Secousses Panoramiques
La musica di Eric La Casa e sempre piu criptica e inafferrabile. Le sue manovre concrete a base di rumori d'ambiente mescolati a voci e suoni naturali diventano materiale da Dogma 95 della musica. Ascoltate e potete creare da soli il vostro film, vi nascerà dentro fino a esplodere fuori dalla vostra testa Musica maieutica. (7) Stefano I. Bianchi, Blow Up 96
Elevator
music is just about the most damning put-down a serious music lover can come
up with, but that's exactly what this is. Over the past few years,
french sound artist Eric La Casa has taken his thousand dollar mics – and
million dollar ears - just about everywhere, from the gents' toilets in the
Pompidou Centre to the bell foundries of Savoie and the oil refineries of Normandy.
For Secousses Panoramiques - 'secousse' means jolt, shock or tremor - he recorded
16 brief tracks in and out of lifts in car parks, underground stations, tower
blocks and apartment buildings in Paris, a pedestrian tunnel under the river
in Antwerp, and
a Melbourne skyscraper. It's a fascinating reminder of how sonically rich the
world around us is, and La Casa's impeccable recording catches every detail,
from the clatter of the traction cables to the piethora of beeps, beIls, buzzes
and synthetic voices - not forgetting of course the unavoidable cheesy Muzak
- that accompanies our brief visits to these distinctive acoustic environments.
There's no studio jiggery pokery, a strict minimum of post-production and editing,
and, above all, no fancy fadeouts. Each piece stops dead in its tracks. Just
like a little. dan
Warburton,
the Wire
Soudain, je m'interroge sur ce que je suis en train d'écouter : des prises de son d'ascenseurs réalisées à Paris, Melbourne et Anvers. Et pourquoi pas des frigidaires, des grille-pains, des imprimantes ou des machines à laver ? Ne serais-je pas un peu détraqué ? Avec tout ce que l'on reçoit à la revue, n'aurais-je pas mieux à faire ? C'est sur qu'avec le visage de mon voisin arrive à ce moment précis, j'avais de quoi me poser de telles questions ! Mais évidemment, je n'écoute pas des prises de son d'ascenseurs, j'écoute un disque d'Eric La Casa, constitué de tournages sonores mêlant moteurs, câbles, frottements de gaines, annonces préenregistrées, ambiances de foule, chocs à l'arrêt et au démarrage de la cabine..., un véritable corps sonore facile à manipuler, un outil spécifique de notre modernité technique qui s'est développé en France à partir de la seconde moitié du XXème siècle et qui fonctionne presque exclusivement à l'électricité. Un élément de notre quotidien urbain et de ce fait devenu quasi transparent et ignoré pour ses particularités sonores. L'enregistrement donne à entendre autre chose que sa source propre, c'est une forme de détournement. Ce disque met en évidence une façon particulière d'écouter un espace sonore et sa musicalité. II y a là une attention plus qu'une intention. Dans son travail, Eric La Casa tente de laisser vivre les sons, de ne pas en être le compositeur, il s'inscrit ainsi dans une tradition issue de John Cage, Max Neuhaus... et encore plus répandue aujourd'hui dans des domaines liés au field recording. Jerôme NOETINGER, Revue & Corrigée 68
Suddenly, I wonder about what I am listening : sound recordings of elevators realized in Paris, Melbourne and Antwerp. And why not refrigerators, the toasters, the printers or the washing machines? I would not be not a little mad ? With all the cd we receive for the magazine should have I not better to do ? It is on with the face of my neighbor arrives precisely at this time, I had what to ask this question to me! But obviously, I do not listen to sound recordings of elevators, I listen to a disc of Eric La Casa, made up of (sound) takes mixing engines, cables, frictions of sheaths, prerecorded announcements, environments of crowd, shocks at the stop and with the starting of the cabin…, a true sound element easy to manipulate, a specific tool of our technical modernity which developed in France starting from second half of the XXth century and which functions almost exclusively with electricity. An element of our urban daily life and this fact become almost transparent and ignored for its sound particularities. The recording make listenable another thing which its own source, it is a subversive form. This disc highlights a particular way to listen to a sound space and its musical quality. here, there is an attention more than an intention. In his work, Eric La casa try to let live the sounds, not to be for it the composer, it fits thus in a tradition resulting from John Cage, max Neuhaus… and even more widespread today in fields related to the field recording.
