HELENA GOUGH - Mikroklimata (Entr'acte, 2010)
As a sculptor might bury their hands in their chosen media, or chip away at a block until what remains stands as a physical manifestation of what exists in their imagination, so Helena Gough's music is the end product of a long process of collecting and manipulating material, kneading it, tearing it, reducing it down, building it back up, somehow knowing when to stop and present what is left.
Gough is a composer working in the digital realm. This, her second album, comes nearly four years after the first, with the intervening years spent gathering small fragments of sound from a variety of places, which she then processed and altered continually until finally weaving them together in an intensive session of concentrated intuitive composition lasting just a few months. The sounds that appear on Mikroklimata began life as field recordings, digital and analogue synth experimentation and recordings of acoustic improvisation sessions by George Cremaschi and Peter Evans. The origins of the sounds are all long gone, however, lost in the process of crunching the material into its malleable state. If there ever was recognisable bass or trumpet sounds in here, they lost their identifying character some way down the line.
The four pieces that come out of the other end of this process sound thoroughly physical. Twisting, turning knots of sound tighten and unravel as they progress along their muscular journey, full of rapid shifts in pace and dynamic. Gough's sound- world is thoroughly digital, the natural acoustic presence of the displaced samples is replaced by a vibrant synthetic torsion as they come back together in composition. However, despite the computerised texture and minute detail of its constituent parts, Mikroklimata sounds very human, its shapes and progressions resembling an improvising saxophonist in full flight. Not unlike the music of Gough's contemporary John Wall, these compositions somehow sound fluid and natural, as if played by some massed orchestra of alien instruments rather than pieced together from hundreds of smaller fragments. Powerful, expressive musique concrète for the 21st century, Mikroklimata stands out from the crowd as a work of considerable substance.
(Richard Pinnell, The Wire)
HELENA GOUGH - live set @ LMC Festival, London, 1st December 2007
...A solo laptop set from Helena Gough followed. Announcer Cecilia Wee prepared us by stating this was "music for darkened rooms and closed eyes". There's always going to be a problem with presenting this kind of music in a live situation, but when the music was as extraordinary as that produced by Gough then it ends up only really being a problem for those who lack imagination.
Her music seemed to owe as much to the music of GRM electro-acoustic legends as Francois Bayle and Parmegiani as to the current generation of laptoppers. What it wasn't was reductionist in any way - a rich forest of sound, luxuriantly spread across the stereo spectrum, with sounds appearing and morphing before our ears before settling back into the backdrop. It's difficult to talk about such abstract music without resorting to clichés, but it was amazingly evocative- and I found my attention wondering vary rarely during a very long set, as I was moved like a traveller through some very exotic places.
(Richard Sanderson, Baggage Reclaim)
With what remains by Helena Gough is featured in two
'best of the year' lists:
Joe Gilmore's best of 2006 list at and-oar:
Mark Pauwen's best of 2007 at earlabs:
HELENA GOUGH - with what remains (Entr'acte, 2007)
A sending station of messages that we could even perceive as takeaway illuminations, fragments of glorified externalizations whose significance is not born from casualness but derives instead from the very kernel of sound, modified by the skills of a bright-minded electroacoustic architect who is "working to create something from nearly nothing". This is "With what remains", a brilliant effort by Helena Gough, a Birmingham-based academically trained composer and violinist, currently interested in exploiting the "abstract properties" of everyday's sounds, which she deploys with extreme care and accuracy through a sensitive multicellular method rarely observed before, at least by this listener.
The intrinsic qualities of what might just seem a collection of noises to untrained ears are right there for the intellect to process, but it takes much more than a distracted look to fully unveil this record's enormous value. Speckled mirrors, bumpy instantaneousness, biotic pseudo-tranquillity, all are just illusions of a forward movement that we must repeatedly postpone to make sure that these messages and codes are properly assimilated. The germinations of Gough's complex connections of decomposed frequencies and impenetrable permanences produce superb aural emulsions of otherwise extraneous substances, keeping us suspended between a surgical reviviscence of our secret fears and a special kind of ecstatic indecision that - once again - highlights the retard of the human brain's predisposition to "classify" and "define" when facing pure acoustic noumena.
It all translates as "unpigeonholeable masterpiece", one of Entr'acte's most precious releases.
(Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes)
HELENA GOUGH - with what remains (Entr'acte, 2007)
Helena Gough, who lives in Birmingham, convinced me again to like what I listen to. On her myspace-site she describes herself as: sound artist, musician, scavenger, collector, obsessive, put-together/take-apart...
