thanks for the review, brian!

did you try listening to the first track at rather high volume? i think some of the details may disappear when listened to at low or medium volume (only talking about the first track. the second one has less dynamics and there it shouldn't be much of a difference, i think). all in all this is one of the albums i personally like to listen to loud (not the case with "momentan_def" for example)...

No great surprises in this post for the Bag curatorial team, as it's something I've moaned about in several private emails, but I think it's a shame that reviews on this site sometimes comes so thick and fast they (reviews and therefore albums) don't always get the necessary attention. This album was discussed en passant a while back. Quite simply, it gets my vote the most satisfying eai (gulp, I said it) album of the year so far.

i'm getting curious about this record
i read a rather disapointed review about it in the staalplaat vital weekly, i think it said that this is just one among other records of this kind.
wanna check by myself, has this record hit Paris yet though?
alexandre

Don't know yet Alexandre - try L'Oeil du Silence or Bimbo. You (and anyone else for that matter) should also try to get hold of Korber's Mistakes - see review at
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2004/03mar_text.html#4

I've been wanting to write about the "just one among others" aspect of many eai releases over the last couple of years and, for a moment, even thought of it with regard to this one, but I eventually considered that unfair as I think "brackwater" is better than that.

But I sometimes think the genre has "advanced" to a point that it's become not so difficult to create an "ok" eai record. I find myself making a sort of comparison to a jazz jam session, one that involves a number of excellent (or at least, competent) musicians working within some standard structure. It's almost automatic that music of some minimal caliber will be produced without half-trying; sometimes certain peaks will be attained, other times the musicians will simply walk through it.

I get a little of that sense with any number of eai releases. They're fine, they're not bad, but there's an aura of routineness, even of complacency that's nagging. This may be what Alexandre's been talking about recently (even if we might disagree on the particulars).

It's a complicated issue, I imagine, and may well have much to do with a given listener's jadedness and expectations, but I've become much more interested in hearing fascinating failures than easily-accomplished "successes".

dan:

many thanks for the nice comments on this record! i'm glad you like it :)

alexandre:

well to tell the truth: i was a bit pissed about frans' review of the CD. i think he probably listened to it one time en passant and just didn't do it any justice...

what's interesting however, is that this record is generating some pretty controversial (even contradictory) critical reactions: from very bad (frans de waard, vital weekly) to really good (tj norris, brainwashed & massimo ricci, touching extremes) to somewhere in between (brian's review here). i don't exactly know how to read this, but it's still an interesting fact.

the record can be ordered in france through metamkine or if you want to, directly by writing me an email.

brian:

first off, let me tell you that i deeply respect your opinion. i understand (even if i don't agree, quite obviously) what you meant to say in you review. but if you were saying the following with brackwater in mind, i have to say, that you're totally wrong:

"I find myself making a sort of comparison to a jazz jam session, one that involves a number of excellent (or at least, competent) musicians working within some standard structure. It's almost automatic that music of some minimal caliber will be produced without half-trying; sometimes certain peaks will be attained, other times the musicians will simply walk through it."

you can't imagine the time i spent mixing and editing, fine tuning this record. in fact the second track, which you prefered, is much more of an "the session the way it sounded" piece than the first. by no means i want to belittle the contribution of the other musicians involved, but the first track specifically is a product of dozens (may i say hundreds) of repeated listenings, working on it, then going over it again etc. if you compare it to my composition on "mistakes", i'm sure you'll find some analogies (in a wider sense).

my opinion is obviously not objective and it's also obvious that i like this record very much (why should i release it, if that wasn't the case). but: if you really want me to compare the two pieces to one another, i'd say that i prefer the first track, because it works on several levels both if you look at the pure "sounds" used, but also structurally. however, there's stuff that even the most experienced listener, won't be able to hear unless if played a few times. this first track has deliberately not been conceived in the first place for "instant satisfaction", but for giving more to listen to in order to "unlock" it little by little. even after hearing it so many times, i still discover new things in it! now the second track (which is only a trio erikm/otomo/korber, btw) is beautiful, too, in my opinion. for all the reasons brian and others mentioned. but it's also true, that it's much "flatter" than the first track. the way it works is more "classic". so it's much more easily accessible than the first track, but does that make it better? maybe at first listening you'll find your way into it faster and like it better. but at repeated listenings, i still would say it's not as STRUCTURALLY rich as the first track. what i liked particulary about the record, is that it shows two different sides of the players involved, even though the sessions were recorded right one after another.

