Janek Schaefer Weather Report CD

“Weather Report was created during my trips to Minnesota as a McKnight Composer in Residence with the American Composers Forum. I lived in Uptown Minneapolis in a wonderful wooden house surrounded by trees and lakes during December 2002 and June 2003. The catalyst for the project was the Minnesotan love for their diverse and often hostile weather.......which proved to be an exhilarating experience! My initial ideas were to create and collect new sounds that were related to the concept of weather in the broadest sense, to document and research weather in the media, and to float recording equipment up on weather balloons in various ways. These processes were integral as my focus was on sound associated with the weather, in preference to pristine recordings of the weather first hand. An obvious exception, in my last week, was the storm of 40 tornado warnings that touched down around the fringes of the city. The weather balloons were used in 3 main ways. Firstly one icy winters morning I attached a mobile phone to receive and send low resolution sound, letting it float away from the surface of a frozen lake.
Secondly using a digital dictaphone I made time lapse recordings of the sky by floating it 500ft above my lush metropolitan neighbourhood. Lastly three all American friends and I set out to shoot the balloon down late one June afternoon leaving the sound to parachute back to earth.
I let the recordings speak for themselves, no effects, no eq, just straight cut & splice collage where you can hear the edges of time. Some other sounds collected include: underwater ice skaters; flapping; old meteorological kit; leaf blowers; repairing weather damage; various 60’s archive audio; melting ice, ski across snow, Minnesota forecasts on radio, in the car and on TV; Tornado chasing & test equipment; snow flakes landing on mic; squeaky tree; National Weather Service balloon launch; walkie talkie tones from my Science Museum workshop etc. Oh, and all temperatures in Fahrenheit. The result is a highly compressed Found Sound story, heard as a drifting voicemail message from the weather balloon. A hybrid documentary collected and edited outdoors, where it is designed to be heard while walking with headphones....so... go find a Walkman!” (Janek Schaefer) Alluvial has co-released this CD with the AudiOh! Room in a double fold out sleeve and accompanying full colour 24 page booklet that documents the whole of the project. An edition of 500.

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Reviews

Vital Weekly, Netherlands, Frans de Waard

Our most beloved three arm turntablist Janek Schaefer is besides also a composer. He was invited by the American Composers Forum as a composer in residence. While staying in Minneapolis he decided upon doing a project with sound recordings made from the hostile weather conditions in that particular state. The sounds were recorded using weather balloons, adding also recording equipment to them, which included a mobile telephone. Furthermore he uses tornado detecting equipment, snow flakes landing on a microphone and radio and tv announcements of weather changes. All of this is cut and collaged together in this twenty one minute work, and Schaefer hastens to say that no post-processing of sounds was used here. The result is simply a fascinating journey of weather sounds. Sounds that we are all familiar with, as weather is always there, and no doubt many people are fascinated by it's sound: rain, thunder, wind - it's usually the conditions we don't like that produce the sound, strangely enough. Therefore a lot of the sounds you hear on this piece are very familiar sounds - but placed out of context, or rather in a new context, it becomes a fascinating piece of music. Plus the package holds an extensive full colour booklet, which documents the project. This project is by far the best Schaefer project I have encountered. Strong in it's concept and strong in its execution.

Ultra E-Zine, Belgium

You've got to give it to the man: while others are navel staring or knobtwiddling or waiting for some sound to happen upon them, Janek Schaefer is bursting with ideas. Where you'd thought that Fluxus and everything that came after it had turned almost every stone, this man keeps coming up with concepts that are so simple they excite you. Take the beauty of mail for instance. Schaefer puts a recording device in a package, and registers its journey through the world. What you hear may not be Miles or Mozart, but at least Mr. Schaefer tries to capture straight poetry, where others in his niche bore us to bits with pretentious high concept nothingness. Or take that whole deejay & vinyl rhetoric. Our man Schaefer lays his mecano aside, lets himself be amazed 'ˆ blanc' and builds a three armed turntable. Just to see what can be done with it. Let's keep those arteries open, shall we, and keep the juices of wonderment flowing! And so for the object at hand. "Weather Report" is not a tribute to Joe Zawinul & Wayne Shorter's mighty jazz/fusion outfit, but much rather a mini-cd which registers an unheard of aspect of our daily lives. The weather. And it's being reported in a plus-twenty-minute montage. Not just wet rain or windy air. But the whole shebang, from weather reports in the media (about tornados) over snow flakes landing an a microphone to to the sounds registered by recording equipment floating up on weather balloons. And with a great, full-colour 20-page booklet to go. Fahrenheit 451? Not really. Artefact? Yes. Wondrous? Too. A boring listen? Perhaps, if you don't allow for that ole 'poetry of reality' to enter your mind. Schaefer's recordings were made in Minnesota, USA, but I'm sure this mini-cd will also become a huge hit around Dogger, Viking, Moray, Forth and Orkney!

