Ryu Hankil/Hong Chulki/Nick Hoffman - Sonne (Pilgrim Talk)

Fans of the musicians associated with the Seoul axis (and I'm one) have certainly come to expect a fair amount of...difficult listening. Edges are usually not just rough but rusty and jagged. This collaboration with the American Nick Hoffman, recorded in Seoul in 2009, might actually stretch that metaphor into the poison-coated zone. It's severe. Excellently so. One is almost tempted to say, "malign". It's a couple of harsh, harsh tracks spread onto two sides of an LP (also available for download at bandcamp, code: gmbx-k37p), scouring one's ears, upsetting the dog, making the room deliciously uncomfortable, flinging detritus, emitting high screech after high screech, refusing to accede to any categorizable form, resolutely opaque.

Good stuff, very invigorating; give a listen.

Pilgrim Talk



Jesse Kudler/Chandan Narayan- jk/cn (white flag)

Kudler (electronics, guitar, radios, tape) and Narayan (autoharp) in a live performance from Seattle in 2010. My first listen to this 20 minute track left me with the feeling, "Ok, nice enough, not so exceptional". Subsequent listens might have reinforced the non-exceptionality of the performance but there remains much to enjoy here. It is quite AMM-ish inn general character so that's the sense that one's initial reaction may be: I've heard this before. But over the course of time, I felt more and more, "So what?" They do it very well, interest is sustained, there's the enchanting and not-frequently-encountered sound of Narayan's autoharp, the piece has a solid dynamic flow, seems unforced and flowing. It maintains a fine contrast between the gentle and the violent, never straying too far in either direction but letting you know that the pair is aware of those boundaries. This kind of reaction on my part calls into question one's (my) discernment during a live event. Had I heard this in, say, a festival environment, one out of a number of performances, the sole experience may well have blended in with others, it may not have stood out. Just got to show that even if, at the end of the day, it's not a knock-your-socks-off event, that there's much of value that one (me) is likely missing.

So, glad to have the recording; nice work, repaying many listens.

white-flag

Manfred Werder (Bruno Duplant) - deux trois choses ou presque (Engraved Glass)

Three actualizations of Werder scores by Duplant: 2009-4, 2009-5 & 2010-2, each of which consists of a line or two of text from Francis Ponge.

The first reads (in English):

under certain conditions of temperature and humid-humility - and also shadow or darkness - conditions regarding light, solar and terrestrial radiation; finally certain conditions of proximity, intimacy with the mineral, the inorganic

The second:

There, in a house that I know well, to remoulins, a courtyard, and another at King's gray, each inhabited, decorated with a fig or two

And finally:

the word GLASS OF WATER is somehow appropriate to the object it designates ... starting with a V, ending with a U, the only two letters or vase-shaped glass ["Verre d'eau" in French]

One first hears the sounds of a bucolic landscape atwitter with birds, water somewhere back there. Little by title, you become aware of subsidiary sounds introduced directly by Duplant, soft, almost lush hums generated--how? Bowed bass, sine tones and a horn are listed though the sound is smooth and quiet enough that, sometimes, it could be any of them. There effect is not dissimilar to Pisaro's "Transparent Cities" and almost as magical at times. I take it Duplant created the music in situ and part off the charm is picturing him standing/sitting out there, listening, contributing.

The second and third works are urban, dark arco bass making its presence felt steadily though still blending wonderfully with the engines, the sirens, that background hum possessed by any city.

It remains, to me, a fascinating question as to what effect the scores have on performances such as this aside to suppose that, had they not existed, some other action would have taken place in these spots, that Duplant would have been elsewhere, otherwise occupied. Given the exquisite sense of integration and balance that he brings to this recording, that would seem to be more than enough. In each, he simply becomes one additional sonic element in a pre-existing soundscape, no mean feat. A fine, fine work.

You can download this work at engraved glass


Pedro Chambel/Bruno Duplant/Julien Heraud - worked without noise (rhizome.s)

Chambel (guitar, microphones, objects), Duplant (snare drum, objects, radio) and Heraud (alto sax) fashion a softly busy 45 minutes of what I tend to think of as pared down efi, almost as if someone had taken an Emanem release and bleached out much of the (excess) coloration, leaving behind a kind of spine or sea-molded shell. The action is fairly constant, the gestures somewhat familiar in that sense, but they manage to carry a different feel, one that's much more enjoyable to this listener. While it, of course, varies over its length, there's something self-similar about it as well, int he sense of any random one-minute excision is roughly comparable to another, so there's the additional feeling of a kind of phantom drone, though there's nothing overtly drone-like about the music. Not sure what else to say except that it's somehow more interesting than one expects, that the poise of the players and the choices they make work rather well, obviating any untoward associations the jaded listener might possess...

This, the first release on Rhizome, can be downloaded here

rhizome.s

(Various) Fukushima! (Presqu'ile)

A worthwhile cause, to be sure, all proceeds going to Japanese non-profits involved with addressing the reactor situation in the wake of last year's earthquake and tsunami, so I'd recommend purchasing it even if, in truth, a good bit of the music I most highly anticipated didn't quite live up to my hopes.

The two-disc set leads off with John Tilbury performing Dave Smith's "Al contrary". I only know Smith's work from the Matchless release which I found oddly bland, not because of the relatively traditional structures which recalled the work of composers I love like Howard Skempton, but just some bothersome sense of vapidity, not dissimilar from the feeling I got from the piano work of a related composer/musician, John White. This piece recalls somewhat more early Gavin Bryars, the dreamier portions of the "Hommages" album for example. Though Tilbury, as always, plays superbly and is a joy to listen to in and of himself, the music seesaws in this back and forth pattern, never quite evoking the kind of mystery that Bryars, in his prime (long since past) could achieve. It's not bad, just a bit lacking, a bit over-smooth and formulaic.

There follows perhaps my favorite piece on this collection, "Foreign Grey", by Magda Mayas, a wonderfully rich and imaginative exploration of inside-piano that manages to avoid most cliches and, more importantly work really well as a solid,purposeful piece. She refers obliquely to neo-Romantic traditions (I hear a bit of Rzewski late in the track) but never does so fawningly, merely a polite nod as she forges her own way. The finest things I've heard from Mayas, really lovely. The first disc concludes with a relatively unabrasive performance by the quartet of Choi Joonyong, Joe Foster, Hong Chulki and Jin Sangtae which is also quite good.

Fairly brief pieces from Burkhard Beins, Mark Wastell/Jonathan McHugh, Annette Krebs/Chris Abrahams, Krebs solo (tape) and Mural begin Disc Two, all of them okay, none particularly striking save for perhaps the Krebs solo work that matches a beautiful trumpet (and more?) dirge against low-volumes crowd recordings from an anti-Wall Street demonstration.

The second problematic work for me, after the Smith, is Michael Pisaro's "The Bell-Maker" (inspired by Tarkovsky?), performed by Greg Stuart. As originally written, if I understand correctly, the piece uses a tape made by stuart in which he plays a huge number of highly pitched, metallic percussion instruments (chimes, glockenspiels, small bells and bowls, etc. as well as a soft ratcheting element) which is then interacted with by an ensemble of indeterminate size. Here, we only have the percussion element which is pleasing enough o listen to--the elements are silvery, prickly and fine--but as a whole sounds rather amorphous and lax. As with other recent music of Pisaro's, I may well be missing something that would pull things together for me but as is, it's a pleasant listen, no more, no less.

Greg Kelley closes things out with a solo piece which, again, is fine if not revelatory, harsh, squeezed breath, sputters and growls.

So, all in all, something of a mixed bag for me. Worth getting (aside from minimally helping out with the Fukushima disaster) for the Mayas, Krebs and Korean quartet in any case.

presqui'le

available from erst dist

Claire Bergerault/Jean-Luc Guionnet - mune (Cathnor)

For soprano and organ. An odd recording, different in most ways from any expectations I had going in (not that I had anything firm, but an operatic soprano in an improvised--or quasi-improvised--format does engender certain malign thoughts) and enjoyable in certain segments, not so much in others.

I should say at the outset that Guionnet's organ is unfailingly fantastic throughout, often remaining in the deeper, darker stretches of the instrument (though, yes, once or twice recalling the tonality of the spaceship in "Close Encounters"...), providing a great foil for Bergerault's voice. The voice, or more accurately, the use of it here, I sometimes find problematic. While she never ventures into Hirschian histrionics (and yes, I know the etymology) she does occasionally recall Galas which is dangerous ground if you don't possess the latter's full throttle conviction. She sings for the most part like the classical singer she is--only a few Ami Yoshida-isms here--and making that work in this kind of context is no easy task, tending to remind one of more academic efforts from the 60s contemporary music world. Nonetheless, I find that, even when this is in effect, I can often get beyond it to an extent, to strip the voice of its emotive baggage and hear it more as simply a sound element. Now, I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that this is precisely what Guionnet doesn't want, given his association with Mattin et. al., for whom divorcing sound from source or context is anathema. Other times, on the first track, Bergerault falls into a wavering, "ghostlike" rising and falling that overwhelms my ability to isolate it and makes for some tough sledding.

