A Pulse Passes is the first collaborative recording between Martin and Young. This project was dreamt up while Martin was on tour with Young's project Sontag Shogun in April 2014, as a meeting place between the lush ambient layerings of cello, guitar and tape-collage textures, and conceived in the months to follow. Each piece begins with a tape-loop cut from short piano compositions by Young, and is then augmented brick by brick in fluid, stream-of-consciousness instrumental improvisations. The four repeating tape splices never quite retreat too far from the foreground, and as the textures become more and more lush, the loops seem to change their definition, adapting endlessly to the sonics around them. Minimal electronic treatment serves only as a binding element here, yet it is the raw and untampered integrity of the instrumentals that sits at the core of this collaboration.
These four works are true meditations on a theme, laid down onto and anchored by the tape. Let this album pass over you like cirrus clouds on their way inland, or underneath you like a woodland stream.
We first met on tour, where, each night, the music we created was passed to small crowds of people and to each other. The title of this album, in part, references the temporary emotional space that live music inhabits and its effect on the bodies occupying that space. "A Pulse Passes..." is not a live album, however, and the title also reflects the idea of creating an album in two separate places, without actually interacting in person, where music is brought to life by being passed back and forth. A third layer of meaning for the title exists in the role of the listener: when the element of creation has come to an end, the final work exists as a document of those moments, a captured pulse passed on to all who listen.
Aaron Martin
Jeremy Young profile
Jeremy Young predominantly makes use of analog sound treatments and textures, alongside instrumental compositions for solo guitar, piano and guzheng. His performance and recording arsenal includes multiple reel-to-reel tape machines, piezo’d objects and surfaces (sand, rice, slate, boiling water, leaves, etc.) and hacked signal generators. He composes works of tape music, sound poetry, scores for visual art and performance and graphically notated improvisation. Young has performed and released material throughout Europe, Asia, the US, UK and Canada. In 2014, he was awarded a Media Artists’ Assistance Grant by Wave Farm to create 125 unique artist edition double-sided loop pieces towards developing sustainable audience engagement with the sonic arts, housing all the loops online in a freely streamable living archive. Visit the project here.
Young is increasingly interested in the relationships between sound and text, which has led to the publication of an essay on the triggered soundscape, as well as an ongoing exploration of audio-literature through books and podcasts. He has worked to amplify the voices of many independent fiction writers through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on widening platforms for audience discovery of new literature. In 2011, he co-founded Palaver Press, a craft sound & text publishing imprint and research unit with Catherine Métayer, and co-launched the 308at156 Project Artspace in the Flatiron District of New York City with Michael Yi. His main sonic project is a collaborative trio with Ian Temple and Jesse Perlstein called Sontag Shogun that makes use of analog sound treatments and nostalgic solo piano compositions in harmony to depict abstract places in our memory. He has shared the stage with notable artists such as Hauschka, Julia Kent, Aki Onda, Matana Roberts, Jason Lescalleet, Dead Rat Orchestra, Sam Shalabi, Alexander Turnquist, Tom Carter, Noveller, Barn Owl, Ben Vida & Koen Holtkamp among many others.
Aaron Martin profile
"Aaron Martin began his musical life at age 11, switching between guitar and drums. At the age of 17, he decided to change paths and learn how to play the cello, which he went on to study in college. While earning his music degree, he began to experiment with recording. After creating several self-released collections of music, and graduating from college, he recorded Almond, which caught the attention of the Australian label Preservation, and became his debut release. He has gone on to record two more albums for Preservation, River Water and Chautauqua, as well as one album for Experimedia called Worried about the Fire and most recently Comet’s Coma for Eilean Records. He has also collaborated with a variety of other musicians, including Machinefabriek, Part Timer, Dawn Smithson (as Winter’s Day), Dag Rosenqvist (as From the Mouth of the Sun), and Christoph Berg with releases on Type, Dronarivm, Facture, and Under the Spire Recordings. Aaron Martin lives and records in Topeka, Kansas.”
credits
released June 11, 2015
Jeremy Young tape loops, guitar, zither, brushes, whisks, field recordings.
Aaron Martin cello, vinyl, lap steel, bowed cymbal, bowed banjo, organ, singing bowls
Chihei Hatakeyama mastering
Maki Kaoru photography
Jeremy Young design
white paddy mountain is a small record label based in Japan.
Chihei Hatakeyama is A Sound Artist And Musician Living On The Outskirts Of Tokyo. chihei-mastering.com
supported by 18 fans who also own “A Pulse Passes from Hand to Hand”
I'm reminded of something my grandfather Oscar told me that I never forgot. He said that he thought the cello was the only instrument that sounded the closest to a human heart...breaking. And that holds so true on this record. Thank you Aaron for your beautiful cello, as well as all the other wonderful stringed instruments. If this is the new "electro-acoustic classical" count me on board! bambilyn
supported by 17 fans who also own “A Pulse Passes from Hand to Hand”
Awesome foggy weather drive music, album artwork covers mood perfectly. Agree with Stationary Travels review that it is Nils Frahmyish, can really hear details of piano key hits. G Norton
DC-based musician Carni Klirs leads listeners on a series of soothing, self-guided journeys that pull from post-rock and ambient drone. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 30, 2021
supported by 17 fans who also own “A Pulse Passes from Hand to Hand”
Incredible atmospheric cinematic ambient like neoclassical beauty. If blissful serenity was an album this would be it. simply can not give it enough credit. Such a deep, emotional and mesmerizing experience. Your thoughts will drift into it so effortlessly. A mix of melancholic and hopeful songs with incredibly soothing and expansive soundscapes. It really does wonders for ones' mental being and brings such blissful joy that by time it's over you won't feel the same in the least. Magnificent CottonMouthJoe