ErstQuake 2: Sept 23-25, NYC

[grisha]

Thursday, September 22:

Pre-Festival

Pita at the Tonic

Overall a standard laptop set that was nice but nothing special.

i really disagree. not only because i really liked this set, but because i can't understand what standart sets you are comparing it too. have you heard any pita records (i mean solo)? it was just a great, flowing, captivating piece of music. not a dull moment, and it sounded great.

Friday, September 23:

ErstQuake Day I

Joe Colley/Jason Lescalleet

Ultimately it’s lack of subtly worked against it I think, and while it worked as a piece of entertainment it isn’t something that I necessarily would want to listen to again.

i agree pretty much with all your accounts, except from small differences in the last set, but i really disagree with this. i just don't really undertand what you mean. some music is just not subtle. and this just wasn't subtle. it wasn't overblown, it wasn't stuffed with unnecessary notes and sounds, it was just, in it's essence, different music from, let's say, Rowe/Nakamura. it's like saying that the volume of Merzbow's music works against it. but i guess it's just a matter of preference.

[Richard Pinnell]

yes, when building the back, he copied a couple of the curves directly from a Braque painting. when he's back here for a day next week, he wants to hang it on my wall like a painting, so Yuko can take pix of it.

During a conversation with Keith he mentioned that the next time he was playing in the UK was at an exhibition in (of all places) Bolton near Manchester, at which he said (I think) that he was going to mount some of his old guitars in their various dismantled states and show them.

This is due to happen next April I think, and something I certainly won't miss, although it did make me wonder a little following Keith's comments at the Q&A where he clearly showed big disregard for the art establishment and the white cube of the gallery. Personally though, I think its a fantastic idea, would be great to see some of the paintings as well.

[hatta]

Below is a summary of the Roundtable discussion from my notes, which were not comprehensive and I mainly focused on jotting down phrases. So take this with a grain of salt and know that there are definitely lapses, errors, summaries and so on. All inaccuracies and mischaracterizations are of course mine. But it was very interesting and I wish it could have gone on for many more hours.

(I also posted this at JC, which is not something I typically do, so sorry if you read both, it is the only one I'm going to do this for)

09.24.05: Afternoon Roundtable

The mid afternoon discussion was fairly sparsely attended but filled out more as time went on. At the front of the room was Keith Rowe, with Julien Ottavi, Dion Workman, Jon Abbey and later Barry Weisblat on the side. Jon introduced the session and the artists and it began with somewhat of an introduction from the artists. Out of the audience there was a question asked about the connection between Rowe’s art and the music he makes. He said that there are direct connections, but that they are ‘oblique’, the “invisible right angle” that the knight in chess makes is an important metaphor. Furthermore he went one to stress that concepts of the hidden and disguise were key elements. He then went on to explain the encoding of several album covers. The new ‘cloud’ cover’s yellow cloud represents polluted skies and references a cloud of mustard gas. He described this in the context of painters coming to paint the polluted Thames and how this distortion of the landscape led to impressionism. The grass below the cloud, was supposed to be perfect, too perfect “Perfect Lynch-ian Grass” he called it. The façade of suburbia and its denial of the polluted reality. AMM was influenced by Gurdjieff among others in the beginning, and his notions of the Tertiary, moving away from duality was an important concept. The yellow on the covers represents AMM and the three wheels on the van on the cover of AMMMUSIC represented the members of the group.

At several points there was back and forth between Keith and Julian especially on found objects which Keith takes a rather liberal view of. Julian failed to see how a guitar could be a found object when used in performance where it is inherently a social object. This also led to further discussion from Dion and Barry regarding a rejection of the art world and their “interventionist” art. Barry talked about their guerilla installation piece, ‘ToneField’ which was small light sensitive tone generators stashed all around Williamsburg. Julian mentioned that he had come from a working class background and that after he graduated from art school they literally said “welcome to the elite”. Barry said at one point that the direct reaction, the thalamic response was more important to him then ascribed meaning or philosophical underpinnings to his music.