Mune 2 (the three tracks are all "mines") is something else again. Recorded in 2008 (the others are form 2010), it's very understated all around, Bergerault sounding as though singing through a gag or mute, an uncomfortable though very effective, hidden kind of quality, sometimes evoking an animal's soft cry. Guionnet applies pensive clouds, fog like tendrils. Maybe 2/3 of the way through the 23-minute piece, she loses whatever the muffle was but still maintains a wonderful, softly burred tone, plaintively cooing, sometimes edging into breath-tones, without none of the stylistic tropes heard on the first track. I love this piece.

The final cut is also of a piece, Guionnet beginning with his most overtly microtonal playing (recalling bagpipes) and Bergerault contributing brief, sharp stabs. The work goes back and forth between the kinds of approaches heard in the first piece and successfully damping them and working them into the basic fabric here. It's frustrating as, when it works it's very fine but when the Galas-isms appear, it simply becomes too obvious though, as ever, the organ ameliorates many a sin.

A really interesting release, for all its faults; I'm happy to have it for that simple track and as an element in Guionnet's oeuvre which I find pretty fascinating. Also curious as to the structure, how much was improvised, how much not. Oh and lovely photos...


Marc Baron - ∩ (Cathnor)

Baron's disc is a far tougher nut to crack but, again, a strangely rewarding one. Seven tracks, each precisely seven minutes long, each comprised, as near as I can tell of combinations of electronics and saxophone, the latter tending toward pure, he'd tones, as though attempting to approximate sines. There are other sounds that I can imagine being occasioned by, for instance, saxophone key pops transmogrified; not sure, but wouldn't be surprised. It opens quite sparingly, the long notes set against quick, regularly spaced blips, sunning a bit like an adjacent universe version of Rowe/Sachiko, perhaps even more so as, in the second track, rough scratchings and static elements are introduced, a refreshing break from the icy clarity etched earlier.

Other sounds are continually fed into the mix, though usually at a very low level (sometimes extremely low)--hisses, what sound like garbled recordings form some public space, a grunt or two, etc., though the "spine" of the long tomes and recurrence, in one form or another, of the bleeps lends a fine cohesiveness. It begins to sound oddly full or, rather, the elements occupy exactly the right amount of space but in an array that strikes one as unusual but tense and magnetic. Those bleeps do threaten to become overweening in their sterility, especially so when they closely approximate Morse code but then again, they're positioned opposite these wonderfully mysterious and scuttling sounds (and those pure notes) so one has the mental picture of a kind of three-body situation, each affecting the other in an incalculable manner.

By the sixth track, things have become wonderfully subtle; what sounds like a huge amount of very quiet squeaks and rustles rubbing multitudes of shoulders. The music somehow seems to expand here at the end, really intriguing how Baron manipulates space.

Difficult, perhaps off-putting (intentionally?)--I like it a lot.

Cathnor

Things I picked up in Sweden...


Birgit Ulher - Hochdruckzone (Entr'acte)

The evening of our arrival in Västerås, we walked to the home of Johan and Lina Gatte Redin for a get together with many of the people responsible for the festival. There was also music to be heard in the living room, including a wonderful solo set by Ulher, my first opportunity to hear her in person. This disc isn't worlds away from what transpired that night and deserves wide attention.

Ulher works in an area that's not entirely unfamiliar to most readers here but brings to the horn a sensibility that's certainly her own. To me, it's an odd combination of implied rhythms and a special kind of patience. The vocabulary is recognizable--the breath tones, burred edges, the scrape of metal on metal, some electronics, the vibrating mutes and metallic sheets--but the uses they're put to taken, interestingly enough, something of a some structure. I'm reminded of a similar feeling I received from the best of John Butcher's solo work. The eight pieces here are all relatively brief, between four and seven minutes, and have that contained kind of quality, each a concise expression and exploration of not only a given attack, but the mold in which they're formed. Ulher is very open and unmysterious about what she's doing; sometimes that detracts from a piece as when a ribbed object is stroked back and forth along the horn, the jiggly tone rising and falling predictably. But more often it's refreshing, a straight-on examination of these techniques, their apposition to each other, the tense structures they form. There's a Carver-like (Raymond--admittedly on my mind lately) sense of the clear wonderment of the everyday .

Tough and graceful, a very compelling combination. Her set with Andrea Neumann was perhaps my favorite of the festival and this disc relives some of those fine moments.

Entr'acte


The New Songs - A nest at the junction of paths (Umlaut)

One of the more problematic sets t the festival was the duo of Christof Kurzmann and Sofia Jernberg. As with a good bit of his recent offerings, this was Kurzmann in song mode and I remain largely unconvinced. Even leaving aside his vocals, which can actually be affecting even so far as they're undeveloped, the songs were simply not very interesting, very lackadaisical but not in a good, relaxed sense. They meandered, seeming to search for some kind of hook (which would have been welcome) but never finding one. Jernberg, however, was outstanding, possessing a gorgeous voice and exquisite control. It was obvious she had a great deal to offer. It was recommended I check out this dis, so I bought a copy.

OK, first things first--awful group name, abysmal graphic design.

The group is David Stackenas (guitar, preparations, e-bows), Eve Risser (piano, preparations), Jernberg (voice) and Kim Myhr (guitar, baroque guitar, zither). It's also very much in a song-oriented framework (Jernberg and Risser are the composers) and also, generally, quite loose, though not so loose as the Kurzmann set. But again, one wishes for more pure songliness. When melodies emerge, when rhythms poke up their heads, it's quite lovely; this is a case where I wish the band didn't feel compelled to work the edges and actually grooved more. Given the instrumentation (piano is worked inside more often than not), there's a delicacy at hand that sometimes approaches the cutesy and affected; one hopes to hear more grit, more forthrightness of song.

This finally manifests on the closing track, "The Hill", where everything comes together beautifully, free sections sprouting from heartbreakingly lovely choruses, wonderfully inflected vocals from Jernberg, perfect piano from Risser. If they continue down or around this path, I'll even forgive them their name....



Lisa Ullén - Catachesis (Nuscope)



Lisa Ullén/Nina de Heney - Carve (LJ)

Lisa Ullén was one of the curators of the festival (indeed, was responsible for almost all of the events I found especially outstanding). She also preformed, in a trio with Nina de Heney and, less enjoyably, the unaccountably ubiquitous Okkyung Lee. The music there, as well as on these two releases, lies squarely in the European free jazz tradition, though along the pathway that traces its lineage back to pianists like Paul Bley up through Irene Schweizer, that is to say with a strong underlying, if abstract, melodic aspect as well as a free sense of, if not steady rhythm, pulsation.

Catachesis is solo, with plenty of prepared piano. i should say that there's nothing dainty or winsome about Ullén's playing--it's plenty tough and sometimes jagged. She enjoys the lower registers, rumbling there on a piece like "Low Voice I" with fine, single note drive, evoking Mal Waldron. A largely prepared work like "Periphrasis-GOLD" is a great mixture of textures, spacing and dynamics, sometimes actually recalling the composer one might think of when reading the title, Xenakis. At other times it dwells somewhere between Nancarrow and Cecil Taylor. I don;t mean to suggest that her playing is imitative by any means; it really does stand on its own, but she clearly possesses a wide knowledge of various traditions. There are also tracks that fall into a more standard free improv frame, drawing on both classical and avant jazz histories, something not quite up my alley but certainly as able and solid as most anything else you're likely to hear in that vein. Strong work.

The duo with bassist Nina de Heney falls in similar territory (on both discs, incidentally, the pieces are reasonably short; on "Carve", a two-disc set, they're all between three and six minutes). de Heney, both here and live, strikes me as quite a formidable musician, with a rich tone that reminds me of classic Dave Holland. It probably deserves more analysis than I can give here, by someone a bit more in sync with this area of improv that I am currently. There's a similar range of variation as found in the solo disc, again the music ranges from relatively lyrical to abstract in an efi sense; think (again with the comparisons!) Schweizer/Barry Guy maybe. Sure, I'd wish they'd feel less inclined to fill almost every moment with activity, wish they'd pause to take in their surroundings a bit more but...well, put it this way: it's every bit as satisfying and then some as any similar music I've heard in NYC over the past decade. Do check it out.

