Welcome to Soundspiration: a page dedicated to works that inspire the SoundFjord Team!

This page has been incited to concentrate attention on a number of inspirational sound artists and their works. Over a period of two months, chosen artists are given a Soundspiration Spotlight: works are available to listen to (and in some cases, download where permission is been granted).

SoundFjord also details further information about the artists and their works, so you are able to fully acquaint yourself with their creative practices.

Happy listening! Be Soundspired! 

Our bi-monthly artists are:

John Hudak | People Like Us | .tobias c. van Veen. | Sid Volter | Michael Day

J o h n   H u d a k   |   S e a t t l e   P i k e s   M a r k e t   ( 2 7   M a r c h   2 0 1 0 ) 

John Hudak has been interested in sound and music since he was very young. To be precise, it all began at the age of four when he began to play a number of instruments!

In recent years, John has concentrated mainly on sound, particularly on natural and simple sounds, that form the basis of digitally manipulated audio works. His current work focuses on the rhythms and melodies that exist in our daily aural environments. Hudak observes, "These sounds usually remain  hidden, as we tend to overlook their musical qualities; or, their musical qualities are obscured through mixture with other sounds". In simplified terms, what he is doing may be considered as both a reframing and transforming of sound in our environment so it can be noted, admired, and valued 

Visit his website for further information: www.johnhudak.net | www.facebook.com/johnhudaksound

P e o p l e   L i k e   U s   |   C a g e   S i l e n c e d 

As in the old Roué’s quip that “a drink before and a cigarette after are the three best things in life,” sometimes the most important moments of our lives lie in an unspoken ellipse. The same is true of some of our most beautiful sounds. Taken From the CD, A Call For Silence, curated by Nicolas Collins, People Like Us gives a personal view into that sonic ellipse; a suggestion for listening to that which might otherwise pass you by...

Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) has been an influential figure in the field of audio visual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio shows that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. These collages mix, manipulate and rework original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film, television and radio

People Like Us believes in open access to archives for creative use, and has made work using footage from the Prelinger Archives, The Internet Archive, and A/V Geeks. In 2006 she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive   

The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb. Further information on Vicki Bennett may be found here:  www.peoplelikeus.org. Cage Silenced itself may be downloaded here: www.peoplelikeus.org/mp3s/People-Like-Us_-_Cage-Silenced.mp3 

t o b i a s   c .   v a n   V e e n   |   a n d . t h i s . r u i n o u s . g o d 

Recorded at STEIM, Amsterdam, 18 June 2006. Reassembled 11 May 2010, and.this.ruinous.god is constructed from tape loops & analogue interventions. A dissection of a medieval invocation  

This short piece is part of an ongoing investigation of reel-to-reel machines and their ability to invoke the spiritus that breathes within electromagnetic tape. The title comes from a fragment of Sappho translated by Anne Carson

. tobias c. van Veen . is a renegade theorist and pirate turntablist. He lives in Canada. To find out more about his antics click on the following links:  www.fugitive.quadrantcrossing.org | www.controltochaos.ca 

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license, visit: www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca/ send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA 

 S i d   V o l t e r   |   T h i n g s   S c a t t e r

Things Scatter is taken from Volter's  experimental electronic work, The Emergent Sea, a collection of pieces that explore the concept of emergence. This collection per se, is a journey to somewhere, through unconscious speech, improvised electronics, organic synths, the water, the woods, the ice, the air, where the  huge and unescapable sea is always present

More information about the artist can be found on his website: www.sidvolter.blogspot.com 

The Emergent Sea by Sid Volter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England and Wales License

M i c h a e l   D a y   |   I   H e a r   Y o u   S i n g i n g   I n   T h e   W i r e 

The piece I Hear You Singing In The Wire, consists of Glen Campbell’s version of Wichita Lineman played through a sequence of reverb filters. Reverberation occurs when sound waves persist in spaces after the removal of the original sound source, reflecting off walls and ceilings, decreasing in amplitude as they gradually fade. This repeated reflection leads to entropy, as imperfections in the waveforms are repeated at each point of reflection. The Wichita Lineman is a lone figure silhouetted against the wilderness, hallucinating the voice of an absent lover in the wires, keeping transmission lines open against the encroaching entropy of nature

Michael Day is a visual artist based in Sheffield, UK. His artistic practice is interdisciplinary and improvisational in nature, using a wide range of media and technologies, including digital media, sound, installation and video. Previously based in Cardiff, South Wales, he has exhibited work in venues in across the UK, and has had his work screened at events in the Netherlands, France and China

I Hear You Singing In The Wire is available for download here: www.michaelday.org.uk/works/i-hear-you-singing-in-the-wire

Further works by Michael Day are viewable here: www.michaelday.org.uk

All sound works copyright the stated artist. Sound works made available courtesy of the artists. All works used with permission

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