From the above we returned to Rowe who told a story about the Scratch Orchestra doing “invisible performances”. He mentioned a specific case where they would perform in a large rail way station with 100+ people and follow a La Monte Young Fluxus piece where they would move from point to point and play x in their pockets. This really struck me as an interest contrast to the “young Turks” in that their so called interventionist movement had been done. He went on to talk about how after a while he found performance obscene that it was like “painting currency”. He said this was something that he had to push through, that you have to acknowledge that history exists and you “have to do the thing”. When asked about his relationship to classical music he talked about how he wasn’t afraid to think of himself in those terms and about profundity in music and how we may need to re-imagine profundity.

[bombinthebeehive]

Alright, my turn. Rather than giving the complete play by play or review, I’ll just comment on my own personal experience and a few sets.

Pre-fest: met up with Grisha, Alex and his friend Brian, which probably wouldn’t have happened had Grisha not donned the identifying purple erst shirt that day, and after a less than par meal of breaded pork and a side of lettuce, we went off to witness my first ever true performance of music in this, um, “scene” (get my “EAI cherry popped” as diederich put it long ago). I was definitely pumped to finally get a chance to see this sort of music in a live setting, though did have one minor reservation in the back of my mind regarding actually ‘seeing’ how the music is done… could this ruin it for good? (like penn and teller doing the classic ‘cups and balls’ trick, only with clear plastic cups! are they fucking crazy?) Stupid concern, in hindsight. yeah.

Colley/Lescalleet: Second favorite of the weekend. One of the more highly anticipated sets for me, two of my very favorite musicians around, combined. Gotta love how haphazard, yet focused, they played with all of this tearing out cables and rearranging things and crawling around with analog tape and bumping into each other… When the debris fell from the ceiling onto Colley’s gear I felt a bit scared for a moment, and it reminded me of a certain Gaddis book I had just read (which by the way Mark, was a great recommendation). And I seriously thought the room was going to cave in during the Korber/Ottavi. I’m sad that these names didn’t draw more of a noise crossover crowd to the show.

Colley solo: I’ve seen Colley solo before (to preserve this whole loss of virginity idea, we’ll just say that set in the past was me ‘fooling around’), and this second one completely surpassed the already very high expectations I had. Both times I’ve seen him he’s ended the music by appearing to be frustrated with his gear and just turning it off.

Nakamura/Unami/Meehan: Had an interesting perspective with this one, not being able to see either Unami or Meehan’s instruments. In fact, during the set, I thought Meehan was responsible for the loud percussive bits, for he was definitely the musician I was least knowledgeable about going in. All I could see of Unami was his “writing”. Based on the sounds alone, I give it a mild thumbs up, but I cant vouch for how I would have reacted knowing who was doing what.

Korber/Barnes: Noisy! Lost me slightly in the middle, but the powerful bits book-ending the set certainly overshadowed this. Korber revealed to me later in the evening that he and Barnes had not discussed a direction to take beforehand (and it seems barely communicated before the set at all, though I could be wrong), which gave me my first taste of “wow, these guys really know what they’re doing”. Listening to records at home, one can only pick up a limited amount of group interplay (though it’s probably just me, often I have no idea who’s doing what on a record), but in a live context one can see (hear) quite clearly just how talented and spontaneous and profound these musicians are… old news to most of you, but hey I just lost my virginity last Friday. Based on this set, the Korber/Rowe, and the comments in this thread, I’m ready to declare Korber as perhaps the unsung hero of the weekend.

Ok enough for now. Great weekend!

[user_642]

just for the record, ryan, I still believe that any fault I may have perceived in the Rowe/Ottavi set would be completely nullified
had Julien included a snippet from "Caribbean Queen".

[MRS]

Friday:

Wastell/Barnes -- I didn't much care for this. As the volume increased the tension grew more palpable, but gongs are pretty. Later that night I decided that it was an effectively solemn, incantatory inception to the proceedings, but not much more.

Rowe/Korber -- This missed the mark. I think Keith needed some time to fall in and Tomas frankly looked and sounded a little tentative. . .a really slow crawl which did yield some memorable communication but I found it pretty boring overall.

Ottavi/Workman -- Am I the only one that thought the knocking was being generated by one of the parties involved? I really dug this. If the approach was contrived or a begging of the question or a heavy-handed prestidigitation considering what would come later from Julien, the means didn't matter to me. Ottavi repeatedly leaning, stiff-armed on his table seemed so relevant. Clearly the chairs began to squeak twenty or thirty minutes in but this piece posed a lot of interesting if often awkward questions, a lot of odd looks, and most importantly a lot of great conversation.

