Mathieu Ruhlmann is a visual and sound artist. He first began composing soundworks to accompany his visual art based on found material. He has created works for various labels in Europe, Canada and the United States as well as contributed to several compilations. He has also produced sound installations and held performances throughout North America. He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.
"The Earth Grows in Each of Us" was composed and recorded during Spring/Summer 2006. Instruments and sounds used on the album include: violin, piano, autoharp, accordion, bell, shruti box, voice, vinyl, wasps, seafoam, glass, tiles, fireworks, water, tree branch, metal, seedpod, pine cone, tone generator and stones.
Here's a description of the album according to Mathieu's own words:
"The main concept behind "The Earth Grows in Each of Us" was to create a soundwork addressing the regeneration of the life cycle. This work was created in 2006, the year of my 30th birthday. On this release there are five tracks. The first four track times refer to the numeric year of my birth, 1976. So the first track is 1 minute, second is 9 minutes, the third 7 minutes, and the fourth 6 minutes. The fifth track is 30 minutes long, my age, and is separated into 3 ten minute segments (each segment representing a decade of life).
While creating these sound works, this regeneration of different life cycles became very personal. My son was just born so I was experiencing this new life and seeing his growth/generation and also during this period my sister, who is very close to me, was in a serious near death accident. So my thoughts were constantly meditating on these two elements or dichotomies and also these micro and macro cycles we experience. Coming from a very visual art background my process or method is much aligned with how I approach a sound work. In my visual art work I collect a lot of found material and objects and use that as a structure or basis for my work very similar to my approach with sound. I am constantly collecting field recordings, found objects and sounds as well as traditional instruments to compose with.
My initial influence to creating sound works was going out to these environments to collect material for my visual art and being so drawn into these acoustic environments (railway yards, abandoned factories, mountains, old houses, etc.) that I started recording them and presenting them with my artwork. Soon I began to be more captured by the sounds and working with them. In this release though I had a conceived idea of the piece and sought out the locations/sounds that related to the concept. Usually I try not to work under such a structure."
"The Earth Grows in Each of Us" features a beautiful artwork created by David Ruhlmann.
Limited edition release of only 100 copies!
Packaging: Pro-CDR in resealable sleeve with pro-printed cardboard insert
Release Date: April 2007
Running Time: 53:10
