Martina Testen and Simon Šerc‘s Biodukt is one of the finest field recording works we’ve ever covered, making our overall Top 20 in 2020. Earlier this year, we included the album in our feature, The 25 Best Spring Albums of All Time. We even coined a phrase that ended up being part of the subsequent exhibition: Read More …
Biodukt in The 25 Best Spring Albums of All Time: I love this quote from Jeremy’s introduction above: “Sometimes these albums have been inspired by the season; other times, the music reminds us of this time of year.” For me, Biodukt, released the day the world shut down (March 12, 2020) will forever be forever Read More …
Bora Scura field recordings in the PhD thesis Soundcastles: Play and process in field-recording composition, by Symeon Yovev, University of Leeds: “The ten pieces on this record, called Actions, are soundscape compositions from field recordings Šerc made in February 2015 in the area of the town of Ajdovščina, Slovenia. Due to the challenging recording situation, Read More …
Here, as in the case of the above-mentioned Demolition Group, we are dealing with a case of a band that absolutely goes beyond conventional genre frameworks. PureH is one of the oldest and still active projects on the Slovenian scene, which combines guitar music with experimental electronics – math-rock, IDM, drum’n’bass, drone, noise… a perfect Read More …
Bora Scura (2018) and Bora Scura Reimagined (2021) in The 40 Best Winter Albums of All Time: Slovenia’s Ajdovščina averages 42 days a year of 200kph Bora wind. Everyone in this town knows what the wind sounds like from indoors, but this particular field recordist was not content to stay behind shuttered windows and rattling Read More …
Bora Scura Reimagined (interprété par Paul Schütze, Mark Spybey, Daniel Menche, Simon Šerc, Neo Cymex, Max Corbacho, Sunao Inami, Alexei Borisov, Vomir, KK Null.) Il y a plus de dix ans, j’avais consacré un numéro de Fear Drop à l’esthétique musicale du vent. J’y examinais quelques disques significatifs, dont le monumental Wind Patagonia de Francisco Read More …
Biodukt in A Closer Listen The Top 20 Albums of 2020 list What does it mean to listen with your entire body? The experience of hearing is far from abstracted, and yet we tend to conceive of each sense as a separate way of interacting with the world. The idea of a Biodukt is one Read More …
De laatste post van het jaar is zoals gewoonlijk de jaarlijst. Kiezen was opnieuw moeilijk, maar uiteindelijk is een lijst van 20 memorabele albums tot stand gekomen waar Opduvel achter kan staan. Op dit moment dan, want hier past – zoals elk jaar – de opmerking dat het slechts een momentopname betreft. Martina Testen / Read More …
The best sort of nature album, one that sits back and lets the local inhabitants strut their stuff. Biodukt distills the rhythms of a day down to a single hour, and provides a respite from worry and work. (ACL Recommendations) Recorded in Italy and Slovenia, Biodukt is the aural reflection of a day spent in Read More …
El compositor esloveno Simon Šerc, nos platicó un poco sobre el arduo proceso de transformar las señales emitidas, desde las regiones más antiguas del cosmos, en intrigantes piezas sonoras. No creo exagerar al afirmar -en nombre de todos- que el tema del cosmos es fascinante, incluso para quienes la inteligencia no nos alcanza para comprender Read More …
De oprichter van Pharmafabrik, de Sloveen Simon Šerc, brengt naast werk van gelijkgestemde musici ook met enige regelmaat werk van zichzelf uit op dit onvolprezen label. Werk waarin hij zich nogal eens laat inspireren door de natuur. In ‘Biodukt’, dat hij samen met Martina Testen maakte, trok hij zich letterlijk terug in het bos en Read More …
Silent Records, the San Francisco, CA-based ambient record label dropped Simon Šerc’s new album, CMBR, on International Astronomy Day, May 2nd. The release is out on all standard digital retailers and streaming services while physical copies can be purchased via Pharmafabrik Recordings – Tape Reel 7½ ips and Blu-Ray Disc. LINK: https://v13.net/2020/05/san-francisco-silent-records-releases-new-simon-serc-album-cmbr/ We’re excited to Read More …
