pieces of winter stephan mathieu and john hudak sirr019


What's the sound of snow falling? On a nice, relatively warm autumn day like today, maybe not a question to think about. But two more zen-like characters like Stephan Mathieu and John Hudak think about such subtle things all the time, I imagine. Two source recordings were made for this release: John Hudak buried a "contact microphone buried overnight in snow that turned into ice, then he recorded snow falling on this enveloping ice". Mathieu's source is of him playing a pump organ and Eva-Lucy Mathieu playing ocarina. Not of course that one would recognize any as such, since both Hudak and Mathieu are skillfull operates of their computer. They can, if they want, transform the sound of an earthquack into say a beautiful interplay of small, microscopic and minimally changing set of sounds. On 'Pieces Of Winter' they don't do anything different: all of the generated sound is transformed into eleven of the sketch like pencil drawings of sound. Glacier like music is of course an all too easy made reference, but perhaps the only possible thing to say. It's like watching snow that is fresh, without traces of man or animal, being covered with more snow. Small holes are made in an irregular pattern. For both Hudak and Mathieu it's not something we haven't heard before, but they both maintain their very high quality. Great CD!
__FdW, Vital Weekly

Two musicans with quite a reputation in the digital music scene created a small personal edition as season's greetings for friends in the winter 2002/2003. Two years later these recordings have been re-released by the Portuguese label Sirr-ecords.
John Hudak is known for his environmental recordings, natural sounds which are deconstructed and processed to be put mostly in a dark setting. His work has been released by labels such as Spekk Recordings, And Oar, Kissy Records, Digital Narcis and Intransitive Recordings.
This time John Hudak buried a microphone overnight in snow that turned to ice. Then he recorded snow falling on this enveloped ice. To ones surprise this results in a rich variety of sound material. The opening of the CD is hypnotizing and is of a constant sound level. The music is minimal and repetitive. No source of sounds can be discovered, nevertheless the music reminds of winter. Abstract long-drawn out pitches are featured in the second part of his contribution.
Stephan Mathieu has been involved in many projects, featured on many compilations and released solo albums like Die entdeckung des wetters (Lucky Kitchen 2002), Gigue. live at A-Musik (Fällt Publishing 2002) and FrequencyLib (Ritornell 2001).
The result is a warm, swirling digital stream. It's clear that two experts of the digital and conceptual scene are at work here, Pieces of winter is intelligent, refined and of great quality.
Phosphor Magazine, 11.2004

S’il a été trop facilement question d’approcher l’intimité dans l’œuvre de musiciens minimalistes, c’était pour toucher un idéal intérieur à l’artiste. Cette révélation n’est sans doute que peu profitable et, passé le spectacle cathartique, il ne reste pratiquement rien qui puisse éclairer une vision du monde. Car c’est celle-là dont l’artiste est censé se faire le médiateur, une parcelle de l’immense objet qui entoure et s’insinue. L’intimité exposée dans la première partie de la rencontre / échange de bandes entre J. Hudak et S. Mathieu (Pieces of winter), est celle du matériau, à la fois timide, transformiste et déliquescent par définition – décidément instable : la neige. Un micro contact enfoui une nuit durant sous une couche de neige a documenté sa transformation en glace, puis sa visite par une nouvelle chute de neige. Ce captage réalisé par Hudak sert de matière aux premières pièces du disque. La révélation poétique de l’instabilité d’une structure réputée symbole de fixité, de mort, a de quoi s’accorder à l’exercice difficile de la variation infime, du mouvement hypnotique des plus simples expressions musicales lowercase. Les crépitements sont vite cristallins, les chants d’ondes faussement rectilignes, perturbés par le déplacement du sujet dans la pièce d’écoute, aussi vertigineux que le couloir de la neige que l’on regarde tomber, tête en l’air. Cette déroutante impression d’un réel sans précédent, d’une naissance de langage musical, laisse la place à l’interprétation plus franchement harmonieuse de S. Mathieu, qui n’ose traiter le matériau avec ses gestes droniques qu’à la cinquième plage. Mais c’est logiquement que cette fontaine mélodique sourd, comme après la lente distillation du terrain, après la minéralisation miraculeuse des gestes précis mais imperceptibles de J. Hudak. La propre contribution de Mathieu aux sources prend la forme d’un enregistrement réalisé en famille une nuit de Noël, à l’ocarina et à l’orgue. Un autre pan de la structure hivernale est ici révélé, touchant à l’émotion du moment, le répons humain au verset enneigé de la nature. Cette intimité n’est pas celle du lieu mais celle du temps, aveugle, peut-être aussi blanc que la neige, à peine orangé parfois, de cette incoercible dramatisation dans les expressions humaines. Pourtant, c’est aussi pudiquement que S. Mathieu lève le voile, aussi soucieux de montrer le grain que l’a été Hudak. Il promet, grâce aux filtres qu’il a posés, l’émotion d’une mélodie native, d’une fontaine minéralisée où la forme des harmoniques dessine ces vagues qui sillonnent les dunes de neige.
Denis Boyer, FearDrop, 11.2004