Dedicated to Japanese sound artist Akio Suzuki, this 3-inch CD collages about 20 minutes of recordings of different elevator noises that Eric la Casa made in France, Belgium and Australia. It's one of those simple yet effective ideas that transforms what we hear every day into an art work, and Eric was great in his choice of sound successions that are truly akin to a proper composition, with whirring hums, snapping ropes, computerized voices and slamming doors encapsulating our persona in a sub-human womb where solitude, muzak and the subway train's roar become the glacial companions of a few instants of inexplicable fear. Reading the technical data on the plate within the cabinet won't help. Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
L’objet tout en longueur qui promet « secousses panoramiques » est un petit disque qu’Éric La Casa a fait cage d’ascenseurs. De leurs bruits, plus exactement, et parfois de leur environnement. Quand Akio Suzuki – à qui l’ouvrage est dédié – interrogeait les rumeurs horizontales laissées dans son sillage par une somme de véhicules propulsés en tunnels (Tubridge 99-00), La Casa collectionne les chants d’une autre sorte de machines imposantes, promettant, elles, un transport vertical.Brillant élément des travaux de « recherches sur les réalités du paysage » qui occupent La Casa, Secousses panoramiquesatteste donc du mouvement d’appareils utilisés à Paris (pour l’essentiel), Melbourne ou Anvers. Agile, voire malléable, La Casa ne dispose pas deux fois ses micros au même endroit : salle des machines, cabines, espace non identifié (gaine peut-être) permettant d’entendre la musique des câbles et poulies… Curieux, voire intrépide, La Casa opte ailleurs pour un déplacement qui donnera de la profondeur à son enregistrement – un air de variété sorti d’un haut-parleur de parking parasitera ainsi le ronronnement aseptisé d’un ascenseur de La Défense. Au creux des paysages abstraits, les signaux familiers (fermetures de portes, annonces enregistrées…) font office de détails auxquels se raccrocher et même d’éléments de folklores lorsque l’entraînement électromécanique fait remonter à la surface quelques souvenirs enfouis.
Au-delà de l’amateur de sons et de field recordings, cesSecousses panoramiques pourraient toucher l’épris de sciences et techniques parallèles (que la pochette cartonnée renseignera sur la provenance de chacune des plages du disque qu’elle renferme) ou encore l’ami du peuple maniaque (qui ira prévenir du mécanisme en souffrance de cet ascenseur du Parc de la Villette). A étages, la lecture est forcément multiple, et captivante souvent. Du peintre Braque, Jean Paulhan écrivit : « Il peignait des citrons et il semblait que d’une façon ou d’une autre c’était le citron qui avait commencé.» Ces zestes d’ascenseurs substitués au citron, on pourra transmettre l’hommage à Éric La Casa. Guillaume Belhomme, Le son du Grisli 2011
The real Elevator Music.16 exemplary tracks of (mostly Parisian) lifts in
La Defense, Radio France, La Villette and the Metro, plus a pedestrian tunnel
in Anvers and the Unilodge building in Melbourne. A great example of where
less is definitely more. A classic.
Chris Cutler, RER megacorp
Essential History offer
From each update I will select those CDs I think most remarkable or important
- those which I think should be in any living library - and offer a discount
for anyone buying them all. There will be 2 categories must have and essential
history. Offers will be available for either or both together. If you find
this essential library idea useful, I will slowly work backwards and compile
a list from the whole catalogue.
his update's essential history library items:
1. ERIC LA CASA. Secousses Panoramiques.
2. AN ANTHOLOGY OF NOISE & ELECTRONIC MUSIC Vol 4
3. HALIM EL-DABH. Crossing into the Electric Magnetic.
Non c’è dubbio, siamo di fronte ad un intuizionista. Nel senso
che lo scrittore Colson Whitehead attribuisce alla protagonista del suo romanzo “L’intuizionista”,
Lila Watson, prima ispettrice donna di colore dell’ispettorato Ascensori.
Lila, al contrario degli empiristi, è perennemente in ascolto di ascensori,
dei loro guasti, dei loro problemi... Con questa piccola e assai consigliata
extravaganza letteraria si introducono questi piccoli gioielli sonori: “Secousses
Panoramiques” e “Air.ratio” di Éric La Casa pubblicati
ripettivamente da Hibari e Sirr.
