Tag: Valence

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UNYAZI 2014 – The listening room

iP orbital from Valence released on LINE will be screened September 11 and run through September 13th in the listening room, part of UNYAZI 2014, the South African electronic music festival. The listening room is curated by Carl Stone.

“When Cameron Harris asked me if I would be interested to help curate the 2014 Unyazi Festival with an emphasis on music from what is sometimes called the Pacific Rim, I was glad to accept, and did so without hesitation. While I knew we would able to bring several wonderful artists to perform at the festival, it was clear that because of the limits of schedule and also budget many interesting artists would not be able to come in person. So I came up with the idea of a listening room, where people could gather and enjoy music in a relaxed setting, and where many pieces from my home base in Japan, as well as  South Africa, Australia,  Canada, China, Hong Kong, Korea, the Phillipines, Rwanda, Singapore, the USA, & Vietnam could be enjoyed. In the end, eight hours of music are being presented, all of them created especially for the medium of the loudspeaker. It has been a lot of fun to put together the program, and I hope those of you who can come by the festival and spend some time listening will enjoy it.”

— Carl Stone, Tokyo

The Listening Room

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review – valence (line) – 2012 – infinite grain

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

The cosmos is delicate, exact and sound is a proof. You notice it when you listen carefully or when a sonic experience takes you out of yourregular reality to a new perception of the real, which is what Valence, a sound work by artist France Jobin does, making sound to flow in such subtle ways, giving the feeling of being crafted in molecular environments. It is scientific but mystical, feels modern but ancient. Is a journey created between the arcane technology of listening and the current methods of recording/processing, building a theatre of atoms capable of creating wonderful microscopic structures of audio signals. The artist becomes a bridge between complexity and emptiness, putting the listener into a minimalist habitat created as a tribute to infinity. Pure tones, melodic particles and a constant reverberation oforbitals frequencies able to create a special state of mind where the only existing universe is sonic.

Miguel Isaza
infinite grain 

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – hatena

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012
i8uが本人名義のアルバムをLINEからリリースした。これが実に清冽で美しい音響作品であった。

レーベルのインフォメーションによると「原子価結合と分子軌道の二つの量子理論と、彼女が作
曲する時の精神状態や作曲方法との思いがけない類似にインスパイアされて制作」したという。

つまり科学と感性による音響生成を目指したということだろうか。実際、その音響はほとんどが
フィールドレコーディングされた音響を素材とされており、世界により生成された音を科学者の
ようにサウンドを転換しながらも、その繊細な音響は、静謐な音響を求める心のように、とても
柔らかな質感で持続／生成しているように感じたのだ。サイエンスとフィジカルが全く矛盾する
ことなく、ごく当たり前に、澄み切った空気や水のように鳴っているかのように。1曲の微かな持
続。2曲目のピアノの透明な響き。3曲目の生命のような高音。どれもオーガニック／マシニック
な響きが素晴らしい。

個人的には、どこかジョン・ケージの晩年の作品ナンバーピース・シリーズを聴いているような
気分にもなった。微かな音の持続。濁りのない清冽な響き。空間と空気に溶け込むミニマルにし
て複雑な音響。それは小さく、しかし、豊穣で揺らぎに満ちた音響の持続。

近年のLINEは（特に昨年12k傘下から離れて以降の）は本作のような弱音響の作品を、音だけの
サウンドインスタレーションとして私たちが提供してくれるような気さえする。極めて稀なレ
ベルといえるだろう。

ともあれ、現在のような状況において、このような小さな音のアルバムは非常に稀ではないか。
小さな音を聴くには、iPhoneやiPodでリスニングには向かないからだ。むしろ自宅で静かに流し
ながら、音楽のある空間で過ごすことに適している。音楽に向き合う時間を作るという意味で
は、とても「贅沢」な作品ではないだろうか。

 

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – i care if you listen

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

A rather small, independent record store in Cambridge, MA (such places still exist), it contains one of the, well, weirdest selections I’ve ever seen. If you are seeking something off the beaten path, it’s absolutely fantastic. The pricing is good, shipping cheap, and at the end of the day it felt great to support both some lesser-known artists as well as a bona fide record store.

One of my recent purchases from this most excellent establishment was France Jobin‘s CD, Valence. A Montreal-based artist, Jobin (b. 1958) has created solo recordings for a number of labels and has also produced installations around the world. Her work is mostly electroacoustic in nature, exploring sounds at an unhurried pace. If this CD is any indication of her work as a whole, I would be quite anxious to hear some of her installations.

