Brett Larner/Toshimaru Nakamura
after school activity
Impermanent
ire005
Three tracks recorded on consecutive days in late January 2003. Though the initial cut, “your naïf”, took place in a studio, the very first sound you hear is a slight room hum, an element that sets the stage for subsequent activity. On this piece, Larner uses his koto for single, bell-like notes, hovering in the air between Nakamura’s staticky buzzes and ultrahigh-pitched tones. As in the remainder of the disc, I found Larner’s contributions, while not unpleasant, to be rather beside the point and I far preferred to concentrate on what magic Nakamura was creating, even if the mere juxtapositioning of the koto with the mixing board provides a nice, inherent "feel" to the music. About midway through, Toshi switches over to less pristine, woollier sounds that are also quite attractive on their own.
After a brief second track that’s in roughly the same area as the first, the scene shifts to the Artship in Oakland, a public venue as one soon discovers. Larner makes wide use of extended techniques here, including rubbing and ruffling the koto strings, largely choosing to blend in with Nakamura’s sounds (and those of the environment, such as a passing plane) rather than position himself alongside, although early on he also avails himself of a lovely pattern that approximates a melody. Nakamura’s wonderful here, introducing wavering lines that shimmer against the ambient noise like a heat mirage. Little by little, the music cedes way to the ambiance as snatches of schoolkids’ laughing and yelling begin to be heard. This quickly turns into a virtual takeover of the space as the kids (sounding like a gaggle of 13-year-old boys) tumble into the space, apparently oblivious of the music. Our duo plunges on regardless, their plucks and sizzles melding, if not seamlessly at least obligingly, with the teenage bluster. It’s a lovely little object lesson as the hermeticism of art music is infiltrated by the banality of day-today existence and proves itself, in this case, entirely accommodating. As I implied above, on a strictly musical basis, I would have been happy with only Nakamura’s presence but, as the disc progresses, that aspects matters less and less and when it succumbs to the environment, it ends up making little difference at all. A good recording, well worth hearing.
''As in the remainder of the disc, I found Larner’s contributions, while not unpleasant, to be rather beside the point and I far preferred to concentrate on what magic Nakamura was creating, even if the mere juxtapositioning of the koto with the mixing board provides a nice, inherent "feel" to the music.''
I think that juxtaposition is the key element of the first piece, so i would have to disagree with rather harsh statment of Larner's contribution beiing ''rather beside the point''. But i do agree that this juxtaposition of ringing acoustic sonorities with feedcak or sine tones have produced more intruiging result (at least for my ears)- check austrian- german duo LOS GLISSANDINOS (Klaus Filip on laptop and Kai fagaschinski on clarinet) or recent release by Tetuzi Akiyama and Martin Ng. I do agree that After school activity is great and pleasant experience., but i think you should reserve some lines also for Toshi's composition on it ..
all best Luka Zagoricnik
Posted by: linnomablerec@yahoo.com at October 11, 2004 8:22 AM"check austrian- german duo LOS GLISSANDINOS (Klaus Filip on laptop and Kai fagaschinski on clarinet)"
is this on CD, Luka?
Posted by: jon abbey at October 11, 2004 8:56 AM"check austrian- german duo LOS GLISSANDINOS (Klaus Filip on laptop and Kai fagaschinski on clarinet)"
"is this on CD, Luka?"
check
http://www.creativesourcesrec.com/creative_up%20releases.html
Posted by: jacob miller at October 11, 2004 4:43 PMSo the Kai/Filip hasn't been released yet?
Also, could someone tell me about David Stackenäs, thanks!
Posted by: Michael Schaumann at October 11, 2004 5:14 PMwow, they have 19 upcoming releases listed! cool, looking forward to quite a few of those, thanks for the pointer...
Michael: http://hapna.com/stackenas.html
Posted by: jon abbey at October 11, 2004 5:20 PMCrikey, even I had no idea Ernesto & Carlos had so many in the pipeline! It's great news - CS is a super label, and along with our friend Luka's Innomable and Mattin's wmor, one of the best things to happen over here in the past couple of years as far as labels go.
Went to a very interesting gig last night, two solo sets one by Jack Wright, one by Noid, both of whom I understand came along to your Erstquake bash, Jon? This has nothing much to do with the thread above, but Noid's album Monodigmen (on Artonal) is well worth checking out
I saw Noid twice in the period of two years and althou i was impressed the first time i saw their performance on cello and double bass, the second time the performance was totally the same (both times they performed among strong community of improvisors so their performance felt somehow out of place) - i guess they re both coming from classical background with great simpathy for minimalism. As far as Los Glissandinos they have some pieces ready to download at http://klingt.org in the jokebox section (with recordings of Noid, duos of Dieb 13 (w Erik M live from Konfrontationen) and Otomo Yoshihide (from Uchiage), etc ...
