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R E V I E W S
Insect Groove

1. The Wire (London, UK)



2. Eye Magazine



3. All Music



4. Independant Electronic Music



5. Voir



6. Urban Magazine



7. http://www.levelheadedmusic.com/

Eye Magazine
Torotno 11.14.02

Reviewed by MIKE DOHERTY (MDO)

Sarah Peebles

Insect Groove
cycling 74

Insect Groove is a collection of Peebles' work over the past 10 years; it finds her collaborating with writer David Toop, guitarist Nilan Perara and others. As the album's name suggests, most of the sounds on the album, be they Japanese cicadas, radio stations, a skipping CD or Toop's voice itself, sound as if they are chattering or buzzing inside your ears. On the other hand, there's nary a groove to be found here; the result is intellectually fascinating, if distinctly uneasy, listening. MDO

Sarah Peebles performs with David Toop, Nilan Perara and Darren Copeland at The Annex Theatre Nov. 16.

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All Music
Fall 2002
www.allmusic.com

Reviewed by François Couture

Insect Groove

Sarah Peebles doesn't keep a busy release schedule, but as long as she puts out works this accomplished, this reviewer won't mind. Insect Groove is a delightful album blending field recordings, real-time electro-acoustic composition, and improvisation with real instrumentalists. Nature provides the main ingredients of this feast: buzzing insects, birds, water streams, presumably captured in the forests of British Columbia (Canada) to which the album is dedicated. To these sounds, manipulated and orchestrated by Peebles, a few select guests add their musical thoughts in the form of an open dialog. David Toop recites in "White Powder/The Spiders." Guitarist Nilan Perera, a regular partner of Peebles, appears on two tracks. Jin Hi Kim contributes some electric komungo (a Korean zither) in the title track, and Kô Ishikawa (of Otomo Yoshihide's Cathode fame) delivers a performance on shô in the last piece. The tiny mouth organ accompanies Perera's prepared guitar and samples of Tibetan bowls in a passionate yet very Zen improvisation. The submitted copy for review started with an uncredited 76 seconds of silence, after which "Nocturnal Premonitions" has all the desired room to startle the listener, sucking him into the composer's unique avant-ecological sound world. The back-and-forth movement between solo ambient, field recordings-based tracks, and "group" pieces establishes an easygoing pace. This album feels a lot less minimalist than Suspended in Amber. It has a lot to reveal to the attentive listener. Recommended.
François Couture

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Independant Electronic Music
January 2003
http://www.orc.ru/~iemhome/eindex.htm

SARAH PEEBLES

"Insect Groove" CD (C74)
English

This album is dedicated to the world of insects. Sarah Peebles is electroacoustic music composer living in Canada. Beside the music, she also have interest in ecology, and in particular, she is worrying about threatening deforestation of Canada caused by increasing urbanization (as quoted inside the CD cover) The material of this album is mostly microscopic sounds produced by various insects, omnipresent but never seen. They are slightly reworked and processed by computer and then re-assembled into multi-part audiocollage. The result is more abstract than one can expect, even with occasional using komungo, electric guitar and japanese mouth organ - the acoustic instruments usually bring to sound some gentle and enliven flavour. This album could be just more detailed, more focused on soundquality version of Francisco Lopez works. Lopez' approach is more mystic (he is an entomologist, as you may know), but Peebles' approach is more naturalistic. Sometimes the composition is enriched by various external influences and effects, for example, the ridiculous orchestral samples or facilitated ethnic elements, but the central part is always occupied by micromusicians. The fantastic presence effect is reached, the intensity of musical movement is increasing like a dramatic tension of fabulous opera play. Did you ever to hide your head in the ant-hill? Well, the insect culture of Peebles is multilayered and has a strong hypnotic effect- maybe most evident in thr title-track. Five session-players are joined Peebles to create this mysterious journey, there are famous avantgarde musicians amongst them - David Toop and Jin Hi Kim. The highlighst of this album are realistic and exceptionally high quality of recordings.

Contact: Cycling '74, 379A Clementina Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA or Sarah Peebles email (speeb@sympatico.ca)

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Voir
14 novembre 2002

Reviewed by Réjean Beaucage

(French)

SARAH PEEBLES

Insect Groove - ( C74 / Verge )

La compagnie Cycling '74, de San Francisco, fabrique des logiciels musicaux comme Max/MSP et fait paraître les enregistrements de certains des artistes qui les utilisent sur son étiquette C74. C'est le cas de Sarah Peebles, une électroacousticienne de la tendance "écologie acoustique" qui utilise beaucoup de sons enregistrés dans la "nature" (par exemple, des bruits d'insectes) pour fabriquer des paysages sonores grouillants de vie. Avec ses comparses David Toop (spoken word), Nilan Perera (guitare électrique préparée), Jin Hi Kim (komungo, une cithare coréenne) et Kô Ishikawa (shô japonais), elle peint des ambiances sonores contemplatives, faisant cohabiter des couches de textures évocatrices de la vie animale et des bruits qui semblent produits par d'étranges robots.
Lancement à la SAT le 21 novembre à 19 h et 21 h 30.

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Reviews of: Cinnamon Sphere | Hover | Insect Groove | Amber CD
108: Walking Through Tokyo at the Turn of the Century | Gathering
Performance Reviews, etc | Whose Forest? | Nova Journal
Back to Main Reviews Page

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