John Kannenberg is an artist creating “quietly reflective work in image, sound, words, and performance that blurs the boundaries between intention and accident.”
“My work as both a sonic and visual artist is focussed on breating atmospheres conducive to meditative thought. While using elements of repetition, reduction, combination and transformation, the images and sound I present are rooted in an atmosphere of calm.”
His sound material often uses found sounds and environmental recording, but they are always used and transformed in such ways that they become “devoid of any direct references or overt meanings.”
“The pieces I create are designed to assist their audience in turning their attention inward by contemplating their own relationships to the piece’s content.”
Kannenberg’s discography/list of recorded works is quite impressive (and contains quite a few works that are freely downloadable, by the way), but if you’re unsure where to begin “Cordolium” is a good starting point!
“Cordolium” – literally: ‘Heartfelt grief’: from cor (“heart”) + dolor (“pain, sorrow”) – is a (digital download only) album presenting seven “Laments for the heart in flux”.
The basic material comes from field-recordings from all over the world but they are edited and processed in such a way that the track become true compositions: “Audio poems of love, loss, longing and heartache in all its forms”.
Included with the download is a collection of photographs that are not specifically collected for their aesthetic beauty, but to add “another layer to the stories embedded within the sounds”.