19.10.2017 by Remo Bitzi

Byron Westbrook introducing artists he digs

Just after releasing his LP Body Consonance on Hands In The Dark American artist Byron Westbrook shared a list with us, introducing artists from various domains he appreciates.

Byron Westbrook is a New York-based artist at the intersection between fine art and sound. When he works in sound his compositions often have a sculptural quality—take “What We Mean When We Say Body Language,” a dense track that seems to move forward VERY fast and levitates comfortably above ground without going anywhere at the same time. It’s just the angle you look at it (or listen to it) that makes the difference.

Hence it’s not a huge surprise to see Westbrook’s LP Body Consonance pop up over at Hands In The Dark, a France-based label that fosters experimental fields of contemporary music and sound since 2010, and that has previously published works by Brian Case [see zweikommasieben #15], Tomaga, Ensemble Economique [see zweikommasieben #9], Saåad, and more. After a spot-on presentation at Lucerne’s Klub Kegelbahn in 2014 and his debut LP Precipice, released via Root Strata, the new album is a welcome succession of Byron’s work.

It’s also no surprise that the American artist’s interests proliferate in many domains of the arts. That can be observed in the list below consisting of artists, whose work Byron appreciates. The list was compiled for us, in succession of a comparable catalogue Westbrook did for Dusted Magazine that only included musicians.

Leah Beeferman
“Digital/video/sound artist who is making great work rooted in a relationship to physics, geology, data, with a sense of both wonder and concern about these things. She made the cover art for Body Consonance.”

Brice Bischoff
“Brilliant photographer based in Los Angeles, who’s really pushing perceptual aspects of photography, documentation and display.”

Charity Coleman
“Amazing writer based in Brooklyn. Her work really resonates with me, particularly in the way that it presents the process of coping with pre- versus post-Internet sensitivities to the world.”

Madison Brookshire
“I had an amazing experience witnessing Brookshire’s Color Series works, which are slow gradients of changing color projected with no sound. (Though there is a version that includes a Tashi Wada score.) This work would seem to be minimalism, but it is really more of an intervention with audience and durational performance.”

Stacy Grossfield
“Grossfield makes super strange-and-personal dance/performance art work—it’s equal parts Jean Cocteau and Tarkovsky, but magnified by the way that it posits the dancers in relation to audience in uncomfortable ways.”

Koen Holtkamp
“Koen is known for his music, both solo and with Mountains, but is making new visual work with animated light and color that is quite stunning.”

Carver Audain
“Audain also has a long history of working with experimental sound, but over recent years his work has taken a turn into very powerful political artwork that retains the strong sensitivity and nuance of his sound work.”

Jules Gimbrone
“Gimbrone works with sound and theatrical positioning of objects, where all things are fluid in some form (some figuratively, others literally), addressing identity and voice in really compelling ways.”

Simone Montemurno
“I’ve been interested in the idea of how appropriation in the art world relates to the “cover song” musical equivalent for a while. Montemurno’s series of “cover paintings” addresses that idea in a way that feels personal and productive in its contribution.”

Luba Droszt
“Droszt deals with highly politicized content in a way that eschews the literal, preferring to present dynamics between elements of the work and audience rather than identifiers.”

Byron Wesbrook’s Body Consonance just got released through Hands In The Dark. Listen below (and above) and/or order here.