Sharks are in the water & circling...

I didn't particularly enjoyed the amplifiy box. When I read the reviews about it I started feeling
like maybe I dont understand anything anymore about this musical approach, because reviews seemed a bit different from what I heard.

My general feeling about "amplifiy" or "EAI" or "ErstMusic" somehow could be that there is too much "form" for not enough "content". I mean I am not impress anymore just because someone plays with certain equipment or with such special concept. I expect from "art" related activities to provide me with something different, something that can be exchanged between people, something "alive", something with guts, with a bit of sense even maybe.

recently some of this "classical type electro or acoustic improv" dont fill me up with this. no surprise, no crazyness, not so much fun...

Then maybe, the reason for not many negative reviews about amplify is because maybe certain people are ok if you really dont give them anything so disturbing, so "new", so different. In a sense there is something that makes the actual improv music scene looks "weird" from outside (this people playing sine waves, or playing guitar with objects) but from inside this is nothing so exceptionnal anymore, so again there is a need for more "sense" more "content".

dont know if this is so clear. sorry.

havent heard the IMJ box.

alexandre

Alexandre, I think I understand what you're saying, and I can relate, but only partially. The Amplify set really impressed me for many reasons, and I have been enthusiastic about it since first hearing it. These days, now that the initial overwhelming buzz has subsided, I find that I return to it, but not for the sake of getting to know all of the music as a single, related set as I did in the beginning. Now there are two, maybe three discs that I listen to regularly for the same reasons that I listen to Hands of Caravaggio or La Voyelle Liquide from time to time. The rest is nice, but hasn't held up near as well as the really good stuff in that set the way I'd imagined it would. That's not to say I don't still appreciate the set for what it is as a "document" (I know that word's been passed around concerning the box gratuitously, but I really do think it applies).

Anyway, this site is plenty Erst-centric as it is, and I'd rather stay away from rehashing any old discussions about that box. But it's plenty interesting to see how tastes change over time and how old feelings about a certain work are influenced by time and the newness in other stuff.

I've been back and forth on acquiring the IMJ box, but haven't heard anything I'd consider definitive about it as a whole. Some concensus posted here would be welcome.

Well, the IMJ box was much more a grab bag of many musicians who happened to occupy a certain section of the new music scene in Japan whereas the Amplify set was a through-conceived grouping (and subsequent mini-groupings) put together by Jon and organized according to his own vision. So, whatever else, it has a conceptual cohesiveness that the IMJ box lacks (though, personally, I think there's lots of excellent work therein and even the less successful tracks are often pretty interesting).

I do agree with Alexandre that, sometimes, formalist aspects can overwhelm those of "content" (if I'm understanding his use of the term correctly) which is one of the reasons I value things like 'Doris' so highly, performances where, imho, the two qualities are inextricably mixed.

I also, generally speaking, like the idea that some listeners are finding the state of the art in eai to be a little bit staid. That attitude can only help spur things on.

"Now there are two, maybe three discs that I listen to regularly"

-> which ones, al?

form is content.

I think the difference in response to IMJ and Amplify is definitely because they're so different in terms of their aims and scope. Jon's set is a document (and yes, the word is very apt in this case, I think) of a single weekend of shows by a group of musicians most of whom have worked with Erstwhile in the past. So it's something like a label overview as well as a document of the festival, which makes it very consistent and cohesive. It reflects a particular aesthetic, and as Brian pointed out, a tremendous amount of conceptual planning and thinking.

I don't mean to imply that IMJ lacked concept, but it was certainly much more scattered and broader in its aims and ideas; it doesn't quite make claims to be the definitive sampler of Japanese improv, and many critics have complained that it leaves out a lot (which is true), but it is fairly broad in its scope and the range of different types of music it accepts, from Erst-style EAI to free jazz to music developed from traditional Japanese styles. Personally, I love that box, I think its variety is one of its strongest points, just as coherency is the strongest point of the Amplify set.

And responding to Alexandre, I don't really see the distinction between form and content here. In abstract, lyric-less music like this, aren't form and content synonymous? Tomas succinctly suggested that "form is content," and I think he's right, especially as applies to things like EAI, free jazz, harsh noise, etc. And, though it seems like we've had this conversation many, many times, I don't think EAI lacks surprise, craziness, or fun at all - I hear lots of those in this music, particularly in live settings like this box set. Read Taku Sugimoto's essay in the Amplify booklet, or listen to Keith Rowe inserting baseball broadcasts into "Treatise," and tell me this music doesn't have a sense of humor. ;)

I get from Alexandre's comments that he is not slamming anyone/thing in particular, just that he's disenchanted by much of the music he's heard lately in that realm. Why not? As one example, there is more than one way that Sachiko's last couple of releases can be appreciated, but the path of least resistance follows that of form. In terms of content, there is precious little to be had and I'd be surprised if even she disagreed.

Academics are a fascinating subset of music interest, but in the eye/ear of the beholder, if there are little-to-no dynamics to be held... A few guys here (myself included, to the extent that music is "thought provoking" as process) get charged by this stuff and I for one am often rendered speechless when some of the crazier techniques and collaborative approaches yield shit that is undeniably "musical". At least that's a large part of the appeal for me in the music we're discussing. Mostly though, I'm just a sucker for music that challenges standards.

Tomas, to answer your question: the Nakamura sets of the first disc, "Tint" nearly in its entirety, and the phenomenal Lehn/Schmickler set from disc 4.

OK, fair enough, but in the sense that you guys seem to be using the term, what "content" could there possibly be in any abstract, lyric-less music? To me, the content of Sachiko M's music is the fact that she's challenging standards of beauty and music, making music that is completely against the grain, and yet has a kind of alien beauty all its own. That's my subjective impression, of course, which is part of the point: in any music of this sort, "content" is completely in the mind and reactions of the listener, not really the music itself. So maybe the form is all that matters, and you can like it or not, read deeper meanings into it or not, depending on your own reactions.

hi

yes, this discussion is helping me to put it more clear.

what I miss is the feeling of "art expression".

lets make a comparison with a painter maybe.

take Jean-Michel Basquiat (young american black artist from graphiti/cartoon culture):

- the form of his works : use of intense colors, graphiti/child like drawing, big pannels, collage, dirty/free apsects

- the content : his conditions of black american, love for jazz, drugs... his frustrations as a human in capitalist society...

then I feel, the form is not enough. it is just a concept, a way. what makes it all great, its what is inside of the guy, the motivation for his "art expression", what he's got to "say", with or without speech.

then, somehow, I feel that this is totally missing, for me, at the moment, in the field of this "whatever" acoustico-free-electro-EAI-while-improv-music.

I am not trying to really put anything down here, or being critical for the sake, but this is honestly something I am questionning.

In the idea to make parallele between music and art (painting for example), I really feel that for all the major artists, we must realise that both "form" and "content" are very, very important.

Then to little go on with the Amplify example, for me it is more about just trying to make something a bit ok, a bit nice looking. it is really not feeding my "sensitivity". and in this trouble world, i feel artist have more to do than just make something nice and vanish... there must be something else... I must say eventually that I think "rock" is quite poor as well since Cobain and Nirvana, etc. etc. etc.

have a good day

Alexandre, I'm enjoying reading your comments on this topic. I think that if this new music is going to retain any of the vitality it's had in recent years, it is going to need to answer some tough questions like the ones you raise.

Ed, understood completely. With Alexandre's ideas in mind, perhaps part of the problem (with respect to content) is that there has been very little in terms of documentation, aside from reviews and published interpretations of what the music's about from outsiders (like ourselves) to the practice itself.

My example using Sachiko's music of late was meant to show that a common preconception among music lovers is that dynamics have to be there. In other words... variations in pitch, tempo, layers, etc. often need to be there in order to sustain human interest, if not only for the sake of having something to latch onto. Those elements are utterly absent from 1:2, et al., and to be honest, the praise-laden reviews I've read of those records have had little to do with the "music" itself, right or wrong.

I just had a look at the track list of the IMJ box on the IMJ site.

well somehow I feel there is maybe more creativity involved in the IMJ box (variety of approaches, genres, instrumentation) than in the Amplify Box. I must say that I havent got the IMJ one, maybe all the tracks are not so good...

yeah its about this as well, I didnt mention this word in my previous comment : "creativity".

I think it's a mistake to assume the same critical paradigms apply between the visual arts and the musical ones, and this is so particularly when the cited artist is Basquiat rather than perhaps Kandinsky or Rauschenberg. This is abstract music. The dichotomy between "form" and "content" does not hold and is only a kind of convention in primarily representational art. The problem here is that EAI doesn't represent anything other than itself.

the issues of "creativity" or "beauty" as primary aesthetic criteria are by now rather naive. Better just to say that a piece of music doesn't hit you, your aural preferences don't go there or some such thing. I'm not into all of the box. the sets by Sachiko/Nakamura and Stangl/Kurzmann/Sugimoto don't do anything for me. the rest however is pretty fabulous. I'm aware though that Ed and others like the S/N set, so I think it's probably a matter of taste. What I'm finding out now is that there's a particular area of EAI that I jell with best and it generally covers the Otomo/Nakamura/Muller/Voice Crack axis. I like a certain level of busy-ness.

The IMJ set is really great. I don't listen to it that often, but I do enjoy it. It covers the basic aesthetic of the label, which is fairly broad, and nothing more.

I'm pretty sure the Amplify box will for me hold up pretty well. I carry the whole thing around on my iPod and tap into it now and again. One thing I don't need, though, is yet another "review" of the set. maybe one of these days when I get some time, I'll write an "anti-review" of the box and make it as idiosyncratic as I am. One of my regrets with it, though, is that the Stangl/Kurzmann set wasn't on it. That's a great one, even if it sounds pretty much like Schnee, probably my favorite CD in the whole catalogue.

alexandre, i'm not sure if we mean the same thing with the words "form" and "content"... when i use the word "form" (and i'm not sure if i use it correctly), i mean the way you chose to put the audiomaterial together, independently of what you chose as your material (sine waves, the kick of a bassdrum or whatever).

