Loop. And Again.
Matilde Meireles
Physical Release
Released by Cronica
→ 8 October 2024
Loop. And Again. delves into the dynamics of magnetic fields, intricate wiring arrangements,and their interconnectedness with the shifts in the surrounding landscape. The album is part of X Marks the Spot, a larger project which used sound to map specific telecommunication boxes—only those emitting an audible drone—in the city of Belfast between 2013-2019. In the project, sound suggests different ways to engage with Belfast, where walking routes could be improvised to incorporate the drones as part of how we experience the city.
Loop. And Again. revisits and reinvents field recordings of the boxes mapped for X Marks the Spot. The album honours these ordinary objects that are part of the invisible fabric of the city by inviting us to listen to their materiality in great detail. Through this attentive shift in perspetive and scale, Matilde invites us to extend what we perceive as sonic vibrations in the urban environment.
Stream & Buy
Heard on the radio
BBC Radio 3, New Music Show
BBC Radio 3, Night Tracks
Dublab
RCV Lille 99
Radio Regent
KEPW 97.3 FM
Framework Radio
Resonance FM, The Wire's Adventures In Sound And Music
FSK 93.00 Hamburg
Radio Nacional de España
Freies Radio Neumünster
CITR 101.9FM
Radio Panik
FMR Toulouse
Asheville FM 103.3
Radio Fro, Linz 105.5
Reviews
→ The Best Field Recordings on Bandcamp, October 2024, Matthew Blackwell
The album is part social experiment, part sonic ecology, part environmental sound and part buzzing, drifting ambience. It should get the rest of the world listening to Belfast, too.
→ Chain D.L.K., Vito Camarretta
The album spins like the reel of an unseen film, one that takes place just beneath our daily awareness, pulling the listener into a rhythmic sway between art, research, and urban life.
→ The Wire - January/February 2025 (Issue 491 + 492), Spenser Tomson
If the variables are the in situ sounds, then the telecommunication boxes are the constant, a hum that's almost inaudible at street level boosted and cracked open to reveal golden sonic magic within.
→ Ambientblog
The hums and drones of the boxes – recorded with contact microphones – merge with ambisonic recordings of their direct environment and with hydrophonic recordings of the river Lagan. The result is a fascinating (and surprisingly musical) mix of pure drone, electronic hums and environmental recordings.
Research
→ A Gentle Introduction Into Urban Sonic Vibrations: The genealogy of an album, is an article on Medium about the album Loop. And Again., published on 28 December 2024.
→ X Marks the Spot was included in Matilde's journal article Extended Phonography: Experiencing place through sound, a multi-sensorial approach published on Organised Sound, Cambridge University Press on 21 December 2017.
Abstract: In this article I propose the use of extended phonography as an integrated practice which offers the opportunity to overcome the fragmentation of the senses inherent in field recording. I outline how listening across practices empowers both recordist and audience to experience a richer engagement with the recorded environment. Furthermore, I introduce new forms of articulating the experience of place and its relationship to sound, by highlighting the conceptual framework of two of my contrasting works, the site/context-specific projects Moving Still: 1910 Avenida Atlântica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and X Marks the Spot. These works, both artistic and discursive, are a direct outcome of my practice of extended phonography. Through them, I attempt to address the need for a vocabulary that mirrors the new aesthetics arising in sound art and further expand the practice of field recording.