Colley/Lescalleet -- This was among the most compelling pieces of theatrics and music I've ever been fortunate enough to see. Paired with the prior set, I was physically moved. Fluid filled my mouth, nose and eyes. Upon realizing one could bring in booze, we walked to the closest bodega and retured to our seats just as the two players were dropping the contact mikes on the floor. We all kept talking, ignorant to what was the beginning of the set. The lights were still on, attendees were still finding their seats. But it was on. Colley running his fingers through Jason's hair after the latter brandished a copper coil. . .Jason throwing those mikes at the poor bloke in the corner. . .the conflagration of cracked sound and unctuous drone building, Lescalleet seemingly making the gig after his daughter's soccer game in the rural Midwest, gold Timex and pleated jeans, this might have been the piece of the weekend. On at least three or four occasions, drooling mouth open I flung my head toward my friends to the right of me (including Herr Flaum) as they returned gawk. Certain drones produced by Joe were straight out of wall-of-Marshalls metal, Earth or earlier Drumm almost. Totally fucking unbelievable set. I couldn't wait to stand up and cheer. The disc of this duo I purchased is incredible as well, in a wildly different way.

Rowe/Nakamura -- Yeah, one can't avoid the glitch, but I thought it totally changed the direction of the improvisers. I enjoyed the first 'half', but after the delay, it seemed their attention was fiercely centered, absolutely determined, impatient if you can imagine but never at all to a fault. I can't emphasize enough how the dynamics of the first night just made it for me. . .something that was almost absent from Saturday's sets. This pairing meant a lot to me in merely seeing Keith and Toshi together live for the first time. It turns out we saw Wastell, Unami, Meehan, et. al. at the Pakistan Tea House I would come to love later that night. It seems they all bolted at the faux pas. They missed some indelible music.

Saturday:

Colley -- Awesome again. . .Joe worked along vaguely similar lines as his work with Lescalleet the night prior. Watching him headbang to Fela before the set, watching him headbang to Pink Floyd at the bar next door after the set, I am glad to have met this fucker. His physical involvement in the music, playing his pocket, hiding resonators beneath seats well into the audience, spectacular music, spectacular show.

Nakamura/Meehan/Unami -- This was rewarding if indirectly, middle-of-the-road. Unami was one of the trips of the weekend, what a strange, strange musician is he in a totally delightful way. Sean kept working the sliding finger down the stick thing that I saw Gino Robair employ with Butcher a few months back. Perhaps down the line I might be more into such a band, but in the end my utter confusion in watching and listening to Taku made the set for me, not much else. Toshi and Sean locked up in some amazing quavers well into the piece that I won't soon forget.

Korber/Barnes -- This was the best work of both musicians. Barnes was invincible on mere amplified snare (maybe a couple other small tools), Tomas was brutally focused, pouring foundation below and above throughout. I was pessimistic for some reason going in but what a great pairing.

nmperign/Lescalleet -- I didn't like this at all, a wash. To his credit Jason came off entirely different (sonically) as opposed to his set with Colley but this was oil, oil and oil or vinegar, vinegar and vinegar.

Rowe/Ottavi -- This personally was the most disappointing set of the weekend. Throughout the initial five minutes I was so fired up as to emit guttural blurts but this deteriorated into a dunk contest. I like the Duchamps radio captures when you can't tell what the overt quite is, I like how it supports the collective soundscape, how it adds such ghostly pertinence. . .not when itself assumes the soundscape. They should've left the classical piece going for at least ten more minutes.

. . .hit a so-so Ukrainian joint after the music concluded, had lots of beets.

Sunday:

Meehan/Kelley/Daniell -- We were stuck with molasses service but great burgers at Cafe Lafayette in Ft. Greene atop thinking the festival began at 8 so I only caught the last thirty or so minutes of this set standing in the back of the place. . .still loved it, good to see Kelley's trumpet live. My perception was obviously tarnished but the sound seemed perfect from my vantage point. I swear the bouncer ws looking at porn the entire time. Personal highlight: Wastell looking back toward the door at me from the top of the bleachers and giving me that hard rock thumb/pinky gesture.