Simon Šerc präsentiert den neuen Sound für das heimische Planetarium. Abbildung: Simon Šerc (60:05, Blu-ray / Tonband / Digital, Pharmafabrik/Silent Records, 2020) Simon Šerc ist ein audiovisueller Künstler, der unter anderem in Bands und Kollektiven wie PureH, Glaxprism oder Cadlag mitwirkt. Seine Erzeugnisse veröffentlicht der extravagante Künstler über sein eigenes Label Pharmafabrik. Des Weiteren ist Šerc ein Read More …
Šerc’s approach is a touch more purist, in a way, offering up four fifteen-minute-long pieces of atmospheric and ambient sound design that feel like they paint different landscapes. Artist: Simon Šerc Title: CMBR Format: Download Only (MP3 + Lossless) Label: Silent Records / Pharmafabrik Simon Šerc’s CMBR is the ‘sonification’ of data from the ESA’s Read More …
CMBR is an original concept, performed by a special artist. However, it’s not just the concept that captivates: with the sounds, Šerc creates four ambient / drone pieces that not only put the mind to work but also influence your mood. It’s really music, albeit not the lightest of fare, even for ambient / drone Read More …
Twee jaar geleden werd op deze site aandacht besteed aan de cd Bora Scura van audio- en video-artiest, opnametechnicus, performer en labelbaas Simon Šerc. Het betrof een cd met onbewerkte opnames van de sterke en koude wind die in de Sloveense Vipava vallei waait en die Bora wordt genoemd. De tien fases van de wind Read More …
Music News: Simon Šerc Releases ‘CMBR’ LP on Silent Records Simon Šerc has an amazing new ambient release entitled CMBR out now on Silent Records. Created using data from the Planck space telescope, the album’s four tracks are an invitation to listen to the oldest sounds in the universe. The satellite has recorded measurements from Read More …
Biodukt featured in The Guardian article: The visionaries bringing the jungle to your headphones There are some who believe that field recordings work on an even deeper level. Sound artist Martina Testen suggests that audio from a natural environment appeals to “that unexplainable place from which stems the body’s immune system, as well as all Read More …
What better way to escape the confines of self-quarantine and still avoiding crowds than to escape into the woods. And what better way to return to the blog than with a release documenting the sonic purity and solace of the woods. Today Martina Tested and Simon Serc give us “Biodukt.” “Biodukt” is a kaleidoscopic symphony Read More …
Zdi se, da album Biodukt ne bi mogel iziti ob boljšem trenutku kot v času, ko smo prisiljeni preživeti večino časa doma. Album sestavljajo terenski posnetki, ki se skozi pet kompozicij povežejo v čas od sončnega vzhoda do sončnega zahoda. Ob poslušanju nas za eno uro prestavijo v naravo in z njo tudi povežejo. Biodukt Read More …
CADLAG are simply masters of incorporating density and sparseness in their unique journeys. “Plus” is another journey, perhaps a tad more terrifying and paranoid than its predecessor. Nevertheless it most definitely leaves the listener to feel not the same as they did the moment they clicked “Play.” CADLAG is a noise/drone projectbrought together by members Read More …
ACL Recommendations: “The best sort of nature album, one that sits back and lets the local inhabitants strut their stuff. Biodukt distills the rhythms of a day down to a single hour, and provides a respite from worry and work.” During this global crisis, we need reminders of the great eternal. Biodukt is an intensely soothing Read More …
How to pair metal with supplementary ambient field recordings for optimal enjoyment: And here’s Simon Šerc’s Bora Scura, described by A Closer Listen as “a field recording equivalent of death metal.” Tweak the volume a bit and jam it with the recent Heavy Hole podcast recommendation Defacement. Sounds pretty swell. LINK: https://www.stereogum.com/2037825/the-black-market-the-month-in-metal-march-2019/franchises/the-black-market/
Bora Scura in Digital Tsunami Choice 2018 LINK: https://digital-tsunami.org
Bora Scura in The Wire 2018 Rewind: Contributors’ Charts: Saint Abdullah Stars Have Eyes (PTP) Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere Theta Four (Discus) Shit And Shine Bad Vibes (Rocket Recordings) Gaye Su Akyol Istikrarli Hayal Hakikattir (Glitterbeat) Liraz Naz (Dead Sea Recordings) Jan Wagner Nummern (Klangbad) Angélique Kidjo Remain In Light (Kravenworks) Romperayo Que Jue? Read More …
