19 | December | 2013

“A personal photography experience for public consumption.”

Suzanne Heintz calls herself “the modern day patron saint of single women”. She has the following to say about her ongoing photography project, the wondrously uncanny “Life Once Removed”:

What would drive you to pack a family of mannequins into your station wagon, and take them on a road trip? Enough pressure to conform will send anyone packing. That’s how I came to this personal project about what is essentially…Spinsterhood, and the American Way.
Well-meaning strangers, along with friends and family, would raise an eyebrow when the topic of my unmarried and childless status arose. Indicating with a small facial twitch, not only my audacious freakishness, but that I was a little old for such foolish thinking. I mean, come on, eggs don’t last forever!

But really, what was I supposed to do? You can’t just go out and buy a family. Or can you? I did. They are mannequins. The candy coated shell with nothing inside. We do all those family things, all the while capturing those Kodak Moments. Because it’s not really about the journey, or a genuine human connection, when your kids are screaming, “are we there yet?”, is it? It’s about the picture in front of the sign. “Get back in the car, we got the picture. Now, let’s go eat.”

We love and obey the formatted image of a well-lived life. So deeply ingrained is that strange auto-grin we put on when a camera is present. Do we live our lives with a keen awareness of how it feels, or just how it looks?
If I pass through life without checking off the boxes for a wedding ring and a baby carriage, I will be missing the photo album, but not not the point. When I take my photos, others stop and stare, then they ask, “why are you doing this?” They, at that moment, are starting to get the point too.

Check out more of Suzanne’s fantastical images HERE.

LABEL: ALGA MARGHEN (ITALY)
CATALOG #: ALGA 046LP
RELEASE DATE: 21 JANUARY 2014

Sounds of Silence is an anthology of some of the most intriguing silent tracks in recording history and includes rare works, among others, by Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Maurice Lemaitre, Sly & The Family Stone, Robert Wyatt, John Denver, Whitehouse, Orbital, Crass, Ciccone Youth, Afrika Bambaataa and of course, Yves Klein.

In their own quiet way, these silences speak volumes: they are performative, political, critical, abstract, poetic, cynical, technical, absurd. They can be intended as a memorial or a joke, a special offer, or something entirely undefined. The carefully-chosen silences of this anthology are intrinsically linked to the medium of reproduction itself and reveal its nude materiality. They expose their medium in all its facets and imperfections, including the effect of time and wear. At the most basic level, these silences are surfaces. And it is in their materiality that they distinguish themselves from the conceptual experiments of John Cage with “4’33”.

Since the 1950s, silence has found a place in the economic structure of the record industry and since then it would increasingly be appropriated by a vast array of artists in a vast array of contexts. Indeed, the silent tracks seem to know no boundaries. The LP presents the silences as they were originally recorded, preserving any imperfection that the hardware conferred upon the enterprise, without banning the possibility of being satisfying to the ear. The liner notes provide historical background for each track, revealing the stated (or presumed) motivations for these silences, while providing novel sound correspondences or interferences.

This album is meant to be played loud (or not), at any time, in any place: a true aural experience. Only 250 copies available for distribution, in a gatefold iconic sleeve. ORDER THE LP HERE.