And yes, there are a lot fine collected sounds gently sweeping into my brain, garnished with deeper drone-like tones. "Efforts are made to find a balance between spontaneity and precision."(liner notes) And yes again, these efforts were gainful, and never Helena's tracks sound randomlike or unstructured.
Another big point for me is the absorbing quality of her compositions, they are never boring (some call this lack of tension contemplative, but not in this case). I like the mixture of short field-recordings, sparse tones and deeper stronger ones, maybe created with sinus-audio-generators.
"Initially trained in violin and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, Junior Academy, her work now involves the collection and manipulation of "real-world" sound material and the exploration of its abstract properties. Each new sound piece is created by taking everything possible from the tiniest element - working to create something from nearly nothing"(liner notes)
Nothing new in working like described here, but it sounds fantastic and I think her artistic education helped her to create this subtle micro-structures, which prevent her tracks to lead to nowhere. Only the last sentence of the quotation is slightly hyperbolical, as there are enough recorded and synthesized sounds far away from nearly nothing. Also her sound in summary is more dense and bustling, then compared to related works, like the last and/OAR releases (MNortham, Marc Behrens & Paulo Raposo). But from the point of quality, her work could be compared with the before mentioned releases. And that´s a quite rare high level, I think.
(Sascha Renner, Earlabs)
HELENA GOUGH - with what remains (Entr'acte, 2007)
Impossible to identify all the sources utilized herein, but one picks up all manner of open-air recordings, closely miked micro-events and pervasive electronics weaving in and out of the mix. It’s actually not too difficult to place oneself into a “room” and imagine walking through these sounds; there’s more than enough apparent three-dimensionality to do so, a consistent thickness. If I had to pick out a favorite, it might be “condensed milk” with its juicy mix of liquid and cracking sounds embedded in a vaguely metallic, dully echoing ambience.
Something about the pieces recalls classic electronic work by people like Gottfried Michael Koenig and Dick Raaijmakers, rather heady company. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Gough’s music attains the heights of the best of those fellows, but it’s not very far out of their league. If you enjoy them, you’ll derive a good deal from her compositions as well. Solid stuff.
(Brian Olewnick, Bagatellen)
HELENA GOUGH - with what remains (Entr'acte, 2007)
One of the many activities Helena Gough is involved in consists of travelling the country for the Sonic Postcards Projects, approaching youngsters with the intent of bringing them closer to environmental listening and teaching them to record their understanding of the world themselves in order to subsequently use these tapings for their very own compositions. After having listened to “With what remains” innumerable times now, I really couldn’t think of a single person better equipped or more talented for the job.
What it takes to fully appreciate this work, though, are plenty of time and a mind cleared from all superflous thoughts and distractions. All of us rely on expectations and a certain scheme of promises and disappointments. Even the most wayward music eventually settles in a comfortable mode of not giving in to what listeners want to hear. “With what remains” is different, though. It manages to create the illusion of still being part of this string of reasoning, while in reality it has long severed all ties.
Gough is not a hermit, but her style is a highly personal one, tapping into potentials which are still communicable but which tend to release their information in a way which inevitably changes some if its meaning in the translation process: Her sound materials are from her direct domestic environment and consistently plucked apart to a point where they can no longer be traced back to their place of origin. In the ensuing process, new structures are established, placing the elements in various contexts and waiting for them to blossom on foreign fields. Decoding the building blocks of the tracks has thereby become impossible, at least within the reasoning of deductive logic. Also, by allowing the sounds to basically start working on their own, the composer has entered the principle of double-blindfolding and at least partly deducted herself from the music. It is here that the album starts its fascination, for it leaves the premises of a mere display of effects to start working as a dialogue, even as a feedback loop which will in turn provide its creator with valuable insights and creative stimuli for the future. You simply can not predict where this is going: Deep bass thumps might lead to the cracklings of old vinyl, to purring particle chains or to meditative drones stepping to the beat of an ancient gong. As the different elements turn up again and again, it would even be impossible to tell where exactly on the rotating disc of this amorphic rockscape you are right now. To me, it also means that the original intent of conceiving these soundworks as individual spaces has not entirely worked out – rather, everything melts into one single, big space, which you can enter and leave at will, and which will retain its wondrousness regardless of how often you walk its corridors.
“With what remains” offers a lot of interpretations, but one of its most striking features certainly is that it has attained a fascinating and unprecedented level of idiosyncrasy. It also demonstrates that it is really the debate about form and the way in which sound events are juxtaposed, which is most exciting and rewarding at the moment – as it offers the best chance to truly surprise listeners. Just playing this album to school classes all over the country will provide us with a rich new generation of sound experimenters.
