Confront Collectors Series
Respectively credited with “saxophone feedback and processing” and “field recordings and amplified devices”, both Graham Halliwell and Lee Patterson are unyielding assemblers of sonic tinctures who seem to have chosen a reasonably anonymous profile - as opposed to unnecessary prominence - by letting the sounds do the talking. They’ve been involved in a fair share of consistently enthralling albums in recent times, Terrain being no exception: a profound, deceptively simple proposal whose mystifying tones are the result of numerous layers of crucial elements that, in their unfussiness, reveal a longing for those intangibles that push a scientist way beyond a process of pure analysis. Halliwell and Patterson look for the elusive magic of linearity, subtending a whole world of hidden significances.
In keeping with the above premise the record itself is pretty difficult to evaluate, a work which – as soon as the CD begins to spin and the reviewer’s mental format is worn – gradually shatters convictions, each session forcing a reassessment of the message and, especially, the attempt to find decrypting tools for something that, on the contrary, appears so manifest at first. What could be said in terms of sheer description is that the research is conducted around the extremities of various aural surfaces in a rather fluid geometry: the contrast between pulsing oscillations and straight electronic stripes, the opposition of ultra-bass and over-acute emissions, the absolute homogeneity resulting from the superimposition of just traceable locations and masterfully handled feedback.
In the third of the four movements – which this writer finds impressively proportional to his own vibration/consciousness quotient – the inexplicable radiance born from different planes of quivering reverberation, in turn causing a marvellous alternance of motionlessness and cyclical throb due to the clash of contiguous overtones, quite oddly introduces a hard-to-accept truth. You know that those unidentified resonances are leading to a superior form of awareness; yet the slightest interference – a noise from the outside, someone who tries to talk without realizing about the necessity of silence in that very instant – constitutes a low blow to the determination of maintaining that link to an advanced stage active, the balloon of confidence deflated by the beak of acquiescence to rational poverty, a translucent perfection spoiled by irrelevant personal expressions.
I’ve been writing at length a propos of the inevitability of approaching certain materials in appropriate contexts, recoiling in front of reports that mention approaches to this kind of release via iPod or Walkman while on a train or in a subway station, places where only a much thicker action can actually be heard (but not accurately analyzed), often jeopardizing our precious hearing given the inevitable requirement of substantial headphone volume. It took five listens of Terrain in a realistically quiet room – and I was not even completely satisfied with the level of stillness - before having a stab at jotting down words that, as frequently occurring when dealing with these genres, are probably near-useless. This causes a serious inside fracture. On the one hand I’m intensely keen on this type of art, looking at these records as a weapon against the stagnation of perception; on the other, we must wonder how many people are in fact properly listening to them, at least partially respecting the creators’ original diagram. This music acts on the psyche in extremely subtle, subliminal fashion, and it’s highly unlikely that more than a handful of individuals will be able to understand its almost disconcerting emotional density, a lesson in compositional soberness and acoustic sensitivity that instead risks to linger in semi-obscurity or - worse still - to be confused among the hordes of minor creative entities hiding behind a droning/environmental mask. Let’s not permit it.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Friday, 28 August 2009
OCEANS OF SILVER & BLOOD – Live At Cafe Oto
Confront
The two instalments of Vibra were stunning examples of Mark Wastell’s ability in controlling and directing the quivering shades of a tam-tam to generate that type of resonance that goes much further than a sheer scientific definition of “vibration”, the listeners totally engulfed in a new perception of themselves as parts of an inexpressible continuity which encompasses every meaningful gesture and insightful reflection, leaving the material characteristics of that particular moment out of the equation. Oceans Of Silver & Blood stretch these concepts to a larger extent, optimizing that majestically soul-enhancing reverberation with a very slight touch of thickness, although appreciable only in spurts. In this duo, Swedish Joachim Nordwall is the collaborative alter ego of the Englishman, the respective voices fused in a single hymn to the depth of silent discernment via an assortment of percussive and electronic nuances.
Recorded at London’s Cafe Oto last year, the performance starts with the audience immediately shutting up – completely - as soon as the musicians appear. The set is sequenced as a chain of dynamic transformations following an arc of sorts. The impact is somewhat substantial at first, physically influential sound waves infused with cyclical tremors eliciting an irresistible unrest forcing us to walk around the room to appreciate the frequencies reacting differently according to the spot. In the central phase (my overall favourite) we’re gently kissed by the luminosity of softly murmuring hues, the overtones depicting a fragile yet long-lasting echoing which, barring chemical aids, is able to cause the brain to rewind the tape of memory and reliving sensations from the past without actually individuating the details or a precise temporal location. One realizes of having been there before, but I’ll be damned if someone manages to put the finger on how this mechanism works not including the pathetic from-the-manual technicalities utilized by the average psychologist. Still, this is the kind of feeling people might wish when the transition from flesh to ash will finally occur.
Once lulled to rational stupor, the gong’s choral rumble and a swarm of reasonably coarse emissions take centre stage, addressing the sonic organism towards the zone where pulsating awareness and unsympathetically buzzing impediments conduct matching existences, each trying to assert an influence on the psyche. It’s this contiguity that defines the peculiar melange of sweet and sour that the final part of the exhibition holds as a not-so-pleasing surprise. If an embrace is what you’re looking for, this is the wrong place to be in. There’s always a chimera awaiting for annihilation somewhere; Wastell and Nordwall look intentioned to rule out exceptions, even if they keep listening suggestions from the higher spheres of acuity.
In the closing three minutes the artists let the acoustic mass stabilize until a blurred drone remains alone, its audibility gradually decreasing as we near the end. The unvoiced, transfixed spectators ultimately liberate the energies in a polite, if convinced – and deserved – applause. The ideal conclusion for another perfect release by this not overly prolific, tremendously consistent label.