so, i have no problem, if you, brian, don't agree with this. but if you're really interested in getting into it, i strongly encourage you to listen to it a couple of times more. check out the puzzle pieces in track one, how they dissappear, then come back, rearranged, reinterpreted... i really think you're underrating it.

yes i know, this must sound like a stupid self-praisal for some, and i really apologize for this. i didn't intend to do this, which is why my first post was so short and only consisted of a question to brian. but since the discussion emerged, i thought i'd let you know why i'm so fond of this record and why i think it's better than "momentan_def", for example, which has been acclaimed all over the place. i still think "momentan def" is a good record, yes i like it. but "momentan_def" sure wasn't as multidimensional and therefore difficult to access as "brackwater", so maybe i shouldn't be surprised that it's getting better (critical) feedback...

Tomas, no I didn't mean it at all with regard to 'brackwater'--it's just something that I've been thinking about and this seemed a reasonable place to air it, probably triggered by Alexandre's reference to that other review. Sorry for the misapprehension.

I didn't know that the title track was as worked on as you describe. I thought for a while that may be the case and that it might have been more a "Tomas Korber" album than a pure group one, but had no real reason to say so, so I didn't! What you said is quite interesting and I'll certainly give it some relistens with that in mind.

Which brings up another issue when you get to complicated matters like this: Hearing something "innocently" vs. hearing it with knowledge as to the musciian's intent. For example, in 2002 Jon and I heard AMM and Formanex in Nancy with guest John White on synth, performing a page or two from 'Treatise'. It's recently available on disc, but I don't think you get quite the effect as you did live: mixed in amongst a typically understated and lovely performance by AMM/Formanex, White was inserting all sorts of banal, aggravating and adolescent sounds, from sheep baaing to babies crying to dopey synth bloops. REALLY annoying. To the point where I tried to mentally block out his contributions from the rest. After it was over, I was more than a bit frustrated, wondering what the hell they were thinking. I cornered Rowe and asked. Turns out (assuming he wasn't putting me on and I don't think he was), Rowe was concerned that all too often, performances of "Treatise" were overly intellectual, ethereal and, in a word, dainty. He'd asked White to incorporate as many "rude" sounds as possible, specifically asking him to generate the sort of sounds that "just aren't done" in normal, high-toned, free-improv environments. Well, this made me retroactively "read" the concert in a very different, more positive light, something Jon gave me a good bit of flack for. But, as far as I was concerned, with this knowledge, I had no problem saying that I was hearing it "wrongly", from at least a conceptual standpoint. Not that it would've made the work sound "better"--the ugly synth would still have been ugly--but I would have better grasped its reason for being.

What Tomas posted above will, at least, cause me to listen to 'brackwater' a bit differently. Is this fair or overly subjective? Who knows?

hey, brian. fair comments, thanks for your post.

"I thought for a while that may be the case and that it might have been more a "Tomas Korber" album than a pure group one, but had no real reason to say so, so I didn't!"

and i'm glad you didn't, because i wouldn't say this is a "korber album" at all. i mean: as is the case with probably most collaborations in this field of music (and assuming that one is not interested in a pure document of a live event) there is one person (very often one of the musicians) who mixes and edits the recording and depending on how agressively that is done, the final result gets that persons "fingerprints" stronger or weaker.

so i've been rather offensive while doing my job on brackwater but then again, it's not as if i had completely rearranged the piece at all (i.e. not like erik's work on "a wonderful world"). it's not a remix or a composition - the basic structures were given, the material, too (i haven't applied any effects, except for some EQing which hardly can be seen as effect). what i did was more kind of an "accentuation" of certain elements and leaving away weaker stuff or things that sounded nice, but did not make sense in the big picture.

