This short, single track collaboration between Richard Chartier’s queasy, somnambulistic Pinkcourtesyphone and Dutch harpist Gwyneth Wentink is something of an oddity in the former’s discography. Chartier’s project has been associated with coldly anaesthetised ambient music, with a strong thematic focus on contemporary feminine subjectivity. All releases under the name have similar pink artwork and usually feature sampled female voices at some point threaded through complex drones and microtonal experiments. Central to the listening experience is the feeling that amid the tense, vaguely paranoid minimal electronics there’s something like a medically coshed Freudian Id struggling to break free. Elision however is striking for the lack of these sensations, exchanging anxiety for beatific panorama.
At 19 minutes in durations it’s a good length to appreciate the lovely combination of Wentink’s largely untreated harp and Chartier’s superb ghostly electronics. The label Farmacia901’s stated aim is to curate deeply emotional music founded around principles of beauty as minimalism, music as design and sound as malleable material, and Chartier has certainly stepped up to adapt his Pinkcourtesyphone formula to accommodate this aesthetic. His electronics are saturated with pathos whether in the form of gently undulating waves of harmonic noise or richly emotive tones providing the perfect counterpoint to Wentink’s picking. At the midpoint of the piece the vapor-trails of the harp strings are recycled by Chartier into gently shimmering drones as field recordings of birds and what could be the rustle of wind through a field of wheat are added. It’s as far removed from the dark Baconian rooms of Pinkcourtesyphone’s usual output as could be imagined. The piece never takes off, never fades out, but rather appears to hover like a mist over a moorland landscape, sunlight, rain and cloud throwing different shades across the vista. It’s a startlingly beautiful, mysterious piece of music and an unexpected high in the Chartier discography.
—musiquemachine.com
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From Farmacia901, Fabio Perletta’s label, comes the latest work by Richard Chartier, a sound/installation artist and graphic designer who needs no introduction. Chartier is the founder and head honcho of LINE Recordings. He acts on this occasion under the moniker of Pinkcourtesyphone alongside the Dutch harpist Gwyneth Wentink. Wentink plays an exemplary replica of a triple harp, a type of instrument developed in Italy during the Baroque period but then adopted in Wales and appreciated in the traditional music of that country for its characteristic ability to obtain unison effects by playing the same note on both the external file with the right and left hands in rapid succession. Despite this Celtic grain, a quietist style emerges from the project and the textures aren’t folkloric at all. Although they overlap with different musical frameworks they achieve a delicate, accomplished harmony in the guise of a contemporary neo-classical and acoustic-electronic combo. Wentik’s playing is truly inspired and she gives her best on the synthetic, hypnotic and fluctuating envelopes by Richard Chartier, indulging in the magic of a mood that is at once both aesthetic and suave, exploiting the multi-timbral capability of her instrument throughout an intimate conversation between sound layers. The duo doesn’t produce any stylistic excess, all juxtapositions are carefully studied, dense or flickering, enchanting or enigmatic, tenuously claustrophobic or blooming – an intriguing and intricate bliss that envelops the listener for 19 minutes in fluctuating and sensitive spirals. Elision is the omission of one or more sounds often referring to the omission of a vowel or consonant in to make a word more easily pronounceable or for informal speech. This is – perhaps – the hidden metaphor in the title: we might return to a naturalness of sound that contemporary music has lost.
—neural.it
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Elision is the result of a collaboration between Richard Chartier, in his Pinkcourtesyphone alias, and Gwyneth Wentink, a classically trained harpist. The sound of a triple harp, a 1600’s variant of this instrument with three rows of string instead of the usual single row so it has a richer set of timbres and harmonics. This track sound with a background noise interrupted by the melody of the harp enhanced by the effects applied by Chartier. In the first part of the track, while the sound artist develops his soundscape using drones and tones which are the base of his well known style, the harp prefers to develop arpeggios creating an hypnotic effect mirroring, in part, the resonances of the electronics. In the second part the Chartier’s sonic backdrop is the main element which relegates the harp in the background except for a small moment as a solitary reprise of the first part that is an interlude for the final part where the drone accompanies the listener towards the end of the release. As Pinkcourtesyphone is a project less austere than the releases that built an entire genre, it’s a statement on how an artist can evolve without forswear his aesthetics by the dialogue with the characteristics of his collaborators. Another remarkable release.
—chaindlk.com
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On ne présente plus Pinkcourtesyphone, le side-project de Richard Chartier qui a déjà fait l’objet de quelques chroniques sur ces pages. On découvre par contre ici Gwyneth Wentink, harpiste néerlandaise qui s’illustre dans divers domaines allant de la musique de chambre aux musiques minimalistes (Terry Riley a même composé une pièce pour elle) en passant comme ici par des collaborations avec des artistes de la scène électronique.