Nuscope

LJ


James Brewster - As a Hovering Insect Mass Breaks Your Fall (Make Mine Music)

During the festival, inside the main public space (a beautifully renovated factory), there was some curious activity going on in one corner. I wasn't fully aware of all that was occurring there, being otherwise occupied with all and sundry, though I'd noticed some contact miss suspended in a large fish bowl, passersby occasionally delivering a fingernail ping and eliciting loud sounds. It further reached my ears that there was exceptionally good coffee being brewed in that area though each time I went to investigate, there was a line longer than I wished to negotiate. It wasn't until the very end of the festival that Nina Polaschegg and I went over to attempt to procure a cuppa that I belatedly understood what was going on (Nina was way ahead of me here). One James Brewster (a likely name!) had taken it upon himself to conflate the worlds of field recording and barista-ing, mixing espresso machine and almost anything else around, including chairs and tables, whilst offering up a (purportedly!) fine cup of coffee. Alas, when we arrived there, his grounds had been depleted, but he did hang around to tell us of his venture, hand out materials (including this cd as well as a mock-documentarian tract not he effect of espresso on the brain development of Neolithic Man, replete with accounts of mug shards and espresso cups whittled form mammoth bones). Sorry I missed it but I gathered that his inspired combination of coffee to accompany strange sounds will get him invited around with some frequency. You should check him out if this happens, a fun guy,

The disc bears no overt relation to this project but is somewhat enjoyable on its own. It starts beautifully with a rich baritone voice (Men Diamler) proclaiming over organ tones in music that sounds somehow like lost, archaic, heroic British/Nordic folk material, if that makes sense (well, he's a Brit living in Sweden, so...). It's quite stirring in any case, and I was disappointed when it morphed into Glassian/Lentzian minimalism. Ah, you can actually hear it here. Amusingly, it reprises two cuts in, just as I'm playing this You Tube cut, creating a wonderful, shimmering effect...It continues, the tracks merged, raining from a kind of bubbly minimalism to rave-like episodes to atmospherics into a kind of proggy zone Brewster's own vocal having a Sylvian quality. Nothing earthshaking here (though these hovering insects, when they finally appear, are unnerving enough) but it's plenty ingratiating, like a good cuppa java.

Make Mine Music evidently expired late last year but Brewster's websitecan likely provide the info you need as well as offering, on its opening page, a little demo of the mic'ed espresso machine.

Ryu Hankil - Description for Other Things (Manual)

The eternal typewriter. A text, by Hankil this time (presented in booklet form in both Korean and English), that's essentially repetitive though varying, self-referential with regard to the act of typing, is typed. There are timings at the base of each page, presumably to mark one's place if reading along. I declined to do so, quite possibly missing out on something of the experience, though Lisa Thatcher did just that and had some interesting thoughts. I take it that preparations of various kinds were employed, unless the Clover 10S Korean typewriter has some unusual inherent sonic properties.

In any event, the pure sounds are pretty great and unexpected. There's a typewriterly quality, yes, in both the rhythms heard and some of the basic sounds but there's a whole lot else besides. A straining motor on the verge of feedback is prominent early on, for instance. I'm curious as well about the extended identical percussive beats that belie "typing" in the normal sense of the word, instead sounding like someone resting on the space bar, itself aggressively beating out a steady rhythm with which it's not normally associated. Indeed much of the set is surprisingly up front and bold.

I'm not sure I totally buy into the greater value of listening to typed text in the sense of its revealing any hidden depths but, as a buttress for the pure sonics involved, it doubtless adds a layer (or more) of interest. As is, it's a pretty fascinating and absorbing aural document, one I enjoyed greatly and, I'm sure, would really love to experience live, all the more so if it was simply "occurring" and not explicitly presented as performance.

Worth checking out, well worth it.

[not sure if Manual has a current website?]

[edit: Manual thanks, d.]

available from erst dist


Ferran Fages - for pau torres (organized music from Thessaloniki)

I've tended to enjoy Fages' music very much in past years, no matter in what guise it appears. This one, dedicated to the producer of Etude Records, seems to have a lot going for it though, after the fact, I have something of a fuzzy feeling, in the sense of, "what was that that just occurred?". Not sure if that's good or bad...

It's one long (42 minute) piece, for electric guitar and walkie-talkie, though I'm not certain of the function of the latter. The bulk of it is framed by two sections of mildly severe feedback, that central heft consisting of lovingly strummed guitar not so distant from Loren Connors. It's an area I have a natural affinity for and I've like quasi-similar forays of Fages in this neck of the woods in the past. And, as it's occurring, I do find myself getting comfortable but perhaps it's just a shade too languid for me. Had it been a 15 or so minute track on a disc with other pieces, I think it may have settled in better. It's like a long, slow Fahey exploration that hits any number of wonderful nodes but doesn't quite jell into a cohesive enough form. Though, as always, perhaps that's what Fages was shooting for.

As is, even if I'm not entirely satisfied, it's an intriguing addition to his varied canon, one that admirers will want to hear.

organized music from thessaloniki

also available from erst dist

Manfred Werder (Jason Kahn) - 2005¹ (windsmeasure)

The (English) score for this piece is three words of text:

place
time

(sounds)

These words are surely the sub-text of any sonic work, anything at all in fact as long as there's air to carry sound. This actualization was created by Jason Kahn who provides 31 18-minute recordings, one for each day of March, 2010, spread over 8 discs. That's 558 minutes of sound, nine hours and 18 minutes. I've just put it on for the first time (Disc One) and will write during the course of my listen, which will at least stretch into tomorrow.

All of the recordings were made at 10AM on the same Zurich street (Hauptbahnhof), so I gather that the sounds will be of a similar general character while containing, obviously, differing elements, but we shall see. The first is quite full, the dull roar of traffic backgrounding the treads of passersby (I have the impression that the pavement is wet), the odd snatch of conversation, buses braking but, suffused throughout, the strong hum of the city. The immediate frame of reference for me is the occasion I was asked, several years back, to participate in a realization of Cage's 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs, for which I took up a station on some nondescript corner of suburban Staten Island and described what I heard, saw, felt, thought for 45 minutes. As one should know by now, but would certainly realize by engaging in such an activity, there's far more going on, aurally, than you normally realize, layer upon layer of sound and, very apparent to me, the shape of the spaces between, in the air. You automatically get something of that here, though necessarily compressed into what's emerging from your speakers.

The first track just ended, quite abruptly, the second leaping into existence straightaway. Curiously, you do indeed pick up a slightly different flavor, even as the elements are by and large the same. It's as though the scene is a sixteenth-note off from the previous one. A question which immediately springs to mind is: Why record this work as opposed to simply experiencing it? The score, after all, is essentially a spur, albeit a somewhat poetic one, to be somewhere, listening. Sitting here now, hearing the trucks, the drips (I still think there's precipitation involved), I'm not sure as to the rationale, but we'll see.

[ a couple hours later, still in the midst of track 2, which I'd paused] finding the (necessary) lack of a spatial element a little off-putting. That is, in situ I could make choices with that aspect in mind while here, things are flattened out. Still choices to be made, just not as rich. The inability (much) to turn one's head, to move within the sound.

It's the following day, May 3rd, and as I'm home for the afternoon, I continued on with the fifth segment which feels slightly different from the earlier ones, though hard to put a finger on why. Perhaps simply a substantial amount of "new" sounds, some banging as though from the unloading of metal off a truck into bins, a snatch of English. That dull roar which is consistently there, I'm pretty sure, is due to a large interior space and, hah! I just googled the site to discover, rather belatedly, that Hauptbahnhof is a railway station, the largest in Switzerland as a matter of fact, with large interiors like this one:



So, well done, ears.

Ah, and I should mention the packaging somewhere in here, a (typically) beautiful windsmeasure job, a white set of four large folds, accordion fashion, each side with two disc pouches, lovely to look at and hold. A photo image wouldn't do it justice.

Behind me, Day 6 proceeds with the usual smattering of footsteps, crying babies, distant PA announcements (something I only just noticed--wondering how much, doubtless a lot, that I'm still missing). I still come back to the basic necessity of a recording, whether it's the case or not. Is it some attempt to have the listener inhabit the mind of Jason Kahn for several hours, to perceive what he did during that time? Aside from being impossible, that would seem silly. Sometimes I think of this project as a baroque, over-the-top way of telling the listener, "You there! You go out and actuate this score!". Of course, there's the specificity of what occurred during these captured hours as well, the recognition, via encapsulation on these discs, of the utter uniqueness of these moments, but unique in the sense of this patch of soil being unique from that one.

