ErstQuake 2 – New York City, 23rd – 25th September.
The vaguely defined boundaries of the genre of music we have come to know as EAI seem to be in a constant state of flux. As this youthful field of activity continues to grow and expand at an alarming rate new directions appear, pulling and expanding the music towards new tangents, keeping it fresh and creatively vibrant.
The ErstQuake festival held at the Collective: Unconscious venue in downtown TriBeCa was a living example of these ongoing developments. Co-curated by the Erstwhile and Quakebasket labels, this second annual festival brought together a combination of established performers with a healthy sprinkling of the younger blood seeping into the music to create one of the most interesting and provocative collections of musicians in one place for a few years. The small but perfectly formed venue was filled to the brim on each of the three nights, as musicians and audience alike descended from all corners of the globe in a remarkable display of the multinational interest in this music.
The first night opened with the established Scotch of St. James combination of Tim Barnes and Mark Wastell, the duo responsible for one of my favourite albums of the year to date. Here though, Wastell’s amplified textures and Barnes’ close-miked snare from that recording were put aside, replaced with matching tam tams, set up back to back so that either musician was blind to what the other was doing. With only a small selection of instruments with which to address the tam tams and a small collection of other tuned metals, the pair set about creating a deep ritualistic sound world ranging from lengthy drones to momentary interventions. The music filled the room, a sensuous sea of billowing washes punctuated by lighter chimes and the occasional poignant silence. At times the music reached an uncharacteristically high volume, belying the fact this was the only all-acoustic set of the festival. On one occasion Wastell’s energetic hammering of his instrument sent it swinging dangerously close to the microphone situated just behind, stopping just short of disaster. Unknown to all at the time, this set pointed the direction for much of the festival to follow as extreme volume levels became a recurrent theme over the ensuing three nights.
Near the end Barnes embarked upon a substantial attack on his instrument, building the sound into one intense metallic roar for over five minutes. Throughout this period Wastell ceased activity, a fact probably unknown to the fully consumed Barnes, until, as the prolonged onslaught came to a crashing halt, it was instantly countered by the very slightest jingling of a tiny high pitched bell from Wastell, underlining the remarkable focus and control that characterised this sublime performance. Any initial disappointment I might have felt about the absence of the electronics that filled their AMPLIFY performance were soon forgotten by this invigorating and inspirational opener.
Next up were the table top guitar pairing of Keith Rowe and Tomas Korber, the collision of youth and experience very apparent here with almost four decades separating the ages of these two musicians.
Whilst both took an electric guitar or the remnants thereof as the initial source of their material, Korber seemed to use his instrument more as a generator of sound that he then manipulated using a series of treatments, whilst Rowe’s familiar and yet constantly evolving methodology saw him work more directly with electric fields surrounding the guitar’s pick-up and the vibration of the strings themselves.
The set began well with Korber triumphantly crashing the body of his guitar into the table and Rowe responding with early rasps of radio static, but things soon slipped into a pattern of overlapping drones that didn’t contain a great deal of interesting shape. Whilst very pleasing on the ear this section of the set seemed to settle into a plateau with neither party particularly challenging each other to take the music into new directions.
Two thirds into the set, however, the music built to a crescendo before dropping away in submission to a loud bass drone from Korber that loomed large in the room for a few moments before Rowe’s blankets of static fizz and Korber’s swelling electronics combined in a flurry of colourful activity to take the music to a new high. This final inspired section came to a close too quickly for my liking, but pointed the way to a potentially fertile future for this duo.
The pairing of Dion Workman and Julien Ottavi followed. Throughout the festival Ottavi in particular revealed himself to be a highly intelligent and likeable yet creatively confrontational character both musically and in conversation. His involvement with the equally adroit Workman over recent years has proved increasingly fruitful, resulting in the recent laptop soundscapes of their Erstwhile release misenlian.
Here they set about projecting the audience and sound engineer into a state of confusion by replacing the detailed electronic drones of misenlian and their earlier thunderous soundcheck with a barely audible series of gassy hisses spaced apart by periods of awkward silence. At times the music was so quiet it became lost in the room, subsumed by ambient sounds from the audience, the creaking of raised eyebrows and angry wall banging from the venue’s neighbour, who took the opportunity of this quieter moment to complain about the noise preceding it.
It took real effort to focus on this music, but on the occasions this was possible it revealed moments of glacial beauty, sheer lines of silvery dissonance pockmarked with the briefest spikes of digital animation. This was a beguiling but infuriating listening experience that I would like to hear again without the outside contributions.
Joe Colley and Jason Lescalleet formed a formidable presence placed behind their assorted electronic shrapnel and reel to reel tape decks respectively. Both way over six feet and carrying the presence of a couple of bouncers that decided they’d rather be on the stage than at the door, they proved to be an enthralling spectacle to watch. Colley in particular danced awkwardly about his apparatus, lost in the act of creation whilst Lescalleet scurried about the floor setting dishevelled tape loops running between four impressively large old tape decks.
The music reflected the visual theatre, growling about its way in a similar manner with Colley throwing microphones about the floor and Lescalleet churning crunchy tape sounds together, allowing the music to erupt into a muscular flow. On occasions the ceiling sought to shower Colley in a cloud of dust as the volume reached the highest peaks of the evening so far.
The set closed with Lescalleet kicking his chair into the tape machines and striding away, providing the set with a fitting finale. I enjoyed this performance a great deal, but shorn of the visual theatre the music itself may not have held my interest as well. It followed a well-worn pattern of building loops of sound and feedback to a crescendo but it seemed without a great deal of detailed communication between the two musicians. Whilst there was a lot going on in this cement mixer of a performance it was perhaps a little predictable. Beyond the visual antics, there were no real surprises or compositional twists here. As a live performance, however, this set stuck two large burly fingers up to those detractors of EAI that criticise the absence of anything to watch at a concert. Rousing stuff.