Bora Scura in Opduvel 2018 Top 20 List: Einde van het jaar en dus is het weer tijd om de balans op te maken. Opduvel is noodgedwongen een paar maanden uit de roulatie geweest, maar is natuurlijk niet gestopt met luisteren. Hieronder tref je de persoonlijke jaarlijst aan, met zoals ieder jaar de opmerking dat Read More …
Bora Scura in ACL 2018 – Top Ten Field Recording & Soundscape: 2018 was an amazing year for field recordings and soundscapes, perhaps the best to date. We reviewed over 40 works this year, and had an incredibly difficult time choosing ten for this list since the overall quality was so high. Many of the Read More …
Bora Scura in ACL 2018 – The Year’s Best Winter Music Thanks to climate change, many of us are experiencing longer, colder winters. It’s no surprise that winter music is also on the rise. This was a particularly good year for the genre, as demonstrated in two early-year round-ups. Now that the weather is turning Read More …
PureH – CMBR project featured in “In Fusion Art Magazine”, topic Nature In Fusion Art Magazine is a digital magazine presenting innovative artists who experiment with technologies and their creative interaction with them, as well as traditional media that have a great aesthetic quality. Nuestra revista digital busca artistas innovadores que experimenten con las tecnologías Read More …
It’s not a mere exercise of recording techniques but a conceptual release. It’s really worth a listen. Simon Šerc is an artist active in the field of experimental music and video since 1990 and this can immediately be heard as the quality of his field recordings is truly remarkable. Bora Scura is developed upon field Read More …
If this roasting hot weather is too much for you, Simon Šerc has recorded the windy Slovenian winter weather to temper your overwrought emotions. Bora Scura is over an hour of strangely soothing field recordings of banging outbuilding doors, farm machinery battling mother nature and rip-roaring wind doing its worst. Quite energising! LINK: https://theletter.co.uk/blog/simon-serc-bora-scura Due Read More …
The musician and sound artist Simon Šerc released his album Bora Scura, featuring 10 recordings from the field, which capture the soundscape of the Bora wind in Ajdovščina. The album was presented on specialised radio stations of the WFMU community in New York, on Resonance.fm in London and on a radio station in Sydney. The Read More …
Listen to a selection of tracks played at Wire HQ during the making of our June 2018 issue Simon Šerc Bora Scura (Pharmafabrik/Sonospace) LINK: https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/office-ambience-412
For those of us that love to sink into an epic storm, allowing its energy to surge through our bodies, this one should make for quite a pleasing experience. When I first received the message about this new Simon Šerc album, I have to admit I wasn’t very impressed with the first sentence: “The album Read More …
What makes Bora Scura unique? This release documents the effects of the harshest of natural winds. Simon Šerc – “Bora Scura” Album Review (harsh noise/field recordings/wind) From “nature” as a theme in harsh noise (see previous post) to nature used as an actual harsh noise wall we go. Today we have an ambient/noise/field recording release Read More …
Simon presents to us high-quality, detailed recorded audio-documents of a natural disaster. Simon Šerc – Bora Scura [Pharmafabrik/Sonospace – 2018] Simon Šerc is a Slovene audio/ video artist, sound engineer, & owner of the Pharmafabrik label -he started his creative activity in the early nineties. And he is involved with a few other projects, such example Cadlag, PureH, Matrix441. Bora Read More …
“Action II” from Bora Scura on The Wire Magazine weekly show on Resonance FM: Adventures In Sound And Music with Shane Woolman LINK: https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/on-air/adventures-in-sound-and-music-with-shane-woolman-and-sine-buyuka
