[releases] afe123lcd
mathieu ruhlmann: as a leaf or a stone

Track List:

1.  The Uttering Wire  7:27

2.  Seolak  6:56

3.  Aanden  6:19

4.  In England There Is Honey  4:19

5.  Woodlice  4:00

6.  The Intoxication of a Ball of Opera  5:29

Description:

Mathieu Ruhlmann is a visual and sound artist. He first began composing soundworks to accompany his visual art based on found material.

He has created works for various labels worldwide - including S'agita Recordings, Mystery Sea, Spekk, Unfathomless, Taâlem and Gears of Sand - as well as contributed to several compilations.

He has also produced sound installations and held performances throughout North America. He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.

After "The Earth Grows in Each of Us", released in April 2007, "As a Leaf or a Stone" Mathieu's second release on Afe. Here's a description of the album written by Will Long of Celer:

"With every beginning, raw objects come into place, and within these objects are found the essence of meaning, and inspiration. "As a Leaf or a Stone", the new album by Mathieu Ruhlmann on Afe Records, is a thriving example of the individuality of natural materials, and the sculpture of character.

Using an assemblage of instruments and raw objects, such as a coffee grinder, e-bow, denture cleaner, egg beater, ukelin, turkey baster, frying pan, shruti box (and many more), "As a Leaf or a Stone" stands as a work of creative ingenuity, finding beauty in the combination of raw materials that are characteristically regarded as mundane or lacking in spirit, and transforming them into a work that is both visually conjuring, and comfortingly familiar.

In the crisp corners of "As a Leaf or a Stone", there is an untimely captivation, as well as tincture of the homemade present, and pushing on. The evolution of the pieces is not predictable, yet is fulfilling, offering surprises of acumen, allowing for tension, discovery, and quietude. Withdrawing from the use of computers to provide any effects, Ruhlmann completes this work with a respect to the purity of the object, and maybe most importantly, freedom of the spirit."


Reviews:

"...For this release Ruhlmann uses a lot of sound sources and per track he lists them. We see listed a coffee grinder, ukelin, e-bow, moss, denture cleaner, bubble wrap, dried plant, cactus, speaker and gate (and that's just the opening track!)... The gain is very much alive here, so there is occasionally some feedback leaking through here. That adds a strange component to the highly acoustic music. Ruhlmann plays his stuff with great care. His music is open, spacious, but also intimate. The quiet rumbling of objects, the leak of outside sound events on the recording (as opposed to pre recorded field recordings) reminds me of Jeph Jerman or Kapotte Muziek, although Ruhlmann's plate is a bit more filled with sound than the latter. An excellent release of highly imaginative music..."
Vital Weekly [more]

"...another example of the recondite work of Mathieu Ruhlmann, the Vancouver-based sound artist who uses some highly unlikely found objects (both natural and man-made) to produce his strange and distant meditations on the overlooked and unseen sides of life. His work sits somewhere between field recording and performance (with some traces of sculpture thrown in, believe it or not) and in its quiet, unassuming way his work is always very involving..."
The Sound Projector [more]

"On "As a Leaf or a Stone" Mathieu Ruhlmann shows us how hard it is to put a label on art. The six tracks are a perfect example of soundart in its purest form. They linger somewhere between "just" compositions made from field recordings, musique concrete, Fluxus or maybe even ambient... Each sound is being lifted from perspective as device towards a musical instrument, creating great atmospheric stories... Very intensive, very mind tingling and definitely very interesting... It wouldn't surprise me to see Mathieu Ruhlmann going towards the Touch label in the future..."
Gothtronic [more]

"...The first thing I should say is that "As a Leaf or a Stone" is a lot more interesting than the previous discs I heard by Ruhlmann. There is much more of a sense of listening to actual objects here, a collections of recorded things with much less post-recording effects work going on, less of an attempt to smooth everything out into one continuum and so each of the sounds used has its own voice. There are six tracks then, though to be honest I found myself listening to the CD as one long work, I barely noticed the joins. Ruhlmann lists the objects used to make the music, and they vary from the coffee grinder, denture cleaner and bubble wrap of the opening track through to the metal ball, shruti box and pondweed of the closing one. There are also field recordings here, and bits of voices, a childlike singing voice that stumbles through the end of the third piece works nicely..."
The Watchful Ear [more]

"...Mathieu Ruhlmann offenbart mit "As a Leaf or a Stone" ein hochgradig komplexes wie anstrengendes Opus, das sich ausschließlich Individuen geben sollten, welche in Sachen Experimente vor Nichts zurückschrecken – meine absolute Empfehlung, wenn man auf diese Art der Tonkunst abfährt..."
Kultur Terrorismus [more]

"C'è in Mathieu Ruhlmann una fascinazione per l'oggetto, per la sua ordinarietà e perfino mondanità. Nelle sue mani però questi oggetti acquistano un'individualità e un carattere altri... Combinato poi al suono di strumenti veri, un ukelin, una shruti-box, e-bow, il tutto acquisisce un nuovo spirito, dove anche l'apparentemente estraneo finisce col diventare in qualche modo familiare. Quasi una scultura sonora..."
Blow Up [more]