The closing set of each night of the festival was unfortunately affected by unpredictable technical gremlins. Tonight the undeniable mastery of Keith Rowe and Toshimaru Nakamura was stopped after ten minutes when a blown transformer left Rowe without power. Up to this point the subtle shimmer of Nakamura’s no-input mixing board and Rowe’s hand held fan drones and magnetic static fields had grown slowly together in familiar fashion, pushing aside rumoured expectations that they may play in a more fragmented style.
After the interruption the pair took a while to return to the same level of focus, but gradually the music began to sprout shapes and repeating motifs, developing to a point of heart stopping beauty as Rowe weaved finely detailed drone around a slow rhythmic figure Nakamura left hanging in the air.
The Rowe/Nakamura duo showed glimpses of why they are possibly the most consistently exciting and powerful combination in this music today with only the misfortune of equipment failure keeping them from the best performance of the entire festival.
Day two began with a solo performance from Joe Colley. Sauntering on stage with his hands thrust into his pockets it soon became apparent that he was manipulating two tiny secreted objects, each emitting a high pitched squeal that he controlled by opening and closing his grip around them. He then placed these tiny generators into small glass jars on the floor as if nervously capturing a couple of runaway spiders. Hunched over them on the floor, he then set about adjusting their position slightly to vary the sound before finally leaving them to pulse directly into a microphone.
Turning to a small mixer and assorted other electronic detritus, Colley took the sound to a buzzing swarm of cracked drones and industrial squall, contorting his body around the small table supporting his equipment before bemusing the audience by crawling off amongst them to start up some kind of tone generators hidden under seats.
The sound built in volume as the set moved on, similar to his duo with Lescalleet, but alone Colley seemed to have more control over the direction of the sound, at least until nearer the end when he resorted to throwing every switch and wrenching every knob to fold the music in on itself before bringing it to an impressive conclusion.
Joe Colley’s recent solo work on CD has leant towards a more considered form of composition than his performance here, but what his solo set lacked in careful structure and variety it gained in its raw visceral power and the remarkable sight of his onstage persona.
The following set from Sean Meehan, Toshi Nakamura and Taku Unami could not have been more different as it sat in the lower reaches of the volume scale. This performance achieved a similar yet very different level of intensity, but whilst Colley prowled about like a man possessed this trio sat as still as much of their music, allowing the sounds and the silences that framed them to make their own statement.
The enigmatic Meehan focused his contribution entirely upon the fragile and spacious drones that characterise his recent stunning solo release. Nakamura’s shimmering lines of feedback merged well with this to form a sparse bed into which Unami placed brittle blocks of unwavering austerity.
Unami was the loose cannon in this set. His setup for the weekend involved a small selection of simple motor-driven devices and stripped down speaker cones within which he vibrated small objects, stones and pieces of broken glass. Using a laptop to send signals to these objects, Unami had limited control over the sound he created. Whilst being able to make a device simply work or not, he was less able to dictate the precise outcome as the speaker cone occasionally spilled the glass onto the floor and the motorised objects collided with one other.
Unami’s stark, angular improvisational style challenged his two companions here. Whilst Meehan and Nakamura’s sounds work well together, Unami’s contributions continually lifted the music into new areas, not allowing it to settle into familiar patterns. The element of uncertainty and chance kept the music simmering and forced the other two to continually re-evaluate their playing. This was a fascinating set, a tense, thoughtful affair that often presented us with moments of real beauty.
Tim Barnes and Tomas Korber followed with a duo that I personally struggled to come to terms with. Here Barnes chose an intricate set up based around a single snare drum with contact mics attached to the skin. He then made microscopic assaults on this arrangement with a variety of objects, magnifying the sound through a basic mixer to extreme high volumes. Korber matched this with claustrophobic swathes of bass and piercingly high feedback notes again all at ear splitting levels. The duo developed a simple process of taking the music up sheer inclines before cutting things short and starting again. This produced a basic structure for the set, but beyond this I felt the music lacked in detail, any intricacies strangled by the intense volume. The wall of sound that rose and then fell as the music moved along was hard to penetrate and I found the subtleties within difficult to ascertain.
Speaking to others afterwards, this set was well-received by the majority in attendance, leaving me confused as to what I missed with this pairing. My position to one side of the performers may not have helped as this placed me in close proximity to one of the speakers, but generally I found this set disappointingly unrewarding considering the talent involved in its creation.
The nmperign duo of Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey joined forces with Jason Lescalleet for the fourth set of the evening. Never having managed to catch nmperign in a live setting before, I was initially a little disappointed to see all three musicians setting up unfamiliar instruments here.
Kelley and Rainey chose synthesizer and laptop respectively, with Rainey’s computer-producing sounds not far from Kelley’s swathes of analogue warmth. Lescalleet placed aside his tape decks in favour of a collection (I think I counted five) of old Casio sampling keyboards. These museum pieces were capable of capturing just a few seconds of sound through a basic onboard microphone, and Lescalleet spent much of the set grabbing samples from the sound that filled the room and looping them by taping down the keys on the samplers.
The set began with an almost musical series of slow notes from Kelley that quickly grew as they were joined by Rainey’s loops of digital synth and layered into looming clouds of sound. This set differed from just about everything else in the festival as any development was gradual, the musicians seemed to be almost refusing the urge to respond to each other, allowing the music to change very slowly. On the surface there seemed to be little to listen to, but closer attention revealed textural layers of constantly shifting sound, adjusting itself over time as the different elements evolved and moved across each other.
As the set moved on the sound slowly degraded away from the harmonious wash it began with, possibly the result of Lescalleet’s keyboards sampling themselves, breaking the music down into progressively grainy layers. Whilst perhaps not the most original music on display at the festival this set worked for me, providing a satisfying interlude following the extremities of the performances preceding it.
Much expectancy was placed upon the duo of Keith Rowe and Julien Ottavi that brought the evening to a close. The ensuing performance was built mainly around the pair adjusting the tuning on a series of shortwave radios, feeding a combination of static and random broadcasts into the room. Rowe and Ottavi dueled with overlapped news broadcasts complete with reports from New Orleans and Baghdad, sickly classical music stations, hip hop and the scribbled mess of shortwave transmission static. Beyond some distortion fed from a patch on Ottavi’s laptop, the sounds here all seemed to originate from the radios, further developing the shortwave experiments the pair have recently worked with in the group [N:Q].
