Arts
Ville Aalto is the Finnish sound artist and electronic musician presenting our 20th mixtape. Originally from Helsinki, Aalto has been working on a project called Avian Electronics for a few years now. The main focus of the project is creating and imitating birdsong with synths and it includes surround sound installations, sound art works and electronic music featuring synthesized birds and other natural sounds. Aalto has recently published the first album related to this project, also titled Avian ElectronicsThe music on the album is primarily divided into electronic, rhythmic works and 'ambientish', droning works that are a sort of loose electronic interpretation of natural soundscapes. The project is a slightly twisted love letter to the sounds of birds and nature. It aims to raise questions about the relationship between us, nature and technology as well as the changing (aural) environment that we live in and affect all the time. The artist states that nature as a stable, separate entity does not exist. We tend to view things that previous generations have created as natural; fields, moors, paths. And so too, our current unnatural ways are slowly transforming into nature, traditional landscapes, conservation areas. This is quite natural, something we may somehow forget. But as the world is so rapidly changing and technological development is affecting everything – how ultimately are we changing our living environment, what will the nature around us sound like in the future? The mix here is loosely based on this idea of passing through different landscapes, fields with different aural environments - maybe travelling on a train or in a dream. The scenery changes slowly and it affects the things you hear around you or in your mind. The main body of the mix are these lovely tracks that evoke images of landscapes and then there’s quite a bit of synthetic rain, crickets and other “natural” sounds which I’ve been working on lately layered in. One of the main inspirations here was Ryoji Ikeda's masterful 1000 Fragments, which is consequently all over the mix. Tracklist: 00:00 Throughout the mix: Ville Aalto - Synthetic signals, crickets, wind and rain sounds 01:00 Leila Abdul-Rauf - June 14 03:25 Ryoji Ikeda - Zone 2 08:06 Ville Aalto - Transmission 12:24 Ø - Syvyydessä Kimallus 16:33 Dasha Rush - 100 Hearts 22:20 Ryoji Ikeda - Zone 1 25:15 György Ligeti - Atmospheres 25:35 Pauline Oliveiros - Mnemonics I 27:00 Richard Chartier - Location 29:56 Pierre Boulez - Répons / Section 1 30:28 Atte Elias Kantonen - Form 1 33:42 Ruth Anderson - Points 35:05 Caterina Barbieri - TCCTF 39:07 György Ligeti - Lux Aeterna 42:42 Ryoji Ikeda - Zone 3 45:22 Ryoji Ikeda - Abstructures