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Elka Bong (Margolis / Wright / Bouchard): Without Walls (Love Earth Music)

Integrating live coding, field recordings, IFM synthesis, and an array of electroacoustic instrumentation, the trio of Al Margolis, Walter Wright, and Sara Bouchard craft an unbounded and exploratory work that embraces technological transformation and sensory disruption, channeling Marshall McLuhan's insights into a richly layered and prophetic sonic landscape.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Al Margolis-transformations, trumpet, guitar, objects, alto clarinets

Walter Wright-IFM synth

Sara Bouchard-live coded media, voice, field recordings, aluminum foil


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Label: Love Earth Music
Catalog ID: LEM-348
Squidco Product Code: 35886

Format: CDR
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operations has to be considered. For in operating on society with new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. The The area of impact and incision is numb. It is the entire system that is changed. The effect of radio is visual, the effect of the photo is auditory. Each new impact shifts the ratios among all the senses. What we seek today is either a means of controlling these shifts in the sense-ratios of the psychic and social outlook, or a means of avoiding them altogether. To have a disease without its symptoms is to be immune. No society has ever known enough about its actions to have developed immunity to its new extensions or technologies. Today we have begun to sense that art may be ableto provide such immunity.

"The ability of the artist to sidestep the bully blow of new technology of any age, and to parry such violence with full awareness, is age-old. Equally age-old is the inability of the percussed victims, who cannot sidestep the new violence, to recognize their need of the artist. To reward and to make celebrities of artists can, also, be a way of ignoring their prophetic work, and preventing its timely use for survival. The artist is the person in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of their actions and of new knowledge in their own time. They are the persons of integral awareness."-Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, pages 70-71



Without Walls by Elka Bong is a 2016 album featuring four extended acoustic works, blending composed and improvised elements. The nine-member Norwegian ensemble, The Touchables, creates a soundscape that draws from chamber music, minimalism, and sound, resulting in slowly evolving textures. The music features strings, winds, bass, handbells, and percussion in a stark, resonant, and immersive sonic environment.

The album explores slowly evolving textures through a combination of composed and improvised elements. The music is described as stark, resonant, and deeply immersive, creating a unique sonic landscape. The use of various instruments, including strings, winds, bass, handbells, and percussion, contributes to the album's complexity and depth. "Without Walls" offers a blend of acoustic instrumentation and experimental approaches, resulting in a unique listening experience. The album avoids easy categorization, drawing from various musical influences to create something new and engaging


Artist Biographies

"Al Margolis (viola/violin/clarinet) was active in the 1980s American cassette underground through his cassette label Sound of Pig Music and is co-founder of experimental music label Pogus Productions, which he continues to run. Active under the name If, Bwana since 1984, his works swing between fairly spontaneous studio constructions and more process-oriented composition. It has been said "that Al Margolis/If, Bwana is some sort of evil genius working with raw materials which are never adapted to a genre or a context, because they create one in that very moment. Those sources are radically altered up to an utterly unrecognizable state, anarchic manifestations moving in compact determination." It's all true....."

-Al Margolis (If Bwana) Website (http://www.ifbwana.com/)
6/25/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Walter Wright is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes computer programming, electro-acoustic music, and video performance. His focus is on "improvisation as a way of being present in the world."

Walter was one of the first video animators. At Computer Image Corp he animated letters, words, and titles for Children's Television Workshop. He was a video animator for Ed Emshwiller's Thermogenesis and Scapemates, aired by WNET's Artists Television Workshop. Scapemates was the first computer graphics video nominated for an Emmy Award (1971). He showed his work at the first computer art conference at the Kitchen (NYC, 1973). In 1973-76, as artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center, he pioneered video performance touring public access centers, colleges, and galleries with the Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer.

Walter has developed software and hardware for artists including the Video Shredder, a desktop video processor for the TARGA2K. Currently he works with Max/MSP, softVNS, and Processing. His programs and sketches are available on his blog.

Walter performs with several groups including Apocalypso, Ensemble indent, and Los Condenados. He uses a Bugbrand Board Weevil, a Flower Electronics Little Blue Boy, intact mics by Crank Sturgeon and sometime plays drums. He recently toured with an amplified drum kit and is experimenting Martin Freeman's Horndog and Peter Blasser's Shnth.

Walter is a co-founder of 119 Gallery, the first digital art gallery on the World Wide Web, which is located in Lowell MA."

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/2812018-Walter-Wright-2)
6/25/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Sara Bouchard is a multidisciplinary artist and composer who uses sound, installation, works on paper, performance and creative coding to interweave song, history and the landscape. She is currently based in Richmond, VA, where she teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts.

Sara recently discussed her work in the With Good Reason episode "Music That Speaks." Listen to the radio interview.

Born in Stockton, CA, Sara received her BA in painting from Yale University in 2003. She was subsequently based in Brooklyn, NY, for 13 years where she embedded herself in her local community through socially engaged art practices and American roots music. In 2017 she relocated to Richmond, VA, to study with sound artist Stephen Vitiello, receiving her MFA in Kinetic Imaging and Sound from VCUarts in 2019. In 2023 she received the Excellence in Adjunct Research Award from VCUarts and The Anderson.

Sara is currently collaborating with VCU Professor of Biology Chris Gough, Ph.D., as part of a yearlong artist residency with FLUXNET, a global network of scientists who measure the exchange of greenhouse gases between the atmosphere and the landscape. The culminating exhibition will be presented in January 2026 at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) in Corvallis, Oregon.

Sara has exhibited internationally, including at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (CT), The Center for Book Arts (NYC) and at ERES Foundation (Munich, Germany). She has performed extensively, including at The International Conference for Live Coding (Utrecht, Netherlands), The American Folk Art Museum (NYC) and numerous festivals. Her work is in a growing number of public collections, including the Princeton University Library (NJ) and the University of Richmond Library (VA)."

-Sara Bouchard Website (https://www.sarabouchard.com/about)
6/26/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. An Eye for an Ear 10:11

2. Our Extended Skin 10:09

3. The Scent of Time 10:18

4. The Mechanical Bride 10:30

Related Categories of Interest:


Electro-Acoustic
Improvised Music
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Trio Recordings
Electronic Forms
Unusual Vocal Forms
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

Search for other titles on the label:
Love Earth Music.


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