At the time, I found this set to be in equal amounts interesting, frustrating and amusing. The layering of radios in this manner to cut and splice between extremes is nothing particularly new, and with Rowe’s guitar all but absent from the performance I felt the set lacked any real musicality, resembling more of a random performance by the Scratch Orchestra of whom Rowe belonged in the 1970s. At one point great pleasure came from witnessing Rowe (in his sixties) countering a blast of noise from Ottavi with a lengthy burst from a New York rap station, the absurdity of this situation soon cut short by a garish report from the New Orleans hurricane aftermath.
Ottavi had struggled with his technology from the beginning of the set, having to resort to using a different amp that apparently made it hard for Rowe to tell who was making what sound. Right at the end, Ottavi lost all output and was left with a radio in his hand playing a gentle, unidentified classical melody quietly through its own speaker. This brought about a remarkably powerful ending. Rowe silenced his radios, and got up to leave the stage, virtually dragging Ottavi with him, who departed leaving the radio playing softly under the spotlight. The audience sat in a highly charged hush as the radio played on, and a few minutes passed before a tentative applause broke through and the lights came back on.
Speaking to Rowe afterwards revealed more to me about the set. He told me that it ‘had little to do with music’ and instead concerned itself with ‘bringing out there into here,’ perhaps meaning by this the intensity and confusion of American life and the highlighting of these extremes and vulgarities in a creative performance. He stated that getting up and walking away at the end was an important thing to do, hereby making an overt political gesture.
This conversation allowed me to see this set in a different light. On a purely musical level I took very little from this performance, but although my understanding of its conceptual meaning could be flawed, it clearly had a lot more to offer at this level.
Day three began with the trio of Greg Kelley,(returning here to his more familiar trumpet), Sean Meehan and David Daniell, formerly a guitarist now working with a laptop.
This set allowed Meehan’s rubbed dowel technique to breathe, the gentle acoustic drones he magically produced set the tone for this uneventful yet charming performance. Kelley’s muted growls and hisses found their place in conversation with these frangible lines of sound, with Daniell’s restrained selection of processed field recordings settling into the background almost as a canvas for the other two to work within.
The music remained minimal yet rarely fell into complete silence. Early in the set passing sirens outside the venue threatened to scupper the subtle balance between the trio, but concentration held and the set developed steadily within a delicate framework, with the musicians demonstrating poise and attentive respect for the fragile structure of the music.
This set just worked for me. There were no fireworks, no dramatic shifts in dynamic, just three musicians creating restful, contemplative music via a common language, maybe nothing groundbreaking but a very enjoyable performance all the same.
On paper the duo of Mark Wastell and Keith Rowe was an intriguing combination. It had not been immediately clear how the modus operandi of the two musicians could work together, but the resulting set proved to be hugely rewarding.
Rowe began with a stream of static drones, hovering gently with a few sprinkles of agitated sound dropped into test the waters. Wastell returned to his amplified textures set-up for this set, but with the volume turned up a few notches. He met Rowe head on with detailed volleys of gritty abrasions as contact mikes were rubbed, caressed and otherwise abused by a variety of objects ranging from a cello bow to a ball of steel wool.
The resulting music was a dense, continually changing and highly involving half hour of sculpted sound. In places the volume rose to high levels, yet never did this feel unnecessary, and the music retained its transparency. The fine details within the music retained their clarity, though they came so thick and fast it was often hard to take in the developments as they occurred. This is one set I would very much like to hear released on CD.
Wastell rocked about in his chair and tackled the dials of his mixing desk with grand flamboyant gestures whilst Rowe remained largely motionless, experienced ears processing each event, and dramatic changes in the shape of the music originating from the slightest movement of his hand. About two thirds into the set Wastell sent several bursts of high pitched feedback into the fray, letting each explode across the music for a few seconds before cutting them off abruptly to allow the negative shapes between to take on their own resonance.
This was a powerful-yet-controlled performance that served to underline the creativity and versatility of two great musicians and proved the highlight of the festival for me.
Margarida Garcia and Taku Unami then set about producing a performance that proved both perplexing and enthralling in the same moment.
Garcia began alone, working some soft growls and scrapes from her electric double bass, leading into mournful moments of bowed sound, stopping every so often, as she seemed confused as to why Unami was not joining in as he sat motionless and soundless.
This in fact continued for the first six or seven minutes of the performance, with Garcia pulling some very nice textural vignettes from her instrument until Unami finally took up the opportunity of a break in her playing to introduce one straight line of dry clatter from his laptop and speaker cone set-up before cutting it dead and returning to inactivity.
This process repeated itself and then continued for some time, and it was in fact not until around the twenty five minute mark that the two played together at the same time. Garcia’s explorations of her instrument’s expressive possibilities contrasted completely with Unami’s emotionless constructivist interventions, creating an intriguing imbalance between the two that somehow enriched the music rather than rendering it unworkable.
The cumulative effect reminded me of the call and response methodology of more traditional free improvisation, yet slowed to snail pace so that the conversation between the two musicians was broken down to the point it verged upon the incomprehensible. Placed into the context of the other music at the festival, this set provided a welcome pause for thought, a reminder that there are other extremes possible beyond those concerning volume.
Before beginning his set with Tomas Korber, Julien Ottavi politely informed the audience that the following music would be very loud, and recommended that anyone with sensitive ears should think about leaving the hall. He wasn’t kidding.
The set began with a series of drones, mostly from Korber, growing steadily louder but not reaching any real extremes, until a few minutes in Ottavi dramatically attacked his laptop with a movement equally as violent as the sounds it triggered. An electronic blast of sheer noise rippled across the room, bringing a gasp of exclaim from the audience despite the warning. The severity of the attack, coupled with its hard edged metallic content forced hands uniformly across ears, and caused one of the speakers to give out with a dramatic orange glow.
