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Track list:
CD1 Merita
CD2 No Sleep In Medan
CD3 Nothing Will Change
CD4 Quaroun

Release description:
Future Predictions is a set of ensemble pieces made with tape loops, from digital and acoustic instruments, field recordings and foley sounds. With a focus on introspection and imagination, each piece begins with all layers playing, with minimal additional long-term structural development in order to maintain a state. Each piece of music is accompanied by photos, and text written with a shifting tense.

As a follow-up to 2018’s Memory Repetitions which was based on memory and the interpretation of it over time, Future Predictions is instead based on the idea of future situations, and should be seen as a meditation on future events.

All music was recorded with high-quality recycled reel-to-reel tape. It has been mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung, and designed by Rutger Zuydervelt.

Limited edition, custom-made clamshell box, 4xCDs in pocket sleeves, and 16-page booklet. Digital version includes PDF booklet.

Track list:
1 (06.23.17) From the doorway of the beef noodle shop, shoes on the street in the rain, outside the karate school
2 Rains lit by neon
3 In the middle of the moving field
4 (06.26.17) Maglev at 303 km/h
5 Text me when you wake up
6 For the entirety
7 (06.24.17) Birds inside the high halls of Hangzhou, (06.23.17) Shanghai red line, metro karaoke
8-9 Prelude to obsession I & II
10 (06.26.17) Waiting in Hangzhou
11 Our dream to be strangers

Release description:
Phonetic script: Xièxie
Chinese characters: 谢谢
谢谢 ( xiexie / xièxie ) is composed of these characters: 谢 (xie) , 谢 (xie)
English translation: thank you, thanks
to say  |  to thank  |  literally means ‘thanks’. ‘Thank you’ in Chinese would be xièxie nĭ (if you thank an individual), or xièxie nĭmen (to say thank you to a group of people).

– Chinese -> English Dictionary

A week before leaving, I bought a dictionary and phrasebook.

Covered in rain, during the days and even the nights, Shanghai was lit in a glow, a mist turning to a constant grey fog. Buildings lined with neon and lcd screens flashed, and from around corners and behind buildings, the night was illuminated much the same as the day. Cars separated the classes, their horns voices punctuating the streets, as pedestrians in groups loosely scattered the streets, talking and walking on speakerphone.

Standing by the metro escalators, there in the square with the overhanging trees of a park, there is construction all around. The buildings seem to be climbing into the darkness at this very moment. Leaving behind and moving forward. We seem to know everything already, our illusion of experience. I imagine taking your hand, I imagined taking your hand, and the lights in the subway flicker as we go deeper. Transit bookmarks each experience, every daydream, and in the end they’re interchangeable and indistinguishable between reality and imagination. Try to remember which is real.

To Hangzhou the maglev reached 303 km/h, the towering apartment buildings hunch under construction, passing by in blurs on the flat farmland landscape. I fell asleep, as you were dancing but to no music. The lilies on the lake nodded in the rain, dipping into the water. There was a Wal-Mart near the hotel where I won a pink bunny from a claw machine. I remember the beauty of the architecture of Hangzhou station, birds swirling around the pillars near the top, the echoes of the deep station interior, and the laughing at being lost. There at least we have each other, that memory, or that daydream.

Everything moves faster than we can control. Days are just flashes, moments are mixed up but burned on film, and all of the places and times are out of order. If it could only be us, only ours. If it was ours, if it was us. Sometimes everything goes faster than you can control and you can’t stop, much less understand where you are. I bought a dictionary and phrasebook, but “xièxie” was the only word I ever got to use. 

– Will Long, January 2019

在出行前一個星期, 我買了中文字典和中文片語集。

上海到處都是下雨，不論白天還至是夜晚，雨在持續不斷的灰霧之下閃閃發光。我們參觀了外灘，關於未來的一切就像這種灰霧一樣渾濁。「現在抱緊我。」她說。抑或, 是我說過的話嗎？ 汽車的喇叭聲是刺穿街道的聲音；而每當我們經過茶飲店時，我們停下來。

站在這裡的地鐵自動扶梯，或站在被公園包圍的廣場，現在它們看起來歷久常新。 我喜歡那些古舊，但我亦對嶄新的抱感興趣。 像我這樣的人都認為自己已經知道那些虛幻的經驗。 我無法理解，我無法理解自己。 我們看似不同，但我們將始終如一。 我現在想像牽著你的手，也曾想像過我牽著你的手。隨著我們走得越來越深入, 地鐵裡的燈光就閃爍不斷 。如果這些景象只能跟內裡的洞穴感配搭起來，那我就知道它不能持久，它是不能持久，是不能持久…