"but the path of least resistance follows that of form." -> al, i disagree, but maybe we don't mean the same thing with "form"... i mean: when you get to a point where you just dig everything that sounds (quite literally - to me the are no "bad" sounds, just the things that we associate with them, maybe, and i try to ged rid of that) you have to start caring about questions of form to still make something that makes sense. i mean, if not you can as well just quit making music go to a building site and dig the sounds there (and they're quite enjoyable, aren't they). wouldn't that be the "path of least resistance"?

alexandre, "artistic expression" often is about showing how you feel and trying to get other people to feel this way, too. i much prefer music that leaves more room for individual interpretation rather than providing a certain "message". to provide precise "messages" is often to patronize the audience, i think. maybe you are searching for something "behind" the sound (the "message"?) but as stupid as it may seem, i just think that's not the job of the musician, but rather your own. listening is a crative act as well.

sorry if i'm too un-systematic at argumenting - i'm not good at this.

...and of course i agree with both ed and bill. i think you guys are much better in making coherent statements than myself ;)

I really wanted to stay out of this, and being in the middle of a crazy week here has helped. but what I'd like to hear is some specifics rather than generalities: Alexandre, which musicians, in whatever genre, do you find "alive" and "creative" these days? which projects of theirs? what is the most successful new record/s you've heard in the last year or two?

i must go to sleep now,
so many remarks/questions came.
it makes me interested in continuing this discussion
i must say though, that i find it hard to write in the forums. because at some point, i feel i would like to start writing really long thing, to start explaining my points, to be clear and precise, explain maybe my position, and then i dont know if i want to start doing all this on the internet.
i like the idea of discussing very much though, i wish we could all sit down in some place and have a talk!
I must go to bed.

Well, "artistic expression" is something that many have disavowed at this point. Especially as a priority or goal (to deny it completely as a factor is naive and disingenuous, even Cage was "expressing himself" if only by trying so hard not to).

The issue of content is, as someone said above, pretty moot, as well: the kind of "content" you talk about re: Basquiat is pretty extra-musical; Does Tilbury have this kind of "content" for you? If so, it's likely based on his words, not his pianisms (the "content" of which, for me, is an abiding residence in the Feldman catalog).

Now, for that kind of "content," one can always turn to titles (again, "extramusical," but directly associated with the music, at least). A title like I am frustrated with capitalist society's inability to satisfy my non-quantifiable needs, or even to acknowledge them might feed your need? Or too direct? : )

As for the original topic of the thread, perhaps the lack of criticism of "this" music (which I've noticed as well) relates to a simple notion: those that don't much like it feel that they don't relate to it, and don't often bother to approach it; those that often like it tend to stick to reviewing "safe" material that they already suspect they'll like (no real shockers on the box in question).

There is a "safety" that people are noticing in this onkyo-ha/erstwhile music, a safety of extramusical expression (innocuous titling, abstract associated images, "theoretical"ish discourse), which doesn't appeal to everyone. As much as I have "solipsism" concerns, I can only say: approach the sounds as the content; there's no other choice available.

don't run afoul of the law,

Joel

I suspect the main reason for a generally positive response (setting aside the matter of the actual music) is that only critics with a strong prior commitment to this area of music, & who feel that they're going to like the contents of the box, are likely to want to spend the enormous amount of time & energy reviewing such a formidable document. Speaking for myself I can say that while I've purchased or arranged to review several Ersts in the past, I decided to give the box a pass for now.

hi

joel reaction was very interesting
but also there was this question from jon about the cds that had good effect on me last 2 years
also so many things I am thinking about.

my point in general is not only based from the amplify box or erstwhile records. i live in paris and often go to instants chavirés and other music venues as well. it has been about two years that me and a bunch of friends, rather all around 30 years more or less old musicians and aficionados (or just friends coming once to a gig), often are disapointed with "improv" concerts and for those who follows more seriously, also with the cds being released. i dont know what is happening with us. somehow we really like the improvisation music idea, also compositions derived stuff, rock, jazz, techno, folk, blues, elvis presley... and probably when we slowly entered world of free rock, free jazz, free improv, noise, harsh noise, we were happy with it. it maybe had promises of something a bit "different". and slowly and slowly the "improv" side of it turned into something we feel had become very old in a very short amount of time. i still really like listening to CAN (german band from 1960s, i mention this for no confusion), their music is still carrying something for me, though its old, done and redone maybe, not so revolutionnary even maybe, but it works. somehow i am surprised to dislike "improv" cds i liked 4 years ago. maybe i simply cant explain this. maybe it sounds even stupid! excusez-moi! on the other hand, there are some records from this period i found briliant, but maybe some of this musicians seemed to have recently turned into something else i dont understand and like, this "safe" one to take back joel's word.

from there i can come back to stuff we were discussing before, is this lack of time resistance a sign of a lack of "content"? lack of "motivation", lack of "necessity"? is art in general a necessity for the art makers?

to finish this one; I will say that in french we use "le fond", like the background, the root, et "la forme", the "content", the style, the technic used.

well. hope this can make some of you react.

>>>>Better just to say that a piece of music doesn't hit you, your aural preferences don't go there or some such thing. I'm not into all of the box. the sets by Sachiko/Nakamura and Stangl/Kurzmann/Sugimoto don't do anything for me. the rest however is pretty fabulous. I'm aware though that Ed and others like the S/N set, so I think it's probably a matter of taste.

I think this is a very important point to make. The Sachiko/Nakamura set is my favorite in the box, whereas the "busy-ness" of Muller & Voice Crack often, but not always, turns me off a bit (cf. poire_z et al). Ultimately, as much as we fall into objective language in these discussions, this stuff comes down to subjective taste. I think I've argued a similar point on here a few times, but I really do believe that there's relatively little objectivity to be found in a piece of music. Alexandre (and many others, I'm sure) finds no creativity in improv, and I (and lots of others too) happen to hear the same piece of music and think it's wonderfully creative and exciting. It's taste, what can you do?

i am not saying i found no creativity in improv in general at all. i am talking maybe about recent years, maybe last 3 years production. there are stuff from improv i really like of course, old and new, even simply, i really am into it, that's why i am questionning so much why a part of it which has been recently given lots of space, the japanese scene, erstwhile and their followers in europe (berlin, london, paris) has somehow started really making me board. i think it is thomas who said that the sugimoto's writing is maybe a good proof of a sense of humor in improv, but somehow i understand the statement sugimoto is making. its quite close somehow of what i think. i bought the amplify box in a way to check by myself that i would find it quite disapointing.

now i am thinking suddenly about what otomo said i think in the article about offsite in the wire, he said something like we are in a turning point, and the new generation of musicians is feeling there is something else to be done, i think he even said he encourages their actions.

somehow maybe i built to much expectations on this improv thing. i wish every concert has such a tension, such an urgence, such an involvment. something intense and well presented. form and content.

i dont know

i spelt "board" instead of "bored"
lapsus
feeling board

>somehow maybe i built to much expectations on this improv thing.

I think this is an important point. The idea of free improv quickly becomes tiresome in practice. ("Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!" to quote some very wise ants from The Simpsons.) Rules are necessary; structure is necessary; form is necessary. You can't achieve transcendence without structure. To pick a thuddingly obvious example, I haven't heard Derek Bailey's Ballads album, but I'd be more willing to give it a listen than any of the other dozen or more records he's put out since then.

>

I couldn't agree less, actually. Duos for Doris was totally freely improvised and is as transcendent as any music I know, in any genre. the vast majority of any style of music is boring or subpar or whatever you want to say. Writing the above statements as if they're facts strikes me as completely absurd.

>

an odd example, since you haven't actually heard it, but to me it just sounded like watered-down Derek, with heads on each end.

Alexandre, I love Can too (until Future Days, anyway, I believe Tago Mago is the best rock record ever made), but can't you come up with some specific examples from the last 30 years of artists/musicians/records that you feel are "alive" and "creative"? what music do you love, specifically? you've given almost no clue as to that, and without that, this discussion seems a bit pointless to me, at least in terms of my being able to offer any input. as Ed says above, I do think a lot of music comes down to taste, at least in terms of what areas you personally connect with.

repost, with fixed quotes (why don't double arrows work on this site?):

"Rules are necessary; structure is necessary; form is necessary. You can't achieve transcendence without structure."

I couldn't agree less, actually. Duos for Doris was totally freely improvised and is as transcendent as any music I know, in any genre. the vast majority of any style of music is boring or subpar or whatever you want to say. Writing the above statements as if they're facts strikes me as completely absurd.

"To pick a thuddingly obvious example, I haven't heard Derek Bailey's Ballads album, but I'd be more willing to give it a listen than any of the other dozen or more records he's put out since then."

an odd example, since you haven't actually heard it, but to me it just sounded like watered-down Derek, with heads on each end.

Alexandre, I love Can too (until Future Days, anyway, I believe Tago Mago is the best rock record ever made), but can't you come up with some specific examples from the last 30 years of artists/musicians/records that you feel are "alive" and "creative"? what music do you love, specifically? you've given almost no clue as to that, and without that, this discussion seems a bit pointless to me, at least in terms of my being able to offer any input. as Ed says above, I do think a lot of music comes down to taste, at least in terms of what areas you personally connect with.

I guess I’m kind of in Phil’s camp when it comes to the value of some sort of underlying structure/method in music. Bailey’s BALLADS is a good un awright, but I think most, if not all, of his stuff (at least what I've heard) has an underlying structure/logic to it. Extemporaneous maybe, but extant just the same.

Just to make the obvious point: why can't structure be improvised? The underlying structure doesn't have to be anything as obvious as the songs on "Ballads" (which is an ok album, I think), but I think most good improv has some form to it, some sense that the musicians are working together to create something greater than just the sum of their little guitar squiggles and electronic doodles. I've rarely listened to an improv album on Erstwhile or IMJ and felt like it was just formless meandering.

Well said, Ed.

"I've rarely listened to an improv album on Erstwhile or IMJ and felt like it was just formless meandering. "

I've always felt this kind of improv to be more of a narrative than a refrain. I think it's the narrative side that people don't get. And why is "structure" a criterion here? I don't see "structure" in this kind of music, but that doesn't mean it's unstructured either.

ok - i think i lost track. i'm getting all mixed-up with "structure", "form", "content", "logic" etc. as far as i can follow this discussion i agree with ed's last post. most improv i like sounds quite structured to me, obviously not in the sense of a pre-conceived structure... isn't a simple crescendo already (part of) a structure?

