kymatik

Industrial / Experimental / Ambient

Exeter & Galicia

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Category and Disclaimer

Industrial. Electro acoustic. Found sound. Sonic art, UHJ surround sound, psycho-acoustics. Who knows? It's monolithic, terrible, beautiful, annoying, static, hallucinogenic, like listening to a vacuum cleaner - - - - all these and more. Someone mentioned a couple of years ago, that hospital post-natal wards were using the sound of vacuum cleaners for their quiescent effect on newborns!!! All this whilst modern "Cymatics" researchers advocate the piping of 'calming tones' into classrooms with 'disruptive' children. Remember - "There is no Friend: There is no Enemy". There is only the process - and what you make of it.

Kymatik was originally formed round a loose association of live and studio musicians under the name C.N.S. in north London in 1988. Members of The Worry Dolls, The Palookas, The Dead Tongues, The Triads, and many others used the squat where we were based and we engineered demos for bands that played at squatted venues in Stoke Newington and Hackney, and local pubs such as the Three Crowns. After what can only be described as a psychedelic epiphany in summer 1989, a couple of us started to experiment with multi-speaker recording and live sets of up to 6 hours in length! using microphones, acoustic instruments, found objects and effects units. This led to the release of several cassette only live sets including 'Recyclable' (with Dave Mulligan & Fabio D'Agostino), 'Aeon of Horus' (with Dave Mulligan), and the compilation 'Nephesch', which included members of some of the above bands, and other local musicians and artists, including the much remembered and very much missed Alex Robertson (R.I.P). In 1991 after meeting with Mark Tamea and Dan Reade, who were making more techno oriented music, Kymatik coalesced into something more structured and dedicated, with a common goal being a more rhythmic but no less psychedelic output. Nothing except 'Tisedni' has been released from those times, and it probably won't be. Most of us were leaving an area and a way of life that would probably never exist again - as the very dynamic and connected squatter/homeless movement began to disintegrate under extreme systematic pressure - and often authoritarian brutality. The next release did not appear until Clive Graham began Paradigm Discs. Kymatik collaborated with Morphogenesis in the archaic surroundings of the B.B.C. studios in a session where the Morphogenesis members were miked up live and then reprocessed live through a separate desk, producing two seperated end results - one a Kymatik mix, and the other a straight studio recording. 'Morphology' on Paradigm Discs Variations I is from those sessions. Most of the recordings are now on this site. Much of our time is spent searching for the perfect sound field to work on. We use Ambisonic microphones to record the source material and mixing/engineering is through CEPIAR and Audio & Design equipment in the Studio. Both of these systems were designed by the GENUIS Chris Richards and without him we would be in a sorry predicament. Without punching a key, Chris is the be all and end all of Kymatik's releases. more information on Ambisonics can be found by googling the word 'ambisonics'.

Comments(2)

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PANGEA, Aug 21, 2008:

Hello Mac, wonderfull soundscapes, the electronics and the field recording fits really well and sing together.
all the best

Landschaft, May 07, 2008:

The Paignton Anomaly is work of rare complexity. Challenging AND listenable. Existential in nature, the listener builds his or her own associations, free from artificial cultural constructs - this work recursively builds upon itself. Alan"Landschaft.

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