Stolen Mirror

10/01/2022

STRAYS 2 is now available on Bandcamp, completing the dual album release. This new collection of eight tracks joins STRAYS 1, together representing a decade of electroacoustic composition by Robin Parmar.

All funds collected from sales will be donated to the organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, who continue their brave humanitarian work in conflict zones. You may wish instead to make a direct contribution to their cause.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/album/strays-2

8 track album

09/01/2022

STRAYS 2 will be released 10 January 2020. Here's the next preview track, with commentary.

Track 5: Tender glance (2014/18)

Excerpt from an improvised performance at Sonic Vigil 8 (St. Anne's Church, Cork, 3 May 2014). The method was similar to other concerts in this period. Field recordings were combined with live material from a variety of transducers, feeding a custom Reaktor patch.

This edit was created in 2018 for the compilation "Bouquet of Sounds 2", released by the Institute for Sonic Creativity, de Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Thanks to Leigh Landy for curating the album, to The Guesthouse in Cork, and to everyone involved in Sonic Vigil.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/tender-glance

from the album Strays 2

08/01/2022

STRAYS 2 will be released 10 January 2020. Here's the next preview track, with commentary.

Track 4: Inside the electrosphere (2012)

We swim in a sea of unseen electromagnetic radiation, emitted by our radio towers, cellular phones, microwave ovens, and numerous other devices. Created for a forgotten radio project in 2012, this track contrasts electromagnetics with the fluid dynamics of air and water, mysterious sounds of forces both biotic and abiotic.

Previously unpublished.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/inside-the-electrosphere

from the album Strays 2

07/01/2022

STRAYS 2 will be released 10 January 2020. Here's the next preview track, with commentary.

Track 3: Cistern song (2012)

TANK was a series of group improvisations curated by Tony Langlois and Harry Moore. I contributed to an event at the Triskel Arts Centre, Cork on 14 January 2012, alongside Ed Devane, Harry Moore, John Daly, and Mick O'Shea. Each of us had a section where we would "solo," before bringing this material back into the group. This is an excerpt of my contribution, created from field recordings and live processing using microphones, piezoelectric contacts, and induction coils. I developed techniques to work with these sources over several years, in a series of group improvisations nurtured by the community of Cork city.

Previously unpublished. Thanks to all the organisers and participants.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/cistern-song

from the album Strays 2

06/01/2022

The next track in anticipation of STRAYS 2, to be released 10 January 2020. You can hear this preview track now.

Track 2: Lullaby of the nymphs (2021)

The overpowering rhythmic stridulation of the adult cicada both delights and annoys. In the case of the Magicicada Brood X, this display is heard only every seventeen years. For the remainder of their lifespan, these creatures exist underground as nymphs. This piece is my attempt to imagine the sonic discourse between the Earth and these creatures, an unheard lullaby.

Released in 2021 on "Cicada 17 Requiem: Brood x4". Thanks to David Michael for the source recording, to Slavek Kwi, and the other organisers.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/lullaby-of-the-nymphs

from the album Strays 2

05/01/2022

Ten days before New Years we released STRAYS 1. Ten days after New Years we will release STRAYS 2, the second half of a decade-spanning compilation from Robin Parmar.

Tracks are being released on a rolling basis, together with notes from the composer for our Facebook readers.

Track 1: Perturbation (2012)

For many years I recorded only sounds from my home and the local environs of St. Mary’s parish, Corbally, Limerick. This was a way of avoiding the othering of a place that occurs when we encounter exotic locales. I only trusted myself to forge an honest relationship to sounds I was intimately familiar with. In this piece, domestic sounds are reconfigured into an imaginary realm of meteorological and ecological forces, emphasising our embedded situation in a network of connections and flows. There’s a storm in the distance, getting closer all the time.

An abbreviated version of this track was released recently on the ISSTA compilation "Tides".

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/perturbation

from the album Strays 2

21/12/2021

It's here today!

