Jan Ryhalsky – Iron Skeletons (LOM)

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LOM, one of the many vital, young labels showcasing the eccentric talents of Eastern Europe and beyond, recently launched the series “LOM Field”, sets of field recordings reprocessing our most loved and most underloved environments, from harbour to shore, busy commercial space to bucolic idyll. The first release imagined the invisible umbilical cord connecting Portugal with its former colonies in India.

Vzduchotechnika is label boss Jonáš Gruska´s entry, a mere seventeen minutes (not that more is necessary) made from the ventilation system of the Soviet-built marketplace in central Bratislava. It is a surprisingly, and delightfully, percussive experience. A kind of plan economy jazz.

Jan Ryhalsky recorded Iron Skeletons in an abandoned cement factory near the Russian-China border. Using sensitive microphones built to record seismic activity, Ryhalsky has captured the sound of – nothing. That is, the something of nothing but former presence, much like Jacob Kierkegaard did on his visit to emptied public spaces in Chernobyl on Four Rooms. Similarly revealing, but much, much more quiet.

With its latest release, LOM seems prepared to take a refreshing plunge.

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About Author

Born and raised in Toronto, Stephen Fruitman has been living in northern Sweden lo these past thirty years. Writing and lecturing about art and culture as an historian of ideas since the early nineties, his articles have appeared in an number of international publications. He is also a contributing editor at Igloo Magazine.

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