The two instalments of Vibra were stunning examples of Mark Wastell’s ability in controlling and directing the quivering shades of a tam-tam to generate that type of resonance that goes much further than a sheer scientific definition of “vibration”, the listeners totally engulfed in a new perception of themselves as parts of an inexpressible continuity which encompasses every meaningful gesture and insightful reflection, leaving the material characteristics of that particular moment out of the equation. Oceans Of Silver & Blood stretch these concepts to a larger extent, optimizing that majestically soul-enhancing reverberation with a very slight touch of thickness, although appreciable only in spurts. In this duo, Swedish Joachim Nordwall is the collaborative alter ego of the Englishman, the respective voices fused in a single hymn to the depth of silent discernment via an assortment of percussive and electronic nuances.
Recorded at London’s Cafe Oto last year, the performance starts with the audience immediately shutting up – completely - as soon as the musicians appear. The set is sequenced as a chain of dynamic transformations following an arc of sorts. The impact is somewhat substantial at first, physically influential sound waves infused with cyclical tremors eliciting an irresistible unrest forcing us to walk around the room to appreciate the frequencies reacting differently according to the spot. In the central phase (my overall favourite) we’re gently kissed by the luminosity of softly murmuring hues, the overtones depicting a fragile yet long-lasting echoing which, barring chemical aids, is able to cause the brain to rewind the tape of memory and reliving sensations from the past without actually individuating the details or a precise temporal location. One realizes of having been there before, but I’ll be damned if someone manages to put the finger on how this mechanism works not including the pathetic from-the-manual technicalities utilized by the average psychologist. Still, this is the kind of feeling people might wish when the transition from flesh to ash will finally occur.
Once lulled to rational stupor, the gong’s choral rumble and a swarm of reasonably coarse emissions take centre stage, addressing the sonic organism towards the zone where pulsating awareness and unsympathetically buzzing impediments conduct matching existences, each trying to assert an influence on the psyche. It’s this contiguity that defines the peculiar melange of sweet and sour that the final part of the exhibition holds as a not-so-pleasing surprise. If an embrace is what you’re looking for, this is the wrong place to be in. There’s always a chimera awaiting for annihilation somewhere; Wastell and Nordwall look intentioned to rule out exceptions, even if they keep listening suggestions from the higher spheres of acuity.
In the closing three minutes the artists let the acoustic mass stabilize until a blurred drone remains alone, its audibility gradually decreasing as we near the end. The unvoiced, transfixed spectators ultimately liberate the energies in a polite, if convinced – and deserved – applause. The ideal conclusion for another perfect release by this not overly prolific, tremendously consistent label.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
SOPHIE AGNEL – Capsizing Moments
Emanem
This unedited concert, recorded November 2008 at Les Instants Chavirés in Montreuil (Paris), probably represents the official induction to the pantheon of distinguished improvisers for a musician who’s been working just above the clandestine status in spite of having already released consistently important works, notably the excellent Tasting with Phil Minton on Another Timbre. Capsizing Moments portrays the austere humanity of an unaided performer: able and willing to expose her convictions and fears without looking back, ready to be accepted or refused, yet not intentioned to loosen the fighting stance regardless of the human frailties revealed by this splendidly irrational substance, born from the alteration of the instrument’s accents via different kinds of inorganic enhancements. The artist calls the apparatus “extensive piano”: a machine whose sonic capacity is positively over-standard.
The first movement starts obsessively percussive, making the most of the big box’s lower registers. An initial wall of rumbling tones soiled by an assortment of clattering items is gradually reduced into a series of scantily delivered hits, one or two pitches maximum, echoed by plastic-sounding bouncing and an underlying monochrome pattern that, with eyes closed, we could nearly associate to unclear noises from a remote construction site, or perhaps a chugging motionless boat next to a quay. There’s almost a sense of frustration when intuiting the potential expansion of a castle that’s instead only a ruin, hopelessly exposed when Agnel suddenly decides that the hammering is finished, the corrosion of resonance left alone to do justice to the mysteriously bitter aura of this momentary transformation in an impressive flash of transcendence.
The rasping bowing introduces to a short and striking episode starting with piercing hyper-squeals – picture a bionic version of Hitchcock’s Psycho - instantaneously shut up by a clustery bang. Following a few interlocutory touches, a magnificent arpeggio - interspersed with more dissonant punctuations – is defined by the peculiar reaction of the preparations, a somewhat softer embodiment of Keith Tippett materializing, accompanied by a couple of woodpeckers jabbing a tabla. An irredeemable propensity to harmonic uncertainty is symbolized by Agnel stopping the procedures to start a new scenario of lumpy micro-chords, strings plucked and pounded in increasingly growing rage, a veritable criticism of pianistic savoir-faire.
Five seconds of calmness and we’re at the final and longest chapter. The protagonist looks around as to assess the damage done, residual ashes still smoking, memories of turbulent action and faded traces of classical-tinged environments rendered useless by the rattling qualities of every attempted profile. This is where indistinctness and lucidity wrestle, not before trying to reach an agreement: the upper partials are contaminated, the zither-like reverberations oxidized, concordance misshapen to the point of utter estrangement. Out of the blue, an acutely jingling reiteration remains solitary for a short while, immediately replaced by tinny sliding objects, isolated knocks and selected picks spotting this absurdly effective nudity. Indeed the sections in which Agnel diminishes the incidence of the “regular” piano - a palette prevalently dictated by the contrast between seclusion and instant vision - are possibly the ones who define her greatness, an implacable lust for collapsing archetypal designs kept under strict control by an inner musicality which renders this flux of consciousness akin to a proper composition in countless occasions.