Comme pour Asmus Tietchens dont on parlait l’an dernier, cette production du label Farmacia901 est un EP d’une petite vingtaine de minutes, avec cette fois une seule piste, intitulée donc Elision. De façon générale, ce qui nous marque ici, c’est l’importance que prend la harpe, confinant Richard Chartier à un simple accompagnement de ronronnements sourds et nappes éthérées. Gwyneth Wentink joue ici de la harpe triple, une déclinaison de la harpe classique venue du Pays de Galles, qui a la particularité d’avoir 3 rangées de cordes. Elle apparaît assez rapidement et sa mélodie nous fait penser par moments à des musiques traditionnelles celtiques, apportant alors une légère teinte folk à ce disque.
L’équilibre entre les deux artistes se fait plus dans l’alternance de leur contribution que sur le plan sur lequel ils se placent. Certes, ils jouent tous les deux en même temps, mais à plusieurs reprises la harpe s’efface complètement et laisse l’auditeur avec les paysages ambient de Richard Chartier. Quand la Néerlandaise est à la manœuvre, elle dévoile de superbes mélodies cristallines et un jeu plutôt imprévisible, avec de grands éclats, des répétitions et des cassures, des égrenages fins et rapides, des notes sèches qui révèlent alors une folk tendue. L’acoustique joue avec la lumière tandis que l’électronique se fait plutôt sombre avec quelques poussées de graves ronronnements, mais globalement retenue, invitant juste quelques piaillements d’oiseaux et crépitements au bout de 10mn. C’est justement Richard Chartier qui prend le contrôle sur les 5 dernières minutes dans un assemblage de nappes et souffles menaçants.
Une production plutôt inattendue, et une très belle surprise avec la découverte de cette harpiste.
—ethereal.com
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Sound artist Richard Chartier (in his Pinkcourtesyphone guise) and harpist Gwyneth Wentink team up for this single-track EP on Fabio Perletta’s label Farmacia901. The brittleness of Wentink’s generously-delayed harp is contrasted with Chartier’s lush ambient washes. Despite clocking in at under 20 minutes, “El
ision” manages to cover quite a lot of ground, the bright flourish of the first half turning to darker, more subdued hues in the second. The many twists and turns never sound forced or rushed — the music unfolds with coherence, even though by the end I’m always pleasantly surprised by just how far the piece has carried me.
Often, the liberal application of electronic effects can cause acoustic instruments to lose their distinctive timbral shape and audibly specific ways of being played, making them sound like just another synth. Sometimes this is desirable, but here I think I would’ve liked to hear more untreated harp, which perhaps would have made the contrast between Wentink’s dense, flickering playing and Chartier’s rich chords even more enticing.
After a long passage of quietly gripping ambient noise, the harp melodies return in the background, like a half-memory of a dream. A few brief spoken phrases brings the piece to an enigmatic close — does the voice break the spell of the piece, or complete it? Or perhaps both? In any case, it’s a striking ending to an absorbing and well-developed work that lingers in my mind for a long time after listening.
—fluid-radio.co.uk
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When I reviewed Pinkcourtesyphone’s Foley Folly Folio, I thought it was probably a one-off, a playful/serious notion that struck American sound artist Richard Chartier, as a vehicle for cleverly and elegantly conveying the sense of claustrophobia and ennui of a particular time and place. Pretty and somnolent in pale pink. Some twenty full-lengths, singles and mixes later, I see I was sorely mistaken.
On Elision, a beautifully designed, single track CD from Fabio Perletta’s Farmacia901, he is off to the shires, teaming up with Dutch harpist Gwyneth Wentink. Wentink plays a replica of a 17th-century triple harp, fitted with three rows of strings instead of the usual one of the modern pedal harp. Given that it is also known as the Welsh harp, Wentink’s playing has a decidedly Celtic feel, in spirit rather than any folkloric sense.
That spirit is cloistered rather than claustrophobic. From the start, the air Chartier creates is crisp and clear and Wentink’s sympathetic strings sheer right through it like nightingales. As they proceed, they merge into soft drone, opaque, murkier, a calm before, opening the ears to the possibilities of smallness.
Improvising, the strings are raindrops streaking down the window, beyond which is glimpsed the blurred, impressionist landscape that Chartier creates with his “electronic things.” A meadow rolling toward a stand of broad shouldered yews, the washed out colors of herbaceous borders and wet, green grass bleeding up tree trunks to leaves heaving in the wind. The finest kind of acoustic-electronic collaboration, only nineteen minutes long but destined for endless repeat.