Tomas is on the head: there is always structure. Even if the only obvious markers of it are start and finish. Every past effort by the human brain to avoid structure has been an abject failure.

For those who have listened to (metrically/harmonically) "free" music (composed or improvised) for any lenth of time, the statement that there are infinite organizational principles (explicit or no) should be a cliche by now.

The notes about "personal taste" are also givens.

Alexandre: if you're feeling jaded by a specific "scene" in music, give it a rest. Listen to other stuff for a while. Your ears might be asking you for some variety. I mean, shit, I love eating raw fish but if I eat it every meal I'll be pretty sick of it. Or better yet, you could start making your own music...

As for players being alive vs. stagnant, only time will tell. I've been a little concerned about some players I like, lately (won't name names), but the jury's still out and might not come back till we're dead.

And this:
"The idea of free improv quickly becomes tiresome in practice. ("Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!" to quote some very wise ants from The Simpsons.) Rules are necessary; structure is necessary; form is necessary. You can't achieve transcendence without structure."
I shudder. The practice of playing freely is to make a discipline of freedom. Rules are not necessary at all to make structured, organized, "transcendent" music (whatever that means) - the issues of personal intent, creativity of listening and playing, and sympathy for playing partners play a much higher role in the success of an improvisation experience, in my view. Although I've made music that felt like crap, only to be deeply proud of the results on playback, so there.(?)

Jenny

just in case it wasn't clear, I wouldn't release anything on Erstwhile that I didn't hear the structure in, that's maybe the most important criterion I use. this is actually my problem with a lot of the recent Mego releases (Rob Mazurek's is an ideal example): nice sounds, but I don't hear the structure a lot of the time.

Just a few comments about this interesting discussion.
Improv, as an official genre, exists since the middle of the 60s. It's old now. And less and less surprising for a lot of ears. These last years, there was a new genre with electronic material. It seemed new and important. But, quickly, for many people (Hi Alexandre), it resulted in boring gigs and discs. Maybe because there are too many musicians who believed that it's easy to make music with laptops, samples....
So, always the same problem : talented people can make interesting music. In any genre. Old improv is not dead. Last week I attended a duo by Michel Doneda and dancer Yukiko Nakamura (it was not the first time I saw them together). And it was completely amazing. I've attended hundreds and hundreds of gigs (in any genre), maybe I should say thousands... And I know Michel Doneda since the middle of the 70s... But on that last gig I was completely stupefied. I had never heard that before. Of course the stucture was there, and it was definitely improvised.
Structure is not always easy to understand in some pieces. For instance in Phosphor

"there is always structure"

Perhaps someone here could define this term as it applies to electroacoustic music. I could understand the word "logic" used in reference to this music but not structure. But this is probably a matter of interpretation.

is this an odd idea "baka guy"?
to think i want to feel bit of jimy hendrix, kurt cobain, yoshihide otomo and nick drake in improvised music?
bug sound shaker stuff

If Alexandre is the same Alexandre I think he is, he does make his own music. (hello if so)

Below is the definition of structure from the American Heritage Dictionary. I don't see any reference to things having to be preconceived.

In fact: "The interrelation or arrangement of parts in a complex entity." and "something constructed" both suggest to me, far as music's concerned, that a sense of development, of something being built, of a relationship between the constituent parts of a piece of music is sufficient for it to have structure. And that this could equally apply to something very static or very busy. However it also suggests a sense of wholeness, of entities, and I think it's quite easy to think of performances that do or don't have that.

If a structure isn't preconceived, it's the perception of the performance that gives it structure - an interpretation of events (and decisions in the case of musicians analysing their own performance). I don't see how this is any less likely to give a sense of form/architecture to a piece than something painstaikingly constructed to remove all sense of form.

structure

SYLLABICATION: struc·ture
PRONUNCIATION: strkchr

NOUN: 1. Something made up of a number of parts that are held or put together in a particular way: hierarchical social structure.

2. The way in which parts are arranged or put together to form a whole; makeup: triangular in structure.
3. The interrelation or arrangement of parts in a complex entity: political structure; plot structure.
4. Something constructed, such as a building.

5. Biology a. The arrangement or formation of the tissues, organs, or other parts of an organism. b. An organ or other part of an organism.
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: struc·tured, struc·tur·ing, struc·tures
To give form or arrangement to: structure a curriculum; structure one's day.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, the process of building, from Latin strctra, from strctus, past participle of struere, to construct. See ster-2 in Appendix I.

Just was reading on and off all comments and thoughts .... Hum .... what shall i say
as someone who does play sometime these games in music ..... that seems lost and far from just reality of PLAYING .... someone may want to think of the Derek Bailey use of the term PLAYING in Improvised music as well as anywhere ..... which amount of PLAYING do you throw or get is the most appropriate point here to me .... and we re not talking about HOW MANY notes or moves per second but i guess about denisty .... in this respect
my earlier comment on the Vienna Tokyo Berlin scene was aslo to mention quite a small amount of Playing .....

EVEN SILENCE can be FULL !

cheers
n

See all i wanted to say is :
In order to be playing you need to have SOMETHING to play ( with ?)

the same way than to have money problems i assume you need to have money otherwise you re just sticking to PROBLEMS

If you d watch all these things differently now
how much of these releases or whatever musics became simply a REPERTOIRE music ?

how can you risk anything when everyone agrees to death on what s OK and what s not ?

Again improv has never been a GENRE or STYLE ... when for SKUG magazine i attack a pile of records to be reviewed i almost could file all these recordings per style genre ...
so you d get "Quiet minimalism" next to "Ragga Dub" or "produced" next to "unproduced" ( i ll skip "Selfproduced" )
and after a short while the only consistant difference will appear as EXCEPTION Vs GENRE ..... SOMEONE against Something

best
n

And the last comment for now ....

I OFTEN thought quite some people should give back 50 % at least of their fee to Keith Rowe .... that would be fair no ?

n

"Below is the definition of structure from the American Heritage Dictionary. I don't see any reference to things having to be preconceived.

In fact: "The interrelation or arrangement of parts in a complex entity." and "something constructed" both suggest to me, far as music's concerned, that a sense of development, of something being built, of a relationship between the constituent parts of a piece of music is sufficient for it to have structure."

Thanks, but I didn't mean to imply that the use of the term "structure" would necessarily entail preconception. I'm not sure how well architectural metaphors apply to improvisation, either. That there is something "constructed" in this music is rather a truism. that it opposes a neat refrain, that the narrative shifts, reverses, turns in on itself, avoids long repetition, etc. suggest to me a condition of "poststructure" rather than "structure." but that's just my sense. I could well be wrong or reading structure in a way different from what others are doing.

"I OFTEN thought quite some people should give back 50 % at least of their fee to Keith Rowe .... that would be fair no?"

The anxiety of influence would mean that no one would ever get paid--their debts to precursors always already being far too vast to overcome. Best way to repay Rowe? Critique him. Or invent something completely new.

Chinese copyright does not exist it says you were influenced and you will have to influence

the balance in between is your own moral duty

i was just more seriously thinking here of Jean-Luc Godard going to Cannes 20 years with a special visit card that says
JLG Film Director
account N° XXXXXX

and he gave it to people who said " you re such a big influence to me " ..."then give me back a little something "

i guess improv is closer to psychotherapy
( not psychology but anylytisis )
therefore you enter here to be SPOKEN by the discourse ... and THERE his the structure
but the structure does very little to the fact here

best
n

#

And that is also why i find very dubious the "silent" scene ... cause you re not taken into silence or quietness or whatever you may want to call it BUT literally FORCED to shut up

of course that does only involve me but
this fact makes me feel like the silence is just a curtain to ANOTHER deeper and more unspoken desire ... a rather bad one actually

sounds like a call for a STRONG ORDER from ABOVE to me ....

see religious music does not work like that
an d i witnessed many religious concerts of Pendercki recently in Poland .... that was like Take off ( i m not catholic .... enventually i enjoy vatican that s something else .... du plus de jouir so to say )

Why SILENCE these days ?

best
n

noël - i don't really know what to do with your last post... i don't see why choosing not to play anything (aka silence) should be a "call for a strong order from above" when in fact a lot of improvisers behave like a voice from above is telling them to do just the opposite... who is the one that "forces you to shut up" more: bernhard günter or merzbow...? besides: silence does not equal silence, it all depends on the musical context, on the listening (and playing) environment etc... i don't understand your aversion to it - not to say something is often more powerful than saying something, don't you think?

hey

this talk has gone so many directions

hummmm, i read interesting things from noel
somehow feeling it was coming back to my idea
of "content" ealier on,
i agree with the idea that you must have "something to say" like noel said before
and yes somewhere accumulation of "playing demonstrations", "style demonstrations" somehow ends up for me in a lack of "something to say "

and tomas, i am not sure i share your opinion when you say "not to say something is often more powerful than saying something".
hummmm, i hope that's not true always

alexandre

Maybe the main thing is not in SAYING or NOT SAYING but accepting to let things to be SAYED ... (?) they are as many ways to "say" as people and playings ....

i deeply don t think that STATMENTS makes a speech in music ( and especially prior or theoretical staments )

that goes likes Improv should remain JUST WHAT IT IS ....

and my main concern here is to let enough space open for that ... but that includes it can all go awfully wrong ( as well as beautiful )
WHO KNOWS

for myself improv means to go and try out

if i know what it s going to be like i d rather do a 10000 things else

best
n

The thing is, silence does not "force" anyone to shut up. A "silent" performance is in a sense a cooperation with the audience: if the audience doesn't feel drawn in enough by the performance, they won't shut up at all. Just listen to the second disc of the recent Raku Sugifatti disc on IMJ; the sounds of the musicians at the Vienna performance are completely obscured by the sounds of the crowd, while the audience in Tokyo sits completely still and silent, listening. The appeal of the very quiet music of the onkyo scene, for me, is its delicacy, the sense that it can draw you in with the expectation of its next moment of activity.

Noel, I sort of understand what you're saying in your last post there, and it sounds similar to Taku Sugimoto's own reservations about onkyo. But I don't believe the scene is inherently limited to its current quiet palette, nor have they quite exhausted the possibilities of what they've been doing these past few years. There have long been so many improvisers out there who explore the absolute loudest, busiest reaches of sound, so why have so many people so quickly accused these musicians of sticking to quiet sounds only? It seems like valid territory to explore, and despite some lack of variety in the records they've produced, when you consider the short time frame, people like Toshi Nakamura, Sugimoto, and Sachiko M have actually come a long way in the past few years.

