Label: Room40

極上のエオリアンハープ録音!!1951年イギリス出身のオーストラリアのミュージシャン、バイオリンを中心に大量の発明及び改造弦楽器を演奏する事で知られる大ベテランJon Rose。恐らくソロ名義では3年振りとなる久々のアルバムは、なんと1979年から取り組み続けているという"エオリアン・インストゥルメント"の録音。強風で鳴らす事を目的に設計した"Monolith 2021"と"Tube 2022"を使用、ピアノ線と釣り糸がランダムな風のパターンによりギラギラと輝く不穏な倍音を発する傑作記録。美しいエンボス加工スリーブ、インサート付き。



Matte laminate and embossed sleeve with insert card

A note from Jon Rose

Characteristically invisible and inaudible, the wind is made manifest solely by its agency and performance on objects: huge waves crash to shore, sand dunes edge forward over millennia (rumbling as they go), cyclones uproot trees and houses, intergalactic winds confound the planets.

On a more modest scale, I’ve been building aeolian instruments since 1979, part of my investigation into the innumerable aspects of the vibrating string.

I designed the two recent aeolian instruments heard on this album, the Monolith 2021 and the Tube 2022, with a focus on engaging with the variable windy conditions experienced in central Australia. The bodies of these instruments are flanked on all sides by multiple strings. The 1.25-meter Monolith is made of plywood, with 36 strings of both piano wire and fishing line. The Tube is literally a 2-meter PVC pipe and is fitted with fishing line only. Discrete adjustments can be manually made if the wind shifts or if the operator wishes to engage other adjacent strings, often resulting in microtonal beats. The Monolith is set up with contact microphones cut into each bridge, and the Tube was recorded with air microphones inserted internally. Tuning rational has as much to do with tautness, thickness, and material quality of string as actual pitch when in a state of ‘excitation’ - this violinist’s intuition.

These aeolian experiments are ongoing and may go some way to designing an instrument that simultaneously handles both the von Kárán vortex effect and unpredictable wind patterns. The results so far have generated numerous sonic surprises.