kamchatka by jim haynes

"When referring to his work, Jim Haynes often describes his process as 'I rust things' which to me has always resonated in my mind as a hands-on-processing, imaginative as well as intuitive approach to working with and embracing cause and effect. In one way envisioning an extensive exploration of material and processes and in another, and completely analog, the sonification of these processes applied to very specific systems and strategies. Jim Haynes isn't a rookie when it comes to sound art and neither when it comes to listening, knowing his peers, and culturally participating in the world of sound and music globally. We know him through 23five, The Wire, Aquarius Records, Activating the Medium, and more. That maturity, refinement, and sophistication are exactly what you get when you listen to Jim 'the ruster' Haynes' work.

I first encountered Haynes in 2004 at Diapason Gallery, NYC with a six-hour performance installation that blew my mind and although I did not know him personally at the moment I sure did now what good work sounded like at that precise instant. Over the years I followed his steps and when I was there I can say that he always delivered great performances engaging the audience into his focused methods and demanding focused reception and attention to detail. When Jim works live it is classic to witness his hands in the dough approach, where always the obvious might appear over the surface of the table, however, the evolving and carefully crafted and measured gestures overtime, reaching sublime momentum, are definitely strong signatures within Haynes' live works. That's the beauty of listening to a performer parse not only how to sculpt in time with sound, but also how to apply his sensibility to the wide spectrum, arena, and horizons of sound as well.

Then we find Jim's work in previous releases such as Telegraphy by the Sea, Sever, The Decline Effect, and in various compilations as well, always delivering work that has to the highest degree translated what I have heard, listened, and experience live to the confines and mystiques of the studio practice. In such realm I can see the artist digging deeper with alchemistic power and psychological affect crafting through his expanded techniques a work that is architecturally, structurally, aesthetically, and experientially consistent. Furthermore that's exactly what Jim Haynes is successfully delivering to us once again with Kamchatka. If an art of reason is the death of the experiential and subsequently the death of the poetics, like Jean-François Lyotard states, there is no cold reasoning with Jim's work but in fact the denial of it completely, however, instead we find much to experience and much to feel emotionally, physically, and psychologically. Perhaps in this particular case the only conceptual reasoning goes into the fictional, the science fiction phenomena, the imagination, and the wondering that went into interpreting from the distance what Kamchatka meant to Mr. Haynes.

That approach to sound art and composing is rarely seen these days within the world of music and sound, it somewhat brings back hints of what the romantic painters were about, for example when Gustave Moreau painted from the imagination and from interpreting the work of symbolic writers or like when Eugène Delacroix was illustrating his subjects evoking powerful responses through coloring and movement. Regardless, these two compositions comprise the typical elements expected in Haynes work such as textures, timber and pitch, obscure field recordings, crackles and pops, soft hisses of background noise, and all masterly established throughout an elaborated multilayered construct. But the psychological strength to these pieces emerges from the powerful illustration of the absent, the unphysical, the distant, the abstraction that depicts the unknown, shaping itself through sonic particles established by the fictional interpretation of the subject matter that sonically shapes an impenetrable environment. And in this case, like Kafka's Metamorphosis, Haynes draws attention to transformation, to horror, to the unknown that is about to burst and throw us over the edge. After reading Jim Haynes linear notes about Kamchatka I cannot help to think about Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky and that level of the unforeseen sublime. Bravo to Mr. Haynes for his new album Kamchatka." -- Richard Garet, August 2012

post-industrial research, surrealist collage, refined minimalism, caustic electro-acoustics, sublimated dream-pop, obfuscated field recordings, recombinant noise, existential vacancy, and then some.

no demos accepted. full demo policy explained here: helenscarsdale.com/about.htm

helenscarsdale.com
Facebook
Instagram