Frecuencia Electronica, Puerto Rico, Jorge Castro

This document is, in my very personal opinion, the most interesting and important document in Janek Schaefer's career. This is something I find myself saying after initial listenings to most of his albums. The concept, creative process and superb execution are described in the CD's 24 page booklet. This booklet contains a massive collection of pictures which document various trips by the artist to the USA state of Minnesota, where he was chosen as "McKnight Composer in Residence" by the American Composers Forum and commissioned to create this piece on their facilities (which turned out to be the outdoors rather than any sound lab). Minnesota was the perfect place to assemble "Weather Report", because it's location in the northern united states offers extreme climate conditions in the winter and summer (and in all seasons I would presume) which Janek documented in this recording. The result of these interesting experiments is a captivating listen all the way through. Personally, I think the best thing about this piece is the editing of the sound sources, because you can definitely make out Janek's very distinct composing style. His ideas, concepts and execution are amazingly singular and are stand outs in the field of sound art. This is an interesting listen for those who know and understand sound art, as well as those who don't. The booklet suggests to listen to it outdoors and with headphones on! GO!

Igloomag.com, USA, TJ Norris

At 21 minutes this project-based recording had Janek Schaefer traveling to Minnesota to work with local meteorologists and nature types. Most of what you hear on this neatly packaged affair are field recordings with open mic. There is the sound of inflation of a weather balloon, winds and birds, and the people recording the changes in temperature, etc. There is also a great full color booklet documenting the project including images of snowy, windy conditions, measuring devices and other charms of local color. Weather Report uses soundclips from local news and those reporting the changing conditions of the Twin Cities area randomly to illustrate the drama of the skies. The piece opens with these skies mid way through where thunder, lightning and its voiceover illustrators report to the inevitable hostile nature to the people. But the quiet after the storm is as balanced and important to the overall ambience here and Schaefer blends the chaos with quietude. Towards the very end there are what sound like some type of gun shots, are they hunters...do they have to shoot down weather balloons...was this a salute to the completion of the work? This is one of surely other documentary recordings to expect from this multimedia artist in the future

Fallt, Northern Ireland (GM)

Yet another concept-bending project... Armed with a dictaphone, a mobile phone and, I'm sure, various other 'low resolution' recording devices Schaefer set out to document, in as many ways as were to hand, everyday Minnesota weather - its monitoring, recording, forecasting, reporting and its effect on local Minnesotans. The result is packaged with a colourful booklet snapshotting the project. 'Weather Report' opens with a voice message sent from the recent past by a mobile phone suspended from a weather balloon. As the balloon inflates Schaefer's voice can be heard introducing the project, "Up, up and away!" he cries as it floats upwards buffeted by the breeze. Into earshot drift the sounds of a distant plane, a dog barking and birds twittering. In what follows nothing weather-related is left out. The unidentifiable and the commonplace - wind, ice underfoot, leaf blowers, snowflakes and rain (everything from drip-drip-drip to cats and dogs) - are intercut with local and archival TV and radio weather flashes. Mid track the blue/black sounds of a thunderstorm loom to form a kind of centre piece. Anticipation (Reporter: "That red donut is evidence of strong rotation in the low levels of the atmosphere...) and aftermath (Interviewer: "You were blown out through the wall?") are eventually joined by a veritable welter of weather-words uttered, it seems, by every weatherperson in Minnesota. The collage effect is further emphasised by Schaefer's use of time lapse material, recalling his wonderful dictaphone-in-a-package-through-the-post project 'Recorded Delivery'. As the composition ends Janek and friends are heard heading out to retrieve the dictaphone. They have guns. Shots ring out. The balloon bursts and the recording device parachutes to the ground. "End of message." An alternative soundtrack to a walk in your local park or down the street.