I couldn't disagree more about Neuland. Not only did I find it inspired and inspiring, I'd rank it as the single most successful solo string instrument album of last year along with Rhodri Davies' Trem. And that having been unimpressed by Ms Hug's playing when I saw her live.
Forgive me for being eternally oldfartish Brian, but I'm prepared to bet that on repeated listening you'll find far more depth and satisfaction and - sorry to use the word - musicality in Neuland in the coming years than in the Collected Works of Sachiko M, another seriously overrated figure.

oh, man.

C'mon with the "oh, man" - and sell me Sachiko M!
And while we're on the job, would somebody please give me a convincing definition of what you mean by EAI? As abbreviations go it seems to be as mysterious as AMM.

Hey, Dan. Who knows, you might end up right but I gave it a bunch of tries last year and it never worked for me. For that matter, as much as I generally love Rhodri's playing, 'Trem' was something of a disappointment for me. Good and solid, but not as beautiful as I'd hoped.

As for someday "ranking" Ms. Hug over Sachiko--wow, really, really, tough to imagine!!

Well, I disagree with Dan about Sachiko - to me she's one of the few musicians who are consistently provocative - but I heartily agree about "Neuland" (and "Trem" too, for what it's worth). I think that's a gorgeous disc.

Well lads (& lasses) I was only trying to put the cat among the pigeons (as ever!).. I'd like to make a distinction between ranking musicians and ranking albums, however.. the handful of concerts I've seen with Sachiko have been outstanding. I'm not sure it comes across as well on disc, though. Depends on the space you choose to listen to it too. For the record, my favourite Sachiko albums are the duos with Toshi and Ami. And the Grob thing Absinth (though more for Tilbury I'll admit). The solo outings I find rather arid. I look forward to the forthcoming double Jon mentioned a while back though.

'Neuland' is incredible. . .one of my favorite Emanems. Brian, give it a few more spins. The duo in question is in the mail. Does anyone have any thoughts on:

A. 'Angel Gate' w/Wastell, Durrant and Wren?

B. that Hug recording where she plays in a freezing mountainscape?

Thanks.

hers has my vote for new agey-est website.

In answer to Michael's two points above, I think Angel Gate is another cracker (shame the quartet split when Phil Durrant and Mark Wastell moved on to quieter pastures), and strongly recommended. You could probably dig up a review of it on the PT site if you're interested. Unfortunately I've yet to hear the other album you mention, Michael.

Thanks Dan. . .for those interested:

"Angel Gate"

http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2001/07jul_text.html

and from http://www.charlottehug.ch per the frozen mountainscape. . .

"Sites of transgression: I frequently choose for my performances venues that are distinct from the conventional concert hall. The musical idea influences my choice of place, and vice versa: the space determines the music in its emotional tone, the specifics of acoustics, of history, the temporal play of light, the temperature, the ambient noise...in the Rhône Glacier, for example, I was slowly but surely paralysed by the cold. I played until I could scarcely move any longer. That was an extreme situation with unexpected effects: musical, but unexpected!"

i can't begin to imagine comparing charlotte hug to sachiko, since their styles and ideas are so totally different. but i really enjoyed hug's trio disk with maggie nicols and caroline kraabel, also on emanem.

neuland didn't intrigue me nearly as much, but i'm very interested in hearing her work with a laptop artist. i'll have to look into this one.

m

Actually, I think a Hug / Sachiko album would be bloody fantastic. Add Gunter Muller for good measure and you've got a great line up.
Just a thought!
Thanks Michael for trawling round the PT site and finding the URL for Angel Gate.. I never remember exactly where I put half of the things I post there and end up using the search engine myself :))

no, I'm not going to fucking "sell you" Sachiko M, she does just fine for herself. you say "putting the cat among the pigeons", I say "condescending and misguided". potato, potatah, tomato, tomatah, let's call the whole thing off.

Dearie me.