[I'm listening to these in order, for some reason, as though expecting a dramatic arc...]

Wondering about the choice of location, of such a full, rich sound source. When "nothing" is happening, just that hum, it's rather beguiling. Pluses and minuses. [Day 10]

An especially nice hum near the beginning of Day 16 in addition to a wide variety of clatter, bells and voices. The station had it workin' that day. My favorite so far! :-) Seriously, how strange that would be, to think, "Yeah, well, on March 16th, there were some *great* sounds, as opposed to those other days..."

So, halfway through. No expectations, of course, of the second half being substantially different but it's by no means uninteresting to listen to, occasionally absorbing (though not so much as the sounds, along with the Werder/Kahn, in my room) so we continue on...tomorrow.

*********

Back the next evening, Friday, just placed Disc V , Day 17 in the changer. Thought about the work a good deal during the day, still having difficulty "justifying", if you will, listening to someone else's realization of the piece, much less (though necessarily, I suppose) a recording of same. There is the pure sonic pleasure, the wash of sounds which, as I think I've said, is not unenjoyable in band of itself. I've long held that one of my favorite ambient listening places, or type of place, is an airport terminal--the large interior space, the distant announcements, the multitude of languages one hears--and this isn't such a far remove so, in a sense, I'm quite happy. At the same time, I feel almost neglectful or lacking for not doing it myself which, of course, I could at any time, though it didn't happen to occur to me today until now to do so. I wonder if a "legitimate" space would be my room here, with Werder's work, via Kahn, coming over the speakers....

If you visit his blog, you'll see some sites where this and other pieces have been realized. I rather like the Chilean one, a cul de sac in Santiago with a parked Volkswagon, a mic set on a tripod, nighttime, the implied quiet.

I thought today, initially, about the unlikelihood of my ever playing this work again but then thought, yes I would do so, though when I was in a rural setting, some place that was not only quiet but very distant from the kind of environment recorded here.

That eternal, blurred, sourceless hum continues to fascinate; the massed result of dozens of sounds, all the edges sanded off by the station interior, molded into this suspended, near-tangible thing, absorbing any sound in its ambit. We've all heard it or its cousins. Still, you can listen to it endlessly. For that, for reminding me, a tip of the hat.

********

Saturday morning, gray. Humorously enough, I realized I'd mistakenly replayed Disc I last night instead of V. It matters so little, but diligence compels me to continue, so V is in now and I'll try to experience all the remaining ones today. This morning, I was thinking of the cumulative effect of all the recordings. This is more to the Kahn side of things as it was his choice to record 31 times (nothing in the score to indicate anything of the source), to revisit the same location, etc. There is something to that, especially with the pervasive hum, sometimes almost throb, permeating the soundscape. It's not difficult to get to a trance-like state, perhaps easier when you're dealing with purely aural phenomena as opposed to being there in the flesh where all the other sense complicate matters. Playing it fairly loud today, front window open, giving Jersey City passersby a taste of Zurich.

[a little disorienting hearing American English on Disc VI]

hah, an entirely different set of sounds on March 22, heavy drilling creating vast, rumbling drones. Wonder if it's the same location? As lulling as the tracks had become, I have to say that it makes for a welcome change of pace, though I missing feeling the vibrations through walls and floors that Kahn undoubtedly did. Great sounds, though.

I've just slipped in the final disc. In between, several more days, nothing outstanding, but that thought makes me wonder about those drills, the fact that they stood out so, that they really shouldn't but almost inevitably feed into our (my)
need for variation, something that, in a context like this, implies that we're simply not listening well enough, that something like those drills should have the same "value" as any other sound or set of sounds. That is doesn't is disturbing, in a way. This is another thing that Werder/Kahn have brought to mind.

A close friend pointed me to a poem of Raymond Carver's, "For Tess", something I'd seen before, but not in a while. It somehow resonated here:

Out on the Strait the water is whitecapping,
as they say here. It’s rough, and I’m glad
I’m not out. Glad I fished all day
on Morse Creek, casting a red Daredevil back
and forth. I didn’t catch anything. No bites
even, not one. But it was okay. It was fine!
I carried your dad’s pocketknife and was followed
for a while by a dog its owner called Dixie.
At times I felt so happy I had to quit
fishing. Once I lay on the bank with my eyes closed,
listening to the sound the water made,
and to the wind in the tops of the trees. The same wind
that blows out on the Strait, but a different wind, too.
For a while I even let myself imagine I had died –
and that was all right, at least for a couple
of minutes, until it really sank in: Dead.
As I was lying there with my eyes closed,
just after I’d imagined what it might be like
if in fact I never got up again, I thought of you.
I opened my eyes then and got right up
and went back to being happy again.
I’m grateful to you, you see. I wanted to tell you.

The penultimate day begins noticeably quieter than most, if not all, previous ones. I checked a calendar, thinking perhaps it was a Sunday (and that maybe I'd missed prior softnesses) but no, it was a Tuesday. A national holiday? Who knows? Again, it makes for an engaging variation, reminding me of my earlier statement that, given my druthers, I might have chosen a less overtly rich location as to sound sources, though of course this is as rich as anything preceding, just subtler. Or apparently subtler to naive ears. Very lovely, in any case. and just as I write that, these enormous roars fill the space--amazing, vast--possibly those drills again but the details muffled while the volume remains the same or even increases. So strange and fantastic, as if a jet plane was taxiing through the station. Wow. Have to smile, thinking of a "climax" with, perhaps, the 31st as a coda...

So, March 31st arrives, a day like any other, those drills still pounding, more schoolkids milling about. Sounds you haven't hears, or at least noticed, appear: crinkling cellophane, maybe. I still pick up, as I had at the beginning, what sounds like something wet, dripping, though I'm no longer sure of it. It ends abruptly, as each day had before, here during a conversation in English.

What to make of it? Would I recommend it? Well, sure, on the one hand--it may well cause one to think about matters too often neglected. But on the other, one shouldn't need a document like this to engender those thoughts. That nags at me, the whole issue of a) recording the event and b) releasing it. Perhaps if only as a spur to do actualize the piece oneself, that could be reason enough. Yet, it's a gorgeous package. But is it too easy to fetishize? Buts and maybes....

windsmeasure

Lucio Capece - Zero plus zero (Potlatch)

Six investigations from Capece in his first solo recording (hard to believe, but apparently true). I do often think of Capece as an investigator, someone who, with great seriousness, plumbs his arsenal relentlessly, searching out previously undiscovered aspects and, importantly, framing them within a compelling, absorbing context. He certainly does so here.

The pieces all involve different instrumentation, beginning with a sonorous and enchanting solo sruti work; admittedly, I could wallow in this stuff all day, those multiple, woody tones, so luxurious. It drones but also meanders (in a good way), leaking out fine tendrils. The title track features soprano sax with preparations. As mentioned above, this is one of those tracks that really has the feel of an in depth probing of his situation/implement. High pitches, often roughed, overlaying a kind of metallic scrabbling, ceding to hollow tones, each area or combination of areas lingered on for at least a minute or two, listened to carefully, gently elaborated on, ending with muffled, percussive bell-tones; really nice. The sruti box is brought out again for the next cut, combined with bass clarinet neck and walkmans, producing a series of low, plaintive moans like an abandoned, forlorn beast in a desolate, smoky terrain, harrowing.

Next up, a work containing my favorite hitherto unencountered instrumentation: "tuned backyard", heard in duet with "double plugged equalizers". The backyard enters late in the piece (lovely sound wherein the effect of the tubes through which the locale is recorded can be clearly heard) but prior to that the piece engenders some serious throbbage. Similar, in a way, to the first track, one can be lured into simply succumbing to the richness and losing oneself in the sheer, gooey plasticity of the sound, but there's more going on: fluctuations within the drone, many more strands than were first apparent great depth. A fairly short, simple and pristine sine wave work, kind of a very slow melody, pure and beautiful, leads to the final work, imho the most powerful one presented here, for bass clarinet "with and without cardboard tubes". Again, an investigation, her into the lower, cloudy cavities of the instrument, the fluttering, pulsed tones like some black, subterranean river. The throb dwindles to a quaver or two, gorgeously paired. You can hear someone who's gone into the Malfatti zone and emerged from the other side, enhanced and "permitted" to more actively engage, the lessons having been well-learned. A fantastic piece, one I can and will listen to many, many times and a seriously fine recording overall. Not to be missed.

