People / No One Pulse
No One Pulse
An experimental electro-acoustic duo formed by Wong Chung-fai (Sin:Ned) and Chau Kin-wai (KWC) from Hong Kong.
Their collaboration first started in 2003 for the audio/visual internet project "60 seconds" and participated in the multi-media live event "Media Jam" for Hong Kong Sound & Vision Festival in 2003.
The two formed as No One Pulse in 2006, exploring the concept of free improvisation and the world of free-from electronics that embraces randomness, chaotic structure, and microsound methodology by means of non-musical instrument and devices.
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Discography
LINGK (Locd44r)
01: Room 337 (The Towel)
02. Kapok
03: Room 337 (The Mattress)
Released by Lona Records
Room 337 (The Towel)
01: The Towel
Self release from www.no-one-pulse.com
Pathic (ls018)
01: #1 (10:10)
02: #3 (10:13)
Released by Little Sound
Tele (Locd25r)
01: #2 (10:00)
02: #4 (10:00)
Cover photo by James Greenfield
Released by Lona Records
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Selected Shows
07/2008: The Last Night: A SZ-HK Experimental Performance @ C:Union, Shenzhen
03/2008: HK & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Hong Kong
02/2008: HK & Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Hong Kong
10/2007: Emmanuel Mieville Live in HK (Supporting Act) @ Kapok, Hong Kong
08/2007: Ritual for the Ghosts @ Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong
06/2007: Homeshow @ Red Bookstore, Guangzhou
04/2007: We Play Neo Sound @ Mooka Space, OCT-LOFT, Shenzhen
03/2007: Listen Up: When The Plug Is ON, LOG-ON, Hong Kong
01/2007: Take Off The Headphone & Turn To 10, Videotage, Hong Kong
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Reviews
On LINGK (Locd44r)
The Hong Kong duo of Wong Chung-fai (Sin:Ned, Music Colony Bi-Weekly Magazine) and Chau Kin-wai (Sleepatwork) recording as No One Pulse, specialise in conceptually minimalistic, but broadly-painted, soundscapes, utilising electronic blips, hums and squeaks. In their own terms these are micro-sound experiments and “freeform” electronics, collated and built from both studio-based and live recordings. There are hints of a certain formalism to some of the microstructural minutiae of the compositions, but above and beyond that the pair introduce elements of random interpolations and chaotic improvisation. This is not to imply any Stockhausen-style atonality is present – rather, in much the same way that matter behaves in the real world, structures are allowed to emerge out of the randomicity without attempting to confine the music into any theoretical straitjacket. What we have then could be said to mimic the natural processes, albeit on a smaller scale, that form the bedrock of material existence around us.
I have to advise that I use the word minimal very loosely here – the sounds employed are in essence very few in number, but stack themselves up in successive layers to produce a convoluted complexity. Random concatenations, microscopic detonations and explosions, sheets of accelerated particles, high-energy sonic excitations, and hums, clicks and squeals – these are the fundamental particles that surge and flow, that collide and split, and form the basis of No One Pulse’s musical discourse. It’s never loud or harsh, although sometimes the drones and squeals have a habit of drilling into the head, just like some neutrino ploughing through miles of rock.
Indeed, the sounds on here remind me very much of the 'music of the spheres', created through both macro and micro-scale processes, picked up and recorded by radio astronomers – the constant flux of creation caught in spectral sound. It’s like the pair have journeyed through the heart of star-fields and galactic nurseries, sailed into vast dust-clouds of energetic radioactivity or flown past extra-solar planetary systems, all the while pointing sensitive antennae at them and recorded the fluttering, the whistling, the crackling, the humming and the heartbeats of black holes and galaxies hidden in the airlessness of space. And in between the interstices of sound there is space, eternal light-years of hyperactive nothingness, bristling with unseen and unfelt energies. Above all one gets the impression, the certain feeling in fact, of vast limitless expanses, where the stars and galaxies are on the same scale to the universe as atoms and subatomic particles are to our human comprehension. Little islands of coagulated matter clump together here and there, accreting and spinning, before amassing sufficient to form new systems and worlds.
Simultaneously, one can also envisage a journey through the particle-rich quantum world, which in its own way can be considered as just another universe itself, albeit compacted into an infinitesimally small space, but still an analogue of the bigger one. Therefore I wouldn’t be surprised, should we develop sensitive enough instruments, that we detect a similar subatomic symphony, equally as energetic and equally as noisy. And No One Pulse's entirely naturalistic soundtrack can just be as fittingly applied to that scale as it can to its opposite. In that sense, it's truly a work that encompasses the entire spectrum of creation in its scope.