Posted by: linnomablerec@yahoo.com at October 11, 2004 11:36 PMyep, both those guys came to at least one night of ErstQuake, I'm not sure how much Noid actually saw. what did they have to say about it, Dan?
Luka, I thought Noid was just one guy, why do you use the plural?
we have a few of those Noid CDs for sale at ErstDist...
Posted by: jon abbey at October 12, 2004 12:12 AMYeah originally Noid is just one guy (cello player Arnold Noberl) but some of his compositions are played also by doublebasist Manfred Hofer (he performs as Nours) and on one piece they have played together ...
Posted by: linnomablerec@yahoo.com at October 12, 2004 1:12 AMSorryx Arnold Haberl not Noberl of course
Posted by: linnomablerec@yahoo.com at October 12, 2004 1:13 AMRe: Los Glissandinos, four MP3s of the group can be found on Dieb 13's 'jokebux' at:
http://klingt.org/gro.tgnilk/jokebux.html
Posted by: Wayne Spencer at October 12, 2004 2:43 AMGuten Tag,
as Wayne and Luka already mentioned there are four free download-tracks in the jukebox of the klingt.org-website. These are early recordings we did in March 04 in Vienna and at Kleylehof. For the release on Creative Sources we did recordings this summer at the same places and I think our music developed quite a bit. Now in November we will finish our longplayer in Vienna and it will be out in April/May 2005. Although our collaboration is quite young, it became fastly very important for both of us. We share more than the same initials.
There are some concerts coming and we look out for more:
LOS GLISSANDINOS
Kai Fagaschinski: clarinet
Klaus Filip: sinus
16.11.04 Zuerich/CH @ WIM
22.11.04 Vienna/A @ Rhiz
25.11.04 Linz/A @ Stadtwerkstatt
08.01.05 London/UK @ Sound 323
09.01.05 London/UK @ Ongaku (Kai solo)
13.01.05 Bremen/D @ Zakk
??.01.05 Berlin/D @ ?
08.06.05 Klosterneuburg (close to Vienna)/A @ Sammlung Essl
Don't wasting your time - come around here!
Greetings from Berlin! Fuck off Reductionism!
bye |
http://klingt.org/gro.tgnilk/jokebux.html
http://www.konfrontationen.at/konfrontationen2004/losg.html
Sorry but as i though about Noid/Nours performance i think that actually Noid performed his own shit and Nous his own and at the end they join forces. Anyway at least Noid affection to minimalism seems obvious since i saw him performing early Reich pieces again in excellent enviroment of Hans Falb's regular festival- confrontations of old and ''new'' aesthetics in improv and beyond. Somebody should write a god damn book about this small but stuborn festival in small village of Nickelsdorf next to hungarian border ...
all best and fuck off maximalist heavymetalguitaronanies!
Posted by: linnomablerec@yahoo.com at October 12, 2004 6:07 AMAnd writing so much of austria creative musicians i would like to take an oportunity to ask Jon Abbey when Ami Yoshida/Christof Kurzmann cd will be out. I am really looking forward to it. And if Kai is still connected to Bagatellen i guess my poor offer for the gig in Ljubljana is not enough. I can understand that totally but it is sadly all i can afford right now ...
Posted by: linnomablerec@yahoo.com at October 12, 2004 6:10 AMhi, Kai!
"i would like to take an oportunity to ask Jon Abbey when Ami Yoshida/Christof Kurzmann cd will be out. "
we're aiming for February, they're supposed to choose the music by the end of the month. I would like to release that, the Akiyama/Muller, and the Ottavi/Workman all together, but that requires them being done and me happy with them, and the only one of those I've heard any of yet is the Akiyama/Muller (which is done and quite nice, titled Points and Slashes).
Posted by: jon abbey at October 12, 2004 9:00 AMhey kai! wie gehts?
i look forward to see you guys in zurich!!
cheers,
t.
As the thread has metamorphosed into an extension of Innomable, might as well take the opportunity to ask Luka what news he has of the DW / Tomas Korber disc. Do you need anything else from my end, Luka?
Meanwhile, Noid was indeed just Arnold.
Hey Kai,
Looking forward to the ongaku gig. Should be a good one.
Nat
Posted by: Nathaniel Catchpole at October 13, 2004 2:59 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................