抽煙的男人們在街上跟我們擦身而過，而我拍了幾張一包包香煙散留於地上的照片。 這就好像我們到處尋找一家沒有服務員將頭倒在桌面上睡覺的餐廳。 我們只是在下雨的城市漫步迷失，還是只是在性愛當中感到茫然？ 樹木低垂在湖面上，它們在雨中哭泣。 但是我仍然可以在臉上感覺到雨中的薄霧，感覺到我們在雨傘外面手牽手，雙手依然保持濕潤。 所有這些瞬間中，即使你不在我身邊，但你常在我的腦海之中。 究竟, 幻像與現實之間的區別在哪裡？

杭州的磁懸浮列車的時速達到每小時303公里，它經過閃亮潮濕的跨省公路和高樓，在平坦的農田景觀中迷糊的流淌著。 你身在遙遠之地，但你如就在我身旁。 一切都比我們所能控制的走得更快。 那些日子就像是閃爍的光，那些不同的時刻混雜在一起, 但它們最終卻烙印在菲林之上; 而我們曾經擁用的地方和時間都已經失序, 已不合時宜。 如果這些只屬於我們，那就只屬於我們。 假設它曾經是屬於我們，假設它曾經是我們。 有時候一切都比你能控制的要快，你不能停下來，更不用說你能否了解你所在之處。

– translation by Edwin Lo

 

Package description:
Xièxie is available as a 2LP edition of 300 copies, 150 silver and 150 black, a 2CD, 6 panel package edition of 500 copies, and a 2CS oversized slipcase edition of 150 copies. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu. 

Track list:
1 80,000 Feet
2 Taking Measures Toward Morning
3 Cherry Souls Awakening
4 Scarfs, Blisters And Night Lights
5 Artificial Colours
6 Swift And Ersatz Cough To Morning
7 Fathom This Young Life
8 Metal Master
9 Diphenhydramine
10 Sluggish In The Morning
11 Seeing; That Side Of Teaching
12 Mi
13 Peak Pressure
14 Rain Machines
15 Voiceless Devilfish
16 Swarms Of Orange
17 The Divine Is Not Invisible
18 Passing Hills And Still Windmills
19 Petrified Forest
20 Ice Deserts Over Ross Island
21 Scratch The Chest Of Your Voices
22 Blind Darsan
23 Missed Language
24 Late Calms
25 “To Be Holy, Be Wholly Your Own”
26 Hyperopia
27 Right To Left
28 A Minor Echolocation
29 We Were Blond First
30 The Stars Are Only Smears
31 Orionne
32 5:59 AM
33 Ends Meet
34 Mass Clouds
35 Till The Clouds Roll By
36 Apricot Sunrise
37 Echelons

Release description:
Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), also known as “nacreous clouds”, are found in the winter polar stratosphere at altitudes of 15,000–25,000 metres (50,000–80,000 ft). Due to their high altitude and the curvature of the surface of the Earth, these clouds will receive sunlight from below the horizon and reflect it to the ground, shining brightly well before dawn or after dusk. PSCs form at very low temperatures, below −78 °C. These temperatures can occur in the lower stratosphere in polar winter. In the Antarctic, temperatures below −88 °C frequently cause type II PSCs. Such low temperatures are rarer in the Arctic. Apart from arctic regions, PSCs have also been known to be seen in Scandinavia, Iceland, Alaska and Northern Canada. Sometimes, however, they occur as far south as England.

“Nacreous Clouds”, created using tape loops and digital processing, is Celer’s third album to be released on a label, and was originally issued in 2008 on and/OAR in a CD edition of 300 copies. To coincide with the 10-year release anniversary, it has been remastered by Stephan Mathieu, and is presented with new artwork and packaging, reissued on Two Acorns.

Playback using the random shuffle mode, repeat, or sequential play of your CD player is highly recommended.

Track list:
1 In the End You’ll Just Disappear

Release description:
Created for an installation to be played on 3 speakers in a triangular shape facing the center of a room. Each speaker played a continuous loop of a low end cut (speaker 1), a mid end cut (speaker 2), and a high end cut (speaker 3). From the center of the room, they should be perfectly mixed, yet evolve due to small differences in start times.

