LOVE HERTZ by Janek Schaefer

endless AV/HD projection onto a large monolith in a blue room


“I like stories, they inform who we become, what we do, and choose to communicate. This story marks a phase in my emotional life voyage. Processing the situation inspired me personally, to get busy putting down my feelings in pure sound and then image. I don’t write lyrics, but instead write sleevenotes. I feel sharing the actual experience provides context. It appears I was in grief and mourning, following the news that finally did arrive, that the love of my lifetime had moved onto another after 21yrs together. The flood gates opened, as I had the time and space. I ended up in isolation, in tears for ten days, which I spent making this album. Creating it helped me process my emotions and memories. I was able to revel in that dark state, yet exclaim how the music felt exactly how I was feeling back then, and eventually it became uplifting, and sparkling like lost love dust, when combined with the film phase.

The music was formed and forged using my Indian Shruti Box (which is like a fixed note harmonium), the inner realms and notes of a majestic pipe organ, a characterful 50’s domestic pipe organ, and a Magnus chord organ, along with found sounds of various vibrations, including a ship crossing the ocean, underpinning the works voyage, endlessly going nowhere. Distortion and breakup of those acoustic sources, is a fundamental compositional emphasis. Coruscating waves, and waves of live recording passages unfold slowly weaving between different shapes and moods of hope and despair. Chugging forwards in an endless evolving moment. It was a voyage of emotional discovery that I am glad I endured and learned from, and came out the other side with this work.. like a monolith marking the moment.

Later, a ferry journey crossing The Channel presented a sparkling opportunity. We were located looking out towards where The Titanic had last left dock in Cherbourg a century before. What I saw out of the window was unusually poignant I felt, as the light caustics danced on the undulating waves. There appears to be a hovering shaft of light descending from the cloudcraft above, projecting hope across the waves. The deep dark looming depths of the water itself came in and out of my attention as I gazed at the wonder of it all. Minimalist yes, but better than that, a Featureless Film emerged. I felt then, that I had created a soundtrack for a full film, to be projected large and loud onto a monolith in dark blue feeling gallery space. Full immersion.

Love Hertz was indeed an overwhelming experience, and forms the final part of a trilogy of works from that distorted era of my life. Just to be clear, no Ai was used in the production of this work. It all comes from within me. I hope you enjoy the voyage in any way you can.”

Album Released Valentine's Day 2024

instruments
2000's Shruti Box, Indian bellows reed instrument
1950’s domestic pipe organ, New York
1970’s Magnus fan powered chord organ
1860's Huddersfield Father Willis pipe organ
Distortion

44:00 min

CD
1 Attraction
2 Attrition
3 Separation
4 Loss
5 Closure

DVD
Featureless Film

project page
janekschaefer.com/=Love_Hertz.html

Sound Artist, Entertainer, Professor, Janek Schaefer trained as an Architect at the Royal College of Art, where he developed his focus on the relationship between sound, space and place. He has exhibited & performed in 30 countries worldwide, from The Tate Modern to The Sydney Opera House. The Bluecoat gallery exhibited a Retrospective of his career in 2009, & has released 39 album projects.

janekschaefer.com