Compositore ormai consacrato tra i grandi dell’arte acusmatica, La Casa
ci offre fantastiche inquadrature sonore di spazi di transito e luoghi interstiziali
rappresentati rispettivamente dagli ascensori (“Secousses Panoramiques”)
e dalle riprese sonore di impianti di ventilazione meccanica (“Air.ratio”),
registrati per la maggior parte a Parigi. Spontanea una domanda: documenti
sonori o composizioni musicali? Nella logica della ricezione musicale la domanda è assolutamente
legittima, e non è indifferente alla prassi compositiva del nostro Eric
(si leggano a questo proposito e con grande attenzione, le note di copertina
di “Air.ratio”). Dunque: posso considerare questo lavoro sia una
testimonianza, o per dirla con le parole dell’ecologia acustica, un catalogo
di sound marks di artefatti umani, ma anche una composizione acusmatico-musicale
tout court.
Ho prestato così attenzione a quest’ultimo aspetto, anzi, l’aspetto
musicale si è manifestato a partire dalla fonte, in modo esplicito,
proprio in “Secousses Panoramique”. Ma com’è possibile
comporre a partire da immagini sonore così nitide, non solo con quella
pulizia di suono a cui ormai La Casa ci ha abituato, ma anche, in questo caso,
utilizzando fonti sonore così ‘riconoscibili’, esplicite,
facilmente riconducibili ad una abitudinarietà dell’ascolto (passivo?)
del quotidiano? Come l’obiettivo cinematografico, anche il microfono,
può essere puntato ovunque e la composizione inizia già a partire
dalla scelta accurata dello strumento microfono e della sua posizione nella
spazio e la sua conseguente relazione spaziale con il soggetto ripreso. In
questo La Casa è un maestro. Un grande fonico al lavoro si direbbe se
non fosse che non è possibile rimanere indifferenti alla sua sensibilità del
tutto musicale con cui maneggia gli strumenti del mestiere. Così emergono
differenti profondità di campo grazie anche ad un accuratissimo montaggio
fatto di inquadrature fisse e che rendono gli stacchi del montaggio ancora
più evidenti quando la prospettiva sonora cambia radicalmente. La Casa,
ci accompagna su e giù per gli ascensori di Radio France, interni, esterni,
sale di attesa e punti di ‘udito’ dell’ascensore sul mondo
circostante: primo piano di sala macchina e di sala trazione. E poi ancora
su e giù per La Défense, La Villette, luoghi celebri, ma anche
indirizzi comuni, con tanto di numero civico in retrocopertina, per chi volesse
recarvisi (!). Insomma, dato un soggetto così, (in epoca di facili revisionismi,
perdonatemi l’utilizzo demodé del termine), postmoderno, i materiali,
gli eventi sonori diventano veramente molti e le loro possibili combinazioni,
infinite. La Casa accosta come solo lui sa fare l’indicibile e l’inascoltato,
anzi ciò che è continuamente ascoltato, ma a cui mai si è prestato
attenzione musicale. La Casa ci offre la prospettiva musicale di un soggetto
altrimenti in-ascoltabile o, che è peggio, di un soggetto che è spesso
costretto ad ascoltare muzak peggiore di quella che da solo è in grado
di produrre. Il fantomatico fronte di liberazione degli ascensori ha finalmente
annichilito muzak e volgari dialoghi umanoidi.
Queste considerazioni valgono senz’altro anche per “Air.ratio” dove
la prospettiva compositiva si radicalizza, così come il metodo sistematico
con cui La Casa cataloga le proprie fonti. È sicuramente il contenuto
acustico-spettrale degli impianti di ventilazione a rendere l’ascolto
musicale di difficile auscultazione. Ci troviamo di fronte a continue variazioni
monocrome anche in questo caso rigorosamente ordinate e classificate. L’immagine
sonora è sempre molto nitida, così come il contenuto spettrale
delle fonti, altamente differenziato, grazie anche alla complessità fisica
del mezzo di ‘propagazione’ sonora, risultato di studi di ingegneria
meccanico-acustica. Interessante notare che in codesti prodotti meccanici le
caratteristiche fisiche (densità, materiale) sono studiate in maniera
tale da attutire il più possibile la componente rumorosa del mezzo di
propagazione. Ed è forse proprio questa considerazione a rendere ‘bello’ l’ascolto
di questo cd. La Casa, come in “Secousses Panoramiques”, ha documentato
con magistrale eleganza l’imprinting sonoro di mezzi meccanici di ventilazione
parigina. Proprio in quanto tale, anche agli ingegneri meccanici in ascolto
di questo cd rimane un gran lavoro da fare se il fine di ogni impianto di ventilazione è anche
quello di ridurne la componente rumorosa. Ma sorge spontanea una domanda: come è possibile
togliere suono ad un movimento dell’aria, quando questo, di origine appunto
meccanica, è genesi di ogni fenomeno sonoro? In ogni caso, massimi sistemi
a parte, l’acquisto è altamente consigliato. Fabio Selvafiorita sands-zine.com
Elevator music. Literally.
