected settings of ante-logocentric voice fragments. Constructed at the Footscray Dip House.” The voices were sourced from a promotional CD for a voice over agency, the voices were manipulated effectively by removing the diphthongs from the recorded spoken words.