"Strays" is a set of two albums, summarising a decade of electroacoustic composition by Robin Parmar. This anthology collects tracks from compilations and collaborative projects, unreleased experiments, and excerpts from live performances. The sixteen selections share an improvised approach, varying in structure from drones to expressionistic collage.

Robin writes:
Each composition is made from a specific sound pool. Some pools were sourced from my own environment; some pools were shared by other musicians. Among the sounds are beach stones, electromagnetic waves, broken pianos, chattering insects, ice machines, radio voices, and suburban birds. I improvise with these sources using guitar pedals, feedback mixers, and custom software, using granular synthesis and other techniques. The tracks explore hidden sonic realms, generate patterns of emotion, reveal forgotten memories. My goal is to illustrate the inherent connections between ourselves and our environments, to explore our embedded place in nature.

"Strays 1" is released 21 December 2021 through Bandcamp. "Strays 2" will be released 10 January 2022. Tracks from this album will be revealed daily in the new year, leading up to the launch date.

The tracks have been remastered for this release. The liner notes include track descriptions alongside an essay by the composer. This is a Stolen Mirror release, so start here:
http://stolenmirror.com

Thank-you and Merry Christmas!

Stolen Mirror Publishing releases innovative music from Ireland and beyond.

20/12/2021

We are releasing tracks from STRAYS 1 on a rolling basis, together with notes from Robin Parmar for our Facebook readers. This is the penultimate entry in the series... the album releases tomorrow!

Track 7: Spectral formation ("yes to peace")

When we hear our own voice, we are already separated from that moment in which we spoke. As we pay attention to listening, we thicken the "now" with recollection, anticipation, and imagination. When we speak on the radio, our voice is further extended through medial space-time to receivers that we cannot even know are there. Radio is an act of trust, a gift... as is all language. But in radio the spectral presence of speech is enacted explicitly. As a listener, shortwave voices are heard as revenants of the radio frequencies, returning again to haunt places they have never been, connecting moment to moment in an already-present remembrance, an already-remembered present.

The source material is a transmission on Radio Havana Cuba, 2 August 2017, recorded by Anthony Messina. Created in 2021 for the Cities and Memories forthcoming compilation "Shortwave Transmissions".

Thanks to curator Stuart Fowkes and Anthony Messina.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/spectral-formation-yes-to-peace

19/12/2021

We are releasing tracks from STRAYS 1 on a rolling basis, together with notes from Robin Parmar for our Facebook readers.

Track 6: Before and after insects

A recording of a Thai jungle was electronically transformed using a feedback system built from guitar pedals. A delay and resonant filters created a Möbius topology that mirrors our own knotted relationship to nature. We simultaneously dominate our environment while being subject to its forces, at all times an integral part of its materiality.

Published by Cities and Memory in 2016 as a contribution to "Sounding Nature". Re-titled for this release, "Before and after insects" is only accidentally a play on a Brian Eno album.

Thanks to curator Stuart Fowkes and recordist Marcel Gnauk.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/before-and-after-insects

from the album Strays 1

17/12/2021

We are releasing tracks from STRAYS 1 on a rolling basis, together with notes from Robin Parmar for our Facebook readers.

Track 5: Dust on my hands

The Royal Cork Yacht Club in Cobh, Ireland operated between 1854 and 1966. The basement of their handsome building was dedicated to the kitchen and servants’ quarters. Today this is where the artist-in-residence at the Sirius Arts Centre stays. During my residency, I collected the sounds of this structure and the nearby seaside environs. Instruments included beach stones, a broken upright piano, rusted iron ornaments, and a discarded children’s doll, which I had found washed up in the surf. A live performance on 25 May 2016 utilised multiple audio channels, here mixed down to stereo.

Thanks to director Miranda Driscoll and the staff of the Sirius Arts Centre for their kind support.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/dust-on-my-hands

from the album Strays 1

15/12/2021

We are releasing tracks from STRAYS 1 on a rolling basis, together with notes from Robin Parmar for our Facebook readers.

