Friday, February 26, 2010


Just wanted to make a few brief comments about the dual work by Michael Pisaro (with Barry Chabala), "black, white, red, green, blue"/"voyelles". This was released as a cassette on winds measure which I believe has sold out though a cd issue of "voyelles" is, I think, in the works.

"black, white, red, green, blue" is performed solo by Chabala. It's an hour's worth of suspended, individual notes, of varied tone, length and texture, generally separated by five to ten seconds. It's quite lovely and thoughtful, like all of Pisaro's work I've experienced, requiring fairly intense concentration and immersion to fully appreciate. His conception is amazing at suspending time and Chabala offers a very fine, sensitive reading.

For "voyelles", Pisaro took the same recording and infiltrated it with sounds sourced from sine tones and field recordings (possible others). As good as the original piece is, "voyelles" really brings it into its own and makes it extraordinary. As with other works (like the great Transparent Cities set), Pisaro has an unerring ear with regard to precisely what sound will most strangely but somehow appropriately compliment a given instrumental tone. By adding a single layer, Pisaro multiplies the piece's depth many fold. A great, great work, one that unfurls differently on each hearing.

Keep an ear out for the "official" release.

6 comments:

  1. Barry Chabala2/27/2010 10:59 AM

    thanks for the nice words brian. agreed, michael certainly creates magic on voyelles. true, this is nearly sold out but i believe WM has a few copies left, i think jon has a few at erstdist and i also have a few copies. after that, it's fate is still uncertain so for now, this is the 'official' release.

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  2. Yuko was up last night until 7 AM writing about this one in Japanese in her ongoing Pisaro writings, an English translation will follow in the next few days but all the previous ones are in English already:

    http://d.hatena.ne.jp/yukoz/

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  3. really excited to hear this, but still haven't gotten a good tape-listening setup together at home. i have a nice 70's model that was my parents', but i'm sure the heads need a clean.

    jon - thanks for the link to yuko's writing! didn't know about that. is there any other english on the site?

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  4. no, these are the only pieces we've translated so far, initially so I could read them. :)

    her cassette one should be up by the time people see this in English, 1500+ words. I'll probably link these at IHM soon, she's planning on doing more still.

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  5. thanks - please keep us updated. i just read all the english (and re-read brian's reviews of the same discs). need to get those - big oversight they were left out of my last erst order!

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  6. Yeah I would say this is the "official" release. If anything, the CD would be considered merely a "reissue", no ?

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