BARDO: deploys turntables accompanied by discrete intrusions of pipe organ and piano harmonics to create a spatial and temporal suspension permeated by an aetheric tactility, as sounds disorientingly enter and leave, merging and confusing the boundaries of interiority and exteriority. The piece establishes a non-place, an in-between zone which draws on the tension, both physical and perceptual, between two contradictory positions – while cumulatively fostering a state where the listener simultaneously holds both positions equally – where you not only expects things to change but also to remain as they are.

Fundamentally, listening is to hear not only sound but also disturbances in the air in a given location: This engenders an embodied and physical experience, where quiet undisturbed air is as audible as a fierce wind. This kind of listening is also about being attendant to the specificities of the air – changes in pressure, temperature and humidity - their effect on the air and sound alongside their importance for a location’s context over a given duration.

23minute Bardo (shortform) for Three Turntables, Pipe Organ & Piano previously released on Longform Editions (AUS) in December 2020 (LE068)

Album version drawn from the installation Bardo - multichannel Installation versions (with unlimited permutations and variable duration) exhibited at:
- Reverse gallery, Brooklyn, New York, Jan 2012 (7.2 channel);  
- DDK Weglin, Lublin, Poland, Nov-Dec 2012 (5.1 channel)
- Locate Yourself, Wandesford Quay Gallery, Cork, Ireland, Sept 2017 (3.1 channel)
- RAM projects, Berlin, June 2011 (3.1 channel)

Turntables recorded at 4 The Field, Nancledra, Cornwall, 2011, using assorted vinyl, acetates, dubplates and mixing-console/noisefloor manipulations.
Fazoli grand piano recorded at HörSaal, Berlin, 2004-05.
16-foot pipe organs recorded in Cornwall at the churches of St Paul (Ludgvan), St Winnow (Towednack), St Uny (Lelant), St Wyllow (Lanteglos), St Cyrus & Juliette (St Veep) and in Ireland at St Mary's COI Marmullane (Passage West, County Cork).
Mixed at: 4 The Field & Trewetha, Cornwall (2011-13), Civic Trust House, Cork (2017), The Ashes, Cork (2019) and Connemara, Ireland (2020).
Mastered by Antti Saario, Cornwall, 2020.
 

REVIEWS:
"The scale and scope of Ireland-based artist Robert Curgenven’s latest work is almost too massive to comprehend. Altogether, Beyond Enclosures fulfills the promise of its title, as Curgenven pushes his music outside physical limits into the transcendental." - Marc Masters, Bandcamp Daily, Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp for October 2021

"decisively orientating the receptive apparatus towards a mesmerized condition... while keeping our alert level sufficiently high...  However, the significance of the whole lies in the insidious resonances initiated by overtones of different types and intensity. This writer was left in a state of marvelous vacillation: eager to continue the learning process, delighted to have been glimpsed by the inexplicable wonder caused by unintended patterns of engagement." - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes (IT)

"Writing about Curgenven's music is a backbreaking endeavour. How, after all, can one render the anxiety associated with the distinct sensation of sound waves approaching the ear? Or the cognitive dissonance of the “Bardo” listener, arising from a perspective disrupted by the composer, resulting in the unusual leveling of certain sounds?" - Filip Lech, Ruch Muzyczny (PL)

"encapsulates so much [of what] I already love about Robert’s work.. the palability of air flow - how harmonics illuminate how air is pulsing, bristling" - Jack Chuter, ATTN Magazine's Crucial Listening podcast (UK)

"an ambitious three-disc set for pipe organ, piano and turntables, exploring the natures of music and air.  The third disc holds a live concert from the Sydney Festival.. it has an experimental approach and takes the form of modern composition, yet has the tone of drone...  The outside sounds lend the project a solemn authenticity." - A Closer Listen (USA)

"Curgenven serves up three releases all connected to 'air'... In each case the context very much brings an added dimension to the act of listening" - Jeremy Allen, Electronic Sound magazine (UK)

"Superb... three sublime studies in shifting air in built space via organ, soundsystems and turntables." - Seth Cooke, Every Contact Leaves a Trace (UK)

Best of 2021 - "captivating new solo album...Curgenven - highly regarded for his majestic, coruscating pipe organ through to feedback, immersive resonances via turntables and custom-made vinyl, as well as carefully detailed field recordings, experimental turntable techniques inter-woven with piano and extended pipe organ techniques with an enveloping, often ecstatic and mystic effect recalling resonances and sound intended as a physical field of perception." - SoundOhm (IT)

"this is a sound record of an incredible realm that easily transcends the boundaries of installation or sound art. An important publication product for 2021." Art-Into-Life (JPN)