Potlatch

available stateside from erst dist

Andrea Neumann/Bonnie Jones - green just as I could see (Erstwhile)

Another of those releases which I enjoy very, very much but find a bit difficult to write about. Coming in, I had certain expectations about this pairing, thinking that Neumann was likely to come at things from a somewhat more gentle angle, Jones from a harsher one. Even so, though I've heard both musicians a number of times, live and on disc, I wasn't at all sure how comprehensive my knowledge of their approaches was and tried to suspend any preformed ideas. As it happens, while I suspect that each moved a bit toward the other, it's difficult enough (for me) to tell, more often than not, who's responsible for what element, really mooting the question.

So, I'm left with four tracks, each strong, each with an underlying thread of buried lyricism that recalls previous Erstwhile recordings like "eh" and "lidingo" (the latter with Neumann), releases that on a surface level are not so hard to digest but which, intriguingly, keep on revealing levels and connections on subsequent listens, betraying a wonderful gnarliness that's not apparent on first blush. It's an odd effect, as one can flip-flop between the two modes of listening, allowing the music to wash over you one the one hand, or really concentrate on it and dissect it on the other.

As to describing the music, well...the structures are thick and elastic, rarely very sparse (somewhat so in the third and fourth tracks but even there, the scrim is pretty consistently in place), more often filled with a variety of sound sources, balancing long-held tones with skitterish ones. You can pick out Neumann's inside-piano now and then and make the assumption that a given explosion derives from Jones' broken electronics, but the pieces are so cohesive that you really don't care. The sheer thoughtfulness is everywhere apparent; there's always focus, always a sense of distinct pathways being trod, tense space between them, occasional merges but two independent minds. There's a strong sense of progression, even narrative, at work. There's even a delightful little surprise tucked into the second track, one which I won't spoil here.

There a scarce few moments of even partial disinterest throughout--the disc is simply , at the very least, entirely enjoyable on a minute to minute basis, occasionally rising to wondrous moments, always repaying new visits (I've listened about a dozen times as of now) which inevitably reveal previously unglimpsed paths and connections.

Excellent work.

Erstwhile

so, a brief report from Västerås, as we prepare to make the journey to England...The festival, like pretty much all such events, had its highs and lows vis a vis performances. But I want to say up front how enjoyable the affair was as such. Very well run, competent while remaining relaxed and friendly, self-contained, good venues, etc. Really a classily handled job.

I just wanted to briefly mention my special favorite performances from the two-day fest. One surprise (in the sense that I'd no expectations going in) was Tima Teshu, from St. Petersburg, early on the first day, in a gallery at the local art Museum. As one entered, one saw Ms. Teshu seated gallery-center, resting on a small box, not acknowledging the crowd. Arrayed before her were six or seven bottles of perfume, an old portable record player and an old, small speaker. She rose and placed the needle on an ancient RCA Victor disc whereupon a sentimental (though rather lovely) accordion-led waltz emerged. It played through, three or four minutes, ended with a rough *click* form the player. Teshu stood, selected a perfume, slowly walked to a corner of the room and sprayed once or twice. As the scent drifted to the olfactory globes of the attendees, she returned to her perch and spun the recording once more. This sequence was performed three times, after which she calmly and quietly returned the vials to the case upon which she'd been sitting (I liked the fact that not all were used) and unhurriedly walked out of the gallery. Something odd and marvelous and concise about the performance; it stayed with me throughout the fest.

On the first day, the standout performance came from Birgit Ulher and Andrea Neumann. On the preceding night, at a get-together party at the home of Johan and Lina Redin, Birgit had graced us with a fantastic solo piece (as had Katt Hernandez) and she elaborated on those ideas here. There were a couple of stretches, including the concluding five or so minutes, that were simply gorgeous, Neumann working complex, droning patterns, Ulher buzzing through metal plates and objects rubbed on her trumpet. Perfect length, beautifully realized.

On the second day, the morning venue having shifted to an amazing room in Västerås Castle, we were graced with a solo set from Sophie Agnel, who I hadn't heard in quite a while, at least on her own. She used substantial preparations and used them exceedingly well, generating a kind of rough minimalism that reminded me of things like Rzewski's "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues", except that this ws better. Not afraid of emotive qualities, she rumbled through, the prep sometimes engulfing the keyboard sounds. Very strong, very moving.

Later that evening, back at the main venue (two theaters in an arts complex), we had Martin Küchen and Seijiro Murayama. I had been very happy to finally meet martin, having written a couple of things for him over the last few years and had spent a good bit of time in conversation with him prior to the set. He was feeling pretty ill and perhaps this contributed to an extremely restrained quality to the performance (Seijiro would later mention that he was being extra-delicate so as not to cause Martin to spontaneously regurgitate something other than air). The entire set was hushed, often barely there. When Küchen lifted his baritone, I "feared" things would edge toward the raucous, but no. Hard to describe but very, very moving.

Oh, the discussion, my reason for having been brought there, went well enough, I guess. I'll leave that for others to comment on, but I certainly enjoyed it.And, as much as the music, it was just a great, great pleasure to meet and re-meet so many fantastic people, to have the opportunity for extended conversations, eating and drinking with them. I'd like to deeply thank Johan Redin for inviting me and Tomas Nygren for agreeing to get me there. So great to get to know or re-know Lina Gatte Redin, Lisa Ullén, Katt Hernandez, Sven Rånlund, Magnus Nygren, Birgit Ulher, George Kentros, Andrea Neumann, Martin Küchen, Milenko Micanovic, Piotr Ryziński and others. But above and beyond, my co-panelist Nina Polaschegg. Nina was a fantastic cohort and companion all weekend, tough and incisive, absurdly smart and an absolute joy to come to know. Thanks, Nina!Visited Stockholm yesterday, lunched with that old softie Mattin and his ridiculously beautiful and lovely daughter Odita.

off this afternoon for three days in the balmy clime of England where I expect to encounter, after too long, Master Pinnell, a perhaps take in some small percentage of the Tate Modern.

Off to Västerås, Sweden this afternoon where, for some reason, I've been graciously invited to sit on a panel discussing the issue of writing about improvised and experimental music, at the Nya Perspektiv festival there. Will report in as I have the chance.

From there, off to England on Monday to visit our dear friend Maria in Wivenhoe, Essex and, as well to spend a day or so in London in the company of Squire Pinnell.

Was hoping to get in a write-up of the new Bonnie Jones/Andrea Neumann Erst-disc (Andrea will be at the festival) before leaving but I keep hearing new things on each listen and it's growing on me more and more as well, so I need to give it more time to simmer.

Back next Friday. Enjoy.

Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Umbralia (Triple Bath)

Another excellent and, amazingly, very different release from Costa Monteiro, who has to have one of the most varied catalogs around. "Umbralia" is for electric organ and, most assuredly, there's more than a dollop of classic Sun Ra to be heard, but Costa Monteiro careens into several areas, almost always with a harsh,microtonal edge to the sound, a severe burr. As with most dronage I find tasty, there are multiple layers in play most of the time and those plies create great, tense space between them, using fine colors. Additionally, some of the layers depart from steady state, incorporating "stabs" of a kind that recall Reich's great "Four Organs". It shifts several times, gradually becoming less compressed but ever retaining an uneasy, quivering aspect. Sun Ra comes to mind again, as if Costa Monteiro had taken slices of those incredible parts of "Atlantis" or "The Magic City" and expounded on them. "Umbralia" is another in an increasingly long line of strong releases frm Costa Monteiro, who's establishing quite a canon.

triple bath


Goh Lee Kwang - 反之亦然 _, and Vice Versa (Herbal International)

More strange electronica for the redoubtable Mr. Kwang. Four shortish tracks surrounding two lengthy ones, totaling an hour. The initial one a 2 minute flurry of squelchy bleeps, mildly annoying, which segues into 37 minutes of the ethereal. It's all gentle echoes, a chirping (insect variety) background, soft, watery. it's...long but ok enough, very placid. We then lurch back into rollicking electronics for a few minutes, then a mere 30 seconds of squeakitude before heading off into the other longish track, about 15 minutes of low, far-off hums and rumbles, like an airport behind a large hill; my favorite track. Lastly, a slow bit of roundly popping electrics, ping-pongy, amidst metallic reverb.

Odd stuff, interesting but not for everyone, not always for me but nonetheless intriguing.

herbal international


Pietro Riparbelli - Three Days of Silence (Gruenrekorder)

I admit to some degree of trepidation when Ripardelli, in the course of describing his work, derived from field recordings made at the Sanctuary of La Verna in Tuscany, says of the place that St. Francis of Assisi "is said to have received the stigmata here". Could've used a tablespoon of skepticism, I guess. But the results are not bad of their type. Three pieces, the first a composition worked form the recordings, the next a pure field recordings and the last a "diary of the experience", though I'm not sure exactly what that entailed.

