GOULDEN by kLIMEK & Emily Hochman

GOULDEN by kLIMEK & Emily Hochman

Label Launch + Record Release & Q&A with kLIMEK

Saturday 5 March, 7pm

GOULDEN is a one-copy vinyl release platform for sound works by Sebastian Meissner, gold-coated on the inside, with hand-drawn vinyl jackets by his partner & wife Emily Hochman. The word Goulden is a combination of “golden” and “gulden”, a historic European currency. They symbolize and represent for both artists their personal currency. In September 2015, 11 albums under Meissner’s moniker kLIMEK were released on GOULDEN. Digital copies of these recordings won’t be available.

“Sometimes I get completely overwhelmed by the massive music archives we have access to today that are free or nearly free. And day by day thousands of hours of new musical material is added to those archives. So many composers, producers and musicians are asking for our valuable time today, and I am one of them. Thinking about this created an urge in me to restrict and limit myself to the most essential: to create compositions that would only exist on one sound carrier. One copy – that’s enough” explains Meissner.

“This one-copy idea has another origin as well. Over the past years my hard- drives swelled with terabytes of half-finished material and I struggled to give those compositions a final shape: there were too many interesting directions! How could I make a final decision? It was like creative paralysis. So in a somewhat therapeutic act I decided to give those works a shape that would satisfy me for that given moment and would comprise one single copy, creating something more of an art object than just a vinyl record – maybe a type of sculpture. My rapprochement toward visual art became especially evident when I decided to ask Emily to contribute her drawings to those vinyl-and-paper objects. This is probably also the result of my observations of her modus of work as a painter where all input and effort flow into only one unique object. I wanted to apply this to my digital sound work, where by its nature identical copies can be generated into infinity.”

GOULDEN questions what the value of music is today. The 11 music and art objects published via GOULDEN are not for sale and will only be played on special occasions or performed in a live concert environment. GOULDEN claims singularity to music publishing that traditionally is reserved for music performances.

Between 1999 – 2009 Meissner released his sound compositions on music labels such as Mille Plateaux, Ritornell, Kompakt, Sub Rosa, Raster Noton, Anticipate Recordings, Crónica and performed it on 5 continents. By 2010 he shifted his focus to writing and producing radio features mainly for German public radio broadcasters such as Deutschlandradio and WDR3. The typically one hour-long radio broadcasts approached topics such as ethnicity, cultural and religious identity, race and armed conflict.

Emily Hochman received her BFA from CalArts. She currently works on pen and ink drawings and oils on canvas. The artistic practice of both artists rely strongly on visual and acoustic sampling and play, and incorporate carefully chosen cultural references.

http://sebastianmeissner.me

http://emilyhochman.com