Label: Harmonic Ooze

非常にマニアックな実験、即興録音を手掛ける米Harmonic Ooze Records。Ruben Olguinなる謎作家が制作した"手作りの陶器"を用い様々な土地の歴史を音で記録した野外演奏作。手作業で採取&加工された粘土で制作した陶器の共鳴器を使い、公園や村などの曰く付きの場所にてライブ演奏を実行、陶器のドラムやFMラジオの音を増幅して流し、そのサウンドが現場で起こった歴史の出来事に影響を受け様々に変容するという面白コンセプトの録音。コツコツ点描的な陶器の音とササクレたノイズのバランスがカッコイイ内容。





Limited Edition Compact Disc / Artwork by Ruben Olguin / Design & Layout by UDP

This project would not be possible with out the support of Unsilent Desert Press, my family and all the ancestors and cousins who have been lost and forgotten. I hope sharing these stories with the world will help honor their spirit and stand testament to the effects of colonialism and assimilation on indigenous people. This album explores themes of echoes as a physical overlap of time, space, and memory. The noise of our environment reflects the histories of erasures of the indigenous people who have occupied the land, whose drum beats were silenced and replaced with radio static.

It was made by recording the noise of the environment at each site through pottery resonators made of hand harvested and processed clay. The resonators allow the interpretation of modern noise at these sites and tune the echoes of the past that still ring today. The events at each site influence the composition, giving rhythm, pattern, and cadence to the progression of elements. Performed live combining pottery drums, FM radio, and amplified feedback loops using the resonators to echo out back through the desert.

Track 1: Kuaua
Kuaua Pueblo was the site of first Spanish contact with Coronado and the Tiwa People. It was a prosperous village of about 1,200 people and inhabited since AD 1,325. There were at least 12 adjacent villages at the time of coronado’s arrival in the winter of 1540. The Spanish forcefully occupied one of the villages near Kuaua and survived on provisions from the surrounding communities to survive the winter. During the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, most of the Spanish settlers were killed or fled.

Track 2: Astialakwa
On July 24, 1694, Governor Diego De Vargas, and 220 soldiers and allies sieged the Tiwa village of Astialakawa at the top of the San Diego Mesa. It was a rebuilt village following the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and was one of the most violent sieges during the Spanish Reconquest of what is now New Mexico. The Jemez people defended the village hailing rocks and arrows until they were overrun. The spanish burned the village and some of the people threw themselves off of the cliff to avoid the brutal capture.

Track 3: Ft. Sumner
Between 1863 and 1868, the U.S. Army forcibly removed Navajo and Apache people from their homelands and forced them to live in the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation at Ft. Sumner. The Long Walk was a 300+ mile journey over 3 years. Living on meager rations and bitter conditions thousands of people died of starvation, exposure and disease. The 1868 Treaty with the Navajo ended the encampment and the captives were allowed to return to their homelands.

Track 4: 4H Park
4 -H Park was once a cemetery for the Albuquerque Indian School from 1888 - 1933. The school was used to assimilate Indigenous Children into American society. Children and staff who died at the AIS were buried in this portion of the original school. There are little records or information about the children who died and were buried here. In 1972 it was taken over by the City of Albuquerque and remains were found at the park. In 1999 a plaque was installed recognizing the site as a cemetery.