So, Jon it's apparently kosher for you to claim that Sonny Rollins is overrated but when someone dares to stick his head above the fence and criticise one of the artists on the sacred Erstwhile roster you're incapable of responding with anything other than veiled anti-British sentiment and not-so-veiled insult. Well all I can say is what you lack in terms of a sense of humour you more than make up for in exaggerated sense of self-importance! Meanwhile, when Sachiko M has released a body of work that is comparable in scope and influence as the discography of Sonny Rollins (or for that matter Frank Zappa, who is NOT one of my favourite musicians, but I for one am prepared to give credit where credit is due), we'll come back and talk about it. Until then, the "condescending and misguided" epithets apply more to what you have to say about Mr Rollins, not to mention the alcohol consumption of certain British cities, than to anything I've said so far about Ms M.
I also invited other bloggers to contribute a meaningful and coherent definition of this quasi mystical term "eai", but I see noone has so far responded. I'm inclined to conclude therefore that it's as bogus and nonsensical a term as "trip hop". So if you'll excuse me, I'll now go back to my copy of "Newk's Time".

1) you started the overrated thing by saying Bill Dixon, I countered with Sonny Rollins. you want to discuss that, that's a different discussion.

2) I criticize the artists on Erstwhile as much as anyone, including Sachiko (we even e-mailed about her A Bruit Secret). you weren't criticizing, you were being condescending and dismissive, and it's not the first time. your attack on her came out of nowhere and had nothing to back it up (plus it's not even really what you think, it's just "cats among the pigeons" stuff. the self-importance stuff is red herring bullshit.

3) I don't understand why you're so obsessed with me and Erstwhile. clearly you don't especially enjoy this area of music so much anymore. why don't you just move on, there's plenty of other things out there you seem to enjoy. I don't understand the constant veiled (and not-so-veiled) hostility, and I'd prefer to not interact with it.

4) I like Angel Gate a lot. I found the For 4 Ears record unmemorable. I haven't heard Neuland. but for anyone to make this statement:

"I'm prepared to bet that on repeated listening you'll find far more depth and satisfaction and - sorry to use the word - musicality in Neuland in the coming years than in the Collected Works of Sachiko M, another seriously overrated figure."

is just ludicrous. do you not know Brian? maybe this holds true for you, that's fine, but why does everyone have to share your taste? it's like you've taken up some holy crusade against musicians who sell 400 copies of CDs, I really don't understand it, but I don't appreciate it.

5) anti-British sentiment? huh? are you even English? I honestly am not sure.

if you want to have a mature, adult discussion about something, I'm happy to, but that's certainly not the way you started this thread.

I tried to produce some sort of definition recently on another thread. Don't know if was any good though.

Prolly not.

...of "e-ai" I meant, not "British" or "overrated"...

;)

"I don't understand why you're so obsessed with me and Erstwhile"

This seems to be some kind of aeblymania.

"eai" is not an ideal name, like most genre names. what it refers to is the area of music based in free improvisation, usually containing a large component of live electronics, typically containing no direct connection to free jazz.

i agree with brian on neuland. as for "brilliant days" - i found it a bit disappointing. i respect hug a lot, but think her playing is not very focused, neither on neuland nor on the recent f4e. i don't know why you compare sachiko with charlotte here, dan. their music is pretty much the opposite of each other, i think. almost no points of comparison, except that they're both women...

Actually, I think a Hug / Sachiko album would be bloody fantastic. Add Gunter Muller for good measure and you've got a great line up.

funny, i saw them in a duo in may last year in sion. it was one of the recording sessions that took place in the former state prison of valais. i can say that i have never before liked charlotte's playing as much as i did there. i'm not sure if that session was really a "success" or not, but at least hug was forced to stick with her material without playing around too much (you know, the 'a bit of this, a bit of that' impro - something she does fairly often) - very transparent music, i liked that. i have often argued with charlotte about these points and of course she doesn't agree with me: she'd never call her playing 'unfocused', she calls it 'dense' and argues that i only like sparse, austere music - but then again: i'm a derek bailey fan and i do think his music is pretty 'dense'... the dense-sparse debate is as futile as the loud-silent debate... that's not my point. my point is that impro should move beyond those obvious answer-question games, and charlotte is into those a lot, imho...

upon rereading this thread, I think it's possible that Dan may not know that by "eai" we mean electroacoustic improvisation. if that's the case, there you go.