The set was very short and Korber spent the majority of it looking completely uninterested, possibly because Ottavi’s barrage had left him no room whatsoever, or possibly for technical reasons as the expired speaker and the sheer volume could have made it difficult to hear what was going on within the music.
This set communicated absolutely nothing to me other than a harsh wall of noise. I found it completely uninteresting beyond its vague possibilities as a piece of performance art, and it proved to be the only set of the weekend I wish I had stepped outside for. I have no idea whether it achieved any aims it set out with, but all I took from it was a minor bout of tinnitus.
A long interval followed as emergency repairs were made to the PA system. This enforced break really tested a tired and restless audience, but somehow things came back together for the final set of the weekend, the Tim Barnes and Mark Wastell duo that opened the festival, augmented now by Toshimaru Nakamura. Here the Scotch of St. James pair returned to familiar instrumentation, Wastell’s amplified textures joined again by Barnes’ contact-miked snare and now Nakamura’s mixing board.
The preceding events made focused listening difficult, but those in the audience that had the stamina were rewarded with a beautiful flow of contemplative musical conversation. Nakamura’s wafer thin filigree whispers wrapped around Barnes and Wastell’s intricate constructions of scrapes, chimes and sinewaves, creating a slow relaxed music that captured the attention without having to force itself upon anyone.
The set had no obvious beginning, middle or end, instead developing as a string of small beautifully assembled segments, sometimes flowing into each other, sometimes dropping away into extended silences. When this final performance slipped to a close it felt like it had only just begun, suggesting that this trio would benefit more from a longer performance together, allowing the music to unfurl fully at its own pace.
The half hour that we were treated to, though, served as a fitting finale to a great three days of music. The standard of musicianship and the intensely charged atmosphere of creativity all around ErstQuake 2 was of a level I have never witnessed before. All fifteen sets across the three days saw musicians pushing and pulling at each other to try and take the music to new creative and emotional highs. Some sets worked fantastically, others less so, but overall the festival provided a knowledgeable and expectant audience with three nights of deeply inspirational and satisfying music. Congratulations are due to Jon Abbey, Tim Barnes and Chris Wolf. You can be very proud.
~Richard Pinnell
Pictures by Richard Pinnell and courtesy of Robert J Kirkpatrick.
Posted by RPinnell on November 14, 2005 11:27 AMThanks for this detailed report, Richard. Along with everything else I've heard/read about ErstQuake 2, seems like you had to be there or be square!
Posted by: Brian Marley at November 15, 2005 2:57 AMGood show Richard, glad to finally see this posted. Almost makes me feel like I was there (again).
Posted by: Robert (hatta) at November 15, 2005 1:16 PMGreat read. Thanks Richard. I get the sense I would have been as confounded as you by the "barrage"y sets.
Nice review Richard. It's interesting to see these thoughts after a little reflection. I have found that I still stand by my initial assessments of what I thought were the best performances when we there. It's seems that we are pretty much in agreement with the sets though I wasn't as impressed with the opener. I found your thoughts on the Garcia/Unami set interesting. I thought it had the possibility to be one of the standouts but Unami's approach let that slip away. Still, I think you point out something salient here about it's contrast vs so much of the volume oriented dynamics of the festival. Everything that I REALLY liked was on the quieter side. Not that there wasn't interesting music being made with volume, there was lots. I have to say that I was thoroughly disappointed with everything Ottavi. The set with Workman I found okay, the loud thing I left as it started since I have enough hearing damage. It doesn't sound like I missed anything. Instead I talked to Keith Rowe about the conversation that afternoon and the duo he did with Ottavi. I appreciate the ideas behind it but as a piece of music I found it uninteresting and it seemed like Ottavi was burying Keith sonically. I didn't really sense much communication going on there. As to the political statement, well artists doing that is a fairly tired affair though after Documenta 11 I suppose a lot of people can't get enough. For massive volume though I thought that Daniel Menche set on Sunday pretty much killed. Really great.
Nice thoughts on the Joe Colley stuff vis a vis the performance aspect. Now I'd like to hear it again to see how influenced I was by the visuals. I have to admit being caught up in the noise theater especially the set with Jason. I really dug the nmperign set. Since I wasn't going to see the Phil Niblock set a couple weeks later it was nice to get a healthy dose of massive drone activity like that. Everything with Toshi rocked and justified the obsessive listening jag I got into with his catalog before I came out. Sunday was my favorite day overall. The Rowe/Wastell set might have been my favorite of the festival, neck and neck with the Meehan/Nakamura/Unami set. Right there at the photo-finish was the Scotch + and the Kelly/Meehan/Daniel set. But everything had something to offer. I want to see more Korber and found Barnes versatility fascinating.
An amazing event. Seeing Keith here in Seattle a week later was great as his solo set was one of the best things I've ever seen. This was the dessert after that fine, huge meal.
Jon Abbey, Chris Wolf, Tim Barnes and Collective Unconscious deserve a long round of applause for an extremely satisfying and very well-organized event.
"[Rowe] told me that it ‘had little to do with music’ and instead concerned itself with ‘bringing out there into here,’ perhaps meaning by this the intensity and confusion of American life and the highlighting of these extremes and vulgarities in a creative performance. He stated that getting up and walking away at the end was an important thing to do, hereby making an overt political gesture."
Quite a different aesthetic from Tilbury's, n'est-ce pas?
Makes for a nice companion read to Alastair Wilson's take on the festival over at my place, Richard.
Not having been there I can't comment on some of the polemic that's surrounded Ottavi's performances, but I'm still having a hard time with Misenlian, to be honest. No doubt Walter would say I'm getting too old..