Rowe/Wastell -- I sat parallel to the musicians on Sunday and it changed things dramatically. This was a mother-fucker of a show. Wastell was in a trance, Rowe performed as beautifully and pedantically as he did all weekend. The concentration was so evident. . .the intensity swaying but completely harnessed, confrontations changed over and over again. I hope this makes disc, my favorite piece involving either performer throughout the weekend.

Garcia/Unami -- . . .not sure what to think about this. Again, it was a privilege to see exactly how Taku plies his craft, this time looking on from behind him. He slapped his laptop twice, slammed it down with authority after a very subtle conclusion to things. I thought Margarida looked a bit tentative and/or ambivalent as far as where things were going but not unlike the Ottavi/Workman set, this asked question after question, completely odd and unique among all combinations but never dull.

Ottavi/Korber -- I don't care if Julien infuriated Tomas. I don't care if I had to plug my right ear through a ten minute spell. This was quite fun. Ottavi's shao-lin chops at his laptop were (obviously) stirring and admittedly he was dominant to the point of dominatrix. Still fun. I like sets of music in this ilk where I laugh openly ("sand in your shorts"), I don't care if they're desultory, offensively loud or not.

Barnes/Nakamura/Wastell -- This was among my three favorites of the weekend, the only set where I drifted in and out of conciousness, as if on an early morning plane. Textures kept changing, Wastell was nearly as focused as seen in his gem with Rowe, Nakamura was as assertive as I've heard him at certain waypoints, someone record this trio. . .absolutely perfect conclusion to the weekend.

Thanks Jon, Tim, Chris and all involved for a blast.

[hatta]

Saturday, September 24

ErstQuake Day II

Joe Colley solo
Colley came out from backstage with hands in pockets and stood to the side of his setup. Quiet chirps and squeals came from his pockets and the room, that change subtly as his hands squirmed in his pockets. He crouches down and there are three little green bottles on the ground that he puts the little noisemakers from his pockets into. He grabs a mic and mics the bottles. Moving to his chair he settles down for a few minutes to let the sounds work on their own. Moving to his gear, a wash of sound build up, punctuated by clicks and jagged cuts. He grabs a portable tape recorder and seems to mumble into it, recording and overdubbing a couple of times. This is plugged into his mixer and the volume and density of sound increases. After a bit he brings it down and then goes into the audience to retrieve a device (tape player most likely) from under an audience members seat. Returning to his console he brings the volume way up, till it rattles ones very bones. After rippling through various phases of this very high volume assault he disconnects some of the gear, which partially cuts out then another manipulation at it stops. He seems a bit disconsolate by this ending, which at the time as I read as due to the emotion that he had poured into the set, how much he had opened himself up.

I loved how this set began, it had much more of the subtly and range of dynamics that I find interesting in this music. As before his large lanky form, hunching to the console or crouched against the floor as he generated his sounds added a drama you often do not see. The eventual rise to extreme volume was inevitable and if there was anything that I think would have driven this set even further would have been had he circumvented our expectations in this regard.

Toshimaru Nakamura/Taku Unami/Sean Meehan
This set more then any other requires some description of the musicians setup. They were in a tight triangle somewhat to the side of the main performing space. Sean Meehan primarily played a cymbal, placed flat on a snare drum with a dowel that he would rub to generate these ghostly tones. Nakamura played his standard No-Input Mixing Board and was facing the audience, the other two were facing him. Unami was playing laptop controlled devices – a speaker cone with large shards of glass in it, two motors with little paddles on them and a third motor in a shot glass all of which are placed on a chair next to him. The computer had a custom interface to a MAX like program that Unami was able to control with a graphic tablet.

