march 2012

Netlabel Discrepant says its aim is to celebrate the marginal,
the disfavored, the weird and all other arts that otherwise
drop beneath the radar of popular culture.They release and broadcast everything from radio shows/ mixes/ sound collages/ original compositions/ films, etc.

They have just posted a piece by martiensgohome; it is called en fer and available for your listening pleasure at this adress.

It is an original composition that you can also download and collect.

february 2012

The greek netlabel Echomus ic, run by sound artist Yiorgis Sakellariou, aka mecha/orga, has just released the piece we composed for the Tetraedre radio show early this year. Slightly reworked, it is now a collection of four tracks, available for streaming as well as as a download of high quality wav files.

as we said then about this project: "Martiensgohome is a quartet of sorts, four persons playing music together. Tetraedre was specially composed at the request of the radio-show of the same name on Radio Panik (le tetraedre). For this piece, Martiensgohome decided to change their normal methods of work and do something unusual for them, each one recording a piece for another one of them to reinterpret. The end-result is somewhere between a remix-chain and a collaborative work. The game of course is then to guess who did what.".

february 2012

We will conclude our two-week residence at QO2 with a presentation of our version of the DoUndo/recycling project.

it will take place on february the 10 at 8:30pm.

check the website for more infos.

january 2012

Now on our schedule is a two-week residence at QO2 in Brussels, where we will take part in the do/indo project.

DoUndo/recycling G is a project initiated by Julia Eckhardt (viola) and Ludo Engels (recording). They have been collecting exclusively long viola sounds, rich in overtones and partly distorted. This 'collection' of sounds was presented to other (sound)artists for further processing. The martiensgohome collective will take advantage of their current line-up: being a quartet of sorts, they will translate the classical form of the string quartet into their electro-acoustic methods of work. In western classical music, the string quartet has long been considered as the most important form of chamber music, and has traditionnaly been the main pattern for approaching string music. Its conventional shape and formulaic structure, combined with its prominence in the hierarchy of classical music, has driven contemporary musicians and composers to develop a love/hate relationship with the form and somehow to rebel against it. The collective will reproduce the different voices and pitches of the string quartet by assigning to each member the frequency range of one instrument of the quartet, violin, viola and cello, and use this as a starting point to design a composition.

december 2011

martiensgohome has just taken part in an episode of the Tetraedre radio show, on radio Panik. In order to avoid the trap of making "just another martiensgohome improvised show", they split the quartet into four solo performers, each one making a quarter of the show, using the others'sounds as a source. the result is quite unusual, retaining something of the martiensgohome touch, but with four distinctively personal approaches.

you can listen to the show (and the following episodes of the Tetraedre) HERE

catalogue raisonne des enregistrements de terrain (abrege)

a concise martiensgohome field-recordings catalogue

The book is a visual exploration of the concept of archive. It examines the complex and delicate relationship between memory and the processes that tend to replace it. Are the procedures of recording, cataloguing,filing and naming, nomenclature and lexicography, enough to impart an objective value, and a conveyable meaning, to sound? The catalogue presents a selection of sounds chosen among the abundant archives of the collective. Reproduced in an exclusively graphic form, these recordings investigate the pertinence of collecting, and examine the limits of sonic discourse.
Le livre est une exploration visuelle du concept d'archive, il examine les liens complexes et delicats entre la memoire et les processus qui tendent à la remplacer. L'enregistrement, la catalographie, la nomenclature et la lexicographie suffisent-ils a accorder au son une valeur objective, un sens transmissible? Le catalogue presente une selection de sons tires des abondantes archives sonore du collectif martiensgohome. Reproduits ici sous forme exclusivement graphique, ces enregistrements questionnent la pertinence du collectage et sondent les limites du discours sonore.

MGH plays Ulver is a two tracks, 10inch vinyl record.
Where previously there was slow building processes, measured mood construction, there is now the urgency of the single format.
The two tracks are inspired by the music of the band Ulver. Absolutely alien to any intention of pastiche, and far away from any mimicking posture, these tracks encapsulate their personal take on blackness and illumination.
The album comes into a black on black cover, and is available from now on, as long as the limited stock lasts, from metamkine and norman records and from some fine shops around.

read the REVIEWS.