—igloomag.com
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Doppia uscita per Farmacia901, la label del sound artist abruzzese Fabio Perletta, che da qualche anno ormai prosegue il suo coerente percorso nel solco di un minimalismo digitale che unisce una profonda ispirazione per la cultura giapponese e sensibilità per i (micro)suoni costruiti sulla soglia dell’inudibile. Quale piattaforma migliore, dunque, per il ritorno di Richard Chartier, tra i riferimenti fondanti dell’idea programmatica sviluppata da Farmacia901, a qualche mese di distanza dai “Divertissement” congegnati con William Basinski (Important Records, 2015). In duo con l’arpista olandese Gwyneth Wentink, Chartier costruisce una minisuite dal respiro breve, improntata ad un dialogo gentile ed intricato tra elettronico e strumentale sviluppato in due parti: dai toni rigogliosi dell’incipit alle tinte più cupe della chiosa. La presenza dell’arpa, ora più cristallina, ora introiettata nei livelli più profondi del tessuto del processing, risuona come un’eco spettrale che riemerge in un fiume carsico alimentando atmosfere sospese tra l’elegiaco e lo straniante. (8/10)
—BLOW UP, Italy
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The harp has struggled to break back into the public consciousness in recent years, but thanks to the efforts of harpists such as Cecilia Chailly, Rhodri Davies, Mary Lattimore and Gwyneth Wentink, a small resurgence is taking place. Don’t speak to them of angels and clouds; the instrument in their hands may be heavenly, but it resonates with earthly timbres.
Wentick’s specific instrument is the triple harp, whose ancestry dates to the 1600s. Her trump card is Richard Chartier (Pinkcourtesyphone), whose gentle, tasteful electronic augmentations transform this 19-minute piece into a beguiling work. While the press release proclaims that Elision was “created for background consumption”, the piece possesses such intricate beauty that it demands foreground listening as well.
Those gorgeous strings ~ three rows, instead of the typical single row ~ grace the composition with an organic sound. At first, soft electronics are woven into the background like painted scenery; but they don’t stay there for long. By mid-piece, these electronics expand like gas, surging from ambience to drone, before a dual recession of string and tone reduces everything to filigree.
When asked to provide a full translation of the M. Staudte quote that closes the track, Chartier wrote, “so this is ‘me’? ‘me’? ‘me’? what is this this? what is this ‘me’ ?“. These words lead one to wonder if the work might be considered one of identity found and lost, of questions asked yet unanswered, of souls adrift in a restless world. Is the harp the disappearing ‘me’? Perhaps we are reading too much into a short fragment. The title refers to “the omission of a sound or syllable while speaking,” Suffice it to say that the identity seems to disappear while listening, if only for a series of shifting seconds.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. (T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages)
Chartier and Wentink offer Elision as a panacea for an “anxious and medicated society.” As the track wraps around from back to front, it’s a clear candidate for consecutive spins. But what if the work is also a parable? If our anxieties are meant to melt into this low sonic heat, perhaps those heavenly associations are not so far off after all.
—acloserlisten.com
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Il nuovo capito dell’etichetta italiana Farmacia901 è affidato a Richard Chartier, sound artist e designer dedito alla ricerca, allo studio e alla produzione in ambito minimal, drone e ambient: con il suo pseudonimo Pinkcourtesyphone torna al lavoro dopo la sua ultima opera pubblicata nel marzo del 2015 sulla Line [Segments], parent-label della propria Line imprint.
Alva Noto, William Basinski, Asmus Tietchens e Stephan Mathieu sono solo alcuni degli artisti con cui Chartier ha collaborato nel tempo, dagli anni 2000 in particolare, proprio grazie alla sua principale creazione: la Line records si è dimostrata una solida e valida piattaforma creativa, che ha dato voce all’arte di numerosi e autorevoli compositori.
Impossibile, quindi, non pensare al matching tra la musica e la personalità di Richard Chartier e la peculiare impronta stilistica di Farmacia901, l’altra realtà, questa volta nostrana, che viaggia sulla stessa linea espressiva della Line, ma che riflette le altresì particolari visioni del suo orchestrante Fabio Perletta: per quest’opera, intitolata Elision, la direzione grafica a cura del sound-artist italiano (qui il suo album per Arboretum) confeziona 19 minuti di musica ambientale sospesa tra imperturbabilità dell’anima e fluidit à dei sogni.
Alternanza e sovrapposizione tra molteplici livelli d’ascolto: una via tracciata dai pattern e dalle registrazioni di campo dell’artista statunitense coadiuvata dagli oscillanti arpeggi di Gwyneth Wentink, modellati al dettaglio. Perfetta e bilanciata la comunicazione tra i vari layers, in modo che ogni elemento possa esercitare la stessa, fluente, azione narrante nell’ecosistema sonoro in cui si identifica.
