Stream Hannah Hoch's New Ice-Themed Found Sound Album, "Floeberg"

By Jon Graef in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 5, 2014 9:30PM

Last weekend, we told you about Notes and Bolts labelrunner Kriss Stress' new musical project, a found sound and Dada art-inspired ambient music moniker called Hannah Hoch. Stress was the one who made a 15 minute sound collage out of sounds recorded on a round trip Red Line ride. The piece is a first in a series called "Reductions."

This weekend, we spoke with Stress about the latest Hannah Hoch project. Not another "Reductions" piece, but, rather, a new, six-song 35-minute album called Floeberg. (We mentioned it in the last post, and the album was mastered by drone artist Cinchel.)

You can listen to a Soundcloud stream of Floeberg below. Given the current weather, listeners may appreciate the concept behind the album.

“The theme of the record is ice - a floeberg is a large grouping that resembles a large iceberg. All six pieces are named for different kinds of ice,” Stress wrote to Chicagoist through social media.

“All six pieces have basic whirring sounds that provide the bed of sound - a lot of them are sourced from sticking the recorder into cooling units in grocery stores, things like that. Like Reductions, nothing on the Floeberg record is made with artificial loops or fake echo and reverb settings,” Stress wrote

All of Stress’s sounds were recorded in and around Chicago, including at some unusual locations.

“One place I remember going to was Treasure Island,” Stress said. “I would stick the Tascam into a fridge in the frozen food aisle and then close the door and sort of wander around in that aisle for a few minutes to make sure no one made off with it. I would usually stick it super far into the back in order to get louder hums.”

Stress’ sounds also include a pot of boiling lentils, which you can hear on second track, “Clathrate,” cracking pieces of ice out of a tray, and hitting a hammer in a Home Depot. They aren’t limited to those, however.

“Other sounds come from things like me slamming gates, walking a grocery cart around through a parking lot, things like that,” Stress wrote. “The cart I liked a lot because it provided a really nature rhythm, almost like those train like rhythms you head in old Johnny Cash songs.”

Stress also cited groups like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire as influences. Though the album can be classified as musique concrete, Stress said that "Floeberg" was a more musical record compare to the more minimal "Reductions" piece.

"I was definitely trying to make a musically based record. taking some of those sounds and placing them throughout the record was an attempt to give the whole thing a cohesion - to essentially listen to it as a whole," Stress wrote. "I did that to avoid the record wearing out it welcome on the listener.

"I wanted the whole thing to workaday single unit, and be treated as a lo-if horror soundtrack in some way," Stress wrote. "I'm not sure that I completely nailed that by any means, but I definitely didn't want it to sound like six random pieces."

Listen to the haunting, soothing beauty of Floeberg here.