The title for the CD, Valence, is inspired by the valence bond and molecular orbital theories of atomic particles. If you harken back to high school chemistry, you may recall that the electrons around the nucleus of an atom do not follow planet-like orbits (despite what the logo from The Big Band Theory might imply), but rather exist in particular regions around the nucleus. The tracks are thus appropriately titled S orbital, P orbital, and D orbital.

Orbital Diagram
Diagram of S, P, and D orbitals – Image by Dr. Alex M. Clark

The CD opens with sounds that lie on the edges of human hearing, demanding a high-quality listening environment to enjoy the full effect. As the 27-minute track progresses, a swath of warm, lush tones, which might be more commonly found  as backdrops to a tranquil video game, emerge. S orbital is anything but passive music, however, as the interaction of this warmth with other sounds at extreme frequencies and occasional, less-musical sounds, creates a complex listening space worth exploring. I only wish I could experience this is a concert hall with as many surround channels as possible.

P orbital takes a noticeably different path from S, as it opens with a single note struck repeatedly, and slowly, on a piano. The sounds, while still primarily warm and consonant, are also more aggressive both in their sweeping volume and slight metallic tinge. In this track, Jobin really demonstrates her remarkable sense of pacing and development. Approximately seven minutes in to this 22-minute track, the opening figures are reduced to a single tone while lower frequences take the piece in a decidedly more sinister direction. Later, a major chord slowly and unexpectedly emerges, and, to provide stunning closure, the piano note returns at the very end. It can be difficult to maintain interest over time with relatively few sounds, but with these opening two tracks Jobin demonstrates both a capacity for sustained intrigue and remarkable adeptness at transitioning to new ideas.

The final track, D orbital, seems to combine aspects of both S and P. The warmth of the opening track and some of its high-pitched tones return, and the slowly emerging harmonies seem connected to the second. As I hear it, these three tracks are intimately connected, but at the same time I would be quite hesitant to impose some sort of three-movement form on the disc. D orbital may be a continuation of similar ideas, but it is not a summary.

In the end, I think this is a magnificent CD, worthy of your time, attention, and purchasing power. As a caveat, though, I think a 30- or even 90-second preview of this album will not do it justice (especially in an inferior listening situation). At a glance, one might write this music off as ambient fluff, but deeper listening reveals a subtle complexity that is immensely satisfying.

Andrew Lee

Buy at Line,

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – igloomag

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

Valence - France Jobin Montreal’s France Jobin francejobin.com purveys a kind of audio art in the realm of Roden rather than the Tietchens tradition; quiet sound-sculptures at the intersection of analogue and digital, of musical and visual. Valence is a kind of coming out, previous recordings bearing the i8u alias—on Room40, Non Visual Objects and Dragons Eye. The last mentioned label’s 29 Palms had showcased the artist’s subtle sleight of hand in ‘ambiguous atmospheres unfolding out of a seemingly infinitely creatively configurable trio of materials—synthetic sustain, wavering tonalities and digital crackle—that commingle with occasional emergent harmonics.’ Created entirely from transformed field recordings (of uncertain provenance), i8u familars will find Valence imbued with a similar pared back flowing minimalism, a discreet fishing in interstitial pools that’s become a trademark. As such it feels less like a change of substance than a further refined version of i8u’s delicate pointillism, though there’s seems a clearer and more present affective steer—away from doleful or dark—more glowing than glowering. It feels more integral, likely linked to Jobin’s incorporation of once lumpy lows into a more lissom high-mid spectrum. Press patter invoking Eliane Radigue and Celer is, in spirit rather than literal sound, on the mark, though the latter seems a more pertinent reference, these deep meditative slow harmonic modulations swimming in similarly solicitously designed translucence; slow-shutter sonics draw into a micro-world of heightened focus – a gentle gossamer drift, weaving a nature tone poem, albeit one studded with odd UHF flickers. Liminal is most definitely the word for the unbearable lightness of opener, “S Orbital,” while the following “P Orbital” is a little less shy and retiring, even generous in passages distinguished by microtonal minutiae, lingering long on designed apertures and occlusions, frequency isolations suspended between pin-sharp high pitches and softer focus harmonic colour forms. Valence draws inspiration from both the valence bond and molecular orbital theories, ignorance of which thankfully doesn’t pre-empt appreciation—though doubtless it would be further enhanced by consciousness of the parallels between quantum theory and compositional incertitude, between the emotional ambiguity of a work-in-process and molecular instability (reading from crib sheet). Ultimately, flipping from critic to fan, and recourse to ‘I don’t know much about Biochemistry, but I know what I like’ protestations, Valence offers plenty of an absolute musical quality here (particularly on the more fulsome final “D Orbital”) to allure the listening ear, particularly one of a dry-loving ellipsis-seeking inclination. Uncompromisingly minimal and steeped in eventlessness it may be, yet for all that, Jobin achieves a satisfying continuous dialectic—between mid-range sustain and high-end microsonic motion, a suture of binaries of replete evacuation and expansive intimacy. Buy at Line, Amazon, iTunes or Juno.