This beautiful three-inch oddity from Japan comes hung on the inside of an
birthday-like card of heavy stock, and features nothing more - or less -
than 16 sensitively captured field recordings of the sounds of elevators
(most located in Paris, one each in Antwerp and Melbourne) serving apartment
complexes, business towers and other lofty vertical structures, and the random,
ambient sounds all around them, including shuffling feet, car tires squealing
in underground carparks, cables virtually singing as they strain under their
loads, and "ding-dong" arrival signals. "Going. Up," says
the computerized (and yet feminine) voice from the Melbourne lift. "Going.
Down. Sixth. Floor. Fifth. Floor."
The track titles identify the locale of each recording and the number of
floors travelled. No treatments or "music" otherwise. This diminutive stunner
is the work of Frenchman Éric La Casa and should already be considered
a masterpiece of field recording. The beauty of everyday urban life can be
found in the most unexpected places, n´est-ce pas? Stephen Fruitman, sonomu.net
Elevator music is of course nobody likes to hear when they speak about one's music. It's the type of music that one get in the elevator, or the supermarket. Muzak. Yuk. But in the case of the new Eric La Casa mini CD it's truly elevator music, music made out of the sound of elevators. Going up, going down, the computer voice, alarm, the bells and the ropes attached to the elevators. All of the sounds that are so familiar for elevators pass by, yet not very often humans. Divided into sixteen tracks, La Casa made his recordings mostly in Paris, but there is also a sound from Melbourne and Antwerp. However it's better to hear this as one work and not sixteen small ones. It's sound scaping in it's most pure form: without any electronic treatments, La Casa tells us a story and builds from all the familiar sounds a fascinating journey, even when the journey goes only up and down. Frans de waard, Vital Weekly 522
Life is the soundtrack: A collection of field recordings turns into an intricate
composition.
To some people, music is the soundtrack to their life. To Eric la Casa, life
is the soundtrack. His releases are not educational and yet they implicitely
seem to ask the question of whether we want art to be an abstraction, driven
to the greatest possible height in the 18th century in a bid to reduce the
complexity of the outside world - or whether we accept that very complexity
and regard it as the expression of actually very simple principles lying beneath
it as well as an unspeakable beauty and richness. With an introduction like
this, there can be no second guessing as to which stance la Case takes and “secousses
panoramiques” is a case in point within his extensive oeuvre.
For this twenty minute Mini-CD, the Paris-based artist visited a wide range
of buildngs in his city (as well one foreign exception), ranging from “La
Defense” to the Radio France Central Tower and recorded a selection of
elevators. Trips could be as short as a single floor or as long as 46 and none
of them sounds alike. There’s the smooth snapping doors and subtle emissions
inside the Unilodge Building in Melbourne and the droning, inorganic rumblings
at 11 Rue Euryale Dehaynin, the chiming metallic sonorities at CNIT’s
front door and the intensive and full ride once you’re inside. La Casa
has also taped the noises of select machine rooms and traction cables, their
chattering and clattering contrasting with the zooming of the lifts. Surprises
are omnipresent: A moment of ethereal translucence occurs when the subcutaneously
penetrating and pulsating tones of an elevator at a car park mix with far-away
muzak, blending into an only a few seconds-short sensation of startling fascination.
While individual pices are concise and hardly exceed a minute or two, they
have been woven together to form a continous imaginary elevator-ride of indeed
panoramic proportions, which will have your brain associating in overdrive,
trying hard to identify the sources for these sounds without ever feeling dizzy.
It is here that “secousses panoramiques” turns from being a collection
of field recordings towards an intricate and detailed composition.
The criticism towards publications like this one is always the same: Why do
we need to buy an album with sounds which we can listen to for free in our
direct environment? The answer is simple: Because we hardly ever do. Through
the work of artists like la Casa, we are made aware of the potential that sourrounds
us and infused with the desire to explore it. My direct reaction was to want
to ride some elevators myself in a bid to check out what they sounded like.
Who knows if you’ll once remember these noises as the soundtrack to your
life. Tobias Fischer http://www.tokafi.com/