 

Available as:

  • CD edition on Two Acorns

Track list:
1 Capacious Apparitions
2 Anabranch Inter-vales
3 Elapsed Paradise
4 Glitter Patterns

Release description:
“I’m spending the days cataloging books and filling the shelves of the new library. In the early afternoons, the new library employees come in and we learn about their system, and how to work it. It’s a 4km walk out of the edge of town, along the hills and red dirt roads with broken palms back to our house. I’ll listen to the radio, or the wind as I walk. When I get back you’re on the phone with family, and our child is outside the window playing in the sand nearby. When she comes back in to join you and have a snack, I’m already wading in the water, floating on my back, and drifting further out. The clouds in the distance are reaching over the islands, their overcast arms swooping and dropping warm rain. Showers barely pass, and they blow by like shadows against the flickering, distant blue lights of the town. I can see the light from our window when I look up, treading water, and even the ocean seems grey and quiet here in the middle. Behind me is another island, led by a green mountain, grey and black with clouds hanging over. The water moves underneath, a sea snake swims by, and the surf spins.”

– Will Long, Saipan, 2016

 

Available as:

  • CD edition on Two Acorns

Track list:
1 Callisto

Release description:
“Have you ever looked up into the sky at night, and it seemed that you could see beyond the stars? How many times have you looked up, but how few do you actually remember? I remember two times:

The sky seemed to roll, the stars flickering in the humidity of the late-August evening. It makes your throat feel dry and your body strained. Staring up, “We can’t see stars like this at home”, we said to each other. Lying on the concrete slab behind the garage, and at one time standing, we kept on watching – the factory near of my hometown humming, passing cars on the nearby highway sizzling in the distance.

…Or when we were in the onsen town in the mountains – there was nowhere to walk to at night, but we trudged through the snow so I could take photos, our shoes soaked and our feet freezing. You could see your breath in the air. You can’t hear snow fall. We opened the wooden sliding door and walked back into the warmth of the light.

The next day we looked out, all the leaves were brown in the freezing November, and the stars were hidden. The blue river was ahead and down the hill, and we didn’t even think about what was or wasn’t above from the night before, past the stars now hidden by the sun.

When looking up, the least important thing is what you see – or that there is even anything in space, beyond the blackness. The beauty and the demons share the space where we are already.”

– Will Long, 2016

 

Available as:

  • CD edition limited to 300 copies

Track list:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Press description:
‘Inside the head of gods’ is an EP of music made to accompany the paintings of Taichi Kondo for his exhibition ‘What’s my name?’ at Finale Art File in Manila, Philippines, April 6 – April 30, 2016.When I first saw his paintings, they gave me a very clear sound of music. I had many ideas, and there were many elements of each of his paintings to represent through music. When I began creating the music, I made many different kinds of tracks with different lengths, structures, timbres, quiet or loud, rhythmic or not, analog or synthetic, field recordings or noise.. but later, while these different pieces did represent the music, it didn’t sound right in a true setting – not with what I imagined the gallery space would represent, and how it would be heard.In the end, I chose to use only the first track I made, which was around 20 minutes of organ music. I listened in different settings, replayed it in different ways, and mixed and remixed it. At first I thought it was too simple and minimal, but when I listened back closely, all of those elements from before were actually there, just in a similar form of each other, rather than separated. Like the paint on a canvas, it’s all made of paint – the colors and shapes are what makes it different.

‘Inside the head of gods’ is intended to be listened to at medium volume, in random playback mode if available.

Edition of 300 copies. CD comes packaged in a simple, full color pocket sleeve. Minimal and friendly.

Track list:

1 Akagi

 

Release description:
In the fall of 2012, I was asked to create music for a live yoga event at Yougenji temple in Northern Tokyo. The performance was centered on the yoga instructor with the musician playing to the back of the audience, so that music served more as a live soundtrack for the event. For this I created a new piece of music using two reel-to-reel tape machines, and two tape loops of keyboards with similar time structures, but each with different, overlapping chords. They played simultaneously, crossing in different combinations, and with manual alterations of the volume and high/low settings on the machines. While changing, it maintained the same sound and makeup throughout.

During the performance many people fell asleep, and seemed to drift off to another place. Sometimes it seemed like they were waking up, but it was only the evolution of the yoga exercise matching the music. Surprisingly, throughout the entire performance, and ever since, whenever hearing the piece of music, I am immediately reminded of my grandmother. When I was 6 years old I moved with my parents to the house of my great grandfather, next door to where my father grew up, and where my grandmother still lived. She had been bed-ridden for several years by that time, and would remain so until her death when I was 11.

Somehow this music continued to fill my mind with those memories of sitting in her room, watching tv late at night with her when my parents were out to dinner, or the hazy lace curtains on the windows, moving in the afternoon breeze. I remembered that stillness, the warmth of her voice without any complaints, despite the restricted isolation, and the ever-present surroundings never changing. Seeing the audience in these motionless-to-waking states brought this memory back to me, though exactly why I can’t be sure. However, because of this, the music was given a background, and a dedication.

