estlin usher
2020, Clinquant Pudendum

https://clinquantpudendum.bandcamp.com/album/still

Chicago-based artist Estlin Usher presents his Clinquant Pudendum debut, “Still,” – an academic, obsessively focused electro-acoustic oeuvre. Accompanied by text written by Usher explaining the process, this album is an auditory think-piece, reflecting on the relationship between the natural & the synthetic, the romance in the simple rustling of leaves, the sensation of physical contact which words fail to illustrate. This album reminds the listener of the partnership between musical composition and audience, in the way it demands your involvement in the conversation, the same way lovers must find balance in the give & take. Objects given breath, for a chance to speak their peace. How glorious the vibrations whispered by the flower petal…

Released on Cassette and CDR.

Note from the artist:

Perceived sound: our projection and imagination of the sounding object. Wind, not filtered white noise; a vowel, not a mere collection of frequencies and formants. We want to hear things as they are. There is a primal connection between sound and the world, something deeply embedded in our way of making sense of our environment.

Still, and stillness: these seven structures interlace textures created by synthesized sounds and raw electro-acoustic recordings, designed for ambient listening. Each electro-acoustic recording is achieved by structuring a collection of natural and synthetic objects—dried grass, flower petals, sheet metal, cymbal—and generating an airflow that disturbs and forces an interrelationship between the parts. This is designed to create an ecosystem of objects that defines and explores the parameters of its structure; a horizon appears between the outer limits of dried grass against metal. Each interstitial synthetic structure utilizes data from the adjoining acoustic recordings, designed to contrast in texture, sound, and approach while retaining an abstract similarity through following amplitude envelope and frequency information. If there is any intention, it is a self-consciousness and reflection at play in the selection of sounding objects. The poetics of stillness, contingency, and structure. Headphones and patience recommended.

2 contact microphones, metal table frame, cymbal, dried grass, dried flowers, foil.

Synthesizer, envelope follower, panning, delay.

Recorded in isolation (with Pipsqueak and Alice), May 2020.