Bernhard Gal (a.k.a. gal)
The work of Austrian sound artist Bernhard Gal is concerned with the discovery (as opposed to the imposition) of musical structures within the nuances of everyday life. The stammering in the spaces of spoken language, the ubiquitous noise of urban environments, the steady stream of of buzzes and whirrs that are a byproduct of mass transportation, all become subjects examined under Gal's extraorinarily precise microscope. He explores ideas about time and language, extrapolating and enlarging and repeating the often overlooked details and minutae until their inherent sonic beauty supercedes their typical mundane habitat.

Following last year's critically acclaimed "Defragmentation/Blue" CD (Plate Lunch, GER), "Relisten" is Gal's first domestic US album. Each of the six tracks is its own self-contained piece, spurred by some personal association to the composer. However, taken all together, one can travel by sound from New York City (where Gal spent a year's residency at the Leo Baeck Institute) to the subways of Vienna and beyond. The piece "lv, nv" uses adaptive filters to uncover hidden musical elements always present at a Vegas casino. Another, "Tong-hua yie-shi" could be described as real-time musique concrete, created by walking through a Taiwanese night market equipped with a stereo microphone, DAT, and headphones.

"Relisten operates between the world's soundscapes and their detachment from context", says Gal. "The personal discovery of music within nature as well as within the routines of everyday life keeps fascinating me. Sometimes I return to a certain place only to record its sound." Howard Stelzer. Intransitive Recordings

Releases:
Bernhard Gal: "Bestimmung New York" (Durian, 1999)
Bernhard Gal: "Defragmentation /blue" (Plate Lunch, 2000)
Bernhard Gal: "Relisten" (Intransitive, 2001)

Website: http://www.bernhardgal.com
Email: gal@gmx.at

Gydja
I work under the name of Gydja, doing everything from fairly conventional ambient to abstract sound manipulation and deconstruction. I use nature field recordings, as well as incidental sounds sourced from ritual and other propitious environments.

Releases:
Mari-Ama (1995)
Rokkrsong (1997)

Website: gydja
Email: rokkrx@ezysurf.co.nz