but: i could have never done this properly, if it wasn't for toshi, erik and otomo's fantastic playing!! to go a little bit into details (even though i'm not sure how interesting this will be for bagatellen readers):

i changed most on erik's track (he explicitly told me to do so, btw). that was a bit of an overkill sometimes. however what i find incredible about erik is his sense of dramaturgy, his "instant composing" skills, so to speak - i.e. the guitar work at the end of the title track that you mention in your review, was at least to 50% coming from erik, who had sampled my guitar sounds (those at the very beginning of the piece) and had the great idea of bringing them in at that point. i just had to jump on. what i did in the mix at that point: i let the deep pulse just before the guitar stuff run a while on it's own (i even looped it and made it run a few seconds longer) to slow the whole piece down and make that guitar thing (and thus the contrast to the near-chaos earlier on) stronger.

i didn't have to change much on toshi's track because his stuff fit in very well already. what struck me most about his playing, is how fast he is with his instrument. i work with feedback, too, and i know that feedback systems are pretty inertial. but check out his little duo with erik towards the end (i haven't got the exact time in mind; it's just before the track speeds down with that pulse sound i mentioned above) - i think he's amazingly fast in reacting.

and then otomo: what can i say about him other than he's a fucking genius! i almost changed nothing on his track, his playing is so surgical. but i used many of his scratches and sounds as anchors for breaks and the likes of erik, toshi or myself; bringing new material in, or muting a track. stuff like that. for example to stop erik's technoish beat at 2 or 3 points in the piece. i love those little interruptions ;)

"Which brings up another issue when you get to complicated matters like this: Hearing something "innocently" vs. hearing it with knowledge as to the musciian's intent"

yes i know what you mean. i don't think that should matter as a work of art should IMHO be able to speak for itself. i don't think you or anyone should like brackwater better after reading what i have to say about it. i rather meant it as an encouragement to listen to it often, because there are quite a lot of "hidden" things in there or elements that you may "read" differently when listening many times. for example shown in what you wrote in your review, yourself, about the last section of the title track:

"It’s a pretty marked contrast and one that throws the preceding music into a different sort of relief, intended or otherwise."

that's exactly (one of) my point(s).

now some may think: "isn't that korber guy an egomaniac son of a bitch. of course EVERY musician wants people to listen to his pieces as often as possible, don't they?!"
... let me enfeeble this argument by telling you that i have a solo-cdr on w.m.o/r coming in 2 weeks or so, which is way "simpler" than brackwater. i don't think anyone who listens to it attentively 2 or 3 times and DOESN'T like it, would like it any better after listening to it 20 times... as opposite to brackwater, maybe, hopefully.

goddammit what an overkill.

Hey Tomas, I don't know about anyone else here, but I certainly appreciated and enjoyed your comments. Thanks!

"Which brings up another issue when you get to complicated matters like this: Hearing something "innocently" vs. hearing it with knowledge as to the musciian's intent. ... this made me retroactively "read" the concert in a very different, more positive light, something Jon gave me a good bit of flack for. But, as far as I was concerned, with this knowledge, I had no problem saying that I was hearing it "wrongly", from at least a conceptual standpoint. Not that it would've made the work sound "better"--the ugly synth would still have been ugly--but I would have better grasped its reason for being."

I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in that bit. I don't have too much to add at this point, but I've been thinking about this a whole lot recently. So many people I know are fixated on one or the other of the two options so to speak, i.e. "innocent" hearing vs. informed hearing or something of the sort. They want to say one is the "correct" reading of a work, which seems wrong in some important way.

I think there's something to be said for both, the initial reaction or the uninformed, sort of bald "aesthetic" appreciation and the more informed reaction, which perhaps comes later.

I know for me lots of art, books, records, movies, etc. have changed in a way for me after having read about the author's intent or what have you.

As I said, not much to add, just mutterings. Interesting stuff though.