As the performance approaches closure one feels like watching an old animal patiently searching for a place to finally lay its drained body at rest and peacefully expire after many years of life in the wilderness. This compliance with the nature’s laws – particularly the acceptance of an end, in effect the unsolved dilemma of most people’s psyche – is what makes this music stirring. Birth, existence, struggle, survival, ideas, delusions, demise. It’s so obviously wonderful, and Capsizing Moments depicts all of this entirely, sensitively. When weak exhalations from the inside imply the piece’s termination, further explanations turn out to be a waste of time.
This unedited concert, recorded November 2008 at Les Instants Chavirés in Montreuil (Paris), probably represents the official induction to the pantheon of distinguished improvisers for a musician who’s been working just above the clandestine status in spite of having already released consistently important works, notably the excellent Tasting with Phil Minton on Another Timbre. Capsizing Moments portrays the austere humanity of an unaided performer: able and willing to expose her convictions and fears without looking back, ready to be accepted or refused, yet not intentioned to loosen the fighting stance regardless of the human frailties revealed by this splendidly irrational substance, born from the alteration of the instrument’s accents via different kinds of inorganic enhancements. The artist calls the apparatus “extensive piano”: a machine whose sonic capacity is positively over-standard.
The first movement starts obsessively percussive, making the most of the big box’s lower registers. An initial wall of rumbling tones soiled by an assortment of clattering items is gradually reduced into a series of scantily delivered hits, one or two pitches maximum, echoed by plastic-sounding bouncing and an underlying monochrome pattern that, with eyes closed, we could nearly associate to unclear noises from a remote construction site, or perhaps a chugging motionless boat next to a quay. There’s almost a sense of frustration when intuiting the potential expansion of a castle that’s instead only a ruin, hopelessly exposed when Agnel suddenly decides that the hammering is finished, the corrosion of resonance left alone to do justice to the mysteriously bitter aura of this momentary transformation in an impressive flash of transcendence.
The rasping bowing introduces to a short and striking episode starting with piercing hyper-squeals – picture a bionic version of Hitchcock’s Psycho - instantaneously shut up by a clustery bang. Following a few interlocutory touches, a magnificent arpeggio - interspersed with more dissonant punctuations – is defined by the peculiar reaction of the preparations, a somewhat softer embodiment of Keith Tippett materializing, accompanied by a couple of woodpeckers jabbing a tabla. An irredeemable propensity to harmonic uncertainty is symbolized by Agnel stopping the procedures to start a new scenario of lumpy micro-chords, strings plucked and pounded in increasingly growing rage, a veritable criticism of pianistic savoir-faire.
Five seconds of calmness and we’re at the final and longest chapter. The protagonist looks around as to assess the damage done, residual ashes still smoking, memories of turbulent action and faded traces of classical-tinged environments rendered useless by the rattling qualities of every attempted profile. This is where indistinctness and lucidity wrestle, not before trying to reach an agreement: the upper partials are contaminated, the zither-like reverberations oxidized, concordance misshapen to the point of utter estrangement. Out of the blue, an acutely jingling reiteration remains solitary for a short while, immediately replaced by tinny sliding objects, isolated knocks and selected picks spotting this absurdly effective nudity. Indeed the sections in which Agnel diminishes the incidence of the “regular” piano - a palette prevalently dictated by the contrast between seclusion and instant vision - are possibly the ones who define her greatness, an implacable lust for collapsing archetypal designs kept under strict control by an inner musicality which renders this flux of consciousness akin to a proper composition in countless occasions.
As the performance approaches closure one feels like watching an old animal patiently searching for a place to finally lay its drained body at rest and peacefully expire after many years of life in the wilderness. This compliance with the nature’s laws – particularly the acceptance of an end, in effect the unsolved dilemma of most people’s psyche – is what makes this music stirring. Birth, existence, struggle, survival, ideas, delusions, demise. It’s so obviously wonderful, and Capsizing Moments depicts all of this entirely, sensitively. When weak exhalations from the inside imply the piece’s termination, further explanations turn out to be a waste of time.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
MARY HALVORSON / REUBEN RADDING / NATE WOOLEY – Crackleknob
hatOLOGY
Can impavid fighters against remunerative compromise sound so intelligibly sweet while improvising, to the point of having us wondering where the score is? Does artistic significance automatically imply inhospitable counterpoint? Is procedural sharpness a necessary negation of the magnification of conterminous instrumental details?
Crackleknob is a fully grown, moderately aerated recording combining brilliantly unique representatives of the modern jazz/free music scene gathered under the umbrella of respect, both reciprocal and for the audience. Mary Halvorson’s rational approach to the fingerboard is nirvana for those, like yours truly, who are tired of listening to trite versions of standards and/or incoherent finger-babbling aptly described as “spontaneous abandonment of technique” to hunt hypothetical liberties, a smart translation for “absence of ideas”. Reuben Radding is a lyrically composite bassist, his timbre a balanced mixture of demulcent harmonics, visionary abstractions and immediate mutability, cogent insertions permanently at the service of a pre-established cooperative cleverness. Nate Wooley is still able to extract drops of vital juice from the ghosts of famous men with the horn to transform those essences in invigorating fumes of timbral disintegration and not-exactly-diplomatic excrescences, halfway through a caustically refined helpmate and a coroner analyzing the corpse of a hermaphrodite variety of jazz.