The lights dim and there is a bit of silence and then Unami activates the speaker cone with the glass shards in it. Working with nearly inaudible frequencies, what occurs is the glass shards rattling against each other, caused by physical speaker movement generated by the “sound”. Nakamura responds with a few pops, and Unami’s rattling becomes a bit more sustained knocking one of the shards out of the cone. As Unami replaces the glass Nakamura produces some gentle low volume static and then a sine tone. Unami lets loose with an aggressive burst with the speaker which rattles both of the glass shards out of the cone and onto the floor. He replaces it with rocks and shells and only quiet tones from Nakamura can be heard. At this point Meehan comes in with the dowel on the cymbal, producing a complementary tone to Nakamura’s higher pitched feedback. Unami meanwhile begins to use the motors, which crawl across the desk, creating a scrabbling, whining drone. This is followed by a burst from the rocks, which jump around, rattling and colliding, some falling onto the chair. A more piercing sine from Nakamura to which Sean’s bowed tones gel, creating a gentle beating tone. Unami kicks the motors into a higher speed and they crawl across the chair first one and then the other plummeting to the floor. Meehan lays out and Unami runs just the motor in the shot glass with a constant tic, tic tic, of the metal against glass. He lets this run for a while and then stops and the set ends with a whirring static cloud from Nakamura.

I was stunned by this set at the show, its quiet, delicate nature, punctuated by the controlled chaos of Unami’s sounds was matched by it being absolutely entrancing to watch. It was my immediate favorite of the sets I’d seen so far but at the same time the question of the impact of the visual element was unavoidable. I said almost immediately that I would like to hear the recording of that to hear what those sounds were like without that intensely engaging experience. Of those queried many who could not see Unami’s setup were not as taken by the set.

Tomas Korber/Tim Barnes
Korber returns with his table of electronics and flat guitar, while Barnes has replaced his gong with a mic’d snare drum and a small table of electronics. Their set begins with amplifier hum and then immediate washes of sound. Barnes pulls up the snare strap and builds an intense feedback. Korber responds with increasingly louder, higher pitched tones and matches the intensity of Barnes’s sound. This volume is brought down a bit but still mostly a wash of sound with little detail. With a twist of electronics Barne’s builds it back up, louder still then before. This persists for some time before it is brought down again. Barne’s moves back to the snare and manipulates a bell in front of the mic, even hunching down to sing or hum into the bell. Korber returns with some higher pitched tones that match this quite nicely. Returning to electronics the set ends with a wash of white noise.

After the space and delicate nature of the previous set this was an extreme contrast. For me there, was too little detail, too little communication for me to get too much out of this set. This was one of a very few where I was a little impatient with the set, the sounds were so often just a wash of white noise and there was little depth. The section with the bell was very nice and was the (all too short) highlight of the set for me.

nmperign/Jason Lescalleet
A long table, with a Realistic analog synthesizer at one end, an iBook with controller on one side, and then several cheap sample keyboards at the other end. Also on the floor is several more of these cheap sampling keyboards (Casio SK-1, Realistic, etc). Kelley, playing the Realistic Analog and Rainey playing the iBook begin with single notes. Lescalleet begins to tear off segments of duct tape that after a bit of time he uses to tape down keys of the cheap keyboards. A strong drone of notes is built up, in a kind of early minimalist feel – delayed Riley, Theater of Eternal Music territory. The slightly out of tune keyboards, create a slight oscillating effect as the notes off by a few cents beat against each other. Lescalleet begins to sample the output of another keyboard and then plays this at different pitches. This increases the beating effect and as the intensity exceeds what these cheap keyboards can do the sound begins to degrade which with continuing sampling led to increased deterioration. They run through this deterioration for a few minutes and then fade things out.

As a huge fan of drone music I enjoyed this set a lot. It reminded me of Colecloughs work, but distinguishes itself from it with the decay element. It was different from anything else over the weekend and it was a satisfying exploration of the eternal drone.

Keith Rowe/Julien Ottavi
Rowe and Ottavi set up side by side with a table of computers, radios and on one a guitar. Pre-set Rowe spent a lot of time tuning in at least three radios, as well as setting up his guitar with the headphones over the pickups. As the lights dim, both Ottavi and Rowe begin with a dense static, wash of sound and then begin the radio grabs. And this is what the performance became, an improvised Cage-esque, overlapping layers of radio grabs, static and diminishing mellow feedback. The grabs went across the full spectrum from news reports on Katrina, commercials, a long bit in French, some dance music, two very long hip-hop grabs all coming in and out of static and conflicting radio grabs. During the second of the hip-hop grabs from Rowe, Ottavi finds a string quartet drifting in and out of the ether. As he waves the radio around, manipulating the choppiness of the tuning Rowe, fades out all his radios and what sounds the guitar is still making. Audibly he says to Ottavi, “Just walk away. Leave it and walk away”. He gets up and repeats this in Ottavi’s ear and then exits the performing area. A few moments later Ottavi sets down the radio and leaves as well. The lights remain off with the classical music, drifting in and out of tune for long minutes. They come back on to applause, but the radio kept playing for a long time as people exited the room.