Alan Lockett

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – eyebient

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

Last year a team of scientists from European research center CERN reported that the microscopic elementary particles, neutrinos, probably exceeded the speed of light. It would be a revolution in physics, because the speed of light – almost 300 thousand kilometers per second – is the greatest speed in the universe. According to Einstein’s theory, no one and nothing can move faster. Soon after it became clear that the research was wrong – was the result of technical defects, firstly the GPS to measure the speed of neutrinos has been set faultily. Secondly, the cable was not connected properly with a part of the system.

France Jobin describes her album ‘Valence’ as inspired by both the valence bond (VB) and molecular orbital (MO) theories. This is not a revolution in music, neither conceptual nor sound. Because the interpretation of such research projects would easily become a grotesque. However,  this album is outstanding, mainly because it is the mathematical contemplation of the music with the sounds and the expression used already by masters such as Whitman or Noto. France Jobin does not describe the laws of physics. Actually she measures (like Apichatpong Weerasethakul in his films) our patience for listening to things quite significant.

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – Spiritual Archives – FR

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

Canadian artist, celebrated sound sculptor, works released (under the moniker “i8u”) on leading labels of the genre such as and/OAR, ATAK, Contour Editions, Dragon’s Eye Recordings, Non Visual Objects, Room40 and many others.

And as if that weren’t enough, France Jobin also excels in the audio-visual field: performances and video installations at noteworthy festivals (Mutek, Victoriaville, Send + Receive, Club Transmediale, Immersound etc.) and important art venues (Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec etc.).

Her recent audio release, “Surface Tension” on Murmur Records, must necessarily be included among the best albums of the past year. The latest one, published first under her real name and out in February on L-ne, is titled “Valence”: sounds with references to the world of chemistry and perceptible departure from those compositional schemes that we got used to.

A gleaming gem, substance radiating sweetness and light, three long pieces that maintain an inimitable identity, purity, ravishing musicality.

Rigorous aesthetic sensibility, superb skills in sound processing, minimalist imprint as common denominator of most of her work, marked by an amazing simplicity/complexity, rich in subtle, barely audible elements: all that offers an immersive listening experience, all that makes France Jobin a unique figure in this area of exploration.

Giuseppe Angelucci

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – Dusted Magazine – USA

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

The Montreal based sound artist and curator, France Jobin, has been releasing albums for well over a decade. Devoted explorers of the finer sides of noise will have likely come across the name i8u — Jobin’s exclusive nom-de-plume up to this point. i8u has been an effective outlet for Jobin, where she’s shown an aptitude for transforming analog and digital geekery into music with substance.

The press release for Valence — Jobin’s first work to break from the i8u guise — claims the album was created entirely from “transformed field recordings.” While neither Jobin nor the label hint at the source of these recordings, fans of i8u needn’t fear a drastic change from the spectrum-spanning minimalism that’s become her signature sound. In fact, Valence, from start to finish, feels like a further honed version of i8u’s pointillist analog-synth explorations, as opposed to a shifting of paradigms.

While it’s not a drastic change, the music feels more congealed than past efforts; the reticent mids and ear-piercing highs of i8u’s 2010 effort, 29 Palms, for example, tended to float along nicely enough in parallel, but didn’t posses the same give-and-take relationship expressed on Valence. This refined sound likely is linked to Jobin’s transformation of the more digestible low to high-mid frequencies; they flutter, cascade, and always translate a hint of effervescence in the way that heavily time-stretched field recordings do.

While ambient and drone focused music in general dictates a sort of unspoken modesty, Valence, in its scope, is not a humble record. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of a number of epic Eliane Radigue works. But this doesn’t always come easily for Jobin, as the liner notes explain her struggles in always finding the right mental and emotional state in order create her art. Considering she decided to include these thoughts here, I’d imagine Valence was of particular challenge. Perhaps then, this album does represent a sort of shift for Jobin — not overtly in terms of ideology, but in terms of an emotional weight, one that has never carried so transparently into her music.

