Recommendations of meditative and acoustic minimal, improv

[Notice Recordings]

Man, I hate the idea of music being "meditative,"

What's wrong with this term as a description? Or, is it more the way the term has been used through the years than what it actually means? To me the term meditiative would indicate music/sound that induces a heightened sense of concentration. Isn't that what a lot of the music we discuss is all about, or at least the effect of it?

Precisely

[Notice Recordings]

Wouldn't mind more recommendations for composed works in this vein as well. Feldman is generally all I find when searching for this type of sound, and he gets labeled as "minimalist" which usually means "repetitive, tonal, and accessible" when applied to any other composer, so trying to find composers who inhabit a similar sound world as Feldman seems to be a losing battle if one tries to use the terminology applied to him as a guidepost...

What about some of the Cage number pieces and the less-excited Satie piano pieces ? (of which I am still trying to find a good compilation... seems like they're always mixed in with his more "upbeat" pieces.)

[bedouin]

What about some of the Cage number pieces and the less-excited Satie piano pieces ? (of which I am still trying to find a good compilation... seems like they're always mixed in with his more "upbeat" pieces.)

You should look no further than the Reinbert de Leeuw discs "The Early Piano Works" or the "Piano Works". There is also "Satie: Piano Music; Mélodies", a 3CD box (of the same recordings) released by Decca that includes a superb DVD of contemporary dance based on the same pieces.


For Cage number pieces check the Barton Workshop discs on Megadisc. The Fives in particular.

[ReverendLove]

Again I would suggest the recordings of Satie by Ulrich Gumpert. They are very slow and the sounds and melodies almost break apart.
http://www.classicalarchives.com/album/ ... 00020.html

[Matt Wuethrich]

The new Zeitkratzer disc of Alvin Lucier pieces might also be in this vein. Minimal instrumentation, simple ideas, but active, engrossing results.

[Notice Recordings]

Again I would suggest the recordings of Satie by Ulrich Gumpert. They are very slow and the sounds and melodies almost break apart.
http://www.classicalarchives.com/album/ ... 00020.html

Yeah, those are come great pieces. My god, though, what horrid, horrid artwork. Who would ever .. I mean, wow... I am speechless.

[ReverendLove]

Again I would suggest the recordings of Satie by Ulrich Gumpert. They are very slow and the sounds and melodies almost break apart.
http://www.classicalarchives.com/album/ ... 00020.html

Yeah, those are come great pieces. My god, though, what horrid, horrid artwork. Who would ever .. I mean, wow... I am speechless.

That was a team of one thousand German first league designers. Brethtaking

Better be glad, that you didn't see the artwork of the LP "Sarabandes" by Gumpert.
But this is my favorite.

[Adrian]

Since you started this thread by mentioning one of my favourite albums (Rainy Koran Verse) I thought I'd mention three others:
Radu Malfatti & Klaus Filip : Imaoto (CD Erstwhile)
Supersilent: 9 (CD Runegrammofon)
and particularly this one:
Akiyama/Nakamura/Sugimoto/Wastell: Foldings (CD Confront)

[Notice Recordings]

Since you started this thread by mentioning one of my favourite albums (Rainy Koran Verse) I thought I'd mention three others:
Radu Malfatti & Klaus Filip : Imaoto (CD Erstwhile)
Supersilent: 9 (CD Runegrammofon)
and particularly this one:
Akiyama/Nakamura/Sugimoto/Wastell: Foldings (CD Confront)

Yeah, I've heard Foldings is great. I'll definitely check it out now, since you specifically compared it to Rain Koran Verse (been listening to that one so much lately.. )

I have Imaoto, and find it deeply intriguing, and ambiguous enough to compliment a number of atmospheric situations.

Thanks for the recommendations.

[notoriousd]

As far as the euro scene goes the "another timbre" and "SOFA" record labels are great for this kind of improv. Otherwise the japanese "onkyo" style improv is a good place to look, Foldings, mentioned above is a good example of this. The percussionist Ingar Zach has been doing some nice droney solo stuff recently on Sofa which definitely fits into the "lowercase" improv bracket (to use Nate Wooley's term). His band "No Spaghetti Edition" is also great for this, and also the recent Mural release with the awesome Jim Denley who really has one of the most original flute and sax sounds around (with great use of breath noises like Michel Doneda) Also check out "the cigar that talks" which is a great new release by Roger Turner, Michel Doneda and John Russell; I wouldn't exactly call it meditative like the aforementioned stuff but its very quiet and detailed. Anything with Michel Doneda seems to be very quiet and sensitive music, check out "Une chance pour l'ombre" (Sawai/Doneda/Imai/Lê Quan/Saitoh) which I keep coming back to, because of the rarity of the musicians and the presence of the koto instrument which is always welcome! Also check out the little EP on 1000fussler called "tehricks", very chilled out and detailed spectral type electronics with trumpet! mmm.
Beware though, this "genre" can be susceptible to tentativeness on the part of the musicians so sometimes it can be boring, but all the artists ive mentioned are extremely rigorous and can be trusted. Oooo also check out the super awesome album on RogueArt called Spiller's Alley, featuring the rare sweeter than harp tones of the koto with Larry Ochs on sopranino and tenor (amazing original sound this guy wowow!!!). This album has a chamber music like feel, comparable to that of the Mural album on SOFA.