Personally, I gave up on Misenlian. I was going to write a review of it and I forced myself to have several totally focused listening sessions with it, but I either fell asleep midway through or started having terrible feelings of guilt about the better ways I could be using my time. I think it's an impressive piece of work and I could definitely eke some mild form of pleasure out of it, but it seemed more interesting to me as a scientific exercise than an aesthetic experience. In fact, I rather enjoyed playing around with the unusual waveforms on my computer and seeing what pitch ranges I might be perceiving and so on. In the end, it's a challenging piece of music and that in itself gives it some value, but only a tiny bit. If my desire is to be challenged and expand my aesthetic repertoire, which is occasionally but not usually my desire, there are dozens of other musical approaches that accomplish this in different ways, and many of them offer me really vivid experiences of pleasure. A few random good examples are Taku Sugimoto, Dachte Musik, Xenakis, and some of Braxton's non-jazz music. Another good example is the music I'm listening to right now, a style of music called "power metal" (the specific band is Blind Guardian), because on the surface everything about the music is naive, cliched, and entirely lacking the sonic nuance I usually seek; it's like a ridiculous caricature of music as a serious art form. It's a challenge to even listen to a full song, but I'm finding that I can suppress my default aesthetic criteria and open up to an abstract experience of rousing melody, harmony, and forward motion. I think that Blind Guardian is equally challenging as Misenlian, but once I get past the challenges there is a great reward because it taps into a rich reservoir of conventional human emotional experience, whereas with Misenlian the best experiential reward I can hope for is a faint glimmer of revelation about the fine gradations in greyness possible in the human auditory system, which is like, you know, whoopdy do. In any case, I find it theoretically gratifying to know that there are other listeners who are mining the fringes of the human nervous system well enough to deeply enjoy that disc. I'm assuming there are at least a solid dozen or so such people in the world. By the way, I also tried using it as background music, but it didn't work well, unlike a lot of recent electroacoustic music based on continuity and texture that serves this function splendidly.
Posted by: Michael Anton Parker at November 16, 2005 4:15 AMI dig "Misenlian". . .another great jogging disc, that Atari 2600 fulcrum knocks me out. So do those powerful sprinklers tailing off. I never sensed any ostensible inaccessibility about the recording, but I like this, for whatever reason: "the fine gradations in greyness possible in the human auditory system"
Here are my scattered, informal thoughts copied from elsewhere and, yes, I've sinced learned that the knocking was *not* in fact coming from either performer. While I *did* see Julien looking back up at the corner, I thought at the time it was part of some absurd (subversive?), theatrical motive within their weird, weird set (which I liked).
Friday:
Wastell/Barnes -- I didn't much care for this. As the volume increased the tension grew more palpable, but gongs are pretty. Later that night I decided that it was an effectively solemn, incantatory inception to the proceedings, but not much more.
Rowe/Korber -- This missed the mark. I think Keith needed some time to fall in and Tomas frankly looked and sounded a little tentative. . .a really slow crawl which did yield some memorable communication but I found it pretty boring overall.
Ottavi/Workman -- Am I the only one that thought the knocking was being generated by one of the parties involved? I really dug this. If the approach was contrived or a begging of the question or a heavy-handed prestidigitation considering what would come later from Julien, the means didn't matter to me. Ottavi repeatedly leaning, stiff-armed on his table seemed so relevant. Clearly the chairs began to squeak twenty or thirty minutes in but this piece posed a lot of interesting if often awkward questions, a lot of odd looks, and most importantly a lot of great conversation.
Colley/Lescalleet -- This was among the most compelling pieces of theatrics and music I've ever been fortunate enough to see. Paired with the prior set, I was physically moved. Fluid filled my mouth, nose and eyes. Upon realizing one could bring in booze, we walked to the closest bodega and retured to our seats just as the two players were dropping the contact mikes on the floor. We all kept talking, ignorant to what was the beginning of the set. The lights were still on, attendees were still finding their seats. But it was on. Colley running his fingers through Jason's hair after the latter brandished a coil of tape, Jason throwing those mikes at the poor bloke in the corner, the conflagration of cracked sound and unctuous drone building, Lescalleet seemingly making the gig after his daughter's soccer game in the rural Midwest, gold Timex and pleated jeans, this might have been the piece of the weekend. The volume at several junctures caused the ceiling to snow directly over Colley. On at least three or four occasions, drooling mouth open I flung my head toward my friends to the right of me (including Herr Flaum) as they returned gawk. Certain drones produced by Joe were straight out of wall-of-Marshalls metal, Earth or earlier Drumm almost. Totally fucking unbelievable set. I couldn't wait to stand up and cheer. The disc of this duo I purchased is incredible as well, in a wildly different way.
Rowe/Nakamura -- Yeah, one can't avoid the glitch, but I thought it totally changed the direction of the improvisers. I enjoyed the first 'half', but after the delay, it seemed their attention was fiercely centered, absolutely determined, impatient if you can imagine but never at all to a fault. I can't emphasize enough how the dynamics of the first night just made it for me. . .something that was almost absent from Saturday's sets. This pairing meant a lot to me in merely seeing Keith and Toshi together live for the first time. It turns out we saw Wastell, Unami, Meehan, et. al. at the Pakistan Tea House I would come to love later that night. It seems they all bolted at the faux pas. They missed some indelible music.
Saturday:
Colley -- Awesome again. . .Joe worked along vaguely similar lines as his work with Lescalleet the night prior. Watching him headbang to Fela before the set, watching him headbang to Pink Floyd at the bar next door after the set, I am glad to have met this fucker. His physical involvement in the music, playing his pocket, hiding resonators beneath seats well into the audience, spectacular music, spectacular show.
Nakamura/Meehan/Unami -- This was rewarding if indirectly, middle-of-the-road. Unami was one of the trips of the weekend, what a strange, strange musician is he in a totally delightful way. Sean kept working the sliding finger down the stick thing that I saw Gino Robair employ with Butcher a few months back. Perhaps down the line I might be more into such a band, but in the end my utter confusion in watching and listening to Taku made the set for me, not much else. Toshi and Sean locked up in some amazing quavers well into the piece that I won't soon forget.
