We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

A Concrete Pasture

by Coen Oscar Polack

supported by
michael rome
michael rome thumbnail
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €7 EUR  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of A Concrete Pasture via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    edition of 300 
    Purchasable with gift card

      €18.50 EUR or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    8
    releases

    Get all 8 Coen Oscar Polack releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of A Concrete Pasture, Haarlemmerhout, Dear Body, Fathomless, Spectral Churches, The Skipping Monk (Recordings of Nature and Culture in India), The Language Of Mountains Is Rain, and Psychic Investigations. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      €28.70 EUR or more (30% OFF)

     

1.
Cuore Nero 05:35
buy track
2.
Unseen Shores 14:04
buy track
3.
Phra Buddhasaiyas 02:54
buy track
4.
Kraaiennest 19:59
buy track

about

‘A Concrete Pasture’ by Coen Oscar Polack is the follow-up to ‘Haarlemmerhout’ (2020), an album named after a park close to his home in Haarlem in the Netherlands. ‘A Concrete Pasture’ brings Polack’s interest in exploring the larger world around him back into his music. Polack is a magician in combining field recordings from all over the world, be it a temple in Bangkok, the Dutch Wadden Islands or a the percussive Gamelan instruments, and electronic processing of these recordings. With all these ingredients he creates a vivid, nostalgic, futuristic but familiar world of sounds and emotions.

At first, the colors of the recordings seem scattered, the sounds unrelated, but there is a deeper train of thought running through the music. It is the persistent impression of a travelogue; of places, family and friends, helping Polack in co-creating his music. In ‘Cuore Nero’, nostalgic powerchords are composed into tapestries of ambient-noise, ‘Unseen Shores’ uses a recomposed recording of Polack’s children on the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog and develops into visceral, almost spiritual music, and a field recording of Wat Po in Bangkok in ‘Phra Buddhasaiyas’ becomes a luminous homage that the incorporated guitar sound burns into your skull.

While listening, it becomes evident that Polack is being reflective in auditive images and memory, giving a meaning to a music that is liberated of its formalities and charged with a poignant imagery by transformation, one that is bright and lucid and respects the process from recording until ornamentation.

The longest piece of the album ‘Kraaiennest’, starts with the recording of a Hong Kong traffic light, later to be cut up and transformed into a technoid Musique Concrète piece, with a slow progression into a warm crescendo-decrescendo themed electroacoustic piece, which takes on a life on its own. The finale is Polack on this tenor saxophone putting a stamp on the completion of his work, a performance reminiscing of the raw expressiveness of Albert Ayler.

‘A Concrete Pasture’ points to a landscape, or to a person’s current situation in life. Coen Oscar Polack did himself justice by writing an elegant, vibrant album, a tribute to his reflection of reality, his aesthetics, and with raw authenticity and skill, leaving a great space for the audience’s imagination.

credits

released October 13, 2023

Unseen Shores incorporates recordings from Schiermonnikoog and the fountain in de Haarlemmerhout.
Phra Buddhasaiyas incorporates recordings from Wat Pho in Bangkok, the temple of the reclining Buddha.
Kraaiennest incorporates recordings of traffic lights on Wyndham road, in Hong Kong and from the crash site of Turkish airlines flight 1951 near Schiphol airport on the morning of february 25 2009

All sounds by Coen Oscar Polack.
Musical assistance by Lars Meijer, Stijn Dissen,
Melle Kromhout and Ruben Braeken.
Mastered by Jos Smolders at EARlabs.
Sleeve design and photography by Coen Oscar Polack.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Coen Oscar Polack image

Coen Oscar Polack Haarlem, Netherlands

Coen Oscar Polack is a sound artist based in The Netherlands. His works balance natural textures with synthetic and instrumental sounds.

Polack works in album format and in collaborative projects, and performs in concert settings and site-specific installations.

He is co-founder of Narrominded.com and was a member of Living Ornaments and Psychon. ... more

contact / help

Contact Coen Oscar Polack

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

Coen Oscar Polack recommends:

If you like Coen Oscar Polack, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now