While listening to November 1st performance of Flow Motion: Explorations in Eleven Dimensions and interacting with the musicians during the following Q&A, one thinks about the usual juxtaposition between improvising and manipulating or processing sound just to come to the conclusion that there is no such difference, and that one of the concepts Edward George put on the table more than one time - interacting with misleadings - is a good zen exercise, in the proper sense of the word.
"An audio art performance of soundscapes and improvisations based on the transformation of string theory equations, produced by Piva and George during their research residency at Queen Mary’s School of Physics."
The use of mathematics and physics in music is a relevant practice in contemporary music - we can put artists as diverse as Iannis Xenakis, Catherine Christer Hennix and Achim Wollscheid on the table -- a trace of the faith in the harmony of nature, of music, through mathematics, while the idea of a creative/aesthetic rendition of mistakes or chance is a common practice in the audio art: the glitch music came entirely from there - a way to look for what's human in his weaknesses, in his mistakes in the digital era.
Edward George and Anna Piva
But what's interesting in the late afternoon discussion after the music is the stress on doing, more than on dealing with concepts. And that concepts is what the audience ask about to the musicians in order to understand the music: emotions, soul, even God. That means obviously that this project, far from being absolutely 'new' -- even since there's no such thing in the world of art, or in the world in general -- is in line with what's going on in every art field since the middle of the last century: a project comprehensible only in their own terms and to be developed with time, with listeners grasping at their own first encounter with it.
'Liquid' music in some way, an adjective I wouldn't spend for most of the audio art / electroacoustic performances I listened in my life -- there is something similar in many, but not at that level, while the articulation is coherent, and at the same time dealing with it through words is really something slippery. Obviously this is a new project, and some of the players -- Alison Blunt on violin, Chris Cullen on flute and saxophone, Edward George on electronics, Grahame Painting on cello and guitar, Anna Piva on electronics and Mark Sanders on drums -- were playing together for the first time, so it may be worth to listen to the next performances and see what would eventually come out of a record or a follow.
I had a very good impression about Jessica Pavone and Mary Halvorson duo I saw in Italy a couple of years ago in a small theatre, and since I told about Taylor Ho Bynum attendance to last Jason Kao Hwang excellent two albums on london_resonance, I was very curious about this quartet.
The Thirteenth Assembly debuted on record in 2009 while forged two years before after the collaboration of all the four members to the Anthony Braxton's Sonic Genome project, and I must admit that my lack of confidence with Mr Braxton's last productions is leaving me with a real curiosity for this generation of musicians - add people like Matana Roberts and Steve Lehman, the younger NY improvisors trying to develop their own synthesis and vision after 40 years of avant-garde pursuits.
The result is a music that in some way is influenced by what Braxton's vibrational dynamics, but also Henry Threadgill and Jason Kao Hwang circulating grooves and instrumental richness have left as a legacy to contemporary music in terms of harmonic construction, colors and interplay. Tonight show is particularly dense and fluid at the same time, with Thomas Fujiwara carrying on his shoulders the duty of anchoring the sound to a dense and rich groove while the music develops itself in a characteristic 'loft' style, that means individual statements flowing ahead with the music even before it opens to 'solos', to a contemplative, reflective space.
Thomas Fujiwara
And while the compositions on the two albums - the 2009 debut '(un)sentimental' and the new 'Station Direct', both on Important Records - show how this generation mediated their mentors vision on composition through the more intuitive sensitivity of the middle one - name Matthew Shipp, Cooper-Moore, Rob Brown to get some anchor point, one wonders if having together four musicians coming from different origins, even if without any stress put on it, can be considered in some way another face of the legacy with an era in which consciousness and creativity were actively supporting each other, waiting for a Matana Roberts performance in order to have a more concrete idea on the subject.