“Quavering Voices Of The Mutilated” is the ultimate explanation of what these people do together: as Halvorson seams obstinately angular patterns and logically articulated spikes of anti-melodic percussiveness tinged by her strings’ nudity, at times deciding to dish up the companions with solitary chordal shards and Fripp-ish dissonant arpeggios, Radding punctuates the interplay with a considerable degree of ascendancy on the trio’s essential sonority, appearing as a man who has finally decided to settle for a somewhat regular way of life after having tasted the assorted facets of sonic intemperance, Wooley observing, taking notes and – often unexpectedly – coming out with cloudy lines that might occasionally manifest anomalously, yet maintain that quid of prosperousness guaranteeing auditory fulfilment even to the less expert recipient. “Caldwell, 1925” is a remarkable pictogram of how delicately acoustic this collaboration reveals itself to be, Wooley placing stripes of lament adjacent to Halvorson's clean-sounding whirlwinds, Radding choosing the right strokes to collate the parts in a total unity, potential breakup tendencies absorbed by a wonderfully emotional, only apparent fragility that - on the contrary - defines once and for all the genuine soul of this human combination, which indeed inhabits a superior responsiveness.
Explains the trumpeter: “In general, we work at making the cleanest, most elegantly simple piece of music that we can”. But it’s not stylishness or minimalism we’re dealing with. Crackleknob is one of those albums where skilled ears notice the presence of something much deeper, the sense of almost supernatural intuition that distinguishes a masterpiece from a mere “good job”. A record that hopefully won’t remain covered by the soil of ignorance, shining bright amidst the diverse intriguing challenges that these musicians have tackled in their respective careers to date. Let’s use the word: a classic.
Can impavid fighters against remunerative compromise sound so intelligibly sweet while improvising, to the point of having us wondering where the score is? Does artistic significance automatically imply inhospitable counterpoint? Is procedural sharpness a necessary negation of the magnification of conterminous instrumental details?
Crackleknob is a fully grown, moderately aerated recording combining brilliantly unique representatives of the modern jazz/free music scene gathered under the umbrella of respect, both reciprocal and for the audience. Mary Halvorson’s rational approach to the fingerboard is nirvana for those, like yours truly, who are tired of listening to trite versions of standards and/or incoherent finger-babbling aptly described as “spontaneous abandonment of technique” to hunt hypothetical liberties, a smart translation for “absence of ideas”. Reuben Radding is a lyrically composite bassist, his timbre a balanced mixture of demulcent harmonics, visionary abstractions and immediate mutability, cogent insertions permanently at the service of a pre-established cooperative cleverness. Nate Wooley is still able to extract drops of vital juice from the ghosts of famous men with the horn to transform those essences in invigorating fumes of timbral disintegration and not-exactly-diplomatic excrescences, halfway through a caustically refined helpmate and a coroner analyzing the corpse of a hermaphrodite variety of jazz.
“Quavering Voices Of The Mutilated” is the ultimate explanation of what these people do together: as Halvorson seams obstinately angular patterns and logically articulated spikes of anti-melodic percussiveness tinged by her strings’ nudity, at times deciding to dish up the companions with solitary chordal shards and Fripp-ish dissonant arpeggios, Radding punctuates the interplay with a considerable degree of ascendancy on the trio’s essential sonority, appearing as a man who has finally decided to settle for a somewhat regular way of life after having tasted the assorted facets of sonic intemperance, Wooley observing, taking notes and – often unexpectedly – coming out with cloudy lines that might occasionally manifest anomalously, yet maintain that quid of prosperousness guaranteeing auditory fulfilment even to the less expert recipient. “Caldwell, 1925” is a remarkable pictogram of how delicately acoustic this collaboration reveals itself to be, Wooley placing stripes of lament adjacent to Halvorson's clean-sounding whirlwinds, Radding choosing the right strokes to collate the parts in a total unity, potential breakup tendencies absorbed by a wonderfully emotional, only apparent fragility that - on the contrary - defines once and for all the genuine soul of this human combination, which indeed inhabits a superior responsiveness.
Explains the trumpeter: “In general, we work at making the cleanest, most elegantly simple piece of music that we can”. But it’s not stylishness or minimalism we’re dealing with. Crackleknob is one of those albums where skilled ears notice the presence of something much deeper, the sense of almost supernatural intuition that distinguishes a masterpiece from a mere “good job”. A record that hopefully won’t remain covered by the soil of ignorance, shining bright amidst the diverse intriguing challenges that these musicians have tackled in their respective careers to date. Let’s use the word: a classic.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
TOM HAMILTON / BRUCE EISENBEIL – Shadow Machine
Pogus
A penchant for virtual grimacing, the indomitable tendency to irrepressible dissonance, the now-scientific-now-burlesque approach to improvisation are just three amidst the thousands of different facets contained by Shadow Machine, first recorded collaboration of Tom Hamilton (Nord Modular analogue synthesizer) and Bruce Eisenbeil (guitar). The enterprise works great - and not surprisingly, despite the practically opposite artistic backgrounds. What links this odd couple is the insightful searching for the right balance between discordance (also to be intended as “fearless abandoning of well-trodden paths”) and intuition-driven surprise in scarcely familiar acoustic territories.
Hamilton has forever been interested in analyzing how parallel combinations of unpredictable sounds behave in a predefined environment, his music often perilously nearing the borders of incomprehensibility but still typified by a perspicacious audaciousness which distinguishes the seriousness of those experiments from the mass of wannabes running Max/MSP without knowing what a composition actually is. Eisenbeil is the archetypal no-barrier guitarist, a man who designs apparently abstruse new theories and applications of instrumental techniques that instead reveal the seeds of a superior musical intelligence. One does not collaborate with people such as Cecil Taylor or Evan Parker for nothing.