EDIT: I see the use of the term "meditative" has irritated some people. I don't like to use this term generally because most people who "meditate" are actually shouting ideological crap to themselves inside their own heads, which is pretty much the opposite of how to listen to music attentively. The word meditation just isnt a great one because unfortunately it has all these pseudo-philosophical new age associations.

[Dan Warburton]

the "lowercase" improv bracket (to use Nate Wooley's term)

I believe it was Steve Roden who first coined the term, and it was taken up by James Coleman and others long before Nate Wooley started using it - and he's distanced himself from it in recent times too
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... ooley.html

Anything with Michel Doneda seems to be very quiet

Bit of a generalisation that

Also check out the little EP on 1000fussler called "tehricks", very chilled out and detailed spectral type electronics with trumpet! mmm.

You might want to mention that's Birgit Ulher and Gregory Buttner. Very good little disc (I like your recommendations, here and in the post on the other thread), but I don't think Tehricks is the kind of "meditative" stuff the original poster meant. And you point out the drawbacks of the nametag yourself.

[notoriousd]

the "lowercase" improv bracket (to use Nate Wooley's term)

I believe it was Steve Roden who first coined the term, and it was taken up by James Coleman and others long before Nate Wooley started using it - and he's distanced himself from it in recent times too

Yeah it is a dodgy term...all you have to do is turn up the volume and then it becomes a loud racket!

Anything with Michel Doneda seems to be very quiet

Bit of a generalisation that

definitely true, his style is so varied and response to group behaviour so strong that it is hard to anticipate how he is going to play on a particular record. The untitled Daunik Lazro / Michel Doneda / Lê Quan Ninh album is a good example of his non-quiet playing.

[Dan Warburton]

Anything with Michel Doneda seems to be very quiet

Bit of a generalisation that

definitely true, his style is so varied and response to group behaviour so strong that it is hard to anticipate how he is going to play on a particular record. The untitled Daunik Lazro / Michel Doneda / Lê Quan Ninh album is a good example of his non-quiet playing.

Always a good idea when posting here to provide us disc-hungry addicts with a bit of label and date information. I assume the disc you're referring to is the In Situ?
http://www.discogs.com/Daunik-Lazro--Mi ... ase/799841
Great, great record - but it's now twenty years old! And not very "meditative".. we're drifting off topic here, sorry. Though perhaps you should start a separate Doneda thread? Maybe there is one already..

[ALAP Magazine]

This is a drifting a little bit from what people have been suggesting, but one of the most meditative recordings I have heard is the Spontaneous Music Ensemble's Karyobin. The full titled is "Karyobin are the imaginary birds said to exist in paradise." Although other SME records eventually settled into the archetypal "Euro Free Improv" mold, this early (first?) endeavor lives in a rarefied air all its own. Because of the lineup (upright bass, trumpet, soprano sax, electric guitar, percussion) it sounds superficially like jazz. But the more you sink into it, the more the whole thing really does sound like a flock of birds, zigging and zagging through the air to a pattern only they can see. It seldom if ever gets above a mild hubbub, and its focused commitment to directionlessness sends me brain into all sorts of tangents. It's like a person starting a sentence and then digressing mid-sentence every 20 seconds, thousands of directions opened but not completed. Very strange and elegant.

[notoriousd]

Ahh Karyobin is such a good record! Of the groups that are currently around, I find the Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet comes quite close to this sound, possibly because there are no drums just like on the Karyobin record, but also because the rhythms are just so damn tight . I like your descriptions of the structures on this record, which reminds me of the structures which can be found in Zorn's game pieces. Although Zorn's pieces usually feature a lot of crashing drums and are far from meditative!

Another very meditative album I forgot to mention is Akio Suzuki / David Toop - Breath Taking http://www.discogs.com/Akio-Suzuki--Dav ... ase/726852 this release can be difficult listening at times because there is a lot of silence, and sometimes some background noises in the studio, but when the two start whistling and breathing away on various "column of air" instruments there is some very interesting movement going on. Great album for some serious zoning out. Any fans of the super meditative "an account of my hut" (Clive Bell / Bechir Saade) release on Another Timbre would be advised to check out this record.