Another fascinating environmental transport from composer and Fluxus member Philip Corner: Coldwater Basin presents “a home recording of water running from a faucet into a sink” that was made on the Lower East Side of New York City “sometime in the 60s”.  Much more than how it reads on paper, it’s more about the sound of a room, the specifics of time and space, and the sound of their collision and unfolding. The recording is hissy and seems to slowly pan towards the delicate sound of the water that increases in volume throughout, with lots of background street noise and the hum of the city somewhere in the distance. The effect is curiously hypnotic as Corner points out in his notes: “... and I had always dreamed of passing an entire night bathed in this. It was never long enough.” Mesmerising, historically potent slice of minimalism, edition of only 180 copies with calligraphic design by Corner himself. 

Phenomenal collection of environmental sound pieces from the composer and Fluxus thinker Philip Corner in an edition of 300 copies. The first side is taken up with a beautifully recorded piece for Korean cymbals in water outdoors accompanying the midnight bell from San Marco on the Fondamenta Giudecca in 1994. The combination of traffic sounds, passing boats, wind, water and bells generates a densely vibrating soundworld that touches on aspects of Mirror and Ora while presenting a seemingly pastoral scenario as something intensely resonant and at points extremely heavy. On the flip there’s another great outdoors ritual combining sounds of thunder and rain with heady gong sounds and a revelatory action for alphorn and gong recorded in the open air that touches on aspects of Albert Ayler and Yoshi Wada. Comes with two inserts, recommended.