The respective personalities might be separated by the obvious timbral differences, yet the resulting fusion is totally unproblematic. Although there’s not a single consonant moment to be found in the entire disc, the rationality behind these abstract figurations is enough to prevent discomfort, the musicians following their instinctive propensity to the disaggregation of conventional harmonic codes while establishing a series of regenerative, if barely stable patterns informed by a firm willingness to remain interconnected.
A lesson in maturity, shared suggestions and immediate responsiveness at the basis of an interaction whose value is directly proportional to its compactness, innumerable deviations and refractions notwithstanding. A courageous effort, worthy of your utmost attention.
A penchant for virtual grimacing, the indomitable tendency to irrepressible dissonance, the now-scientific-now-burlesque approach to improvisation are just three amidst the thousands of different facets contained by Shadow Machine, first recorded collaboration of Tom Hamilton (Nord Modular analogue synthesizer) and Bruce Eisenbeil (guitar). The enterprise works great - and not surprisingly, despite the practically opposite artistic backgrounds. What links this odd couple is the insightful searching for the right balance between discordance (also to be intended as “fearless abandoning of well-trodden paths”) and intuition-driven surprise in scarcely familiar acoustic territories.
Hamilton has forever been interested in analyzing how parallel combinations of unpredictable sounds behave in a predefined environment, his music often perilously nearing the borders of incomprehensibility but still typified by a perspicacious audaciousness which distinguishes the seriousness of those experiments from the mass of wannabes running Max/MSP without knowing what a composition actually is. Eisenbeil is the archetypal no-barrier guitarist, a man who designs apparently abstruse new theories and applications of instrumental techniques that instead reveal the seeds of a superior musical intelligence. One does not collaborate with people such as Cecil Taylor or Evan Parker for nothing.
The respective personalities might be separated by the obvious timbral differences, yet the resulting fusion is totally unproblematic. Although there’s not a single consonant moment to be found in the entire disc, the rationality behind these abstract figurations is enough to prevent discomfort, the musicians following their instinctive propensity to the disaggregation of conventional harmonic codes while establishing a series of regenerative, if barely stable patterns informed by a firm willingness to remain interconnected.
A lesson in maturity, shared suggestions and immediate responsiveness at the basis of an interaction whose value is directly proportional to its compactness, innumerable deviations and refractions notwithstanding. A courageous effort, worthy of your utmost attention.
Thursday, 13 August 2009
FOR THOSE WHO LOVE DOWNLOADING RARITIES
This is not a review. It's a letter sent to yours truly by Lubomyr Melnyk - one of the most shamefully overlooked talented composers in the history of contemporary art, the inventor of Continuous Music. I feel that his bitter words are perfect to describe the era in which we live, musically characterized by a "get everything now" downloading bulimia which is indeed killing non commercial music.
Check what you're missing at the above links, maybe you will understand that - at some point in life - choices have to be made. And, incidentally, MP3 sound like shit - especially for this kind of stuff. I just laugh when seeing people thanking enthusiastically for being able to download Roland Kayn albums which they don't even understand, and that in this audio format mean even less of what they can actually realize about the process behind that music. But thanks to internet, even downloading Kayn has become "in".
Yet another example of the disgusting "democracy" that is pervading the world of music today. Once upon a time there were artists and normal people; today, nerds that publish beeps and coughs (and, yes, drones) define themselves "artists"....or at least "specialists".
Here's Melnyk letter:
The Day The Music Died....
The record people who issue my music on CD have been wondering why no one has been buying the Cd-s lately. A visit to the internet is all it took to answer that.
---- !!! I want to ask all those people who created internet sites which offer illegal and free downloads of various composers' music, and all those people who went there and took the CD-s for free, did you really think about what you were doing?
Did you really think that "Oh, it doesn't matter, these artists are all millionaires anyway. and what difference can it make to them, "# etc. etc. etc.....
Well, it has made a very big difference, really.
For one thing, it means that no more Cd-s of my work can get issued,
---- because the small companies can not afford to do it ...
In the last year, BANDURA Records ---- that has been pumping in a lot of hard work to bring Continuous Music into the world, has sold 3 --- three ! CD-s --- in this entire year. The record store in San Francisco that has been the one bright spot in this dismal night of CD-sales, has totally stopped ordering my music ... UNSEEN WORLDS that worked so hard on KMH, hasn’t been able to sell the thousand CD-s that cost so much to make. Unable to recover the costs, they have given up plans to make other issues of my work.
And I, who had hoped that soon I could put out some new music on CD and give people more of this rare piano music, will not be doing that.
Together with the thousands of others in the music world, where people worked and fought so hard to get ahead and bring their vision out into the light, I am now "out of work". Hundreds and hundreds of music stores have closed down all over the world, thousands of people have lost their jobs, and composers who gave their lives to creating music have all lost hope ....
Just what did all of you who stole the CD-s over internet think ---- that producing a CD is free and takes just 10 minutes?? Sure, that is what you told yourself, but you knew it wasn't true.
BANDURA Records and UNSEEN WORLDS put in a LOT of work. time and money into creating the CD-s of my music works .... and they have not made anything on it. In fact. BANDURA Records has only lost money on making CD-s over the last 5 years. UNSEEN WORLDS has yet to recover the costs of making their KMH re-issue.
And I, who drive a rusty car from 1986 and have not had a new piece of clothing or shoes since I was teenager and my parents bought these things for me, I who was willing to endure 39 years of shit poverty because I had a dream ----- that one day, this Continuous Music, that needs so much time and work to keep alive, --- this pathetic dream that one day, one lovely day, enough people would care enough for this music that they would actually buy an LP or a CD of it, --- I had this really stupid dream that IF enough people would do this, I could live.
This stupid dream is no more.