Dear Ed

i ll answer now like in a usual mail
( excuse me and i promiss more details soon)

- The thing is, silence does not "force" anyone to shut up.

i did not say silence does i said the actual scene does in some ways ( you don t have to still YES )

ve scene A "silent" performance is in a sense a cooperation with the audience:

Heard Werner Daffeldecker saying audience does not change at all what he ll be playing ( or unplaying )

if the audience doesn't feel drawn in enough by the performance, they won't shut up at all.

heard many jazz albums recorded live in US where the crowd is really Loud .... Jim Hall Ron Carter duet on Concord or Jim Hall Red Mirchell or Paul Desmond in Toronto etc ...

Just listen to the second disc of the recent Raku Sugifatti disc on IMJ; the sounds of the musicians at the Vienna performance are completely obscured by the sounds of the crowd, while the audience in Tokyo sits completely still and silent,

i ve been around few times the audience was so tiny that ........

listening. The appeal of the very quiet music of the onkyo scene, for me, is its delicacy, the sense that it can draw you in with the expectation of its next moment of activity.

i do respect that i was just asking previoulsy
for people into it to tell me more just cause i personally got annoyed by it

Noel, I sort of understand what you're saying in your last post there, and it sounds similar to Taku Sugimoto's own reservations about onkyo.

But last time i played with Taku in Tokyo with Grubbs he stopped playing everytime something louder came up.... and don t get me wrong i m not against all that i just don t get the idea

It seems like valid territory to explore,

it does if it is But i don t feel it really is

and despite some lack of variety in the records they've produced, when you consider the short time frame,

40 years since AMM started these experiments is not precisely short
also listening to AMM III on Japo Keith really goes for weird trials

people like Toshi Nakamura, Sugimoto, and Sachiko M have actually come a long way in the past few years.

i m not putting down all these people at all
that i deeply respect ... what in short words i d say is it s time to risk more
whether it s silently or loudly

my own experience here has been always extremely boring because of some sort of unspoken rules without any goal unless you agree on keeping quiet

but i ll go further soon
best
n

Dear Ed

could you for example hear me if i d tell you this ?

looking for material inside Minimalism recently i just got back to ( that is my own history also ) Freddie Green

in many ways Green is close to Bailey
at least it took more than 50 years to Derek to purchase an Epiphone Emperor Guitar
( the one you hear on Ballads / Tzadik )

and i m not talking about the sytle either here
but the "amount" of actual playing

best
n

But the main thing is
that i value a lot this site and your work because mostly Musicians never talk ( or can´t ) about what they do ......

as i wrote to Dan before
if many musicians complains about critics being wrong musicians you never hear of critics complaining about musicians being bad critics

best
n

Noel: I've also felt that some players have turned the "quiet" music into a rule. I've actually rubbed up against players who "insist" on it.

Now, I can understand that from the perspective of "minimal music first, freedom second," but that's not a perspective I wish to share. I actually tend to play quietly, but most of my experience has been doing it while other musicians have been playing loudly (Super Unity/Dupity as best example). The choice it leaves me is either play louldy too or not be heard. I don't mind not being heard and I don't mind playing loudly sometimes if I think I can add something to the proceedings (ie. "something to say"). It is nice to play with quiet players because it gives me more room to do some of the things I like to do best, and I'm sometimes able to find more "places" to "put" my music, but as a player, the last thing I want is to be told what to do. If I wanted that I'd join a rock band & get paid, to boot.

For Alexandre: You might be interested to know that there is a whole "non-scene" of American players who have very strong socio-political/psychological motivations for their music, who don't give a rat's ass about their "bios" (read: list of famous people they've played with, ignoring the "nobodies" who've actually influenced them), and who are perfectly content to play anywhere, self-produce their own shows and series', and who actively seek risk. Some of them play electro-acoustically, some play electronically, some play acoustically. Some play quietly, some loudly. They generally self-identify as "free musicians" or "improvisors," rather than "electro-acoustic improvisors," probably because the freedom and improvisation are more central to their impetus than the tools are. These people are someitmes hard to find, and their recordings aren't exactly widely available, but they're there.

I'll not attempt a list, but suffice it to say that there is a whole coterie of these types lurking in Portland Oregon, and when they travel, they find plenty of others.

Jory

Dear James

i totally get your point actually the problem is not on the quiet / Loud sides but on the
Risks no risks .... Improv no Improv

if i join musicians to improvise and get stuck in an audio installation with people around barely unable to do anything else than ON /OFF i start to think ...hum ... are they a church ?

what his behind this desire ?
i have to say when it happen to me to be in different musical contexts with some of them
it got really poor and cheap ....

i have never had these problems with elder UK improv people for example ...it s not to be ready to play anything it just to be able to PLAY
and develop a discourse or position or anything that requires few skills at least his own ...

for example what i sort of mentioned on the Ballroom Trapist album is that when its esthetics goes like impro contempo electro
it s like tight but as soon as something tries to cross over it gets ambarassing to hear Pat Metheny or Frisell or fusion like things coming out ... and i just wanted to say it s maybe more obvious here but it s certainly not a surprise to me
i hear the same problem in other works ....

i d say if you want to be very EXCLUSIVE ESTHETICALLY you d better be able to keep up ....

the silent so far and at this point became the most rigid and stuborn thing i ve heard in a while ..... but again that s only me

i have hard time to hear something suposdely above all levels when i also hear people disable to do anything else ....

BEST
n

You know that s the Lol Coxhill joke about the 70´s when so many people were into these exerimental improvs ... where Lol says -
- Oh Yeah ! sometime you d start as a trio and you end up 30 on stage .... MOSTLY DJEMBEs though ....

obviously about a million things to say, but I'll keep it to a few.

first of all, I continue to plead that participants in this discussion list who the hell they're talking about specifically, and what records, concerts, whatever of theirs. Malfatti and Sugimoto represent one extreme end of today's improvising scene, and even they can't be entirely lumped together (particularly after the new Mattin/Malfatti disc). if someone just says "Otomo", I have no idea whether they mean sampladelic Ground Zero-era Otomo, his Jazz Quintet, his recent more abstract work, or some combination, which is why specifics are helpful. everyone has strengths and weaknesses as a musician, and different facets of different musicians might appeal to you more. for instance, Toshi Nakamura is one of my favorite few musicians in the world right now, a brilliantly sympathetic collaborator. but I'm not much of a fan of his solo work, although I do like each one more than the last.

and terms like "eai" and "erstwhile" encompass everyone from Schmickler, Pita and Fennesz to Sugimoto and Malfatti, so I'm not sure exactly what's under discussion, it's a pretty wide spectrum. I'm not saying there aren't trends, but I am saying there are plenty of exceptions to any trend that can be pointed out.

Noel:

"my own experience here has been always extremely boring because of some sort of unspoken rules without any goal unless you agree on keeping quiet "

if you're talking about anyone here except Taku or Radu, I'd be surprised (and very curious as to who it was). I'd agree that it's often boring, but it's occasionally transcendent also. anyway, I have nothing but huge respect for both of those guys, I may not agree with all of their aesthetic decisions, but they're both beautiful and influential musicians, and I'm very curious to see how they emerge from this phase of their careers.

since we have a large Paris contingent weighing in, did anyone check out the Jérôme Noetinger/ErikM show at Les Instants Chavires last year? curious for reports on that...

"Structure", "form", "design", "logic", "narrative"... with respect to the process of making, whcih I fell is really what is up for grabs in this discussion, aren't all these terms really variations on -- euphemisms for? -- negotiation? I agree wholeheartedly with Foster: "Every past effort by the human brain to avoid structure has been an abject failure." Structure is impossible to avoid as long as one retains some coonection to consciousness. I think this is why apparent formlessness / amorphousness as well as form indulging in replications of itself that are very nearly out of control both provoke equal amounts of revulsion. Both are visions of the monstrous, and both are only attainable by certain kinds of genius -- or mob effort. The word I want is hypertrophy. And there is certainly little hypertrophy in contemporary improvised music of the type discussed here... or it at least hidden, nearly microscopic.

The negotiations I'm talking about then are the kind of negotiations made by all of us everyday: with ourselves, with each other, with the objects we need to manipulate in order to even last to the end of the day. Its just that sometimes our "structures" go wrong, don't work as expected, get commandeered to other purposes, fail, collapse. This idea brings us back to the matter of taste, however, becuase structure is also something that can only be completed by some comprehension on the part of the listener / viewer / whomever. Its a matter of what structures one is likely or even conditioned (by a whole host of factors) to apprehend. Narrative is an interesting example, becuase it has the power to mold us precisely for an "appreciation" of itself. There's something viral or parasitic about narrative, as Burroughs noted about language. Fiction that deviates from strict narrative -- as the earliest English novels actually managed to do (it is worth remembering) -- thus are critiqued for being poor stories, or for being mere prose that does not attain "story"-hood. As if narrative were the only "structure" available to fiction.

Which is all to say that that litany of abstractions at the beginning of this comment has tremendous power to shape our perceptions of a given work, beofre we have even experieinced that work, becuase they are gorunded in and stake some claim to the ideal of "realism". But what has "realism" got to do with contemporary improvised music? I find Bill's reference to narrative in this context certainly not "wrong" in any sense, but fascinating. As I hear it, so much contemporary improvised music is about the resistance of narrative and all the linear processes -- up to and especially including catharsis -- narrative implies. What counts as an "event" in music predicated on long, long passages of silence and / or static sonorities (drones, sine waves, etc.)? I think it is perfectly valid to say that an entire piece as such is an "event" in and of itself, but I also recognize that there are different levels of event as well. Yet events strung together do not necessarily lead to the creation of a narrative. Some relationship has to bind them.

Finally, what is also interesting to note is that so many of the genre terms that have been defined for new music, from "serial music" to "minimalism" to "free improvisation" to "glitch", rely on the idea of individual pieces of music sharing certain formal concerns. This approaches specualtion about intent -- something so much contemporary critical theory cautions us against. But it seems like, and especially with music as forthrightly conceptual as so much contemporary improvised music, we keep bumping up against this problem -- intention -- no matter how hard we try.