Korber/Barnes -- This was the best work of both musicians. Barnes was invincible on mere amplified snare (maybe a couple other small tools), Tomas was brutally focused, pouring foundation below and above throughout. I was pessimistic for some reason going in but what a great pairing.
nmperign/Lescalleet -- I didn't like this at all, a wash. To his credit Jason came off entirely different (sonically) as opposed to his set with Colley but this was oil, oil and oil or vinegar, vinegar and vinegar.
Rowe/Ottavi -- This personally was the most disappointing set of the weekend. Throughout the initial five minutes I was so fired up as to emit guttural blurts but this deteriorated into a dunk contest. I like the Duchamp radio captures when you can't tell what the overt quite is, I like how it supports the collective soundscape, how it adds such ghostly pertinence. . .not when itself assumes the soundscape. They should've left the classical piece going for at least ten more minutes.
Sunday:
Meehan/Kelley/Daniell -- We were stuck with molasses service but great burgers at Cafe Lafayette in Ft. Greene atop thinking the festival began at 8 so I only caught the last thirty or so minutes of this set standing in the back of the place. . .still loved it, good to see Kelley's trumpet live. My perception was obviously tarnished but the sound seemed perfect from my vantage point. I swear the bouncer was looking at porn the entire time. Personal highlight: Wastell looking back toward the door at me from the top of the bleachers and giving me that hard rock thumb/pinky gesture.
Rowe/Wastell -- I sat parallel to the musicians on Sunday and it changed things dramatically. This was a mother-fucker of a show. Wastell was in a trance, Rowe performed as beautifully and pedantically as he did all weekend. The concentration was so evident. . .the intensity swaying but completely harnessed, confrontations changed over and over again. I hope this makes disc, my favorite piece involving either performer throughout the weekend.
Garcia/Unami -- . . .not sure what to think about this. Again, it was a privilege to see exactly how Taku plies his craft, this time looking on from behind him. He slapped his laptop twice, slammed it down with authority after a very subtle conclusion to things. I thought Margarida looked a bit tentative and/or ambivalent as far as where things were going but not unlike the Ottavi/Workman set, this asked question after question, completely odd and unique among all combinations but never dull.
Ottavi/Korber -- I don't care if Julien infuriated Tomas. I don't care if I had to plug my right ear through a ten minute spell. This was quite fun. Ottavi's shao-lin chops at his laptop were (obviously) stirring and admittedly he was dominant to the point of dominatrix. Still fun. I like sets of music in this ilk where I laugh openly ("sand in your shorts"), I don't care if they're desultory, offensively loud or not.
Barnes/Nakamura/Wastell -- This was among my three favorites of the weekend, the only set where I drifted in and out of conciousness, as if on an early morning plane. Textures kept changing, Wastell was nearly as focused as seen in his gem with Rowe, Nakamura was as assertive as I've heard him at certain waypoints, someone record this trio. . .absolutely perfect conclusion to the weekend.
Thanks Jon, Tim, Chris and all involved for a blast.
Posted by: Michael Schaumann at November 16, 2005 6:55 AM[Dan-} Not having been there I can't comment on some of the polemic that's surrounded Ottavi's performances
[Brian M-] seems like you had to be there or be square!
Hey Dan, the man in a beret is calling you names!!
_____
[Dan-} Quite a different aesthetic from Tilbury's, n'est-ce pas?
I should probably reiterate here that my thoughts on the Ottavi/Rowe set are suppositions based on the brief conversation I had with Keith just after the performance. As I said in the main text, I may be a little wide of the mark, but this is how I decoded things. Maybe Jon or Brian O. could clarify?
{Dan-} Makes for a nice companion read to Alastair Wilson's take on the festival over at my place, Richard.
Al and I travelled together and shared a hotel room Dan, but as we both knew we would be writing something we made a semi-conscious effort not to discuss the music too much, and I really had no idea what he would be writing until my effort was just about finished. I mention this as I find it spooky that we agreed in many places about the sets we liked and disliked. Maybe its because we are both grumpy old Englishmen that this happened. I think it was Robert (Hatta) that at one point described us as the Stadler and Waldorf of Erstquake. :)
I personally enjoy misenlian quite a bit, although I still think I prefer their better solo discs (Workman's Ching and Ottavi's Nervure Magnetique) slightly more.
misenlian sounds like nothing else on Erstwhile though, a brave departure, and credit to Jon for that.
For anyone interested, an Ogg Vorbis format download of the Ottavi/Workman set at Erstquake can be found here: http://www.ruccas.org/index.php?Dion%20Workman
Or if you inhabit Soulseek I have an mp3 transfer of it shared.
Hey Richard, stop giving away our secrets!
Richard: I think it was Robert (Hatta) that at one point described us as the Stadler and Waldorf of Erstquake. :)
I think that makes Hatta and Letchhausen the Bert and Ernie ;)
Posted by: Alastair at November 17, 2005 1:50 PMI just listened to the download of the Ottavi Workman set and found it utterly boring. Maybe someone could explain the attraction.
Posted by: Dan Warburton at November 22, 2005 9:50 PMThat recording reveals even less of the music than could be heard sat in the room Dan, not much help really.
The problem with that set was that it was barely audible for the most part. When sounds were audible, they were quite promising, some nicely detailed dry hisses and hums, but there just wasnt enough to put the whole thing together.
So the set remains a bit of a mystery to me. It hints that it could have been quite nice, but I guess now that the recording has revealed even less we shall never know.
Posted by: Richard Pinnell at November 23, 2005 2:06 AM"That recording reveals even less of the music than could be heard sat in the room Dan, not much help really."
That sounds like a neat excuse but it doesn't wash. Compare the live recordings of Malfatti (dach, Futatsu) and Sugimoto (Australia et al.) There aren't many notes but they're the right ones. What this testifies to is paucity of imagination, not lack of decibels. A shame too, since Ching is quite good and I can respect what they're doing in Misenlian, even if I don't really care for it. Thought the Workman / Mattin was a bit thin, too, come to think of it.
i liked that set.
i like the recording, too.