Those of you who did not want to fork out the price of two pizzas for my Cd-s, you KNEW that there is no other pianist in the world whose fingers and body can create this new piano music ---- and deep inside, if you actually heard this piano music, you KNEW that since only I can not play it now, then NO ONE, ever, ... will be able to play it, (unless someone wants to devote years and years of their life to the difficult training that is needed --- ) then these official CD-s are the only hope for the future of this music.
Your barren MP-3 download with a Maxell or Verbatim stamp will be nothing.
-- and you knew that in stealing these CD-s, you were killing this delicate young sapling of a tree that was struggling to reach the light.
You created that sticky black cloud that blocked the sunlight from this young struggling tree. You might tell yourself, that "I really didn't know" --- but really, you did !
You just didn't want to pay the price of a couple of pizzas.
I want to thank those few people in this world who actually bought a CD of my work. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for not stealing it --- the way the others have done. Thank you for supporting this music and my work. For you, I will talk with BANDURA and see if we can do something special, just for you.
And those of you who did steal the CD-s over internet, or took a copy from your friend, you might have the moral courage to send at least ten bucks to BANDURA or , if you stole KMH, then to UNSEEN WORLDS --- or maybe just buy a CD !! to give away as a present for your library....
This is now all in your hands. Because the way things stand with the free downloading,
there will be no new Continuous Music issued ... I can not make any more CD-s.
--- Because each of you dowloaders banged your own personalized nail into the coffin of this beautiful music.
And not just my music and work, but the work of hundreds of other composers and musicians all over the world.
Lubomyr Melnyk
August, 2009
Check what you're missing at the above links, maybe you will understand that - at some point in life - choices have to be made. And, incidentally, MP3 sound like shit - especially for this kind of stuff. I just laugh when seeing people thanking enthusiastically for being able to download Roland Kayn albums which they don't even understand, and that in this audio format mean even less of what they can actually realize about the process behind that music. But thanks to internet, even downloading Kayn has become "in".
Yet another example of the disgusting "democracy" that is pervading the world of music today. Once upon a time there were artists and normal people; today, nerds that publish beeps and coughs (and, yes, drones) define themselves "artists"....or at least "specialists".
Here's Melnyk letter:
The Day The Music Died....
The record people who issue my music on CD have been wondering why no one has been buying the Cd-s lately. A visit to the internet is all it took to answer that.
---- !!! I want to ask all those people who created internet sites which offer illegal and free downloads of various composers' music, and all those people who went there and took the CD-s for free, did you really think about what you were doing?
Did you really think that "Oh, it doesn't matter, these artists are all millionaires anyway. and what difference can it make to them, "# etc. etc. etc.....
Well, it has made a very big difference, really.
For one thing, it means that no more Cd-s of my work can get issued,
---- because the small companies can not afford to do it ...
In the last year, BANDURA Records ---- that has been pumping in a lot of hard work to bring Continuous Music into the world, has sold 3 --- three ! CD-s --- in this entire year. The record store in San Francisco that has been the one bright spot in this dismal night of CD-sales, has totally stopped ordering my music ... UNSEEN WORLDS that worked so hard on KMH, hasn’t been able to sell the thousand CD-s that cost so much to make. Unable to recover the costs, they have given up plans to make other issues of my work.
And I, who had hoped that soon I could put out some new music on CD and give people more of this rare piano music, will not be doing that.
Together with the thousands of others in the music world, where people worked and fought so hard to get ahead and bring their vision out into the light, I am now "out of work". Hundreds and hundreds of music stores have closed down all over the world, thousands of people have lost their jobs, and composers who gave their lives to creating music have all lost hope ....
Just what did all of you who stole the CD-s over internet think ---- that producing a CD is free and takes just 10 minutes?? Sure, that is what you told yourself, but you knew it wasn't true.
BANDURA Records and UNSEEN WORLDS put in a LOT of work. time and money into creating the CD-s of my music works .... and they have not made anything on it. In fact. BANDURA Records has only lost money on making CD-s over the last 5 years. UNSEEN WORLDS has yet to recover the costs of making their KMH re-issue.
And I, who drive a rusty car from 1986 and have not had a new piece of clothing or shoes since I was teenager and my parents bought these things for me, I who was willing to endure 39 years of shit poverty because I had a dream ----- that one day, this Continuous Music, that needs so much time and work to keep alive, --- this pathetic dream that one day, one lovely day, enough people would care enough for this music that they would actually buy an LP or a CD of it, --- I had this really stupid dream that IF enough people would do this, I could live.
This stupid dream is no more.
Those of you who did not want to fork out the price of two pizzas for my Cd-s, you KNEW that there is no other pianist in the world whose fingers and body can create this new piano music ---- and deep inside, if you actually heard this piano music, you KNEW that since only I can not play it now, then NO ONE, ever, ... will be able to play it, (unless someone wants to devote years and years of their life to the difficult training that is needed --- ) then these official CD-s are the only hope for the future of this music.
Your barren MP-3 download with a Maxell or Verbatim stamp will be nothing.
-- and you knew that in stealing these CD-s, you were killing this delicate young sapling of a tree that was struggling to reach the light.
You created that sticky black cloud that blocked the sunlight from this young struggling tree. You might tell yourself, that "I really didn't know" --- but really, you did !
You just didn't want to pay the price of a couple of pizzas.
I want to thank those few people in this world who actually bought a CD of my work. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for not stealing it --- the way the others have done. Thank you for supporting this music and my work. For you, I will talk with BANDURA and see if we can do something special, just for you.
And those of you who did steal the CD-s over internet, or took a copy from your friend, you might have the moral courage to send at least ten bucks to BANDURA or , if you stole KMH, then to UNSEEN WORLDS --- or maybe just buy a CD !! to give away as a present for your library....