I thought this set was fantastic, different from the other sets we’d seen from Rowe and Ottavi so far. The Cage-ian radio manipulation, so appropriate in NYC where Cage did so much of that part of his work, was a conflicting contrast to the festival so far. The continuing Katrina news, highlighting the state of America, cut up by vacuous pop music and commercials was powerful. The ending classical grab, especially in context with Rowe’s earlier talk about classical music at the round table was a perfect and serendipitous ended. Additionally the controversy that this set created, a deep divide between the audience I think clearly shows it to be one of the most effecting and powerful of the festival.

[Joda]

Regarding the Rowe/Ottavi set, my trouble with the performance had a lot to do with the way it was amplified, more than it's content. I'm not entirely certain what the issue was, but Julien Ottavi seemed to be having trouble with his signal in one channel, which stalled things for a while. In the end a large Peavy amp was brought in and placed directly between Keith Rowe's amplifier and Keith Rowe, from what I could tell.

Maybe it had to do with where I was sitting, but this situation produced an abrasive, murky mix that didn't agree with my ears. Ottavi's sound would have benefited more from stereo separation, and Keith's sound became somewhat buried. Did anyone else notice notice this?

[hatta]

Sunday, September 25

ErstQuake Day III

Greg Kelley/David Daniell/Sean Meehan
The three musicians form a row in front of the audience, with Daniell on the left with his laptop, Kelley in the middle with his trumpet and Meehan on the right with his snare and cymbals. The lights drop and out of a brief silence come a digital whir from Daniell, which is similar in sound to his work on Sem. Kelley quickly begins to add quiet guttural sounds from the trumpet played with the mouthpiece removed as Meehan layers in his dowel on the cymbal tones. Daniell brings up the volume and Kelley responds by adding the mute to his trumpet and playing though that. Then he picks up a small piece of sheet metal and begins to scrape the edge of his trumpet with it, generating a metallic rustling sound. Meehan, carefully with great deliberation removes his large cymbal from the snare and places a slightly smaller on the surface. After some adjustment of the tension he begins to dowel it again with a slight difference in tone. Daniell has dropped his more Sem-esque static and moved on to more sine wave like sounds while Kelley has now placed the sheet metal over the bell of the trumpet and is blowing through that. Things increase in intensity with Kelley now playing through the mute, which falls out at this point clattering on the floor. He continues to play and there are actual trumpet sounding tones and notes for a few seconds before he replaces it. The volume drops and Meehan switches to a very small cymbal. He never plays it though and the set concludes.

This set was very beautiful, with an excellent mix of sounds between the laptop, trumpet and percussion. Very deliberate, careful with clear listening and layering of sounds between the musicians. Tones were prolonged and allowed to develop and naturally decay. The sound field was filled, but never trampled upon with the sounds seeming to hang in the air. One of my very favorite sets from the festival.

Keith Rowe/Mark Wastell
For this set Wastell is playing “amplified textures” which seems to consist of contact mics, mixer and various objects and effects. Rowe has his typical setup, with his PowerBook as well. The set opens with some crackly buzzing, most likely from Wastell. Rowe’s drone soon mixes in adding a layer of density as the volume rises somewhat. The volume would increase slowly over the course of the set, dropping only at the end. Never overly loud, or lacking in subtlety but with a clear increase in intensity over the course of the set. Rowe added in both fans, and the Bluetooth interference from his mouse as things got louder. Wastell manipulated various objects such as steel wool and bowed objects on his surface including what looked like a small bell. At the peak of intensity everything drops out to this baseline crackly hum, which persists for while and then by mutual agreement the set ends.

An absolutely stunning set of a detailed drone with deep textures. Entrancing, and complex, this set is one of the hardest of all to describe particulars. Without the visual element (and even with it to some degree) the two performers merged into a single sound that could have come from either of them. Very sympathetic and a perfect example of the ego-less performing that is so oft cited in this music. Another favorite.