Posted by: Grisha at November 23, 2005 6:42 AM{Dan-}That sounds like a neat excuse but it doesn't wash. Compare the live recordings of Malfatti (dach, Futatsu) and Sugimoto (Australia et al.) There aren't many notes but they're the right ones. What this testifies to is paucity of imagination, not lack of decibels.}
Sorry Dan but I really dont see that as necessarily the case here. The music in that set was genuinely very very quiet and very hard to hear.
In the room real focus was needed to make very much out above the background noise, and on the recording there is even less to focus on.
I am not saying that it was a great set, merely that the bits I could hear showed promise. Comparing this to Dach or Sugimoto is just not accurate. In those cases the music can be made out pretty easily, its just very sparsely played. In many cases at the EQ set there is music happening, the volume was just very low.
I am not trying to defend the whole thing, as I said in my review I found the set pretty frustrating, and for all I know there could well be a lack of imagination there, (there certainly seemed to be with in Ottavi's set with Korber) but I don't accept that this is definitely the case here as I just don't know.
I suspect that neither you nor I have actually managed to hear everything that they played in that room, there was more going on than can be heard on that recording, but the moments I did hear sounded pretty good.
Posted by: Richard Pinnell at November 23, 2005 7:08 AM"That sounds like a neat excuse but it doesn't wash. Compare the live recordings of Malfatti (dach, Futatsu) and Sugimoto (Australia et al.) There aren't many notes but they're the right ones. What this testifies to is paucity of imagination, not lack of decibels. A shame too, since Ching is quite good and I can respect what they're doing in Misenlian, even if I don't really care for it. Thought the Workman / Mattin was a bit thin, too, come to think of it."
I've been mostly avoiding weighing in on these threads, but I'm in agreement with most of this, with a few tweaks. I personally found the Dion/Julian set to be the most disappointing of the festival. it was Dion's only set there, and it seemed pretty clear that Julien had decided beforehand (along with his collaborators) that this set would be supersparse, the set with Keith would be mostly shortwave, and the set with Tomas would be extremely loud. so on one hand he was showing his range throughout the three nights, but it proved to be too inflexible of an approach in reality, and led to this set being kind of a waste, to my ears.
"paucity of imagination" isn't the correct phrase to use, though. you should keep in mind that this was one set in the middle of a long night, the third of fifth sets, and it makes even less sense out of that context. you can accuse Julien of plenty of things, but "paucity of imagination" is not among them.
also, I haven't heard that recording and haven't bothered to play the one Barry made, but his approach to recording the festival was not well suited to this set specifically. the communication between the musicians and he beforehand was less than ideal (the soundcheck was misenlian-level, cool stuff), or he could have recorded it direct instead of in the room.
but I know Dion and Julien are happy with the live recording, they're the ones who put it up. so since everyone ever talked about here seems to show up, maybe if one of them sees this, they can give us their own perspective.
Posted by: jon abbey at November 23, 2005 8:41 AMYes, it'd be nice to have more musicians in the discussion for sure, Jon!
"I suspect that neither you nor I have actually managed to hear everything that they played in that room, there was more going on than can be heard on that recording"
That begs the question as to why they wanted to make the recording available at all, then. Surely the only reason you might want to release your music is for other people to hear it. If a) there's nothing to hear or b) what music there is is inaudible for other technical or extramusical reasons, I don't see any point in putting it out at all. But I guess this ties in with the theme of the public discussion session Alastair mentions in his PT review. It seems Julien is of the opinion that he should put everything out there and let the listener formulate his/her value judgements. That's all I'm doing here. Personally, I'm firmly of the opinion that there are far too many recordings available of improvised music (though as I tend to record a lot myself and have released two live albums I'm probably guilty as charged). But it seems releasing (or uploading) recordings of every single gig is, these days, as simple as having your own blog - and about as edifying.
[Dan- That begs the question as to why they wanted to make the recording available at all, then. Surely the only reason you might want to release your music is for other people to hear it.]
Complete agreement there Dan. Apart from being a nice recording of a hundred or so great people together in one place trying hard not to make their chairs creak, I have no idea what has been gained from that release.
Having heard what Dion/Julien had to say about hastening the death of the CD in that forum though, it wouldn't at all surprise me if they placed the recording online to derail any hopes of a CD release.
Maybe as Jon says one of them can chime in here to let us know what the whole thing was about!?
I think it would be great for every musician to have something like a blog wherein they could post every single musical event they generate. If they get within a foot of their instrument, if they have the most fleeting idea about a sound they like, their most rabid fans can hear all about it.
However, I think that only releasing music this way seems a touch lazy, and has a flattening effect on the musician's body of work. Nobody produces consistently bad or consistently good material, and I think that some process of distinction is very important.
I think that it takes a little bit of bravery to choose among one's own works and really push for greater attention for those for those that one feels are the standouts.
Not that I have any, you know, vested interests in this or anything...
I don't agree with any of that. I think that, as Dan said, there's too much music out there already, and putting up massive amounts of subpar work doesn't do anyone any good, even the "most rabid fans". I'd like to hear from anyone who checked out the huge excerpts of the misenlian sessions that Julien posted, to let us know whether they felt those were worth listening to even once, in retrospect. I didn't do so myself, but I didn't hear positive things from those I know who did.
and it doesn't take any "bravery" to "choose among one's own works and really push for greater attention for those for those that one feels are the standouts", that's simply what artists do every day. it's the very rare artist that errs on the side of being too tough on themselves and not releasing enough (John Wall, Kevin Drumm at times, are two that come to mind).
Posted by: jon abbey at November 23, 2005 11:04 AMRP) "it wouldn't at all surprise me if they placed the recording online to derail any hopes of a CD release."
It'd be brave indeed for any label to invest in releasing a set like that.
W) "I think that it takes a little bit of bravery to choose among one's own works and really push for greater attention for those for those that one feels are the standouts."
What's brave about it, Will? It's a simple question of value judgement, and as musicians we make value judgements all the time. What would be brave (or foolhardy perhaps) would be to release a recording fraught with problems in favour of something more "perfect" which takes fewer risks. (That's what IU understand Rowe did with Harsh.)