This is now all in your hands. Because the way things stand with the free downloading,
there will be no new Continuous Music issued ... I can not make any more CD-s.
--- Because each of you dowloaders banged your own personalized nail into the coffin of this beautiful music.
And not just my music and work, but the work of hundreds of other composers and musicians all over the world.
Lubomyr Melnyk
August, 2009
Friday, 7 August 2009
JIM DENLEY & KIM MYHR – System Realignment
Either/OAR
If a single record, among the latest batches received, could symbolize this writer’s current partiality for a legitimate exploration in a studio setting, as opposed to the release of an all-inclusive unsatisfying live performance, this should be it. Jim Denley (alto sax, flute, electronics) and Kim Myhr (acoustic guitar and “simple mechanics”) are captured in ten tracks in which the overindulgence and the posturing often associable to present-day improvisation are replaced by a simple concept - regularly and conveniently forgotten nowadays to grant undeserved glory to nonentities defining themselves as “artists” in the name of a corrupted democracy of expression - called musicality. A lovely feeling materializing as soon as you press “play”, quite relieving to experience after having spent months squeezing our instinctive refusal of intellectually tinged rubbish to obtain two or three logical drops, indispensable for a decent write-up, matching the two or three isolated noises around which that drivel is usually built.
There is in fact evidence, since the very beginning of this program, of an unambiguous alchemy at work. One immediately breathes consistency while listening to the popping-and-fizzing emissions of the reeds in parallel with the fundamental constituents of the guitar, whose wood we can almost smell the essence of, thanks to the detailed quality of the recording. On a first glance, the homogeneity demonstrated by the couple throughout might be exchanged for a lack of inventiveness, but this is totally untrue. There’s much to be found in terms of colour and resonance in this non-stylish, non-regional exploitation of the entire attributes of instruments apparently so dissimilar, an agglutinate generating effects that are manifestly beneficial, pushing the ears towards a type of perception which ideally should be linked to a direct experience in a remote land (Denley is an expert of this field of action). This is probably due to the musicians’ preference for the percussive features of their playing, which rather frequently reveal a quasi-African aroma (incredible how Myhr manages to make that machine sound like a mbira time and again). Yet sticking a pseudo-world music tag to this duet would be a gross misinterpretation of something more profound, both in the crucial meanings and in regard to the analytical capacity of the instrumentalists, always in the condition of eliciting captivating aural tints in dialogues that never appear as previously rehearsed.
A mind-opening paradigm of mutual recognition and acute attention to the communication between interacting entities, System Realignment is another example of Dale Lloyd’s discernment in choosing materials to publish on his labels, regardless of genres and expectations.
If a single record, among the latest batches received, could symbolize this writer’s current partiality for a legitimate exploration in a studio setting, as opposed to the release of an all-inclusive unsatisfying live performance, this should be it. Jim Denley (alto sax, flute, electronics) and Kim Myhr (acoustic guitar and “simple mechanics”) are captured in ten tracks in which the overindulgence and the posturing often associable to present-day improvisation are replaced by a simple concept - regularly and conveniently forgotten nowadays to grant undeserved glory to nonentities defining themselves as “artists” in the name of a corrupted democracy of expression - called musicality. A lovely feeling materializing as soon as you press “play”, quite relieving to experience after having spent months squeezing our instinctive refusal of intellectually tinged rubbish to obtain two or three logical drops, indispensable for a decent write-up, matching the two or three isolated noises around which that drivel is usually built.
There is in fact evidence, since the very beginning of this program, of an unambiguous alchemy at work. One immediately breathes consistency while listening to the popping-and-fizzing emissions of the reeds in parallel with the fundamental constituents of the guitar, whose wood we can almost smell the essence of, thanks to the detailed quality of the recording. On a first glance, the homogeneity demonstrated by the couple throughout might be exchanged for a lack of inventiveness, but this is totally untrue. There’s much to be found in terms of colour and resonance in this non-stylish, non-regional exploitation of the entire attributes of instruments apparently so dissimilar, an agglutinate generating effects that are manifestly beneficial, pushing the ears towards a type of perception which ideally should be linked to a direct experience in a remote land (Denley is an expert of this field of action). This is probably due to the musicians’ preference for the percussive features of their playing, which rather frequently reveal a quasi-African aroma (incredible how Myhr manages to make that machine sound like a mbira time and again). Yet sticking a pseudo-world music tag to this duet would be a gross misinterpretation of something more profound, both in the crucial meanings and in regard to the analytical capacity of the instrumentalists, always in the condition of eliciting captivating aural tints in dialogues that never appear as previously rehearsed.
A mind-opening paradigm of mutual recognition and acute attention to the communication between interacting entities, System Realignment is another example of Dale Lloyd’s discernment in choosing materials to publish on his labels, regardless of genres and expectations.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
DROPP ENSEMBLE – Safety
Either/OAR
Over the 2006/2007 biennium Salvatore “Sam” Dellaria and Adam Sonderberg gathered and assembled recordings from a literal who’s who of inquisitive improvisers and composers, mostly from the advanced areas of EAI (names include Olivia Block, Jason Kahn, Tomas Korber, Eric Lanzillotta, Jon Mueller, Brendan Walls, Christian Weber to quote the most “famous”). The results are now available in 32 minutes for which adjectives like “stunning”, “mesmeric” and “anguishing” weigh equally.