It would be true to say, then, that experimental music has not only a global reach, but in this particular case can actually encompass whole worlds, from the small to the galactic. LINGK contains it all, condensing the whole spectrum into a palatable form, while simultaneously moulding it into a work of abstract beauty. The near-lightspeed blasts of particles no human eye could possibly ever see, the lightyears-long tendrils of starstuff left over from supernovae or the massive columns of gas and dust serving as the wombs of new stars; who would have thought that you could have shoehorned that lot onto a disc of plastic only 5" in diameter.
- S:M:J63 (Heathen Harvest, 15th October, 2008)
On Tele (Locd25r) & Pathic (ls018)
No One Pulse，香港樂評人Sin:Ned和他的朋友KWC的雙筆記本組合。這兩張3寸CDR，是一個概念下的雙生兒，聯合發表的方式，讓我想起90年代的作家和詩人，那些牛掰且高產的，常常在同樣厚度的雙月刊上同時發表一個系列的不同部分。對，這是借用廠牌網路的背景，將作品背後的概念推到更深處。
Tele這張，比較含蓄一些，但又暗藏千頭萬緒的殺機，好象潛水的動物心情乖張，隨時放電；Pathic這張，緊張且快速，整體卻更統一，信息量大但不紛擾。都是用筆記本做的，不能分辨那條線索是誰，那些素材是誰。但我們可以知道，這兩位喜歡鋪設多條脈絡，同時迴圈著向前奔走（或者不如說就地旋轉）。低的聲音慢，高的聲音碎，仿佛有形，更高的不易辨別，更低的彌漫得無形，中間或許有像是旋律的東西，也迴圈著，但也變化著。就好象說，所有就地旋轉的東西，都其實是在就地變化，別說河流，就是loop，也都沒有可以重複的。
這兩張，像我們常聽的長音。但其實不是長音延伸，不是山河，不是旅行。對電腦來說，loop作為最基本的技術，也作為20世紀最基本的音樂概念，可以將音樂的時間感改寫為無限，把時間當成空間來用。不loop的部分反倒成了幫襯——這兩位是在用聲音再現資訊哲學，其中的變化和不變，相互對照，讓人哪頭都不敢錯過，最後就錯過了午飯。
- 顏峻
On Tele (Locd25r)
When you notice the words 'sound artist,' 'Raster-noton' and 'no-input device' on the same promo sheet, you almost certainly can expect mini-crackles, micro-pops, lots of hiss and the whole gamut of lowercase electronics. The No One Pulse duo from Hong Kong does anything but disappoint those expectations.
Though far from original the two tracks on this 3" cd, both exactly ten minutes long and blessed with the entirely nondescript titles "#2" and "#4," are nonetheless fascinating exercises in creating a lot of atmosphere with the most minimal of means. Doubtlessly emanating from the laptop it never becomes really clear whether the sound sources have been pre-recorded and treated later on, or created from scratch. White noise and distortion are avoided, though, and No One Pulse let their machines gently purr and drone in a seemingly improvising way.
With this kind of music references are bound to be legion. The aforementioned Raster-noton and the motionless sine wave mindscapes of Sachiko M and the no-input philosophy of Toshimaru Nakamura indeed seem major influences, but reminiscences of the endless subaqueous repetition of Cranioclast and the fragmentary dub of Chain Reaction cannot be chased away either.
This way too short teaser will not change your world and chances are you may have heard this kind of meandering soundscaping a thousand times before. But its insistence on uncovering beautiful sounds certainly makes you beg for more. 7/10
- Vincent Romain (Foxy Digitalis - USA, 29 August, 2007)
情緒，依舊是沙礫翻滾一樣湧動的情緒，在電流的共振中傳達漫無邊際的焦慮。簡約的反復中醞釀著未知的危險，直線型的訊號成為變化的轉折，暗，沉的泥濘覆蓋過來，耳朵開始鼓脹，在音頻的威壓下痙攣。後部穿越的細碎雜音，如同冬季裏的落葉，漫無方向的飄散。
NO ONE PULSE在音樂中塑造出的緊張感抓住了存在的空隙，現代的迷惘與心靈的喪失在背負著十字架的天穹中閃爍莫名。當聲音彈珠一樣在室內滾動，經緯交錯的構思如同抽象的油畫，任線條穿梭。實驗音樂中的情感，往往需要用認真的頭腦才能夠準確的捕捉，而在這個無風的春季裏，當恐懼和符號漫天飛舞，當生命中的輪渡失去了停泊的消息，聲音進入我的腦體，帶我走向另一場關於靈魂的朝聖之旅。
- 阿白