BTW -- I'm still making my way through the AMPLIFY02 box; taking it in small bites. I have been most impressed by disc 4 (036), specifically, the Muller / Yoshihide performance.

I'm saving the DVD for last.

hmmmmmm

yes i was at erik m/noetinger last september

they played after zbigniew karko

for me his set that day was great
20 minutes of harsh noise computa deconstructed sample something,
really quite loud,
he played with strong attitude,
nearly kinda moving to his own music,
standing up and down in front of his screen.
bit agressive sometimes
at least something which moved me quite a lot
in the last year jon.

also last time i was a bit disapointed when they played with pita at Instants Chavirés
I liked the pita solo ok,
but then karkowsky was less in good shape than september

then i must say it was a bit funny to listen to erikm/noetinger after the opening from karkowsky.
i couldnt really quite keep myself into it after 10 minutes or so. i think they played a bit long to my taste, loosing the tension very quickly. i find it hard to concentrate on improv if it flows to easily. also i must say i was more fan of erik when he played the decks.

i remember a concert with voice crack, muller and erik m at Instants, they were not called Poire-z. one of the speaker went on fire... this concert was totally amazing to me somehow, back in 98 or 99, something like this!

interesting post, Joe. I meant to say before that it's not really "structure" that I look for in records I'm working on, it's an internal logic, which may or may not be unique to that particular record.

"As I hear it, so much contemporary improvised music is about the resistance of narrative and all the linear processes -- up to and especially including catharsis -- narrative implies."

I think there's plenty of narrative and linear flow in a lot of these records that you're seemingly talking about (although again, without specifics, maybe we're talking about different things.) for instance, dach holds together as a constant, linear performance for me, just barely.

"What counts as an "event" in music predicated on long, long passages of silence and / or static sonorities (drones, sine waves, etc.)?"

change? I also think that "music predicated on long, long passages of silence" is unusual even in this field, and is pretty much limited to the work of Malfatti and Sugimoto, with others from the Tokyo scene beginning to explore that direction recently (Toshi/Sachiko duo set on the box, upcoming double CD on Erst of those two w/Otomo). and as for truly "static sonorities", I tend to find them dull, the ones I like are ever-changing and fluctuating.

Dear Jon

i understand you d like precise names shows and so on but i may want to still speak of someone rather than just an album and that has many reasons we could talk abnout later

when or if i say Otomo for example i have to indeed think of at least 10 different projects and contexts but i still want to think of ONE artist person etc ... the same i d do with other people cause for example ( sorry) when you d talk about the Vienese scene they are people i ve heard in quite various situations through years ... what shall i tell you i played for example with Hautzinger a rather impovised show but i also invited him in Vienna to play standards with Ernst Reisjeger and on the top both Franz and myself have played with Wolfgang Puschnig ... the same with Burkhard Stangl that i ve first heard with Koglman years ago playing jazz chords or Siewert that i ve heard basically every year ( that was way back ) into another style ... so it s still complex

concerning BOREDOM that i mentioned i wanted to specifically talk about playing in such contexts ... see it s NO space for improv where whatever could happen
i can name you a show we did David Grubbs, Otomo Sachiko, Taku and myself in Tokyo
where everything was CORRECT when David and i went there way ... as soon as we went wherever or just improvised ... the feedback from Sachiko and Taku was less less existing
i just felt it was OK to drone not OK to go improv risking it all goes wrong AND i make a point here that IMPROV with refusing Risks and ugly long moments is sort of refusing to play the game .... you need to have something to loose i guess

On the same evenening i played a duet with Otomo where the question of what to play or not to play would not even be in the minds
the improv to me has the particularity that it s what you re playing that tells you what it is
( again Improv is NO STYLE but a Gesture and facts and presence )

as For the RADU / TAKU duet well yes it s no question of respect( i do ) but why don t they just not play at all then ?

i personally find that it comes to a point where
it s not improvised anymore not composed either and hardly played ..... i also thought these kind of extremes have been done already decades ago ....

But YES Jon you re right
i ll have to be more precise soon

For example the too last albums i ve heard ( Trapist # 2 and Kapital ) did not make me feel at all like Brandlmayr is able to go somewhere else ... is that plausible if i d say it reminds me of some Joey Baron solo work with a tiny tiny sound ? ( do you remeber that James Brown solo drums Joey use to do a while ago ?)

i also find that these scenes are maybe not getting enough exchanges with other contexts and players like you d have in London or Chicago .... don t know
all i may feel i know is THINGS TAKES LONG LONG time

best
n

Following Joe s answer on

"Structure", "form", "design", "logic", "narrative"...

when i have to hear again things like "NO EGO" i m sorry to say .... WHAT ?
not again that dodgy positivist psychology ....

and they are really loads of comments and things like that around ... especially when you re in austria with all that history behind where still people considers themeselves as Victims of Nazism massively .....

that sounds WEIRD to me and totally unapropriate ....

did you got a copy of the PHONOTAKTIK Catalog by SKUG ?`

that was full of these new agy high tech things
but unfortunately as i said many times LAPTOPS don t make music on their own ....

etc
n

"change?"

Interesting, Jon. Someone would say that all stories boil down to this. Or, as a teacher of mine once said, "There is only one story, and that is that someone is is less stupid at the end of the story than he or she was at the beginning."

You're right, of course, in that "static" itself is a kind of value judgement disguised as a mere perception. But, if we were to measure some of these sine waves "objectively" and generate some sort of output, we could argue that, for certain evaluative purposes, they are relatively static.

"i must say i was more fan of erik when he played the decks."

me too! I saw him do an amazing solo on two of them in Wels in 1999, it blew me away. Jérôme and I got him to return to them at least a little for the What a Wonderful World record. have you heard that, Alexandre?

I like some Karkowski (the 3 inch on Mego is superb), but I have a feeling your taste and mine don't overlap too much. I'm more interested in subtlety, in music that takes multiple listens to make itself understood and continues to reveal itself slowly through dozens of listens, no matter how experienced a listener you are. I heard new things on the Rowe/Fennesz last night, and I've probably played that fifty times already.

when you say "i want to feel bit of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Yoshihide Otomo and Nick Drake in improvised music?", you're not going to get that from the music I release. those guys (with the exception of Otomo, obviously) are strong individual personalities, and the work I release is about collaboration, subsuming the individual in favor of the whole.

It s like all these actual recordings needs for me to be TRANSLATED and then you may see rather different ideas coming up than what the artwork designes says it is ....

i remember ( Jon i promiss i ll give precise examples now ) a grob album Bossetti Krebbs .... if you look at the artwork ( seriously who can sustain such a naive ugly painting ?)
then if you hear the musicand if instead of using the politically correct sounds in that era so that it sounds like what you d expect
i meán basically if you get rid of all the Agreed
things at the end the level of playing and inrterractions left is to me really quite low ...

and in some of these things they are many Fluxus like or previous conceptual things that to some extend are just the same thing Diana Krall does when she covers Nat King Cole nowadays .... revival ....

if often say in reviews GIVE ME BACK THE ORIGINAL .... then

all i can hope is that all this useful for many of them to build something

probably too that it has an audience cause it s highly recognizable and expectable ... (?)
you don t get much surprises i find

But time we ll tell
to me when Keith Rowe and AMM started
that was a total different thing but that was 40 years ago too

best
n

Noel:

yes, as you obviously know first-hand, if Taku or Radu is involved (for Radu over the last five years or so, for Taku the last 2 years maybe), they play one way, that's what they do, that's what they've chosen to do. if you don't enjoy it, either as a fellow musician or a listener, then don't explore it any further.

"as For the RADU / TAKU duet well yes it s no question of respect( i do ) but why don t they just not play at all then ? "

um, because they enjoy playing in that style, even if very few other people seem to?

as for Brandlmayr, I don't think he wants to explore too abstractly yet. I think he's funkier than Baron ever was already, and he's still very young.

i relistened to "what a wonderful..." few days ago, to kinda check it out, hummm, it doesnt really so much trigger me. after a while i tend to hear the same thing always going on more or less. just my opinion...

also i think i would like to relistened that zbigniew solo, i could find it different for a few listen at list. the density of his sounds probably hides so many different hardly audible things at first.

also i undesrtand noêl point's about people. before the musician there is a personnality. that's what i mean by mixing of hendrix, otomo, cobain...

also i like the voice crack/otomo. but maybe for me its near the limit of my interest actually.

Dear Jon

quoting you

are strong individual personalities, and the work I release is about collaboration, subsuming the individual in favor of the whole.

Up to very selfish attitudes as far it s good for their business in the case of musicians ?

In Vienna you may know Kurzmann holds hands on the scene ... hard to see something outisde of that .... that is another aspect we don t get to hear about much ....

i am sometime slightly shocked by that
side ....

best
n

Just wanted to say that i see MANY MANY paradoxes here for example ....

like NO EGO but ME FIRST
that often happens

best
n

Noel, I'm just talking about the music itself, not anything outside of that. not sure how tightly Kurzmann can "hold hands" on the Vienna scene, since he's primarily lived in Berlin for quite some time now, but I do know generally what you're talking about.

anyway, if you don't like what he's doing or what Taku or Radu are doing, then do something different yourself (I know that you already do, of course, I'm speaking here more in general terms). I wasn't hearing enough records that I loved anymore, so I decided to produce them myself, and the same thing with concerts.

pardon me

but this is really fast motion going this Bagatellen thing. waouahhhh!!!

noêl i didnt understand the sense of what you meant in this : "Up to very selfish attitudes as far it s good for their business in the case of musicians ?
In Vienna you may know Kurzmann holds hands on the scene ... hard to see something outisde of that .... that is another aspect we don t get to hear about much ...."

its so hard to follow all this writings, also still i am not english native speaker and so many records you talk about i dont even know them. but its good to exchange i guess

See Jon
i may also be reacting cause basically it s a scene with more or less the same people you hear ... ( cause it s like i invite and then you invite me back ) and i m wondering why for example we could not get some other things just based on music played

for example i did recently an ITW for Skug with ROD POOLE .... he released years ago two amazing solo microtonal acoustic guitar that really amazes me

It was a bit strange to find out that was his second itw in 15 years

But you re right i mean i m not forcing myself when i don t like it it s for sure my own problem i just happen as i said before through Sylvian to listened again ( i wanted to make sure what i disliked was really there or i may have heard it cause i mixed up things after all )
to many of these records i had here ... and
well it s very tiny to me ....

not the genre or so but the playing is still too tiny to me ... not much meat there yet to my ears cause of too heavy locked things

best
n

Dear Alexandre

i was mentioning here some STAMENTS as opposed to ATTITUDES ....

it s just my view when someon states THIS OR THAT and then when i get to see what he or she does i see obvioulsy something else

like one says RED ONLY and then you get YELLOW ....

i guess this answers only obscures things

best
n

"Noel, I'm just talking about the music itself, not anything outside of that. not sure how tightly Kurzmann can "hold hands" on the Vienna scene, since he's primarily lived in Berlin for quite some time now, but I do know generally what you're talking about. "

Dear Jon
i totally agree with you
what i say here is not just personal cause to me it reflects also musical attitudes ... i mean i hear these paradox or things

i had clashes for example when i got an EFZEG flyer with a political statment that they were against any past or future government
but the show was at KONZERTHAUS a really very official venue ....

and to some extend it s the same in music here to me .... it s a huge difference between
wearing a CHE tee shirt and joing indians in Chiapas ... that s all i want to say

But of course you re right and i guess most if us here are ALSO DOING something
and don t get me wrong i m glad as many different people are around to do as many different things as far as they still agree to talk about it

i m not even directyl concerned by all that cause i really do things in all sorts of era
and will always do ... that s indeed the best answer we all can give no ?