Track 4: Small placebos

Ed Devane provided a small library of sounds to thirty composers. I worked with these in improvisatory fashion, recording live interactions with a granular synthesis system built in Native Instruments’ Reaktor software. The more intriguing results of the exploration were then sequenced and collaged. This method of composition emphasises being in the moment, chance process, and the temporal unfolding of sound. The finished piece sounds fixed and final, but this illusion belies the process. In fact, what you hear is only one of many possible results.

Published in 2020 on the compilation "Indirect Collaborations". Thanks to Ed Devane and the other participants.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/small-placebos

from the album Strays 1

14/12/2021

We are releasing tracks from STRAYS 1 on a rolling basis, together with notes from Robin Parmar for our Facebook readers.

Track 3: Tracing constellations

A sounding returns to our integrated sensorium various qualities of the milieu, constrained not only by topology and materiality, but also by social and political constructs: a wall dividing one community from another, a river segmenting outgoing flows (excremental) from incoming flows (nourishment), and so on. The city is created by economic and political hegemony, but also through acts of resistance: squats, artist zones, graffiti, and détournement. A sounding reflexively engages with such a milieu through the active process of being-in-the-world. At the same time, the artist participates in the continuous and mutual construction of place, a world-made-by-being.

Created in 2016 from acoustic and electromagnetic recordings made at six places in Europe. Previously unreleased.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/tracing-constellations

from the album Strays 1

13/12/2021

We are releasing tracks from STRAYS 1 on a rolling basis, together with notes from Robin Parmar for our Facebook readers.

2. "Language fades in the dominion of the birds"

Created from a pool of sounds contributed by members of The Ambient and Experimental Music Community. I treated this collection much as I would my own recordings, first listening for intriguing textures and timbres. There are certain moments where the material hints at connection. A meta-music can be coaxed from sonic interstices, creating something greater than the constituent parts.

Published in 2021 by the AEMC on the compilation "Communal Music Vol. 9". Thanks to all the contributors.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/language-fades-in-the-dominion-of-the-birds

from the album Strays 1

12/12/2021

We are releasing tracks from STRAYS 1 on a rolling basis, and will supplement these for our Facebook readers with descriptions from the liner notes.

1. "In anticipation of listening"

Created from a recording of a Swedish church congregation, made in the moments before the organ processional. Recordist Melissa Pons writes: “I have been fascinated by what happens in a room where the audience is waiting for the music to start.” What exists in the space before listening? There’s a social bond that unites an audience, an anticipation based on our previous encounters in similar circumstances. A concert is a ritual; a performance in a church doubly so. Is field recording its own ritual?

Published in 2016 by Cities and Memory as part of the project "Sacred Spaces". Thanks to Melissa Pons and curator Stuart Fowkes.

https://robinparmar.bandcamp.com/track/in-anticipation-of-listening

from the album Strays 1

08/12/2021

STRAYS 1 is now on pre-release over on Bandcamp. You can hear two tracks prior to the launch 21 December.

Thanks to everyone who has already shown an interest! We would very much appreciate you spreading the word.

03/12/2021

Forthcoming on Stolen Mirror: two albums spanning a decade of electroacoustic composition by Robin Parmar. This anthology collects tracks from compilations and collaborative projects, distilled from improvisatory performances, retrieved from internet streams and hard drive valleys. They are all... STRAYS.

"This collection of fifteen tracks is a manifesto in sound. Composed within the last decade from found objects, field recordings, electromagnetic disturbances, broken pianos, ice machines, and other detritus, these pieces represent a dominant arc in my compositional praxis. I respond to sonic matter gifted me by other people, or encountered at hazard in my milieu. I craft a response that elaborates the intimate relationship between myself and my aural environment, that intimates the elaborate connection between materials and their flow."

STRAYS 1 will be released this December, while STRAYS 2 will bookend the New Year with a January release.