In a milieu of partially tarnished harmonic contents, the prevailing impression is that there’s no way out of an unending obscurity. Sounds apparently coming from the viscera of the instruments take possession of the immediate environment straight away, causing a sense of uneasiness enhanced by the absolute lack of resolutions or, worse still for someone, sections to memorize. Everywhere – except perhaps the short opening track “Inlet” - a sort of gradual deterioration of the mood constitutes a prominent compositional trait, providing a necessary dose of slight precariousness which prevents the music to become just a flabby superimposition of disjointed elements.
Every detail appears carefully planned and executed, and the splendid stability between electronic and acoustic factors, connecting softness (say, a rhythmic low-frequency pulse as heard at the end of “Everywhere Present And Nowhere Visible”) and ruggedness (Jon Mueller’s instantly recognizable stridencies, for example), pushes aural exhausts and concrete threats in the same direction, a grey sky anticipating rainstorms that never begin. The overall scent of this record is therefore an organic one: we felt both swallowed up and authorized to pensive movement, needing to walk across the room while listening, hoarse murmurs and percussive parsimony marvellously mixing with the tinkling bells of the cows pasturing around the house, the abnormal pulsation of particular sound waves determining a sensible modification of the pressure on the membranes.
This meshing of mixed-media experimentalism and unvarnished ineluctability is a winning procedure throughout, attributing to Safety – the title a bizarre counter altar to such a non-serene, if introspective offering – a psychological influence which is typical of an album to remember for years to come.
Over the 2006/2007 biennium Salvatore “Sam” Dellaria and Adam Sonderberg gathered and assembled recordings from a literal who’s who of inquisitive improvisers and composers, mostly from the advanced areas of EAI (names include Olivia Block, Jason Kahn, Tomas Korber, Eric Lanzillotta, Jon Mueller, Brendan Walls, Christian Weber to quote the most “famous”). The results are now available in 32 minutes for which adjectives like “stunning”, “mesmeric” and “anguishing” weigh equally.
In a milieu of partially tarnished harmonic contents, the prevailing impression is that there’s no way out of an unending obscurity. Sounds apparently coming from the viscera of the instruments take possession of the immediate environment straight away, causing a sense of uneasiness enhanced by the absolute lack of resolutions or, worse still for someone, sections to memorize. Everywhere – except perhaps the short opening track “Inlet” - a sort of gradual deterioration of the mood constitutes a prominent compositional trait, providing a necessary dose of slight precariousness which prevents the music to become just a flabby superimposition of disjointed elements.
Every detail appears carefully planned and executed, and the splendid stability between electronic and acoustic factors, connecting softness (say, a rhythmic low-frequency pulse as heard at the end of “Everywhere Present And Nowhere Visible”) and ruggedness (Jon Mueller’s instantly recognizable stridencies, for example), pushes aural exhausts and concrete threats in the same direction, a grey sky anticipating rainstorms that never begin. The overall scent of this record is therefore an organic one: we felt both swallowed up and authorized to pensive movement, needing to walk across the room while listening, hoarse murmurs and percussive parsimony marvellously mixing with the tinkling bells of the cows pasturing around the house, the abnormal pulsation of particular sound waves determining a sensible modification of the pressure on the membranes.
This meshing of mixed-media experimentalism and unvarnished ineluctability is a winning procedure throughout, attributing to Safety – the title a bizarre counter altar to such a non-serene, if introspective offering – a psychological influence which is typical of an album to remember for years to come.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO – Dársena Interna
Mystery Sea
Argentinean Calarco, previously met by yours truly on a 3-inch by the late The Locus Of Assemblage imprint and a collaborator of people such as Ubeboet and Pablo Reche, composed Dársena Interna entirely through the seaming and processing of metropolitan field recordings, thus creating an engulfing soundscape imbued of rumbles, undercurrents and from-the-underground reverberations.
Naturally we have encountered this variety of substances a thousand times before, but given the circumstance I don’t feel like disparaging the effort; it takes a degree of good judgment to pull this type of material together without making the outcome sound totally worn-out. Providentially, in this case the designer succeeded, in all probability because the essential sources are collected and exposed “as they are”, minus excessive intellectual mannerism or veiled implications. In a couple of occasions, distant echoing washes caused the recollection of personal memories of nocturnal insomnia imprinted by the remote roaring of passing trains, a chronic presence during adolescent ruminations over the course of many summers.
If you give up looking for the “unforgettable masterwork” for a moment this CD makes for pleasurable company, perhaps best enjoyed as a background soundtrack for semi-lucid considerations about the contingent aspects of existence. Whirr, hum, whoosh, thud. We all know how it goes. Still, this particular offering sounds as a honest job.
Argentinean Calarco, previously met by yours truly on a 3-inch by the late The Locus Of Assemblage imprint and a collaborator of people such as Ubeboet and Pablo Reche, composed Dársena Interna entirely through the seaming and processing of metropolitan field recordings, thus creating an engulfing soundscape imbued of rumbles, undercurrents and from-the-underground reverberations.
Naturally we have encountered this variety of substances a thousand times before, but given the circumstance I don’t feel like disparaging the effort; it takes a degree of good judgment to pull this type of material together without making the outcome sound totally worn-out. Providentially, in this case the designer succeeded, in all probability because the essential sources are collected and exposed “as they are”, minus excessive intellectual mannerism or veiled implications. In a couple of occasions, distant echoing washes caused the recollection of personal memories of nocturnal insomnia imprinted by the remote roaring of passing trains, a chronic presence during adolescent ruminations over the course of many summers.
If you give up looking for the “unforgettable masterwork” for a moment this CD makes for pleasurable company, perhaps best enjoyed as a background soundtrack for semi-lucid considerations about the contingent aspects of existence. Whirr, hum, whoosh, thud. We all know how it goes. Still, this particular offering sounds as a honest job.
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