Best
n

man!!!

euh, i want to react a bit on this
"i may also be reacting cause basically it s a scene with more or less the same people you hear ... ( cause it s like i invite and then you invite me back ) and i m wondering why for example we could not get some other things just based on music played"

sometimes i feel things happen to much because there is a certain "system" than rather to really try and create some unexpected music ... as myself being, i dont know, amateur musician lets say, playing concerts here in paris, i discover the whole scene of improv in paris, and met people, tatati tatata... and realised its a all thing with codes. and now i am discussing here with all of you, its really strange somehow. i feel we are all sharing same desire. i dont know, sorry i get lost...

Noel, I like Rod Poole too, especially the Death Adder which I think is beautiful. but based on what I've heard, I wouldn't ask him to be on Erstwhile. he seems much more of a solo artist.

as for why more people don't know him, there are plenty of overlooked people who are amazing musicians, as you well know. Jim O'Rourke helped a lot to "rediscover" some of these musicians over the last decade, John Fahey, Tony Conrad, Luc Ferrari, Arnold Dreyblatt, Ray Russell, but there are dozens and dozens of others deserving similar recognition who have yet to be given their proper due. for instance, Masayuki Takayanagi, still not nearly well known as he should be.

But Jon

as you know i wish to listen to more of your albums still

i just beleive it s important to talk
to dislike is not to deny
it also can change too

let me tell you a funny story that goes in your direction. As you may know Grubbs and I are close friends and we come from radically different backgrounds. For long time i knew David is really into Loren Connors and i never really understood Connors music ... to me it was also rather dodgy ...

Until one day Grubbs sended me this Arboviate duo album he produced
and that was it THERE i could hear what he meant totally

so it s plenty plenty of things for us to produce
exactely as you ... let s RELEASE what we don t find somewhere else !

best
n

I promiss to come down loading this chat room ... i just found 2 days ago but
i ll be more disert soon

yes, I agree with that, but I also think it's important to remember that some areas of music/musicians just aren't for everyone, even everyone with experimental tastes, which doesn't make them any less valid.

I think i know what you re talking about here

" but I also think it's important to remember that some areas of music/musicians just aren't for everyone, even everyone with experimental tastes, which doesn't make them any less valid. "

But i wouldn t oppose personal tastes with capacities and density etc ... i think you can t
just skip some questions or realities by saying i Like or Dislike that s just a private statment .... see sometimes they are bad qualitiy recordings that i like a lot because of their dramatic qualitites or because they reflect something else played too .... i wont say it s a good recording but it still may be a great album ... in these esthetics you can t just accept things on that basis i find ... i mean like with a composition when you can read a score
you can also SEE things that is objective too

you don t have to like yourself Quincy Jones to recognise him a great talent at least as an arranger etc ....

the same way yo can t say : THAT IS MY CONCEPT you can t discuss my album at all cause you don t understand my music ...when the concept gets totally lost or spoiled just cause the players hardly cant transcend it for technical reaons or etc ....

i remember a show like that with Gene Coleman supposed to be freely improvised
but strangely enough Gene had a cliche coming under his fingers every 30 seconds the sane ....
that wasn t obviously a choice of his but a real TIC ....

should we ignore it or say it s just cause i don t like him for example ? no that is not a very good answer .....

best
n

the next important thing would be HISTORY too it s not the same thing to play Coltrane note for note in 2004 than to be Archie Shepp still ..... you don t face the same thing at all

that is what i wanted to say with Keith Rowe
and i also always remember that Keith is leaving in France since really long years now but it s only since few years that you can hear him around
before nobody really talked or even knew him around ... when i first wrote him a letter donkey years ago i have never ever had seen his name in a program around

yes, when I met Keith for the first time in 1999, he had barely recorded outside of AMM. I've done my best since then to rectify that situation. :)

noël, i get the impression that a lot of the stuff you dislike about the more "quiet" scene has to do with politics, rather than with the music itself (i.e. your comments about kurzmann)... it's funny to hear you talk this way when (in a strictly musical sense) your disc "rien" does have quite some similarities for me with some of the stuff the "onkyo" crew or the people around efzeg are (ore were) doing... i really love "rien" and i think it's still a much underrated record, but it's hard to believe that it was done by the same man who is posting these comments here... and talking about some "unspoken" rules in the "silent" scene: i can just say that you're gonna be pretty surprised when (if) you hear the disc i've done with erik, otomo and toshi (gonna come out in a couple of days btw): toshi was extremely flexible. erik brought in some busier stuff and toshi was completely up to it. sorry, i seriously think you're underestimating some musicians and their ability to go far beyond cliches here...

jon: i understand you prefered erik with the decks, but i'm convinced his "new" way of playing with the inputs provided by the other musicians opens up a whole new world of possibilities. for me the strongest thing about erik are not his sounds, but rather his feeling for musical form, he's a master in "instant composing"... the way he's working now gives him more control to "lead" a performance, which i find very interesting and more "future oriented" than working only with turntables.

Jon said, "I'm more interested in subtlety, in music that takes multiple listens to make itself understood and continues to reveal itself slowly through dozens of listens, no matter how experienced a listener you are."

Me too. I'm very sympathetic with this "deep structure" biz. One of the things I love about Elliott Carter, e.g., is that each of his mature pieces presents a "difficult nut." As I listened to "What Next?" today, I wondered for a moment whether Brian ever finds any crosswords "beautiful" in the sense that they have some particularly cool deep structure that (may or may not) become apparent to the savvy puzzler.

I may find a "simple" piece extremely beautiful or sad or kicking. But I generally know, even while enjoying it greatly, that it won't have the shelf life of a more complicated work. This may be why I've never really 12-bar blues--even though, when young, I used to make a few bucks playing and singing Skip James and Bukka White stuff. It may be that I'm not completely satisfied if I have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen next.

Silence is useful in that regard, since it's sort of a palette-cleanser. To a certain extent, it "undoes" the most recent notes played, making what comes next anybody's guess. There are, of course, other devices available too.

"As I listened to "What Next?" today, I wondered for a moment whether Brian ever finds any crosswords "beautiful" in the sense that they have some particularly cool deep structure that (may or may not) become apparent to the savvy puzzler."

Just what we need, a crossword tangent. But the answer is yes, certainly. Not sure about the parallels to music, but it's interesting that the structure is there already but only emerges as the solver discovers it (if, in fact, she does, depending on her own expertise at solving). But it is very cool to see patterns percolate up and, perhaps, it's not too dissimilar to something experienced by improvisers as structure suddenly coalesces around them.

But Jon

YES ! I know and praise that concerning Keith !
i just wanted to say i do remember times where all that didn t exist at all ... in Paris you had the 80´s period with Dunois and label Nato plus few things but until a club like Instants Chavirés started to go that way ( and i was there since the begining of that story ) in the 90´s it was NOTHING ...

i m glad it reaches another level and brought another scene and so on ... it s just sometime
it goes a bit quickly all in one direction then all in another no ? When i wrote in the late 80s to Keith in France i can tell you the crew around AMM was so tiny ... in Fact you d never ever see him playing at all and that lasted for a long long time before they found out ... i remember also Fred Frith being responsible for mentioning many many times Keith was so important and a pionneer here and there ...

As for your work i think that is indeed a great answer and FACTS that is no question. See i m really glad Davidson is so dedicated with EMANEM for example altough i m not running after the whole catalogue IT S a NEED to HAVE him. no ?

All i am saying is Give all that a little time ....
wait and see in 5 years, 10, 30 etc ....

best
n

Dear Tomas

"i get the impression that a lot of the stuff you dislike about the more "quiet" scene has to do with politics, rather than with the music itself "

Well who brought Politics into that ? i don t need to talk about politics i d rather do something or don t but i don t need to advertise that at all. Now when people bring this issue then YES i m gonna have a look at what does it concretely mean ... and there in terms of the Vienna scene i have to say i am pretty sceptical .... probably also that i ve seen to many Private interrests wrapped in a political discourse .... i mean just a sticker NO is nice but that is not really Politics. Since many people around this scene have said to join the SPO ( Socialist party ) as the only chance to fight Haider .... I DON T HEAR them VERY MUCH after SPO made the coallition with HAIDER themselves... do you ?
And to many extend the Cultural policies are JUST the same to me here and there ... if it brings advantages to their business they d sign anything i find ....

"
it's funny to hear you talk this way when (in a strictly musical sense) your disc "rien" does have quite some similarities for me with some of the stuff the "onkyo" crew or the people around efzeg are (ore were) doing.."