Bora Scura is razend spannend en laat je niet onberoerd. Het is adembenemend en fascinerend. Het gebruik van veldopnamen (field recordings) in met name ambient- en dronemuziek komt regelmatig voor. Vaak worden die opnamen elektronisch bewerkt en geïncorporeerd in de muziek van de artiest. Maar dat hoeft niet noodzakelijkerwijs, zo bewijst de uit Slovenië afkomstige Read More …
I’d expect this kind of extreme weather on the South Pole not in Europe. Simon Šerc’s release Bora Scura contains pure recordings of the high winds that plague the town of Ajdovščina in Slovenia. Due to geographical slight the cold winter Bora winds can reach speeds of up to 200 kmh regularly taking lots of Read More …
This is a true record of a sideways, twisting, churning severe air pressure system that never lets go in its hour plus power play of unrest. GONE W/THE WIND: After receipt of the latest from a/v artist Simon Serc, it just so happens that wind is one of the natural/meteorological phenomena that fascinates me to Read More …
Simon Šerc‘s Bora Scura joins an extremely elite group, led by Lawrence English’s Viento and Daniel Menche’s Wind. Meteorologists, take note. Yet while everyone has wind, not everyone has wind like this… To listen is to feel privileged; these are sounds seldom captured in abundance. When presented with 72 minutes of howl and squall, weather Read More …
Indie Rock Mag’s best of ambient/drone/modern classical in 120 albums, with two PureH – related releases: “CMBR” and PureH side project Cadlag “Votivkirche”. Avant de le retrouver beaucoup, beaucoup plus haut dans ce classement avec Cadlag, trio harsh qui nous avait déjà fait le coup de la sortie surprise de fin d’année en décembre 2013 Read More …
Nouvel extrait en vidéo de notre future IRM x Twin Peaks – compilation 2017 signé PureH, c’est insidieux et capiteux, cinématographique à souhait, et c’est tout simplement l’un de nos titres préférés ! PureH met en musique et en images les confessions de Laura Palmer ! C’était l’un des moments clés de la fin de la Read More …
Two PureH-related releases, projects from 1993-1994, grindcore-noise stuff: Earslaughter: “Earslaughter brings a heavy and healthy dose of Death Metal influenced Grindcore, the traditional, ugly and pissed off way.” Extreme Smoke 57: “I am as well recommending you to experience this only when you’re in the mood for the most violent, hateful, chaotic, bestial, obliterating noise Read More …
Book of Slovenian labels: from Avsenik to… Pharmafabrik Recordings. LINK: http://www.ljudmila.org/subkulturni-azil/explorer.php?page=enciklopedija_slorock#frontier_087_zalozbe
PureH – Matrix§44¹ – the hidden track on Fabriksampler V4 (2011) The Sound Projector review: “There seems to be a bonus track on my copy: the album sleeve states there should be nine tracks on the disc and mine has ten listed. This unnamed piece turns out to be the best track on the entire Read More …
With 11 tracks, all by different artists, it’s inevitable that some stand above the others. In this case, with happy abandon it can be said, that over half the songs here within fall into this category. Pure h’s Kogel transforms sound into a moving mass. Great use of bass, static and spoken word strengthens the Read More …
Fabriksampler V2 2008, Pharmafabrik Veljko Njegovan Kompilacije navadno preposlušamo in jih pozabimo. Komu se jih še ljubi poslušati, če si zlahka naredimo playliste po svoji izbiri? Toda Fabriksampler V2 je nekaj posebnega, saj združuje jagodni izbor izvajalcev iz sveta eksperimentalne glasbe. Še zanimiveje je, da je ploščo izdala založba iz domačih logov in da na Read More …
Final, a project started by Broadrick in 1982, begins the trip with the ominous “4am Internal” and its reverberant sheets of processed electric guitar, percussive colour, and atmospheric textures, and then passes the baton to Slovenia’s PureH whose radioactive “Kogel” entraps the listener within a harrowing underworld of seething winds and disembodied voices. VA: Fabriksampler Read More …
Artist: VV.AA. (@) Title: FABRIKSAMPLER v2 Format: CDS (CD Single) Label: Pharmafabrik (@) Distributor: Pharmafabrik Rated: On the web site of the label there is only this description: “New compilation album which features exclusive new tracks from Henrik Nordvargr Björkk (Sweden), Lull (UK), WoO (Serbia), Go Tsushima (Japan), Left Eye Dominant (Italy), Alexei Borisov (Russia), Read More …