Most friends know that I’m a big fan of Jan Jelinek and his fuzzy analog music, found on labels like Klang Elektronik, ~scape and Faitiche.
So I’ve been hanging out with Ripley lately, and her research in music and copyright issues reminded me of Jelinek’s second release on Faitiche. Under a new moniker called G.E.S. (Gesellschaft zur Emanzipation des Samples, or Society for the Emancipation of Sampling), Jelinek output a collection of brief, mirtfully sampled snippets into an album called Circulations.
Circulations; image from Faitiche.de
Jelinek pre-selected and then played a range of material in various public spaces, recording both the selections as well as the ripples of conversation, traffic, and other sounds commonly found in field recordings. In doing so, he challenged the notion of music copyright violation within the public domain.
You can preview the tracks at Faitiche’s website; ”hawaiian machine chant” is a new favorite.
Now I wish he’d visit the Bay area again, and visit the Musee Mecanique for even more incredible audio samples! Creepy puppets (like the one I caught below in 2006) would undoubtedly make rich fodder for another album.
Also, if you haven’t found it already, Faitiche’s recent mix for Wire’s Adventures In Modern Music radio series is fantastic. It has Ursula Bogner, Jeff Mills and Ennio Morricone! Listen now!