New stuff released by re:konstruKt from Istanbul. Connexions Gallery was founded in 1990 and held by Alice Kwiatkowski. Its purpose is to promote art encompassing media and style. Here in Easton, Pennsylvania, Gary Joseph Hassay recorded with different partners every time the three volumes of the "Live at the Connexions Galley" series.
Actively performing since 1979, influenced by Hungarian gipsy violin music, R&B/soul, Albert Ayler, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Broetzmann and Evan Parker, and involved in Tibetan throat singing (as clearly audible at the beginning of this record), altoist Gary Hassay offers in this VOL. 3 a duo performance with drummer Tatsuya Nakatani while in the previous volumes people like reedist Biaise Shiwula and pianist Ellen Christi were featured. About 33 minutes of meditative, spacey music, in which Nakatani self-built percussions - drumset, bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, bells - offer something more than a meditative background for the altoist. The best quality of the interplay is that kind of independence through fluency that usually is the sign of extreme dexterity.
I was discussing recently with Umut Çağlar via email about the recent konstruKt quartet release featuring Evan Parker, probably the only release of the label not totally focused - as far as how much I was able to pick up from the catalogue - and, by Umut own admission, due the to lack of familiarity with London-based saxophone player technical command.
Not a false step, since the first part of the record features a couple of beautiful soprano solos, while only in the second part of the group improvisation the quartet seems finally to find its own way - but improvisation is like that, the risky way. I wonder if the lack was in the band's skills or, more probably, in relating with such an important personality - but even self reliability is something that can be developed with time, while I'm listening to "Tactic", Umut Çağlar duo recording with Gunnar Lettow, originally member of the avant-rock band Nice Noise. A bass prepared with spears, clips, brushes, and a guitarist influenced by djing, computer music and improvisation give shape to 6 different tracks in which 'constructed parts', as Caglar would put it, are assembled in a coherent and varied musical speech.
Julian Bonequi is a Mexican digital artist and real time musician (mostly relying on noise and improvisation). Curator of Audition Record, he has performed with the Berlin and the London Improvisers Orchestra, William Parker, Keith Tippett, Eddie Prévost, Islak Kopek, while as a young musician trained himself in different psychedelic band, rock in opposition and chamber music ensembles.
"Sangre Azteca" is a solo record with Bonequi on drums and voice dedicated to the ancient poem 'Nikitoa' ('I wonder') by NezahualcÛyotl. An attempt to put 'emotional instability, semantic landscapes and cathartic explosions and even alienated as an act of concentration' as the main focus of his music, it has in some tracks as 'Kamayoukaui/Chokilitsatsi' a feeling similar to Antonin Artaud broadcast 'Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu', also composed only by voice and percussions.
Another new label, this time from Italy. Aut Records is devoted, as put on the website, to 'projects concerning unusual sonorities'. The first three releases are all from 2011. Crisco 3 is Francesco Bigoni on tenor sax and clarinet, Piero Bittolo Bon on alto sax and alto clarinet and Beppe Scardino on baritone sax and bass clarinet.
About 40 minutes, equally divied in 8 original compositions /improvisations, plus a cover of 'Twenty Years', originally played by Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones, and 'Philosophy of the World' bythe Shaggs, designated by Frank Zappa as No. 3 best band in history on a Norwegian newspaper - my strong advice is to pick up also the original song ... you'll see. The wide use of melodies and a certain stress on the harmonic construction makes me curious about what I would be able to find after a cross-pollination with some of the most de-constructed live acts listened in my two-months 'residency' here in London.
Alberto Collodel (clarinets), Alessio Faraon (trumpets), Davide Lorenzon (tenor and alto saxophone), Ivan Pilat (baritone saxophone, trumpet, voice), with special guest Oreste Sabadin (clarinet) show in Kongrosian's "Bootstrap Paradox" a music that seems devoted to the formula of the reeds-quartet that at the dawn of American experimental was probed by both the World and the Rova Saxophone Quartet.