Gee thanks Jon - that really clears everything up. I can't tell you how grateful I am for that information.

Dan, I was genuinely trying to be helpful. you asked for a definition, and I attempted to give you one. what are you looking for?

I'm pondering the question and will submit a full length piece on the subject in due course.

Definition of EAI: Well that's a bit difficult. I guess one has to consider what constitutes electroacoustic music in general and then naturally add the improvisational aspect. The early electroacoustic artists like Henry and Schaeffer used tape, as did Xenakis. More recent artists have expanded the tools (Rowe likes to talk about them being sonic objets trouves, and he's right up to the point when he starts jerking off to a Duchampian tune). The turntable does what tape used to--to some degree, as long as we're talking about a turntable with records and not simply the turntable itself as a sonic generator. Obviously digital instruments come into play as well. The problem with this designation comes when you consider people like Sugimoto and Stangl and even Ami Yoshida who don't really use electronics other than amplification (though Stangl does independently of his guitar). Well, the sounds that come from Yoshida's mouth aren't unlike some of the glitches one sees in the electronics, so if there's a better term, it might be "improvised glitch," but not all the components of EAI are always glitch even if they are often so. Plus, the term "improvised glitch" is pretty cumbersome and won't necessarily register as "music"-related. (Could just as easily be what you do when your computer fucks out at work or what is enacted after a mistaken appointment). So, EAI becomes the better moniker. Loose enough operate as a wide umbrella, makes the obvious nod to the electroacoustic progenitors without having to genuflect as deeply to the history of jazz improvisation, which is pretty different from this stuff. It also becomes one of those terms that really isn't easy to define (like postmodernism), but you know it when you see it (maybe). Like, how do you define the term "underground?" You don't give it a definition. You don't oppose it to "overground" (as some have). You adumbrate it with words, in the same way that someone like Julia Kristeva does with the notion of the "abject." You don't define, you paint its parameters. So EAI: it's that "genre" of music that encapsulates the quasi-AMM aesthetic in nodal apexes like Tokyo onkyo, Vienna, and Berlin. It most often involves the use of electronics, especially glitch electronics, "metonyms of disconnection" (or the stuff we used to hate before we learned to hear these sonic pariahs as music instead of sonic garbage), but it sometimes involves only acoustic instruments and although it generally refuses all normative musicological categories like melody, etc. or normative techniques of playing an instrument, it occasionally drops down in the areas of groove (Radian) or glitch pop (Fennesz). Because EAI is very fluid and resists all forms of delimiting genre specificity, one might be tempted to say there's no thread weaving the varied topographies together. But there is such a thread--it's called Erstwhile, and Erstwhile is slowly becoming the new nomenclature for this aesthetic and gradually replacing EAI (Erstwhile-like, Erstwhile-ish, Erstwhillian), but Erstwhile itself is a term that refers to a past or prior form of something, with the term "erst" being the "erstwhile" form of the word "erstwhile". What is "erstwhile" about "Erstwhile?" Well, it's not the vinyl implied by "Erstwhile Records," though "erstwhile records" are often employed in the making of "Erstwhile Records" (check out Dieb 13 or Erik M for examples here). It's the form of electroacoustic music that inhabits the deep structure of EAI but without the "I". That, in a nutshell, is what is meant by EAI. Hope that helps, Dan the Man.

I got your nodal apex right here. (If you can't find it, it's right above my metonyms of disconnection.)

;)

Hey Bill that's very interesting. I just posted my feature on the subject but it doesn't seem to be up yet (probably because I fucked up the menu thing and / or because Al's still in bed, whatever time it is there). Look forward to your thoughts on that when it hits the homepage. Talking of nodals, it's time for lunch here in Paris. See y'all later.

Bill, CDs are "Erstwhile Records", in some sense anyway, aren't they?

yes, that would be one implication. Another would be that all records ( in the sense of recorded information) had been thrown away--no input (mixing board), no memory (sampler), no record (turntable)--voila, your new CD!