D’altra parte, l’equilibrio, la purezza e la cura del dettaglio che contraddistinguono le pubblicazioni di Farmacia901 non sono nuove alle orecchie degli ascoltatori, ma ogni volta queste caratteristiche si palesano in nuove e multiformi idee capaci di stimolare il nostro ascolto: risultato di un network tra le giuste menti e le appropriate sensibilità artistiche.
—electronique.it
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Sublime in its infinite calm Elision shows Pinkcourtesyphone & Gwyneth Wentink explore the surreal. Carefully weaving together elements from the natural and the digital world the song positively glistens. Gwyneth Wentink does incredible things with her triple harp finding new timbres. To Pinkcourtesyphone’s (aka Richard Chartier’s) credit these sounds are given ample room to roam. Throughout the composition the bright any airy approach works wonders. A dreamworld emerges from the space in between these sounds as the decay becomes oddly beautiful.
Tiny sounds introduce the piece. Gradually they begin to cluster. Vibrating they create a breathless sort of composition one that allows plenty of open space. Almost evaporating away the sounds grow slightly larger and larger. Elements of a drone almost seem to come together yet are just barely beyond perception. As the two of them weave their approaches together, of the real and the synthesized, the result shows a perfect replica of the world. Far out sounds ebb and flow out of the mix as the song appears to breathe, teeming with life. About halfway through the piece the deeper sounds take over submerging the song in darkness. Reemerging and submerging again the song lets this sense of conflict help to define it. However, by the song’s final moments it appears as if the idea of the natural world wins, if only for a brief moment.
Compelling in its insistence for amplifying the small sounds of the world, Pinkcourtesyphone & Gwyneth Wentink let Elision serve as a testament to the power of focusing on what is so often overlooked. The result is magnificent.
—beachsloth.blogspot.com
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Jeśli komponuje dla ciebie Terry Riley to wiedz, że coś się dzieje. Echa współpracy z amerykańskim minimalistą rezonują w najnowszej pracy Gwyneth Wentink. Holenderska harfiska z pomocą Richarda Chartiera nagrała blisko dziewiętnastominutowy utwór, w którym dźwięki harfy idealnie wpasowują się w eletroniczny podkład. Delikatna improwizacja na replice instrumentu z siedemnastego wieku gładko przechodzi w ambientowe przestrzenie kojarzące się z twórczością Rafaela Antona Irisarriego, a efekt końcowy daleki jest od oczywistości. Wydany przez włoski label Farmacia901 ma tylko jeden mankament. Zdecydowanie zbyt szybko się kończy.
—porcys.com
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I only recently found out about this album, which was released in january of this year. Which means that – no surprise – the physical edition has sold out by now. I still want to mention it because the digital version remains available, ánd because of the rather unusual combination of ambient drones and harp.
Richard Chartier teams up with Dutch harpist Gwyneth Wentink for this EP-length (19 minutes) piece called Elision. Wentink is an internationally acclaimed harpist, who performed audio-visual versions of Terry Riley’s In C and Simeon Ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato (one of the greatest and most performed Dutch modern classical/minimal compositions) – among many other activities.
Elision means ‘the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable in a verse to achieve a uniform metrical pattern’, so this particular piece is not only about what is played, but also about what is left out. Her harp sounds different – sharper? brighter? – than usual, because she is playing a triple harp: a replica of a harp from around 1600 made of 3 rows of strings instead of the commong single row. Her (improvisation) is craftfully manipulated and merged with Pinkcourtesy‘s drones ‘under and over a hazy sonic shroud of worn romance and phobophobia.”
—ambientblog.net
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C’est trois secondes avant sa dix-neuvième minute que cette collaboration Richard Chartier / Gwyneth Wentink, the first sous pseudo Pinkcourtesyphone et the last à la harpe triple (que l’on appelle aussi « harpe à triple rang de cordes » mon petit bonhomme), s’évapore. Mais toutes ces minutes raconteraient-elles autre chose que cette histoire d’évaporation ? C’est ce qu’on pourrait croire au début, quand les cordes sont pincées « à la médiévale » sur des couches planantes de synthé qui, elles, vont et viennent et vont et viennent… Mais à l’occasion d’un retour, les couches se retirent au profit de leur écho = un retour de nappe-boomerang change la donne et diversifie la pièce. En effet, l’Hollandaise (en voilà, de l’élision !) joue désormais moins en avant et Chartier, dont les plumes ont été alourdies par de petites touches de goudron noir au gré de ses récentes collaborations avec un certain William B., reprend la direction de l’ambient et avec elle tous les timbres de la harpe qu’il ajoute à sa palette. Pas mal.
—grisli.canalblog.com