In those days, the attempt to stretch and crook the melodies in order to give life to a music extroverted and meditative at the same time was widespread, and so the attempt to use melodic instruments also as a rhythmic source; it's exactly what the 16 tracks offer for their 34 minutes. Another quality of Aut records in an era of overproduction is conciseness, what's decisely offbeat in these days.
For all the fourteen tracks of "Tripterygion", vibist Luigi Vitale and sopranist Luciano Caruso give life to a music less pitched and pondering in respect to what the choice of instruments can inspire to the listener. Away from usual references, one can also think to the Lacy/Waldron duo during his last years, but while Luciano Caruso is decisely more outgoing and lyrical, his younger partner exploits his potential in order to put himself now on the foreground (Tripterygion Tripteronotus), now at the same, pointillistic and fractured level (Balistes Carolines), while sometimes (Halimeda Tuna) the two instruments are working as one.
I discovered Mauro Sambo recently, thanks to the profile I wrote for the Istanbul-based label re:konstruKt. Versatile and many-sided, carrying since many years a personal artistic expression at the convergence of sculpture, performance, videoart and music, even if not still widely recognized as he deserves, Sambo is also a multi-instrumentalist: alto sax, tenor sax, flute, bass clarinet, double bass, electronics, iPad, iPhone, percussions. His last effort "Presto (dicono) giungerà la neve" [in English "Soon, they say, the snow will come"] takes his title from a Jorge Louis Borges novel.
In the past, Michel Foucault dedicated his "The Order of Things" to the writer, underlining a concept of 'other space' (heterotopia) that lies in between the things and the words, a space neither here nor there. Improv fans familiar with Sun Ra probably will be able to connect with the concept, but the music here is really somewhere in between improvisation and soundart, electronic and acoustic, analogic and digital, music and space, while his previous "... di Origine Oscura" was a little bit shifted towards sculpture.
The Spontaneous River Ensemble was assembled in 2007 by Jason Kao Hwang and Patricia Nicholson Parker for a tribute to Leroy Jenkins, that died that year. Their first performance took place at the Vision Festival XII. Billy Bang was the conductor of the first version of Hwang's Symphony of Soul (Mulatta Records/Flying Panda Music, 2011) that reached his definitive version in 2008 where it was performed at the NY's Living Theatre.
The ensemble is composed by Hwang's regular partners (Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, Andrew Drury on drums and Ken Filiano on bass) in the Edge quartet, 14 violins, 5 violas, 7 guitars (featuring Dom Minasi), 5 cellos and 6 string basses (amongst them Michael Bisio, since about one year regular partner of pianist Matthew Shipp).
Partly inspired in his conduction by his past collaborations with Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris and Henry Threadgill, the music contained in this record is related by Jason Hwang himself to the jiwa, the individual embodied soul of every human being. The orchestral arrangements are conceived as a dialogue of souls and an exploration of the kinetic energies of the music itself through the layering of his particles.
Ilia Belorukov's Intonema released at the same time with Wozzek also Bewitched Concert, a 40 minutes improvisation reminiscent of contemporary music by a 'spontaneous' and international quintet composed by singer Thomas Buckner, flutist and composer Edyta Fil, pianist, composer and sound engineer Alexey Lapin, cellist Juho Laitinen and Belorukov himself on alto saxophone and objects.
While Dmitry Ukhov in the liner notes mentions Pauline Oliveros and her Deep Listening music, and also Witold Lutoslawski's Hesitant second symphony, we can take note of a work perfectly balanced between contemporary music and improvisation, in which the backgrounds of every musician are perfectly recognizable. It's not that common today listening to young performers (Thomas Buckner is the only one to have more than 40 years of career on his shoulders), coming from different backgrounds even if with a slight balance on contemporary music, still using as means of expressions devices related to recognizable , while stirred, idioms and looking for a coherent structure. So the record - as the other two in this article - can be also taken as an important clue in order to avoid for free improvisation the risk of involution as, apart from single musicians, happened to sound art at least in the last ten years.