So we have the physical sounds of the structure, the opening and closing doors, the footsteps, various clangs and bangs, though all with a muted air that does very much summon to one's mind an old room with thick walls used for arcane purposes. But the organ pervades the initial track, looped and extended into an endless chord. Birds abound, engines infiltrate; it's much less ethereal than I'd feared, even as echoes of a choir are heard in the rafters. Though between the increasingly spacey organ and voices, the second tracks crosses that boundary into something a bit to Eno/Budd-y. Still, it's ok, well done of its kind. Ultimately, not my cuppa, gets a little too woozy, but your mileage may vary.

Gruenrekorder

John Cage - empty words (Edition Wandelweiser)

assembled and organized by Antoine Beuger

Words never seemed emptier than when trying to write about this. I've had the release for a few months but had only played about the first three hours of it, never having had the time to really settle in with it for the duration which, as the set spans ten hours over two DVDs, isn't totally unexpected. As well, due to lack of a DVD-to-stereo speaker hook-up in my place, means I listen over my PC speakers, normally not how I like to assess a musical release but perhaps not so detrimental in a piece like this, one that almost inevitably sublimates into the environment. Further, Richard had not only done a fine job in his analysis of it but had done so in precisely the general format I would have. It seems to miss the point to sit for ten hours, even if one could do so, concentrating on the words and sounds here, rather to go about one's business and hope to perceive how those sounds tinge the space. So, sitting hear at 8:30AM on Saturday, I'm going to play the work and see what happens, doubtless encountering interruptions along the way (I know there are groceries to be done, mulch to be applied to the front garden patch, possibly a Yankee game to pop in on). Here we go.

One thing I wonder about early on is whether or not, in the score, there's any indication of how the speaker is to use intonation when reading the chance-assembled Thoreau extracts, here atop wonderfully subtle, rustling and ripping sounds generated by the Ensemble Daswirdas. I suppose not. The speaker here, Sylvia Alexandra Schimag, uses a very melodic approach, varying the dynamics, keeping her tone mellifluous and, it seems to me, giving nods to Japanese intonation, albeit in English. A certain whimsical element is injected in this approach; I'm not sure I wouldn't have preferred a drier reading (assuming the performer is free to choose) but this one is fine and actually enables the listener to easily listen as though it's a variation on shakuhachi.

[Antoine has just "liked" my status, "empty words", on facebook.... :-) ]

[Interruption # 1 at 1:08]

[Back almost two hours later...new DVD player, had to install...marginally successful. Did the mulching. In the meantime, Vanessa Rossetto, Jon Abbey and Hyemin Kim have liked my status...Michael Vincent Waller a bit later]

In the meantime, Part I continues to roll along, smoothly becoming a part of the room. The words have morphed, almost without my being aware of it, to syllabic "nonsense", quite beautiful.

Part I has ended, Part II begun. What to say? The length, the (in n odd way) steady-state quality renders it as difficult to write about as trying to describe 2 1/2 hours of rain patter outside one's window. It doesn't demand attention but it doesn't repulse when attention is given, quite the contrary. It's very enjoyable to concentrate upon but, inevitably, one's concentration wanders (well, mine does) but, I think, the next object(s) of my focus have been slightly unquantitatively enhanced by the foregoing. Part II, apparently, has no phrases, though I don't know that I've been recognizing phrases for a while toward the latter minutes of Part I. Overall, though, it sounds quite similar.

Took a brief nap, about 1/2 hour, the empty words wafting in from the other end of the apartment, very lulling. In and out of a light sleep, the voice, dreamy, threading in and out as well. Facebook status liked by Roy Duran and Gil Sansón, the latter indicating that he was writing about it as well...Eating pistachios, reading Elaine Pagels' new book, on kindle, "Revelations", a historical account of that last book of the New Testament, sun and a good amount of warmth streaming in the window on this lovely Saturday, along with the sounds of cars waiting at the light, couples walking by pushing strollers, walking dogs (and being vocally accosted by my own as they do so). Wondering at the fine reticence of the members of Ensemble Daswirdas, the softness, the patience. Every so often, I'll watch another video on the pc, overlapping the sounds; interviews, mostly, the voices intertwining. [Doug Holbrook entering the liking queue...]

3:30PM

Five hours in, there's a change, the gentle percussion giving way to Antoine Beuger's "oborozuki", performed by the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble. The term means nothing to me (faint sounds made by the group initially sounding something like a mouth organ, like a sho, perhaps) so I image google and discover a kind of Japanese rush:



It's a lovely image (acorus gramineus Oborozuki), in any case, as is the sound created by the ensemble. Schimag continues as before, though reduced, as per the score, to syllables and letters, no more words.

Loving that oborozuki sound...except that I just noticed, belatedly, that also credited is the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble, so for all I know those sounds are proceeding therefrom and Antoine may be softly stroking a plant...

The fragmented phonemes are becoming, in and of themselves, quite fascinating...it becomes surprisingly hypnotic at points, the voice developing a quasi-rhythmic character, gentle pulses of near-words, the ensemble staying so, so far underneath. The character of this section is quite different than the first half, transfixing in a different way, as though it was all recorded inside a bell. Its length makes a grasp of the entirety impossible (at least for me) but there's a sense of overall shape even as one is almost forced to perceive it (if one chooses to concentrate solely on the music) in a linear manner. It's stunningly gorgeous music.

[Breaking for dinner, going out, Katie in tow, to the Hamilton Ale House, as it's pleasant enough to sit outside.....]

[steak quesadillas, monkfish risotto, Guinness]

....and Part 4 with Jongah Yoon on piano, playing Burkhard Schlothauer's "ab tasten". When Schimag enters, it's far sparer than before, still very consonant, long single syllables, buzzes and plosives, hung in the air to glow for a moment before descending and next appears.The music has gotten progressively more difficult to consign to the room's ambiance; it's become more overtly beautiful. Is this a good thing or not? Well, it's seductive in the extreme, in any case. The piano is sounded only seldom, perhaps once a minute, maybe less, the "words" have become almost equivalent sounds, almost entirely abstracted. A "t" sound here, a "pth" there. Long silences.

Really an impossible set to write about. The visual image that comes to mind most often is one of the gradual vaporization of a liquid, the globules floating upward, denser near the bottom, more gaseous as they rise, slowly, ever so slowly thinning, disappearing.

uzz..k'..t'..a-ah...p'uhn...

Self-explanatory. Beautiful music.

wandelweiser

available from erst dist

Chris Abrahams/Lucio Capece - None of Them Would Remember It that Way (mikroton)

A really good, tough recording with Abrahams (DX7 FM synth) and Capece (soprano sax, bass clarinet, preparations, sruti box) mapping out territory roughly within the Wandelweiserian landscapes that Capece has been exploring in recent years but with a generous helping of needle sharp interjections and shards from Abrahams. I've somehow managed to acquire absolutely no knowledge about The Necks' music, so I have little idea (save from a quick glimpse into You Tube, which yielded so late 90s sessions that seemed almost proto-Radian to me) how representative his contributions are, but his sounds are an excellent foil to the harsh, breath-oriented content of Capece's reeds.

"Ring Road" is pretty much just that: the hollow whistle of a soprano embellished by tiny, sharp plinks (think "Concret pH") that occasionally broaden out into oval, elongated globs. The last few minutes of the 11-minute piece turn an unexpected corner, with a clearer sax tone and a panoply of synth ones, though parceled out with relative spareness. Sort of an L-shaped work. "Southern Patterns", more than twice as long, begins in similar fashion, albeit with bass clarinet, but soon becomes deliciously cooler, darker and sparser, the low reed taking on a sub-aquatic quality, looming in out of the depths, the synth interjections lonelier, like tiny phosphorescent creatures. Bell-like tones are also used as the piece becomes like a nocturnal pastoral, insectile, still very dark, growing progressively rougher as it winds down.

The sruti box (admittedly, I love that sound!) appears for the final track, laying its thick, rich tones in a multi-layered sheet for the consistently pinging and darting synth. It's in the same vein as the preceding to cuts, just a different color and...warmer.

A fine recording.

