Jarra Schirris
“The beauty manifested in art is the beauty of reality revealed, not a confection invented by the artist’s imagination.”
“When we ignore them they disturb us, when we listen to them, we find them fascinating.”

I like the idea of capturing sounds as a photographer takes images. Often the space in which music is recorded is abstracted to the point of erasure. It’s not particularly quiet, but there’s a hum of a generator or something. To appreciate it in depth we have to face the challenge of profound listening. By abstracting these sounds, we refocus our attention, and the silence becomes audible again. Perhaps this is the composer’s role, to command our attention. To let things happen, rather than to make things happen. It taught me to accept the sounds as they are, and it made me accept the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.

Release:
Jarra - Untitled (CDR) This CD consists of 6 tracks, which are recorded silences from different parts of the world. The tracks do not contain treated or sampled sounds, but were shaped by manipulating the acoustics during recording.

Website: http://www.jarra.nl/
Email: jarrasch@hotmail.com

Dallas Simpson
These soundworks are not always "quiet", some works contain periods of natural silence but there are also a few surprises and in some cases the sound is quite intense, but all the sounds are "real", not the product of electronic synthesis, sampling or manipulation. I often refer to them as "meditations" and my meaning is that we should think and listen, for in thinking we may pause to reflect on both what we may be missing in terms of an enriched aural experiencing our continual daily lives, and how, in the attainment of this richness, we may have to modify our own behaviour to access it. Consequently, these works are not an end in themselves that glorify the artist, but are an open invitation for each of us to establish a new and sensitive relationship with our environment, for it is only when we fully appreciate its worth that we will strive at all costs to preserve it.... MORE

Website: http://www.waterpump.f9.co.uk/
Email: waterpump@waterpump.f9.co.uk

Scott Smallwood
Scott Smallwood was born in Dallas, Texas, and grew up at 10,000 feet in elevation in the Colorado Rockies. Smallwood is a sound artist who enjoys working with a wide variety of electronic and acoustic materials, particularly real-world sound and field recordings. His work has involved creating electronic music in the studio; and improvising as a percussionist, a laptop performer, and a performer of the Trinidadian steel drum. He is one half of the laptop duo Evidence, performs dance music under the name sCAUGHT, and enjoys writing structured improvisations for traditional and non-traditional instrumental ensembles. He has released recordings on the Deep Listening and Televaw Records imprints, and his work has been presented internationally in festivals, conferences, museums, clubs, coffee shops, swimming pools, rooftops, and dive bars. He is currently a doctoral student in sound and composition at Princeton University.

Selected Releases:
Tempus Fugit - Ltd edition CDR. Wavelet Records, 2001.
Desert Winds – Full-length CD. Deep Listening Records, 2002.
Evidence: Out of Town – Full-length CD. w/ Stephan Moore. Deep Listening Records, 2003.
Evidence: Growroom – Ltd edition (200) 7” vinyl. w/ Stephan Moore. Televaw Records, 2002.
Evidence: Moodspool – Ltd edition (200) 7” vinyl. w/ Stephan Moore. Televaw Records, 2003.

Press Reactions
"Smallwood is a master of picking up the most interesting sounds from what seem like barren places: a deserted airplane hangar that once held the Enola Gay, a debris pile, a cushy recliner miles from someone's home. These sounds are diamonds in the rough, but happily, they have been cut and polished for listeners seeking new sources of in-depth listening." - www.itde.org

"Large pieces of sound get propped up against each other, then topple slowly but forcefully into your field of vision and centre of gravity. The traces of the sound linger like a cloud of phosphorus scorch, and you can lie back when it's finished, breathing the pure scents of industrial New York at its finest." -- The Wire

Website: http://music.princeton.edu/~skot
Email: skot@princeton.edu

Joel Smith
I try to think of field recording and composing as a single, circular process, of which I'm half in control at most. The world knows more than we do; that's why we're listening.

Email: JoSmith@vassar.edu

Katarina Soukup
Katarina Soukup is a Montreal-based media artist and phonography afficiando. Her past work has explored underground radio broadcasting during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and, more recently, numerous collaborations with Inuit artists of the Canadian Arctic. She has presented her media art in Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, and the Czech Republic. She is currently in the midst of a project exploring creative field recording techniques for conjuring the curious and astonishing sounds of the Arctic environment.

Selected phonography:
Kids go fishing for Arctic Char on the shores of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Recorded in August 2001. gone_fishing.mp3
Thousands of seagulls nest on the cliffs at Naujaaruluk - a great place for climbing and egg-picking. Recorded in June 2000. narrajajuluk.mp3
The howling of dogs echoes throughout Igloolik (a small Northern community in the Arctic) at about 3am. Recorded in July 2000. dog_echo.mp3
Sounds of the mittik (king eider duck), which nests on a small island called mitilik just off Baffin Island. Recorded in June 2000. bird_island.mp3

Selected written texts:
Ear to the Tundra: Samples from an Arctic Sound Search (to be released August 15 2003)
Haunting Aurality: Transmission, History, Memory (1999)

Website: http://nunatinnit.net
Email: katarina@videotron.ca

Rod Stasick
A composer/performer/archivist living in Dallas, TX who composes event-systems for various ensembles, instruments and situations that derive from his interest in synergistic relationships.

Release:
lowercase compilation: "obeliSKrying" (bremsstrahlung recordings) a reconstructed sound model of a phonographic-based adjunct to a site-specific memorial sound installation in the Canadian Rockies.

Website: http://rostasi.8m.com/
Email: rostasi@yahoo.com

Joel Stern
1979. lives in Melbourne, Australia
Joel is a sound artist exploring various approaches to electro-acoustic music, in both a compositional and freely improvised context. Typically he performs using field recordings, contact microphones, found objects, digital processing techniques and simple feedback systems, producing works which move openly between richly textural surface noise, investigations of acoustic space, and minute gestural detail. Between 2000 and 2003 Joel was based in London where he was an active contributer in the experimental music scene, performing regularly as a solo artist and in improvising groups with musicians including Anthony Guerra, Rhodri Davies, Paul Hood, Tom Chant, Mark Wastell, Mattin, Christof Kurzmann, Michael Northam and Oren Ambarchi. Joel has released his work on the labels TwoThousandAnd, Impermanent, and Touch, and in late 2003 will have cd's published by Groundfault and Paradisc.

Websites: http://laudible.net/impermanent/
http://www.twothousandand.com/
Email: sternjoel@hotmail.com

STL ( STEPHAN LAUBNER )
" I Enjoy the Sounds of Nature, wherever it comes from "
Stephan has always been fascinated by the World of Sound and Music since the age of 13. He´s DJing, Producing, Recording, Releasing, Performing or just Collecting Sounds for his own...

Something Records is his own record label. It started in the year 2003 and releases are on Vinyl and CD. The Sound of him is not limited to one specific style. But he often uses Enviromenatal Sounds. Recording and Arranging them together with Music Instruments intoo Collages and Sound Sculptures. From deep soulful Music to pure Field Recordings. On his label he combines everything in his own magic way.

He began making music on Oldshool Computers like Commodore64, Atari and Amiga with LoFi Sampler. He starts to collect various Sounds with Microphones and Tapedecks. Soon his Work began to get more serious and he made his first Productions for german experimental Housemusic Recordlabels. He is also Dj-ing. In 1994 he founded a Crew which is mostly active around Germany. They are doing Music at different Warehouse Partys, Underground Clubs and local Radiostations. Also they have a Show every Month at Netmusique.com .............

Website: www.something-records.com/
Email: Someone@Something-Records.com