Hum i know but that has always been a misunderstanding same with the "joseph" serie of solos .... cause this music comes from a really different story that originally has very little to do with Music but with Cinema ( has it s also one of my activities and not much for soundtracks )

. i really love "rien" and i think it's still a much underrated record,

Thanks but it s not really true cause it s on Winter & Winter and this means a very serious distribution so that ( and that was the original idea too to do such a project on a label who does reach a different audience and who s not specialised in avant garde ) RIEN has had and it actually to my surprise still goes on a real big audience for what it is

" sorry, i seriously think you're underestimating some musicians and their ability to go far beyond cliches here..."

that ll take another explanation i am not underestimating musicians at all my question is the DESIRE for a music that in many ways sounds to me as a REFUSAL of Music
( but i also know writing this shortly is a source of many other misunderstandings )

in other words to me it s a serious GAP between the concepts and the actual
playing results

best
n

Jon said, "I'm more interested in subtlety, in music that takes multiple listens to make itself understood and continues to reveal itself slowly through dozens of listens, no matter how experienced a listener you are."

But that is great no problem
But still you could apply such statments
to ANY MUSIC you personally love

It took me decades to hear certain music
and they don t fall into one genre concept or form they more often reflect a Person
his or her presence etc ...

the listener is alo responsible for what he hears he can Project his hearings to other people less aware or sensible to it too no ?

best
n

to me there s no opposition in Composed / Improvised

the things are revealling under INTERPRETATION

best
n

"Well who brought Politics into that ?"
noël - i think that was a misunderstanding. i was talking about politics meaning "personal politics", the friendships and hostilities in a "scene"... it had nothing to do with the efzeg-flyer you mentioned or anything like that...

i'm happy to hear "rien" is selling well.

"Hum i know but that has always been a misunderstanding same with the "joseph" serie of solos .... cause this music comes from a really different story that originally has very little to do with Music but with Cinema ( has it s also one of my activities and not much for soundtracks)"

-> i disagree. your motivation behind the record, "story" as you say may be a different one, still i think it's wrong to speak of "misunderstanding", since the feelings that music evokes in myself has similarities to that "quiet" music we were talking about. it's like if bernhard günter says in the warburton PT interview that he used to like morton feldman for the "wrong" reasons... i think that's a pretty weird thing to say... he may have liked him for other reasons than the ones the composer was intending, but i'm sure günter had his own reasons to like that music... how can these be "wrong"... is there a "wrong" reason to like something? ... that's why i don't think my (and other) interpretation of "rien" and "joseph" is a misunderstanding... i may have liked it for other reasons than you made it, still: it is what it is, and - don't get me wrong - for me it's just not really that important why you did it or what history way behind it... it's just there to be interpreted by each listener in his/her own way...(and i'm thankful for that)

Dear Tomas

Well 2 things ... i guess Politics starts with
our own policies no ? in that extend the more public ones reflects the more private ones

And "misunderstanding" on these albums ( see it s easy to misunderstand i should deffinetely be more precise here ) was meant not as thinking people heard it wrong cause it had another meaning or context for me ( there i totally agree with you they are as many understanding of a work than people want to reflect and see hear feel it ..that s what i said earlier too ) NO what i meant is i personally got sometimes feedbacks on Rien for example that suggested i would be totally dedicated to a more general scene of music floating in this era .... that is not the case
that is as simple as that .

Or to give you another example cause i m cloe to David Grubbs i sometime met people sure that i was aware of all Drag City albums ... well that is neither the case ... i met people in the scene and worked with some but that was always like an accident and eventually we re friends but nit because i embrace forcerly the whole idea behind

Best
n

The same way that i get asked why i didn´t join the quiet experimental crew in Vienna ....
for the same reasons ... cause i do all sorts of other things during day time than to drone
so that for me that has never been a question
but it seems after Rien it could have been one for some ...

best
n

But if Günter says "wrong" ... i kinda go for that too.... they are so many artists that deeply influenced me in a wrong way ....

it reminds when i was into Ornette Coleman s Primie Time and from my corner it felt like more of a Poetical Naive Art brut way to comp behind ... until i played with some of the Primie Time people who had all kinda of theories very very defined etc ... ( to me still that was far from how they just instinctively played this music )
i respect both ideas ... again that s how it sounds like at the end

When i ve seen keith Rowe solo in Nantes last time ... whether he does or not theorised his playing the way he used basics of prepared guitar ( well he invented that so )
was so Wide ... for the use of one Crocodile clip that we ve all heard a zillion times Keith
had so much variations control dynamics textures .... see i forgot even what it was

that is what i m talking about
i don t want to hear a program or an objetc and just to feel like HUM that is THIS or THAT
i do for example hear programs or effects or technical devices a lot in Laptop music
that just takes me away from the music when a Max program sounds like a Max demo track

best
n

Noel:

"it s just sometime it goes a bit quickly all in one direction then all in another no ? "

no, I don't think so. I'm personally largely interested in one direction (although, again, the variations in personal approach within that are immense), but the majority of the European free improvisation scene is still doing the same thing (generally) they've been doing for decades. I think it's more that individual/s become/s interested in one direction at a time, that doesn't make the other/s vanish.

"my question is the DESIRE for a music that in many ways sounds to me as a REFUSAL of Music "

again, I plead for specifics. I'll assume you're talking about Radu/Taku again, and I'll argue that for them, in different ways and at different points in their careers, this isn't an end point but a phase they're going through, bringing everything back to zero, clearing out any accumulated habits, starting over, and (eventually) seeing what comes next.

it's not a refusal of music, it's their reaction to a world filled with sound/noise, and a free improv community where (they felt) people play way too much, a mindset I can totally relate to, even if I don't always enjoy the end results they come up with. I'm sure you've talked to one or both of them about this in person, but if you're interested, the conversation between the two in the first issue of the Improvised Music from Japan magazine is illuminating.

"i don t want to hear a program or an objetc and just to feel like HUM that is THIS or THAT
i do for example hear programs or effects or technical devices a lot in Laptop music
that just takes me away from the music when a Max program sounds like a Max demo track "

no kidding, Noel! what are you telling us here, that there are loads of boring laptop musicians? that's really not news to anyone, I'd say there are less than 10 laptop musicians in the world I really like.

FWIW, I really disliked Rien, it did absolutely nothing for me (thus living up to the title, I suppose) and I sold it. I did like Live at Les Instants Chavires with Evan P. a lot though.

Dear Jon

but the majority of the European free improvisation scene is still doing the same thing (generally)

Largely Yes i have the same questions on these ones too ... like when Matts Gustaffson plays Evan Parker 67 better than Evan ....
That s also why i went quite away ... didn t stopped a repertoire to exchange with another one even would it be a more something one

again, I plead for specifics. I'll assume you're talking about Radu/Taku again,

No by far nit only cause TAKU / RADU are sort of an extreme too and in some ways it s kinda locked already ... I felt listening to a recent Sachiko M solo ( mini CD on A Bruit Secret ...is it 1:2 ?) that i may have had more "fun" just to read the idea ... and let my ears open something ...but the actual sonic experience of it was not necessary to me there , i guess an explanation with eventually a drawing would be fine and there i would say we would (if it was a composed piece or a map) enter the serious question of Composition ... cause a line with 2 marks somewhere in the middle is not exactely Novelty

and I'll argue that for them,

in different ways and at different points in their careers, this isn't an end point but a phase they're going through, bringing everything back to zero, clearing out any accumulated habits, starting over, and (eventually) seeing what comes next.

I am very happy to see it that way ... i ll wait until it comes again then

it's not a refusal of music, it's their reaction to a world filled with sound/noise,

But should you do as a reaction to a world full of records and dull releases plus other marketing plans in Music STOP to produce as an act for example ... would you do that ? or would you feel NO it needs another side and there you come and make it happen real

and a free improv community where (they felt) people play way too much,

That is also correct but that doesnt still tell much about what they played ... again translation may be useful do you think for example someone like Olaff Rupp plays too much or that the problem may be somewhere else in his case ? To me for example (that is a quite good one i d say ) improvised music is not exactely what he does anyway .... could be the same in another era ....

a mindset I can totally relate to, even if I don't always enjoy the end results they come up with.

But me too i find Improv is stuck in the 70´s stylistically and people play loads of harsh things ( i guess another explanation of what i called REFUSAL will come soon )

I'm sure you've talked to one or both of them about this in person, but if you're interested, the conversation between the two in the first issue of the Improvised Music from Japan magazine is illuminating.

I ll have a look yes thanks

no kidding, Noel! what are you telling us here, that there are loads of boring laptop musicians?
i said Laptop music cause originally the Laptop people i liked didn t talked at all about being musicians ....

that's really not news to anyone, I'd say there are less than 10 laptop musicians in the world I really like.

And even ... but yes 10 OK and for the 10 are probably the same since 10 years ...the one who started

FWIW, I really disliked Rien, it did absolutely nothing for me (thus living up to the title, I suppose) and I sold it. I did like Live at Les Instants Chavires with Evan P. a lot though.

That is no problem at all
the Evan thing i didn t even knew it was a record ...you know Jean-Marc Foussat is often here sitting next with his Large Smile

best
n

I agree with you about that Sachiko release, that's another extreme point. we had a long discussion about that here a few months back, I'll bring it up to the top for you. I think it's possibly my least favorite thing I've ever heard from her, I certainly don't feel the need to hear it a second time.

"But should you do as a reaction to a world full of records and dull releases plus other marketing plans in Music STOP to produce as an act for example ... would you do that ? or would you feel NO it needs another side and there you come and make it happen real"

it doesn't matter what I would do, I'm not a musician. I respect the choices those two have made for themselves, even if I'm not always so interested in what it results in, and I'm glad that not many other musicians are so extreme.

as for Olaf Rupp, I haven't really listened to him enough to say, I think both of his solo discs have passed through here, but neither is still around.

have you heard many Erstwhile releases, Noel? which ones? I only ask because you say "I find Improv is stuck in the 70´s stylistically", and whether you like Erstwhile or not, I think anyone would be hardpressed to describe many of the releases that way.

