Composition for Weather Balloon & Mobile Phone
21 minute CD with 24 page colour booklet in gatefold sleeve
Alluvial Recordings in partnership with audiOh! Room
...Weather Report...
Made
in Minneapolis [2003]
Composition for Weather Balloon & Mobile Phone
21 minute
CD with 24 page colour booklet in gatefold sleeve
Alluvial Recordings in partnership with audiOh!
Room
'Weather Report' was produced during my trips to Minnesota as a McKnight Composer in Residence with the American Composers Forum. I lived in Minneapolis in December 02 and June 03 where they love their diverse and often hostile weather, which was the catalyst for the project. My main ideas were
to create and collect new sounds that were related to the concept of weather in the broadestsense;
to document and research weather in the media; and to float recording equipment up on weather balloons invarious ways.
so.. go find a Walkman! |
|---|
+
Project Pictures
Minnesotan voice message
recordings left as they return from their
walkman trips during the World Premier BBQ party [8min Real
Audio]
| Many thanks to all
at the American Composers Forum & McKnight Foundation who made it all possible, The National Weather Service, all at The Science Museum of
Minnesota, The Historical Society of Minnesota, Tuthills Balloon Emporium, WCCO4 [Paul
Douglas], Jazz88 FM, Philip, Donna, Nate, Kevin, Jon/Some Assembley Required, Louise &
co, Ben & Topher, Cecil & Collene, Ryan & co, Eric, Tom & Ben, Chris, Kelly, Brooke and
all the other friends I made there who helped develop and realise the project and made
me feel at home. It's dedicated to you all. It was a fascinating and friendly experience. A bit like composers heaven I expect. |
|---|
***********************************************
Installation
in
Estonia
ISEA festival, Tallinn Art Hall : 17th - 31oct 2004
The
Weather Report composition is played back from an MP3 mobile phone
floating
on a cluster of Helium balloons.
The poster invites
you to collect a CD walkman and take it for a walk outside.
MPx200 MP3 Mobile Phone above was kindly sponsored my Motorola - 1Gb of memory!
********************************************
The Wire
[UK]
>
ISEA 2004, Estonia: "Within hours of arrival in Tallinn, the festival crowds
set out across the beautiful medieval city in search of numerous exhibitions,
performances and discussions. Talin's Art Hall Gallery's impressive attractions
included janek Schaefer's Weather Report - a 21 minute installation using collected
sounds from a mobile phone attached to weather balloons - which visitors could
listen to via the floating MP3 Mobile phone or via a CD Walkman while wlaking
around the city". [Lina Dzuverovic-Russell]
The Quiet
American [Aaron Ximm,
USA]
>
....beautiful in all respects
Don_Quay
>
This is one of my all-time favourites from Mr Schaefer. A short but very powerful 21 minute composition based around the recording from a mobile phone attached to a weather baloon and released into a tornado. Spliced with some quite funny samples from Canadian weather reports of the tornado. This release contains the magically disorienting mix of extreme ambience to extreme noise, beautifully mixed in a truly musical way, the nature of which marks all of Janek's work. Highly recommended.
Vital List [Holland/Staalplaat]
>
Our most beloved three arm turntablist Janek Schaefer is besides also a composer.
He was invited by the American Composers Forum as a composer in residence. While
staying in Minneapolis he decided upon doing a project with sound recordings
made from the hostile weather conditions in that particular state. The sounds
were recorded using weather balloons, adding also recording equipment to them,
which included a mobile telephone. Furthermore he uses tornado detecting equipment,
snow flakes landing on a microphone and radio and tv announcements of weather
changes. All of this is cut and collaged together in this twenty one minute
work, and Schaefer hastens to say that no post-processing of sounds was used
here. The result is simply a fascinating journey of weather sounds. Sounds that
we are all familiar with, as weather is always there, and no doubt many people
are fascinated by it's sound: rain, thunder, wind - it's usually the conditions
we don't like that produce the sound, strangely enough. Therefore a lot of the
sounds you hear on this piece are very familiar sounds - but placed out of context,
or rather in a new context, it becomes a fascinating piece of music. Plus the
package holds an extensive full colour booklet, which documents the project.
This project is by far the best Schaefer project I have encountered. Strong
in it's concept and strong in its execution. (FdW)
Scaruffi.com
[USA]
>
Weather Report is the modern equivalent of a Dutch landscape painting
of the 16th century.