– Will Long, 2015

２０１２年の秋、私は北東京にある養源寺という寺院で行われたヨガ・イベントのための音楽制作を依頼された。そのパフォーマンスは、ヨガ・インストラクターを囲みながらミュージシャンがオーディエンスの背後で演奏するというもので、音楽がイベントのための生のサウンドトラックのような形になっていた。このイベントのために私は、二台のオープンリール・マシンを使って新しい作品を作った。キーボードで作られたコードの異なる二つのテープ・ループは、似たような時間構造で重り合っていた。それらのループは同時に再生しながら様々な組み合わせで交差し、機械上での手動の音量と高域・低域のセッティングによって変化していった。変化しながら、全体を通して一つのサウンドとなっていた。

パフォーマンスの最中、多くの人々が眠りに落ち、別の場所に行ってしまったかのように見えた。時々、彼らが目を覚ましていくかのように見えたが、それは単にヨガのエクササイズの展開だった。それは音楽にマッチしていた。驚くべきことだが、パフォーマンスの間中、またそれ以来ずっと、その音楽の断片を耳にするたびに、私には祖母のことがすぐに思い起こされる。６歳のとき私は、曾祖父が建てた家に両親とともに移り住んだ。その家の隣には私の父が育った家があり、そこに祖母はまだ住んでいた。祖母はそれまで何年ものあいだ、そして私が１１歳のときに彼女が亡くなるまでずっと寝たきりだった。

どういうわけかこの音楽が私の心に満たし続ける記憶は、祖母の部屋で座っていたときの思い出だ。
両親が外食に出かけ不在の夜、遅くまで彼女と一緒にテレビを見たこと。窓際で午後のそよ風に揺らされて霞むレースのカーテン。あの静けさ、祖母の暖かい声。制限された孤独と、変化の起きることのない環境のなか、彼女は決して不平をもらさなかった。どうしてかは私にも分からないのだが、静止と覚醒の状態にある観客を見ながら、これらの記憶が私の中によみがえった。しかし、この記憶のおかげで音楽は背景を持ち、祖母に捧げるものとなることができたのだ。

２０１５年、ウィル・ロング

All music by Will Long
Recorded and mixed 2011 – 2015 in Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan
Special thanks to Rie Mitsutake
For M.L.L.

 

Track list:
1 Soryu

Release description:
Ambient music is a difficult thing to categorize – especially your own music. It’s easy to just name several easy genres, and that’s it. Sometimes it’s enough, but not always. If we go back to the origins according to Brian Eno, he says “You could pay attention or you could choose not to be distracted by it if you wanted to do something while it was on” and that ambient music is “creating an ambience, a sense of place that complements and alters your environment.” For myself, I always understood where Eno was coming from, and how it applies to his music, and ambient music in general. But even though this music has been an influence for me (particularly Brian Eno’s Discreet Music), it wasn’t always what I set out to do from the beginning. With the tools I had, it’s just what my music ended up sounding like – or to say it another way, it was what I wanted to listen to myself.

For a long time I rejected Eno’s idea about making my own music, because I wasn’t interested in making background music. People can perceive your music any way they want it, applying it to the way they hear it and how it applies to their life and surroundings, but that doesn’t always match your reasons for making it. There was always something much more interactive to me – and those memories are completely vivid to me – if they’re quiet, it’s because that’s how they really were – but it doesn’t mean they were less-strong, or shouldn’t be paid attention to. Other music (more loop oriented, and direct) is all about repeating a memory, a feeling, or something else – this may not be exactly how it happened, but this is how I remember it, and by making it this way it sets it in stone. For me, at least.

Soryu may be something different entirely the same. There are all these things present still – but for some reason, to me, it feels like possibly the only purely ambient music that I’ve ever made. I don’t mean this to be background music, but by saying ‘purely ambient’, to me it is as close to Eno’s definition as is possible (up to now). It isn’t meant to be ignored, but instead it’s something to be lost in – a maze where everything looks the same – there are familiar places and sounds, different colors and different sized objects, but you’re lost in this place, and these things repeat, not always in the same order. It’s a zone, somewhere where everything can become familiar, but it doesn’t always seem to be ordered the same way. For example, in Alain Resnais’ 1968 film Je t’aime, je t’aime everything is the same, but the way you memorize it feels different – what you thought was familiar is not really that at all, and after repeating it over and over, you see it or yourself differently. At least, you can.

Soryu is the first in a series of long-form pieces made with this idea. The story and background for each varies, but the direction remains the same. That is, having no direction.