Out just in time for the Holidays, Pieces of Winter is not the
Christmas album your kids have been waiting for. And the album generates more interrogations than the presents waiting under the tree. A collaboration between John Hudak and Stephan Mathieu, this album
relies on source recordings of snow, a certain conception of winter-time coziness, and an artistic representation of the stillness and coldness of nature during the winter season. It consists of eleven tracks. Three of them have a paragraph mark for a title and are nothing more than a few seconds of silence. Six are simply numbered and consist of gentle high-pitched drones,pure like a thick layer of fresh snow. {“05”} is slightly more inviting, its tones twinkling and scintillating, making the listening space comfortable and lulling instead of just inhabiting it in a sterile way, as do {&“01”} or {&“08.”} Only two tracks are properly titled and supplied with some notes. Placed early in the track list, {&“Winter Garden”} was recorded by Hudak using a contact microphone buried in snow that turned to ice. More
snow falls on that ice, and the crystalline sparkles we hear are the result of this setting. A winter scene heard from under, it provides an intriguing moment and brings to mind Peter Cusack’s icicle recordings (see his CD Baikal Ice). Coming late in the tracklist, “Nuit Blanche” consists of a long drone performed by Stephan Mathieu on pump organ and Eva-Lucy Mathieu on ocarina. Despite the Spartan minimalism of the piece, it represents the warm opposite (indoors, human/family music) of the cold {“Winter Garden”} (outdoors, nature music).
_François Couture, All Music Guide

Once you've heard the sound of squished eyeballs, you might be curious to know what snow sounds like, or at least what happens when you bury a contact mic in a snowdrift and record it freezing slowly. This is what John Hudak did for his "Winter Garden" (see our review of his collaboration with Jason Kahn in last month's PT), which is joined on Pieces of Winter by Stephan Mathieu's "Nuit Blanche", an exquisite warm drone sourced in recordings of pump organ and ocarina. Hudak isn't the first sound artist to turn his attention to snow – Jason Lescalleet, Francisco López, Alan Courtis and Lasse Marhaug have all tried their hand at recording the elusive substance – but his results, or at least the treatments he and Mathieu have devised for them are as simply beautiful as Mathieu's cover photograph of garden furniture gently buried under several inches of the stuff. In what's fast becoming standard practice nowadays in this brave new world of broadband Internet, the two artists exchanged soundfiles and worked on each other's music, producing a collection of pieces as ravishingly beautiful and deceptively simple as their authorship is vague. Proofreading this article for mistakes, be they mere oversights (typos) or genuine conneries, I'm struck by the disproportionately long review of Noli Me Legere, in comparison with Pieces of Winter, especially since I've played the latter album at least as twice as many times as the former. Maybe after all there's little to say – Pieces of Winter speaks, simply, unpretentiously, clearly, beautifully – and in these times of information overload and market saturation, that's a rare and wonderful thing.
—DWarburton, ParisTransatlantic

C’est Varèse qui avait évoqué l’idée d’écouter le bruit de la neige qui tombe. Ce beau split album de John Hudak et Stephan Mathieu arrive au bon moment, comme pour asseoir la quiétude qu’impose l’hiver malgré sa rigueur. Pour ce disque, Hudak a enfoui ses micros dans la neige qui est devenue glace, puis s’est recouverte à nouveau de neige. La famille Mathieu a joué de l’orgue et de l’ocarina un soir de Noël. Stephan Mathieu a utilisé cette source et obtient au final un beau mélange de quiétude et d’apaisement, une immobilité saisissante. On ressent la même émotion qu’à l’écoute des phonographies polaires de Chris Watson, ou des murmures micro-tonals de Steve Roden. Comme assis au centre du cercle amical qui est à l’origine de ces enregistrements, on est saisi par le chaud-froid qui anime cette musique minimale. La froideur hostile de l’hiver se niche dans les scintillements, les craquements, les frottements ; la tiédeur du foyer exhale des drones de Stephan Mathieu, spécialiste du genre. On oublie qu’on est au cœur d’une musique expérimentale, tant ce paysage sonore sait se transformer en caresse ultra-légère. La technologie au service de la sensibilité.
__Jerome Langlais, Octopus