(Tobias Fischer, Tokafi)
HELENA GOUGH - with what remains (Entr'acte, 2007)
Another absolute diamond from Entr’acte in the UK. Helena Gough produces a glitch-laden collection of pieces on “with what remains”, touching on territory previously inhabited by Goem, or Pita, yet somehow not repeating history, and manifesting something utterly unique. Gough generates muscular digital voids, doubtlessly layering field recordings and re-codings, angular sequences that squeal and howl, and then blister and trough into the lower depths. This is a recording of events, and there is rarely a dull or motionless moment here, each piece bristling with activity, and creative bluster.
The curiously entitled “condensed milk” (well, why not?) mobilises squelchy and off centre dynamics that move in and out of focus, and “silt” is pure digital delight, pin –sharp sampling and elegantly paced, verging on super-minimalism, but the shift of pace and tone mid-way leaves me gasping at Gough’s precision and originality. Something about this work would make me guess that it was composed by a Japanese artist, as Gough exhibits the rigour and precision of sound workers from Japan. There is something incredibly beautiful, and elegantly poised about each piece, and for me, “unsung” steals the show for its restrained richness, reminding me of Richard Devine, for want of a better reference. Somehow, Helena Gough manages to re-define glitch and minimalism in one effortlessly classy collection, and I for one, will be seeking her work and begging for more. A masterpiece.
HELENA GOUGH - with what remains (Entr'acte, 2007)
L’utilisation du bruit, de sons extra-musicaux est à présent, à peu de choses près, rentré dans les mœurs et la mention «contient du field-recording» n’est plus nécessaire pour expliquer ou justifier la démarche d’un musicien. Découlant bien sûr de la musique concrète, mais aussi d’autres théories musicales, de l’écologie sonore à la synthèse granulaire, l’intégration d’enregistrements «de terrain» dans la composition contemporaine est aujourd’hui accepté comme un fait acquis. La définition de ce «terrain», par contre, et heureusement, est extrêmement floue. Si certains artistes, de Chris Watson à Francisco Lopez, sont intéressés par la vue d’ensemble, par le plan large, d’autres, comme Steve Roden, s’intéressent plutôt au détail, voire au fragment microscopique. Le rapport à ces sources est également fort différent d’un musicien à l’autre. Les uns cherchent à raconter une histoire, à documenter un lieu, une époque, d’autres à l’interpréter, d’autres encore cherchent par tous les moyens à masquer leurs sources, évitant soigneusement d’établir des liens sémantiques entre les prises de sons et le résultat musical.
C’est le cas d’Helena Gough, qui base sa musique sur des enregistrements du quotidien, des petits riens, des presque riens. On sait juste d’elle qu’elle est une collecteuse de son obsessionnelle, et qu’elle n’aime rien mieux que de réduire ces sons en miettes, en débris minuscules et méconnaissables. Ce sont dès le départ des sons «anonymes», quasi sans importance. Ils ne sont pas là pour leur valeur documentaire, ni leur signification; rien ne transparaîtra de leur genèse, et de l’attachement ou du désintérêt d’Helena Gough pour leur origine. Un grand nombre d’artistes pratiquent le field-recording comme une discipline conceptuelle, arguant de l’aura du sujet enregistré, et de sa permanence dans l’œuvre finale, estompant la pratique musicale pour mettre en avant l’«objet trouvé», la rencontre accidentelle ou non avec un événement, une réalité marquante. Helena Gough, au contraire, cherche à créer à partir de peu, à partir de l’infiniment petit, de l’insignifiant. Et le décalage entre l’humilité de ces sources et l’extraordinaire musicalité qu’elle en extrait est à porter à son crédit. Au fil de pièces aux apparences statiques se dessine une gestion méticuleuse du mouvement, un enchaînement de micro-structures agencées avec un soin extrême. Dans la lignée d’un François Bayle ou d’un Robert Hampson, elle échafaude des collisions, des retournements de situations, des tensions irrésolues, pouvant éclater d’une seconde à l’autre. Chaque instant présente un nouvel embranchement, propose une nouvelle destination. Il y a une logique derrière chaque épisode, et chaque transition, chaque mutation, même si c’est sous forme de carambolage, a l’évidence et la clarté de l’intuition. Et c’est cela également qui fait de «With What Remains» un album excellent, cet équilibre subtil entre une dextérité minutieuse et une classe spontanée.
(Benoît Deuxant, Lamediatheque)