By Adrian Dziewanski

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – ATTN. Magazine UK

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

Working exclusively with processed field recordings taken from across North America and Europe, Jobin’s conscious mind dances cautiously with her source material; she is compelled by its potential significance but reluctant to unveil its mystique by sparing it too much thought. As she states herself: “there is a likelihood of finding a certain emotion in a piece, but it is not guaranteed, nor do I know exactly when or where I will find it. The act of looking for that emotion in of itself will distort it. Although one would think experimental music grants complete freedom, when composing, I feel constrained by both my mental state and the way in which I build the piece.”

There is therefore a paradoxically heavy tension present within the practically weightless ambience. Jobin wrestles with her own curiosity, letting impulse prise the reins from the heavy steering and assertion of rational thought and letting the decision-making process flow as it will. Each of the three pieces goes through a most delicate evolution, guided gently between harmonies and into higher volumes by intricate tilts of axis. Comparisons are understandably drawn with the microscopic drone modulations of Eliane Radigue, with Jobin’s music carrying a similar attentiveness to the tiniest details; gaseous sonic emissions mutate at an imperceptibly slow speed, drawing both composer and listener into a micro-world of heightened focus.

Despite originating from the recordings of actual spaces, attributing Valence to a particular type of landscape is difficult. The gentle flickers of drone feels as though they’re drifting around the perimeter of a space in nature – perhaps a large open field or desolate green forest – yet those occasional beeps of ultra-high frequency reside outside of an organic frequency spectrum, tugging the mental visuals toward the realms of artificial machinery and laboratory electronics. But just as Jobin avoids trying to excavate the “meaning” within her work, it’s perhaps wise for the recipient to question the music with care; the ethereal, intangible beauty of Valence is brittle and always ready to unravel at the hands of any heavy-handed attempt to decipher its implications.
(ATTN:Magazine, UK)

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Review – Valence (LINE) – 2012 – Hawai

Valence on LINE  054 – 2012

E l disco de la pareja feliz no es lo único que ha aparecido por las líneas dirigidas por Richard Chartier. Con la misma fecha, febrero de este año, sale editado el estreno de la artista canadiense France Jobin en Line,y que además es el primer disco bajo su nombre real. Jobin es una músico de Montreal que desde hace unos diez años viene editando bajo I8U. Más de una decena de trabajos, la mayoría desconocidos para mí, y que por tanto hacen que mi ingreso en su vocabulario sea del todo nuevo. “Valence” fue creado enteramente desde grabaciones de campo transformadas, inspirado tanto en los enlaces de valencia (VB) y las teorías orbitales moleculares (MO. “Una órbita atómica es una función matemática que describe el comportamiento ondulado de un electrón o de un par de electrones en un átomo. Esta función se puede utilizar para calcular la probabilidad de encontrar cualquier electrón de un átomo en cualquier región específica alrededor del núcleo del átomo. El término puede también referir a la región física definida por la función donde el electrón es probable que esté”. Buscando las zonas en donde se cree se encuentran las partículas más pequeñas de la vida, France crea una órbita en donde los sonidos viajan en campos donde la percepción no es la misma, más cercana al silencio que al ruido, en perfecta sintonía con lo que el mismo Chartier hace. Sin llegar al nivel se sutileza sonora a los alcanza el jefe del sello, los postulados de Jobin de todas maneras obligan a permanecer atentos para no descuidar el instante en que los rumores mudos dejan de ser tal y pasan a ser la banda sonora para este viaje de búsqueda atómica. Siguiendo trayectorias circulares quizás pueda parecer extraño, para mí lo fue, pero efectivamente uno al escuchar cuidadosamente estas tres piezas –entre los dieciocho y los veintisiete minutos– siente y sobre todo imagina a aquella partícula, la más ligera de todas viajar alrededor del núcleo, me imagino orbitando y dando destellos de luz en la eternidad de lo invisible al ojo, ajeno a la vista, pero palpable al oído, el sentido que nos perite ver más allá de todo. Una verdadera y agradable sorpresa la que nos tenía deparada France Jobin, quien crea un universo a partir de lo microscópico, que contrarresta con las inmensidades al vacío teñidas de gris de Stephan Mathieu y Caro Mikalef. Line por dos en el comienzo del año, diez sobre diez.