Since my first days here in London I received via mail or digital download many records kindly provided by musicians residing in different parts of the world. While waiting for the issuing of an extended analysis for each one on a webmagazine, I decided to start an overview here on london_resonance, just curious about their matching with the live reviews for London-based listeners, while at the same time trying to shorten the schedule.
Ilia Belorukov is the young founder of Saint Petersburg-based Intonema label, organizer of the festival Zeni Geva and collaborator of Ignaz Schick (Ambiances Magnétiques). The first two outputs of the label are Act III: Comics by Wozzek and Bewitched Concert by a quintet composed by Thomas Buchner (voice), Edyta Fil (flute), Ilia Belorukov (alto saxophone, objects), Alexej Lapin (upright piano) and Juho Laitinen (cello, voice).
Wozzek is basically the duo of Belorukov (prepared/processed alto sax, ipad, objects) and bassist Mikhail Ershov, and through his three major releases and many eps since 2007 evolved from the initial jazzcore influenced by Painkiller, Zu and Diskaholic Anonimous Trio up to this first physical publication, accompanied by a beautiful booklet in which Victor Melamed is responsible of hypercinetizing Frank Miller, while the 47 small compositions for an amount of 23 minutes are the soundtrack the duo, with the addiction of Dmitriy Vediashkin on electric guitar, Dmitriy Krotevic on trombone, Maria Grigoryeva on violin, and Mikhail Tsypin on voice, is providing for it. Splinters of sound, of voices, of onomatopoeias. Classic Guide to Strategy and Raymond Scott are the obvious references, while the second, ten minute track - actually a remix of the first - is made of a more wide and stretched landscape, as if Popol Vuh were playing found objects.
Jason Kao Hwang, recently granted by Downbeat with the second place as 'Rising Star of Violin' and a 'reissue of the year' by the New York City Jazz record for Commitment: The Complete Recordings 1981-1983 (NoBusiness, 2010), issues on Euonimous Records the Edge quartet's Crossroads Unseen and the Spontaneous River ensemble's Symphony of Souls.
Edge are Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, fluegelhorn), Andrew Drury (drum set), Ken Filiano (string bass) and Hwang (composer, violin, viola) providing a buch of compositions whose feeling and spirit is what the New York loft season produced at his best (with Henry Threadgill's Air as the main possible reference, if one). Long time associated with William Parker, and responsible for a quite different style from Leroy Jenkins, the main reference for improvising on violin, full of Asian colors without being ethnic - a subtly asian-tinged use of space, sensitive as far as harmonic and melodic architectures and interplay, Hwang and his fellows are responsibles for a music beautifully cooked up, revitalizing a tradition of free improvisation in showing us the single improvisers shifting their dialogues with fluency and sharpness, cinematic devices and a title track worthy of being listed in a forthcoming best of 2011.
I talked about Islak Kopek on Allaboutjazz months ago - skim through it and pick up what you want directly from re:konstruKt digital label after reading, so I'm happy to introduce a record (Istanbul Improv Sessions 4th May, Evil Rabbit Records, 2011) made by the first improvising group active in Istanbul since 1995 added with flutist, improviser, composer Mark Alban Lotz.
While I'm planning to put down a retrospective on the activity of the band via an interview with Korhan Erel, I'd like to point at the fact that the music herein is an excellent document of the different approaches to composition and improvisation of the group - basically electroacoustic improvisation with a 'chamber' approach, since the fourtheen small pieces, from 1 to about 5 minutes - are featuring different combinations of musicians. Kevin Whitehead in the notes writes about a cosmic sound carrying with it balinese gamelan, senegalese drumming, navajo and bulgarian and australian aboriginal singing, peruvian pipes. That means that one of the best quality of the record is being higly evocative. I would add that the best moment here is Our, an explicit, moving dedication to Albert Ayler and to the 'speaking in tongues' era, and an indication on how a group of musicians can bring together non idiomatic expressions and a well rooted sense of what dealing with structures mean.