JA) "it's the very rare artist that errs on the side of being too tough on themselves and not releasing enough (John Wall, Kevin Drumm at times, are two that come to mind)."
Amen on that. Wall's new Cphon is absolutely superb. What's KD up to these days, anybody know? Haven't heard much from him since he went over to the dark side..
"What's KD up to these days, anybody know? "
http://www.volcanictongue.com/columns.html
Posted by: jon abbey at November 23, 2005 9:48 PMSweet. Greg's almost as good writing about music as he is playing it :)
Posted by: Dan Warburton at November 23, 2005 10:39 PMI was suggesting that there's a lack of value judgement implied in dumping everything out via the internet or what have you, and not picking specific moments that the musican thinks are highlights. This is what I understood Julien Ottavi to be advocating (and doing).
And hey, I'm all for risk-taking if it makes engaging music... Nothing foolhardy about releasing that...
"but I know Dion and Julien are happy with the live recording, "
CELINE ???????????
Dion, i meant
"Yes, it'd be nice to have more musicians in the discussion for sure, Jon! "
dunno .... probably
sounds a little "as usual" to me
but
ANYONE HEARD "INTENSIVE CARE" ?
cheers
n
Céline, hahaha! God love ya, Akchoté! Louis-Ferdinand of course :)
Posted by: Dan Warburton at November 27, 2005 6:57 AMCeline ( Louis-Ferdinand )
wrote one day :
POUR VISER JUSTE, VISEZ BAS !
n
anyway ...the new Madonna is really unberable, the new TATU a little disapointing though better and better each time you listen again ( wish Russian versions would be worldwide released ) and Robbie is above any expectations
haven´t listened much other stuff the last weeks
cheers
n
if i may take up the torch in defending the ottavi/workman set. . i liked it a lot. i agree with jon abbey that the context was really important in how it came across. a lot of the sets i saw at erstquake i liked, but they didn't really surprise me or go against expectation at all. dion and julien's set was one of the few that i thought was actually fairly unexpected and provocative. it wasn't necessarily fascinating as *music,* but i thought it was great as drama and, ahem, "gesture." i really had no idea what was going to happen and what their intent was with the performance, but i perceived it as anti-music or anti-performance more than anything else. gave a lot to think about, and i always enjoy when an artist's intent is not super-obvious. i spoke with dion a bit about it after the performance, and he confirmed some of my suspicions and generally had an interesting take. i do remember him specifically mentioning cage's '4'33"" (the famous 'silent' piece, where all the sound comes from the audience) and wanting to try to update its impact for a contemporary audience. perhaps it worked? given that take, i think the squeaking chairs, street noises, etc. were really part of the set. dion even said something like, "the neighbor started knocking right when we started; it was so perfect!"
Posted by: jesse kudler at November 30, 2005 5:00 PMYou render clear my thoughts! Everything Jesse said!
(and good to see you again)
Posted by: Michael Schaumann at November 30, 2005 5:47 PM"i do remember him specifically mentioning cage's '4'33"" (the famous 'silent' piece, where all the sound comes from the audience) and wanting to try to update its impact for a contemporary audience."
In that case they should have credited the performance to Cage and billed it as 4'33" - played back to back 8 times
I'm the least qualified person to say 'you had to be there', and it stings my ass whenever a critic of live music retreats to such a position. I'm sticking to my take, even though I can empathize with Dan's sentiment, or as it were, sympathize had I not attended the performance. There! I've gone and done it. Silence was molested and in turn "questionable" music was created nonetheless.
I'm listening to Kevin Drumm's "Second" on my friend's really expensive system right now as long as we're getting embarassing n' self-righteous shit out of the closet. Food tastes better.
Posted by: Michael Schaumann at November 30, 2005 10:33 PMno, that's not what it was, they both made more than a few sounds of their own over the course of the set.
Posted by: jon abbey at November 30, 2005 10:33 PM(that last was in answer to Dan's 4'33" comment, Pan Schaumann snuck in before me)
Posted by: jon abbey at November 30, 2005 10:34 PMDan: "In that case they should have credited the performance to Cage and billed it as 4'33" - played back to back 8 times"
Actually, you don't have to repeat your non-sound x 8. Cage said the performance could be of any length, though the title of the piece should remain unchanged, 4'33". But I do like the idea of replicating nothing eight times over!
Posted by: Brian Marley at December 1, 2005 3:47 AM[Jesse]dion and julien's set was one of the few that i thought was actually fairly unexpected and provocative. it wasn't necessarily fascinating as *music,* but i thought it was great as drama and, ahem, "gesture."
I can see your take on this, but I have to say that in my mind there was a preponderance of sets that were more interesting as theatre then as music. While theirs may have been the first, and thus deserves the unexpected label, it later seemed more like the opening salvo and became increasingly conventional.
(and good to see you around, I briefly met you at the Seattle show of your summer tour, which I enjoyed a lot)
Posted by: Robert (hatta) at December 1, 2005 11:45 AMhi michael and hatta! thanks for the kind words, both in person and above. definitely introduce yourselves again if i see you in person. robert, i wanted to meet you in nyc, but i never quite figured out exactly who you were. sorry we didn't get to chat more in seattle. maybe i'll luck out and be there in 2006 again. . . we'll see.
anyways. . .
"I can see your take on this, but I have to say that in my mind there was a preponderance of sets that were more interesting as theatre then as music. While theirs may have been the first, and thus deserves the unexpected label, it later seemed more like the opening salvo and became increasingly conventional."
i guess i don't really see the distinction. an enjoyable set is an enjoyable set, for me. i'm not fan of histrionics, or needless "stage shows," but i did find myself fairly riveted for both of the first two of julien's sets (with dion and rowe, respectively). maybe taku unami's sets sat with me more like what you're describing. i was really *interested* in what he was doing, and i've thought a lot of about the implications of his setup, but i never really got fully engaged in what he was doing on stage.
Posted by: jesse kudler at December 14, 2005 3:16 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................