Mikroton

Will Montgomery/Robert Curgenven - heygate/looking for narratives on small islands (winds measure)
mmmm...creamy white vinyl...a shared LP

Montgomery's piece, a fine work, evinces how wide the range of "field recordings" can be. Here, using input from contact mics, a vlf receiver and a telephone pick-up coil, he evokes nothing of what one's ears would hear (though perhaps subliminally) instead presenting an array of harsh crackles, super-low hums, metallic crinkles and more. It seems as though there are rarely if ever more than two or three sources in action at once, instead the sounds arrayed out over the course of 20 minutes, parts overlapping but more felt as a sequence, calm in arrangement but often disturbing and agitative in essence. It has a fascinating slow kind of rhythm to it, very purposeful and strong. Excellent piece.

Curgenven utilizes a broader array of means (a "transparence" duplate, guitar feedback, binaural mics, industrial fans and field recordings from various sites worldwide) but produces a much more homogenous work, though equally enjoyable. The baseline hum, rich in and of itself, is littered with scratches (always odd, on an LP, when LP scratches are used...), faint crowd sounds (I think?), traffic and more. It streams along, always engaging, and surges toward the end in a rather brutal and surprising climax, only to return after a few moments, withdrawn and somber.

A very fine recording as well as another visually beautiful object from winds measure

winds measure


D.O.R. - an occupied house (caduc.)

Jamie Drouin (analogue synth, radio), Lance Austin Olsen (copper plate, objects, floor guitar) and Matthieu Ruhlmann (objects). More solid, enveloping music from our friends up yonder. Hard to quantify though, or maybe I'm just not up to it today. The pieces combine certain steady-state properties with elaboration atop, which is only to say that there are often "pedal points" in play, layers of sound, with intermittent commentary. Not a revolutionary concept but exercised with fine judgment here, not overly reticent either. The music has its share of mini-eruptions along the way, conveying the feeling of having been welling beneath all along, which for me is a sign of a well-understood, well-realized form. That sense of not-quite-surprise, of an occurrence that is at once unexpected but, in retrospect, quite logical pops up again and again here. The vocabulary is a more or less known thing, the sentences are plain enough but the content is unique and lovely. Think Murakami short stories. Recommended.

caduc


Drachmae Lucky Strength - s/t (Woe Betide)

Being the trio of Martin Hackett (synths), Stuart Chalmers (electronics) and David Grundy (laptop)--there's a piano or facsimile of same in there as well--and consisting of irregular electronic soundscapes ranging from the sguiggly (overly so, to my taste) to the bleakly spacious, a more effective gambit. The trio has an almost defiant need to showcase the kind of loopy electronics stemming from analog days, specifically the 60s of Babbitt et. al., a sound, admittedly, that tends to grate on these ears, though that may be simply a function of age and particular experience. The work is also active in a general sense that owes more to efi in its more electric variants (Hugh Davies, etc.) than eai which, these days for this listener, is a tough act to pull off, especially when the sounds carry some emotive weight. For that to work, things have to be operating at a high enough level to obviate any kind of sentimentality (in the general sense) and it causes some trouble here. I take it these fellows understand all this and are making the attempts despite the potential pitfalls (or perhaps they don't see them as pitfalls at all) and in the interstices there's some exciting music here, just not consistently enough for me.

Woe Betide

Various - PostCage (OgreOgress)

I'm not quite sure what, if anything, the pieces here have to with Cage aside from the fact that, more or less, they were composed after his death and presumably contain some amount of his influences (what doesn't?) so I'll simply comment on each of the 14 works, which are arranged alphabetically on the disc. Oh, and this release is on DVD format so there's quite a bit of music here (over two hours). And, by and large, it's very enjoyable.

1) Maria de Alvear - "for violin" (1994). Christina Fong, violin. A very lyrical piece, not sounding particularly 1994-ish at all, free form but residing in melody. More Shostakovich, to my ears than Cage, though if you take the latter at his most ariose. It wanders but is quite lovely in doing so, beautifully played.

2) Arved Ashby - "For Morton Feldman" (1992) for violin, piano and glockenspiel (Fong, Ashby and Glenn Freeman). As the composer mentions in his notes, perhaps not so reminiscent of Feldman, again quite lyrical though more overtly structured than the prior piece, shifting layers gently wafting over one another. Quite poignant and even romantic in nature.

3) David Beardsley - "November Test Pattern..." (2009) for justly intoned sine tones. Changing gears quite a bit, this is a fine, rich drone piece. The composer writes, "It's not going anywhere because it's already there." True enough! It sits and throbs, swirling, its mass contained but pulsing. La Monte Young comes to mind (the Blues Band) but this is a strong and separately standing work. The best kind of drone: one where you can listen from multiple angles, always hearing a different combination of layers.

4) Dionysis Boukouvalas - "Meditation" (2010), Paul Hersey, piano. A spare, delicate piece, the sequences arrayed via Cageian "time brackets", the notes, chords and other sounds relatively tonal and comforting, with substantial space between them. We also hear radio voices, a baby's cry (disconcerting, that). Very nice work, ephemeral but leaving a fine tinge.

5) Marc Chan - "I Sail'd Out to Sea" (2009) for 3 voice and instruments. Kind of a mix of medieval chant and Feldman, too bland for my tastes, the voices slowly weaving between (I think) clarinet, violin and bowed percussion), everything stretched out a bit and *almost* transcending the mundane, but not quite.

6) J.R. Dooley - "for violin and piano" (2010), Fong and Hersey. A jaunty little piece, "a fragment of a memory" per the composer and you do get something of a sense of the fleeting, difficult-to-capture nature of such. A seven-note figure sounds, lies still, repeats, altered, like a flicker appearing and receding, blossoms a bit at the very end. Winsome and lovely.

7) Jürg Frey - "Viola, Klavier" (1997). Same duo. Well, I'm a known sucker for Frey. Quiet, raspy lines, silences, lone notes, more space. You know the drill. Only 5 1/2 minutes long but full of space, always expanding. Wonderful.

8) Walter Horn - Five Decadal Studies for Dick and Clyde (1972/2010). For piano, viola and vibraphone. [caveat: I've known Walt since about 1997 and, in fact, he gave me my first public exposure vis a vis music writing when he asked me to do the liners for his "Screwdriver!" release on Leo records back around then] A quintet of slightly gnarly pieces, offsetting the spiky and the serene, the irregular and the strangely formed, sharp-edged objects hovering in space, occasionally colliding. Possibly the most challenging works on this disc and definitely among the most rewarding.

9) David Kotlowy - "Under Stars (2006) for two violins and piano (Fong, Hersey)
Written with harold Budd in mind and apparently using the breath lengths of the performers as time indicators, layering subtly integrated harmonics from the violins between shorter, adjacent piano chords, conjuring up a kind of dreamscape that's bittersweet. One of the prettiest works here.

10) Sergio Luque - "My Idea of Fun" (2010) for clarinet, percussion and viola. Using Cage's time brackets and Xenakis' sieves, resulting in a work that is indeed fun but sounds little like either, to these ears. As with several pieces here, there's a combination of spareness and melodicism. It's very fetching on its own even if I sometimes hanker for a bit more sourness. Luque provides some, as well as a dose of mystery here, the music seeping in, in wisps, forming unison tendrils, dissipating. Another evocative composition, another composer I'd like to hear further.

11) Robert Moran/Philip Glass - Modern Love Waltz (1977/2010) for 8 keyboards minus piano, played by David Toub. Man, it's been ages since I've heard Moran and remember liking a couple of his early 80s pieces very much, though never having any on record, I don't think. He's apparently been reworking this Glass composition for decades, in hundreds of forms. But...it sounds like standard Glass carpeting, like an extract from a relatively humdrum part of "Einstein" softened somewhat, with a glossy patina that reminds me a bit of Daniel Lentz. Not something I needed to be reminded of.

12) John Prokop - for 1 or 7 pianists (1997), for 7 pianists (Hersey). a kind of overlapped and mixed ascending chromatic scale, its skeleton clearly audible yet skewed enough that all sorts of slight, subtle patterns emerge. Minimalism without the strictness. Sounds like it could almost have come from Tom Johnson. I mean that in a good way. Really nice.

13)Sebastian Jatz Rawicz - 4 Recipes from Antimusical Book of Recipes (2010). Ah, something entirely different. Performed by the Chance Operations Collective of Kalamazoo, wielding vacuum cleaners (I think) and other appliances, found percussion, moved objects, glass, bird whistles and more in a suite of four short pieces that seems to come closer to Cage as such than perhaps any other work here, though it oddly reminds me of Cardew as well, perhaps a fragmented page of The Great Learning. Refreshing.

14) David Toub - dharmachakramudra (2010) for vibraphone, viola and cello (Freeman, Fong, Karen Krummel). Another work that fits in with the general tone of this collection, the soft, slightly dissonant string lines punctuated by gentle gong-like notes from the vibes, nodding to Buddhist tradition. Contemplative, with enough meat to avoid evaporating entirely, edging into tension at points.

