Jamie Drouin & Yann Novak, Auditorium (Dragon´s Eye Recordings)

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The exciting young art house label Dragon´s Eye Recordings celebrates its second birthday with a handsome compilation entitled "Cotton", showcasing the broad palette of experimental sounds it offers and including previously unreleased material (some of it, albeit, teasers for coming albums) by label founder Yann Novak and half a dozen others solo or in unique tandem combinations.

Leafing through the as-yet modest back catalogue, two complementary works released earlier this year within a month of one another and featuring Novak deserve special attention. Both deal with how sound, as much as architecture, defines the characteristics of a given space.

Auditorium is a collaboration between Novak and Victoria, BC, sound artist Jamie Drouin. Novak recorded an empty local auditorium in Seattle, amplified and replayed it, layering and creating a slow-shifting drone, not unlike something you might hear Thomas Köner create with other methods. Drouin then stepped in and "sculpted" the space in a more active manner, setting off small projectiles of sound, atonal synthesizer washes and outbursts of assymmetrical rhythm, drawing attention to the actual three-dimensionality of the space and, I dare say, its intended use as an acoustically adjusted room for listening. Austere at the outset, Drouin´s intrusions act as paint splattering Novak´s giant textured canvas of white noise.

A month later Dragon´s Eye released Novak´s "Intermission". This piece was created to accompany another artist´s installation, comprised of two transparent vinyl houses, one inside the other, inflated and deflated thrice daily. A photograph of the deflated dwellings, echoing the cover of Auditiorium, graces the album cover.

Novak recorded the efforts of the four large machines to inflate the sculpture, which was then played back while the vinyl lay in its flaccid state. This CDR edition proves that "Intermission" is one soundtrack that serves equally well as a strictly audio piece, evoking a sense of calm yet causing a slight shivver. Who knew the hum of giant electrical fans could be so musical?