Dear Jon a few more things

i ended up on Bagatellen cause i listened again to some of these albums ( let s say to give you details the Vienna Tokyo Berlin crew we know on various labels where they released a music that has some link in between ... ) and i did listened again cause had these discussions and that may lead to a Song album with some of them and i felt when i got asked ...hum ... It does not inspire me at all (whatever )

and listening again i really felt that if it wasn t that esthetic of playing very little, droning, never solo, etc it wouldnt be left much of it. But even in that era the drone wasn t enough happening ... i just felt bored ( and not cause drones necesseraly bores me but because these ones are very settled to my hears )

That plus another thing which is that in many cases when it goes slightly out of the drone it often feels to me not much controlled .... seems like the esthetic is just a HUGE CURTAIN to keep it hype and respectable

i ve also seen this music live sometimes and that was even worst ...i thought that was unberable very shortly ... what i said REFUSAL is that coming to a show to see someone hiding behind an instrument ( there also why not just come with nothing ) and stretching the time as long as possible before eventually coming to the point where maybe he d play something ( but no not yet wait another 20 minutes ...) and this other last thing that i dont get WHAT does it mean to play the most possible blank sound ? a sound like dead, with no one behind no intonations no emotion no projection etc ... a concept, or as you said a stage ...? could be i don t know
to me it felt like a desire to REFUSE and a very violent one but nott assumed directly by someone ... but Hidden behind an estethic

that s why i react to that
and also cause i don t see that issue much discussed anyway . I ve heard descriptions of this as modernity, beauty etc but to me it s a form of Death without someone to respond of it ( that s call a murder usually ) Which in Austria with the past Behind (it s still around ) has a weird taste in the mouth .....

Best
n

As for a world Too Full yes probably
i dont find Too Full is the problem i find often
the big meting machine is more a problem
cause it should be space for everything if everything had a proper name i guess

i don t find the Norah Jones album bad at all
i just would react on the marketing and the fact that younger audience dont get much chance to decide for themeselves if they d rather have Norah or a more Original version of the same
but Outkast or Missy Elliott are great still
just the last Britney is a little weak in the middle

well, without anything more specific than the "Vienna Tokyo Berlin crew" to go on, I have no way of answering that. either you haven't heard the right records/concerts (of course, everyone makes crappy records and has subpar concerts), or you just don't like most or all of these musicians, one of the two. maybe you'll be interested to hear that Mr. Rowe considers the Tokyo crew a great inspiration for his recent work, and the most important development in improvised music in decades, or maybe not.

anyway, different tastes for different folks: I'd personally be OK if I never heard another David Grubbs record (although he's an extremely nice person and I consider him at least a casual friend), but I don't go around talking about the state of singer/songwriters based on that.

Dear Jon

i probaly have heard about 10 ( less ?) of your releases and YES it s clear to me you re doing something else

i thought we were talking about the more "usual" thing you find under Improv and Free Jazz .... you know like regular FMP and Leo and followers .... like every country more or less as a scene sometime stil from the 70´s but a lot much younger playing that Free Jazz like it was actually never written but just happened back then ... i just wanted to say you ll find the same releases in this free impro corner than you ll find them on Concord records or Criss Cross and many others ..that is just on the same level as people collecting stamps or toys or whatever ...one does not want to be surprised

i always have to think what s different or free in a free jazz Festival where everything should sound free anyway ?

And that also reminds for example some hypes like with Rock Critics in France when Tortoise came up ... suddenly that was it
but to me it sometime sounded like a Fusion band twice speeded down ( and god knows how many times these critics mad greasy jokes on Fusion ...)

again the Frame might be of importance but you can t stick only to that

best
n

I'm totally with you on all of that, Noel, particularly Tortoise, who I thought were laughably bad the time I saw them at Victoriaville, easily the most amateurish show I ever saw there.

"i thought we were talking about the more "usual" thing you find under Improv and Free Jazz"

well, originally it was an oddly conceived thread about the AMPLIFY box, but it quickly turned into Alexandre, who didn't like the box but evidently doesn't like any improvised music, and you, who I now learn is talking about FMP and Leo. one can understand my confusion. :)

P.S. the Live at Les Instants Chavires disc, with you, Evan, Lawrence Casserley and Joel Ryan, is on Leo.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/labels/leo/lr255.html

nice to hear no one ever bothered to inform you about it... :)

Jon,

well, without anything more specific than the "Vienna Tokyo Berlin crew" to go on, I have no way of answering that.

Well there s a life before and after records noop ?

either you haven't heard the right records/concerts We(of course, everyone makes crappy records and has subpar concerts), or you just don't like most or all of these musicians, one of the two.

I haven t heard the Disco ones that s for sure ....

maybe you'll be interested to hear that Mr. Rowe considers the Tokyo crew a great inspiration for his recent work, and the most important development in improvised music in decades, or maybe not.

I m sure Keith does but with all my respect and affection to him i still don t need
to ask anyone before i go out in the street to decide what rocks and what maybe makes me feel differently

anyway, different tastes for different folks: I'd personally be OK if I never heard another David Grubbs record

I wasn t saying anywhere that people should massively ask for refund after buying some of the quiet ones , did I ?

i guess that more or less ends up around here ...half way through ?

best regards
n

I'm totally with you on all of that, Noel, particularly Tortoise, who I thought were laughably bad the time I saw them at Victoriaville, easily the most amateurish show I ever saw there.

But ( cause indeed if you started on the Amplify box it s a real mess now sorry ) i entered the chat through Trapist -Ballroom
(you ll see that closes the link now ) cause i felt really like with Tortoise but even more of a second hand one ... ( this one has few heroic passage of post rock fusion of the best juice when not in the more restrected playing era --did i say as a start )

music, and you, who I now learn is talking about FMP and Leo. one can understand my confusion. :)

WE ALL DO i m sure !

P.S. the Live at Les Instants Chavires disc, with you, Evan, Lawrence Casserley and Joel Ryan, is on Leo.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/labels/leo/lr255.html

nice to hear no one ever bothered to inform you about it... :)

No that is wrong i got copies later i just wanted to say when i went to the club all i knew was we d play with Evan ( but not even with who else as far as i remember ) and i understood it was a record when i got a copy ( i havent listened to it since .... )

best
n

jon, how do you mean i dont like improvised music?
its not even questions of like or not, its just its there and i intend to check it out, and i participate

man i must be crazy S&M then,
i am very often playing concerts (6 in april, not bad for a amateur guy!)
attending venues for concert, 3 options tomorow nite in paris, sun at Instants (not improv though), surprise concert somewhere with warburton, lehn... and also some lebanon friends playing with some japanese trombone player i dont know.

I also nuy buy records, not only improv... but.

yeah, i relistened to the leo with you noël, casserley, parker and ryan. i think the pieces in duo and trio with noël and the electronics are interresting. i relistened to this record to actually see how it stands after a few years and after myself being under the all tokyo and erstwhile and kinda "hidden people" thing and being a bit bored...

so yeah, i started this thread with saying i found a bit of lack of "guts", "ideas" "involvment" in how much the musicians in some erstwhile related
projects and tokyo play? then noel came in and kinda push that way or am i really out of this?

you didn't come up with any examples of improvised music that you actually liked after repeated queries, so I extrapolated from your other comments, sorry if I misread you, but it's pretty easy to do so when you spout generality after generality.

jon, i think i am making a point in not wanting to quote any one in particular, but more "trends", "styles" because for me it is more the question of a "general spirit" which is in question here?

i can make a list of 25 concerts i saw in france in the last 2 years i found very boring. even i feel so many "young" musicians went inspired by the tokyo thing and it resulted in many of them playing really boring gig where nothing happens. if I tell you the name of this musicians, you wouldnt even know them. what seems bizarre is that now people seems to not be able to really improvised? they just try to fit in the style...

ok, that helps a bit. I will agree that I found it shocking how many young French musicians at the Musique Action festival in 2002 were trying to copy Keith and Sachiko, and mostly pretty awful at it. I think it's a very France-specific thing, though, it's not something I've particularly noticed in NYC or London or Tokyo or Berlin or Vienna. and I have yet to hear anyone using sinewaves anywhere near as beautifully as Sachiko does. the copiers really shouldn't affect your impressions of the originals, although I suppose sometimes necessarily they do. the fact that it's so hard to successfully copy what musicians like Sachiko and Keith do point out just how difficult it is to pull off those styles succesfully.

and I find it hard to believe that we're at the point where musicians who don't play in those styles get ostracized. if there is a club like that (and outside of some small ones in Tokyo who have noise restrictions because of neighbors, I'm not aware of any), there are 5,10,20 others that lean in the other direction. if there were festivals that were booked entirely along these lines, I wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt putting on these AMPLIFY fests.

for example then

i was totally disapointed by krebs/neuman/tétreault at the densités festival this year. i really like martin's way of playing, i had the chance to follow the martin and otomo tour last year (i was their driver for a few days) and their concerts were every nite very interresting, engaged, funny, creative, played with the desire to make something good.

then i saw this stuff in densités and i thought "what happened with martin?" i dont know, for me the two "girls" had nothing to offer to martin compared to what otomo offers?
they dont seem to me to be really "into the music", making something good for the audience?

also to go on on the densités, sorry i have nothing especially about this festival, but the duo of tilbury and blondy was a total drag to me? last for very long, the person next to me ended up snoring, me i was just so bored i even felt ill at ease when they coudnlt finish for 15 minutes?

what i dont understand is going to improv gigs that after 15 minutes you can feel the audience is bored, and musicians seem to not realise and ont try to change anything.

i am musician myself, as i said i play quite a lot of improv concerts. honestly, when i am on stage, i really feel i can know if audience is bored, their sounds, their moves, the general "feeling in the air". if i feel this i am thinking "come on man do omthing! come on! go for it!".

i dont know if that helps

i am so happy we can discuss this calmly
you know jon, we are quite a few here in paris to talk about this suvjects for about two years or three or so...

I mean ok that is going to be very vague to Jon
but i think i know what Alexandre means
cause i ve worked both sides too in France
with people ( like Louis Sclavis for example ) that are all over the place in France at least and you don t always know why exactely ( i m not putting Louis down but trying to give you an idea of systems ... and gosh they really do exists ) and they are like this big waves ...suddenly you see a lot some scenes ( then not of course ) and when you talk about it with other people it does not seem to represent much of a taste but rather a policy and then like everywhere there s the big friendship internationale and so on ....
and in this regard France is a particular country with little kingdoms and Queens and aristocracy .... and that is sometime little space left for younger people to try out

But see i got attacked for years for being like the home guitar player at Instants chavirés and i havent played there in years ... ( well i did not ask or really wanted to either ) but things are turning and people sometime can feel
why