Ultra E-Zine [Belgium]
>
You've got to give it to the man: while others are navel staring or knobtwiddling
or waiting for some sound to happen upon them, Janek Schaefer is bursting with
ideas. Where you'd thought that Fluxus and everything that came after it
had turned almost every stone, this man keeps coming up with concepts that are
so simple they excite you. Take the beauty of mail for instance. Schaefer
puts a recording device in a package, and registers its journey through the
world. What you hear may not be Miles or Mozart, but at least Mr. Schaefer tries
to capture straight poetry, where others in his niche bore us to bits with pretentious
high concept nothingness. Or take that whole deejay & vinyl rhetoric. Our man
Schaefer lays his mecano aside, lets himself be amazed 'ˆ blanc' and builds
a three armed turntable. Just to see what can be done with it. Let's keep those
arteries open, shall we, and keep the juices of wonderment flowing! And so for
the object at hand. "Weather Report" is not a tribute to Joe Zawinul & Wayne
Shorter's mighty jazz/fusion outfit, but much rather a mini-cd which registers
an unheard of aspect of our daily lives. The weather. And it's being reported
in a plus-twenty-minute montage. Not just wet rain or windy air. But the whole
shebang, from weather reports in the media (about tornados) over snow flakes
landing an a microphone to to the sounds registered by recording equipment floating
up on weather balloons. And with a great, full-colour 20-page booklet to go.
Fahrenheit 451? Not really. Artefact? Yes. Wondrous? Too. A boring listen? Perhaps,
if you don't allow for that ole 'poetry of reality' to enter your mind. Schaefer's
recordings were made in Minnesota, USA, but I'm sure this mini-cd will also
become a huge hit around Dogger, Viking, Moray, Forth and Orkney!
Frecuencia Electronica [Puerto Rico] (Jorge Castro)
>
This document is, in my very personal opinion, the most interesting and important
document in Janek Schaefer's career. This is something I find myself saying
after initial listenings to most of his albums. The concept, creative process
and superb execution are described in the CD's 24 page booklet. This booklet
contains a massive collection of pictures which document various trips by the
artist to the USA state of Minnesota, where he was chosen as "McKnight Composer
in Residence" by the American Composers Forum and commissioned to create this
piece on their facilities (which turned out to be the outdoors rather than any
sound lab). Minnesota was the perfect place to assemble "Weather Report", because
it's location in the northern united states offers extreme climate conditions
in the winter and summer (and in all seasons I would presume) which Janek documented
in this recording. The result of these interesting experiments is a captivating
listen all the way through. Personally, I think the best thing about this piece
is the editing of the sound sources, because you can definitely make out Janek's
very distinct composing style. His ideas, concepts and execution are amazingly
singular and are stand outs in the field of sound art. This is an interesting
listen for those who know and understand sound art, as well as those who don't.
The booklet suggests to listen to it outdoors and with headphones on! GO!
Igloomag.com (TJ Norris)
>
At 21 minutes this project-based recording had Janek Schaefer traveling to Minnesota
to work with local meteorologists and nature types. Most of what you hear on
this neatly packaged affair are field recordings with open mic. There is the
sound of inflation of a weather balloon, winds and birds, and the people recording
the changes in temperature, etc. There is also a great full color booklet documenting
the project including images of snowy, windy conditions, measuring devices and
other charms of local color. Weather Report uses soundclips from local news
and those reporting the changing conditions of the Twin Cities area randomly
to illustrate the drama of the skies. The piece opens with these skies mid way
through where thunder, lightning and its voiceover illustrators report to the
inevitable hostile nature to the people. But the quiet after the storm is as
balanced and important to the overall ambience here and Schaefer blends the
chaos with quietude. Towards the very end there are what sound like some type
of gun shots, are they hunters...do they have to shoot down weather balloons...was
this a salute to the completion of the work? This is one of surely other documentary
recordings to expect from this multimedia artist in the future
Fallt [N Ireland]
>
Yet another concept-bending project... Armed with a dictaphone, a mobile phone
and, I'm sure, various other 'low resolution' recording devices Schaefer set
out to document, in as many ways as were to hand, everyday Minnesota weather
- its monitoring, recording, forecasting, reporting and its effect on local
Minnesotans. The result is packaged with a colourful booklet snapshotting the
project. 'Weather Report' opens with a voice message sent from the recent past
by a mobile phone suspended from a weather balloon. As the balloon inflates
Schaefer's voice can be heard introducing the project, "Up, up and away!" he
cries as it floats upwards buffeted by the breeze. Into earshot drift the sounds
of a distant plane, a dog barking and birds twittering. In what follows nothing
weather-related is left out. The unidentifiable and the commonplace - wind,
ice underfoot, leaf blowers, snowflakes and rain (everything from drip-drip-drip
to cats and dogs) - are intercut with local and archival TV and radio weather
flashes. Mid track the blue/black sounds of a thunderstorm loom to form a kind
of centre piece. Anticipation (Reporter: "That red donut is evidence of strong
rotation in the low levels of the atmosphere...) and aftermath (Interviewer:
"You were blown out through the wall?") are eventually joined by a veritable
welter of weather-words uttered, it seems, by every weatherperson in Minnesota.
The collage effect is further emphasised by Schaefer's use of time lapse material,
recalling his wonderful dictaphone-in-a-package-through-the-post project 'Recorded
Delivery'. As the composition ends Janek and friends are heard heading out to
retrieve the dictaphone. They have guns. Shots ring out. The balloon bursts
and the recording device parachutes to the ground. "End of message." An alternative
soundtrack to a walk in your local park or down the street. [GM]
Play 3 minute extract [with Real Audio]
