knud viktor: ambiances/images

Institut for Dansk Lydarkæologi present a reissue that documents Knud Viktor's only two releases on record -- Images and Ambiances -- both released in 1972 on the French label L'Oiseau Musicien. These records have long been out of print and are hereby made available again, gathering the two separate albums on this double-release. The utmost care has gone into creating a reproduction that is as faithful as possible to the original works. These have been transferred from the original analog master tapes and have not been remastered to any other extent than to prepare them for the vinyl reproduction. Thus, Knud Viktor's pieces appear with the same degree of tape hiss, hum, and other "artifacts" related to his aesthetics, compositional process, and tools. Knud Viktor (1924-2013, born in Copenhagen) was a Danish recordist and sound artist. Viktor was a pioneer of phonography and sound ecology. Formerly a painter but also a photographer and a film maker, Viktor wanted to picture the landscape by capturing the impact of the intense light and sounds upon animals. He spent most of his life trying to capture the tiny sound of animals and the sound of erosion on the rocks of Régalon (Lubéron, France) where he lived for almost 40 years. Viktor considered the rural landscape of Lubéron as an open territory with its own idiosyncratic acoustic signature. Viktor's methodology of work involved long periods of deep listening before placing his microphones at the right point of ear. Knud on his process: "I don't pretend to make music, even if what I hear in nature is produced by forces that seek harmony. I see what I do as a continuation of the painting, surveying sounds that organizes sonic intensities most unattendedly, contrastingly, modulated, and dissonant. I try to create an enhanced sensation via the sounds, the air, the light, the wind, the rain, the rocks, the vegetation, the smells of Lubéron." Transfer from analog master tapes by Jean C. Roché. Edition of 300.