lance austin olsen - road to esperance (cd + hand crafted artist book)

Artist: Lance Austin Olsen
Title: Road to Esperance
Content: CD + artist book
Duration: 48 minutes
Label: Infrequency Editions
Catalog Reference: IN007
Genre: Field Recording, Noise
Released: March 2010

The first solo release from Infrequency Editions co-founder Lance Austin Olsen is also the first exploring our new packaging ideology: extending our audience's experience of the sound art through the handmade artist book.

Road to Esperance is, much like its creator, simultaneously aggressive and poetic, applying a long form narrative to guide the listener on a blindfolded journey from Canada to Australia. Imagine starting with a compelling collection of field recordings and then beating them into submission with a ball-peen hammer to form a unique and enigmatic travelogue.

Trained as a painter, and having spent the last 40 years developing his own language of mark making on epic scale canvas and paper, Olsen began pursuing a parallel career in sound in 2000, subsequently co-founding Infrequency to help publish editions of experimental minimalist sound art.

Road to Esperance comes housed in a hand crafted artist book with silkscreened wraps, original ink drawings on vellum, and a randomly selected photograph from Olsen's family history in a glassine envelope. The result is a crosstalk of ideas between the audio and the tactile artwork, an experience which Infrequency Editions recognizes as missing in the homogenization of the album format through digital distribution.

Published in a very intimate edition of 100 copies.