All in all, a strong set of music from a range of composers likely not too well known to most readers here but worth delving into more deeply, no matter what one's opinion is of Mr. Cage.

OgreOgress

Will Guthrie - Sticks, Stones & Breaking Bones (Antboy)

A few years ago, I picked up a duo recording on Matchless of a live concert with Eddie Prevost and Alex von Schlippenbach. I wasn't expecting so much, never having been a big fan of the latter's work, but I wanted to keep abreast of Eddie's playing. The hour-long disc was divided roughly equally between two solo pieces and a duo. As I wrote here, Prevost's performance absolutely floored me, Not just that it was great percussion (to be expected) but that it was great within an overtly jazz context, an area I'd all but given hope could ever excite me like that again. To be sure, it was an almost unique experience. The only music that's come close to delivering that kind of wallop for me while still deriving from jazz roots is that of The Ames Room, the trio of Jean-Luc Guionnet, Clayton Thomas and Will Guthrie that has released two fine albums (that I'm aware of) in the past couple of years.

Well, Guthrie's gone and done it again. I remember talking with Will in Nantes some years back, much of our discussion centering around a shared love of the music of Roscoe Mitchell. Mitchell's one of dozens (hundreds?) of people name-checked on the inside sleeve of this release along with (to pick at random), Mattin, Chewbacca, Diana Ross, James Brown and Eric Gravatt. What come through here, however, in three pieces, is something very akin to Prevost's set in at least one respect: Lessons learned in terms of structure and pacing, almost like some diabolical amalgam of Art Blakey and AMM.

The disc itself is finely structured as well, leaping into things with "Sticks", which sounds like the Blakey/Olatunji sessions reinvigorated. Eight and a half minutes of thunder, roiling, deeply grooved, wonderfully cadenced, initial hanging clusters tumbling into roll upon billowing roll. This is dextrous music. This is virtuosic music. And yet, it doesn't preen, isn't overweening. There's such an openness about it, such an obvious joy in the playing that those concerns go by the board. "Stones" begins by regrouping, smaller sounds up front but just when you think, "Ah, this will be the spacey track", matter start boiling once again. Guthrie keeps things on a delicious low heat, scrapes and sticks spattering, metal ringing, slowly coalescing until the skins take over, heat kept at medium, but such subtle playing. Some of you may recall Barry Atschul's intricate solo feature on the Circle "Paris Concert" recording from 1971. This is kinda like that. But better. For 15+ minutes.

And finally comes "Breaking Bones". If there was one track here about which I'd been given a verbal description and would have thought, "No, that's not for me." it would have been this one. Guthrie jumps right in with a ferocious, pounding rhythm and nevr lets up, not once, for over 16 minutes. The piece just ripples, expands, contracts, cascades, drives relentlessly to its terminus, casting off dozens of cross rhythms, sub-rhythms. All skin, no cymbals until the very end. Gene Krupa channeled through Hamid Drake. On 'roids. It should have been too over the top, too in one's face, too overt. But it's not, somehow it's not. Much like the music of The Ames Room, it manages to bypass all those traps. I've no idea how, though I suspect it has something to with what I alluded to above: the sheer joy, the uncynical exuberance experienced during the music's creation.

Astonishing stuff.

antboy

Available from Erst Dist

Toshimaru Nakamura/John Butcher - Dusted Machinery (Monotype)

Over the past few years, one never knows quite what to expect from a new Nakamura recording in terms of relative degrees of difficulty which, in his case (to my ears) often equates to success. The more smoothed out his sound, the more forgettable it sometimes becomes. Happily, those concerns don't occur at all on this excellent, gnarly and tough recording from 2009. Butcher, oddly enough, I often find most compelling when he tints his saxophonics with a vague suggestion of song structure though, as he demonstrates here, that's not a requirement at all. The pair are often molten here; tracks like "Maku" sound as though their instruments are almost hot to the touch, their surfaces blistering. Each of the four cuts is strong, though, concise and event-filled without any sense of crowding. If "Maku" and the closing piece, "Nobasu" (wherein Butcher unsheathes his feedback sax) stand out it's only because of some extra sonic icing. There's a taut musculature underlying this music that's all too rare, an apparent seriousness of purpose, a non-reliance on simple solutions. Quite tough and very rewarding.


Erik M/Michel Doneda - Razine (Monotype)

Another, in a sense, tough and sinewy session but lacking in the same kind of tensile strength as the above. It bristles with activity--if you know Erik M's and Doneda's previous work, you pretty much know what to expect--and on occasion, everything coalesces into an organic, powerful whole, as in the closing two or three minutes of the first track, but more often than not, it's a barrage of scatter-shot, insistent, spiky assault that blurs into a kind of inward-looking isolation that rubs me a bit the wrong way. Others might find that intense gravitational pull, like a small black hole sucking into it everything in the room, to be an attractive option, but I get more of a claustrophobic effect. Erik M, unleashes all sorts of crackles and samples, Doneda howls and sputters, but for these ears, it's overly frantic and, ultimately, insubstantial. (It's interesting to isolate Doneda's playing and contrast it with that of Martin Kuchen who, in some respects, might be heard as tangentially similar but, for myself, plumbs far meatier depths).


LHZ+H - Scope (Monotype)

Thomas Lehn (analog synth), Carl Ludwig Hubsch (tuba), Philip Zoubek (piano) with guest Franz Hautzinger (quartertone trumpet and delay). Good, thoughtful 2008 session, less rambunctious than I might have guessed, especially given Lehn's presences, but he reins himself way in here, providing some gorgeous tinges. As do the others, Hubsch and Hautzinger concentrating on soft burbles and breath tones, Zoubek (new to me, I think) playing largely inside the piano, and quite delicately. From these descriptions, it might sound like nothing out of the ordinary and, true, it's not groundbreaking at all but who cares? When the music wells up, as it does in the second track, led on by synth and trumpet, it's genuinely thrilling, bearing an expansiveness that was lacking in "Razine" and, with Hautzinger's delay, subtly recalling Miles Davis and Sextant-era Eddie Henderson. A similar arc iccurs on the following piece as well, perhaps somewhat less effectively, careening a bit out of control but still, giddily exciting like tilting too far over around a sharp turn on one's bike....The disc is closed quietly but differently than it began, in a sequence of sharp, short tones, squiggles and bursts. A good recording, refreshingly open and clear.


If, Bwana/Dan Warburton - I Am Sitting in Phill Niblock's Kitchen (Monotype)

Oddly enough, I just was a few days ago with Phill, Rhodri Davies and Burkhard Beins....though the one in NYC, not that in Ghent, where this work was partially recorded. Briefly, Warburton took all his If, Bwana (Al Margolis) recordings, stretched them to 45 minutes in length, then Margolis did the same to a one minute excerpt of a Warburton piano piece, then meshed them, the pair adding live improvising and...well, you get the idea. The result is a pleasant surprise, kind of a ghostly morass, murky but with a real sense of depth, "objects" constantly appearing and receding, interjections from "outside" (sirens, etc.), throbs, voices, violin scratches, dronage, much more. I keep on picking up images of a swampland, with sluggish water, slowly eddying, yet fascinating, not overly humid or oppressive. Niblock's kitchen oozes steadily along, picking up detritus, casting it off, taking its time, reaching unusual places, leaving one only slightly the worse for wear. Think Jon Hassell with mud on his trousers, face scratched. A fine, unexpected work.


Mia Zabelka - M (Monotype)

This one is far enough away from my tastes that I don't want to say too much about it. Zabelka is primarily a violinist, also utilizing voice, electronics and contact mics. The pieces tend to be massively overdubbed and dwell in the kind of post-minimalism that, well, put it this way: if some of this music eventually becomes theme material for an NPR show, I wouldn't be surprised. Mix together some late Reich, some Bryars, a dash of Penguin Cafe Orchestra...you get the idea. Very professionally done, will certainly charm many (Pauline Oliveros supplies a blurb) but not for me and, I'd imagine, most readers here.


Mirt - Artificial Field Recordings (Catsun)

Mirt (I don't know much else about him aside from it being a "him") did artwork for some of the earlier-mentioned releases and Catsun is a sub-label of Monotype. Seven tracks that can be thought of as more or less ambient with a gentle scratchiness and frequent dollops of squelch. As with the If, Bwana/Warburton disc, I pick up traces of Hassell here, both in general flow and as a result of a soft trumpet figuring with some prominence, among many other instruments used. There's a similarly languorous atmosphere evoked as well, more humid, more lazy afternoon. Entirely pleasant.

Monotype