Taku Unami/Margarida Garcia
Unami has the same set of equipment from the day before with the addition of a second speaker cone. One of the motors has been taped to the back of the laptop screen and another taped to the front of the table. Garcia is playing an electro-acoustic double bass with its minimal body and amplifier. She begins with a scrabbly bowing at the bridge and goes from their through a collection of techniques mostly around the bridge. Unami lays out for a long time, 10 minutes or so but then adds in a few rare loud pops. Garcia picks up what looks like a rubber ball on a twisted bit of wire and rubs the back of the bass with the ball. She lays out for a bit and Unami activates on of his motors with a gentle whir. Garcia moves to the stings with the rubber ball and Unami lets loose with an eruption of stones (or shells?) from the speakers. Garcia returns to the bow, much more muscular this time, as Unami drops some fresh stones into the speaker cone. Unami stops as Garcia continues to run through various techniques. During a gap, Unami slams shut the lid of the PowerBook and Garcia continues to wait. Then they are done.

This duo absolutely failed to work in my mind. Garcia merely ran through a series of extended techniques and never created anything that Unami could really work within. His sounds, as punctuation, emphasis and interruptions just clashed with her constantly switching techniques. A lack of duration with her techniques, and a general lack of space just failed to connect. There were moments like a call and response where Unami would interject a sound as she paused to change techniques but it seemed desperate and epiphenomenal. Some of Garcia’s techniques produced fascinating and interesting sounds and had she stuck to them and tried to work with Unami’s space and outbursts things could have developed much further.

Tomas Korber/Julien Ottavi
At the start of this set Ottavi stood up and warned us that it would be loud and that we should take that into consideration. I took that announcement as an opportunity to put in earplugs (the only time of the festival). Things begin with Ottavi physically assaulting the keyboard generating a blast of sound that caused many in the audience to physically jump. It got louder from there with wave after wave of sound washing over us. There was some detail in the wash, from Korber perhaps, but mostly it was just layers of sound. Ottavi would, chop, stab and get physical with the laptop, changing slightly the characteristic of the wash of sound. After some time the volume stair-stepped down over some minutes. During this ending bit Korber sat with his chair pushed back from his table, looking a bit disgruntled. As the volume got lower this metallic grinding, rustling sound could be heard. This seemed to be from Korber, perhaps rubbing something against the guitar strings? Eventually Ottavi dropped the sound down to where we could her the higher pitched drone from his guitar which he then lowered ending the set.

While quite a striking contrast to the quiet explorations of the previous three sets, the overly loud washes of sound were pretty uninteresting. Korber was pretty drowned out most of the time and Ottavi seemed to have no interest in actually collaborating. The only part I found interesting was the fadeout at the end with metallic scrapping sounds.

Toshimaru Nakamura/Mark Wastell/Tim Barnes
After a long break due to the previous set having blown one of the speakers the final set of the festival begins. Setup in a line toward the rear of the soundstage with Nakamura in the center and Barnes and Wastell to his left and right respectively. The light drops and they are only lit from the small white lights over their equipment. Out of this darkness Nakamura brings up a buzz of feedback and Barnes, layers in some texture from the wires of his snare. Nakamura moves toward sine wave territory and roar of sound rises from Wastell and then is cut out. This returns briefly but only once and at lesser volume. Barnes moves to his pedals and all three of the musicians are generating sine tones that beat against each and entangle themselves in the sound field. Nakamures feedback generated sine wave is more textural and denser adding a nice contrast to the pure tones from the others. Things increase a bit in volume at this point and then slowly fade out over a long time. As it feels to be ending, Nakamura brings up a brrrt of static, still gentle but much louder then the nearly faded out others. Then he drops down and the set ends.

Wonderfully intricate playing in this set but it was somewhat disconnected as if there were several movements in it. It took a bit to gel and there was some out of place sounds. But the point from where all three were playing the higher frequencies was just hypnotizing. The long fade out and especially the final bit from Nakamura was beautifully, delicate and yet with some edge. An excellent way to end to an excellent festival.

[hatta]

I had a great time at the festival; I loved the wide range of music from the super delicate to the overwhelmingly assaultive and many points in between. I enjoyed aspects of every set, even the couple that I didn’t connect with. I absolutely loved seven of the sets, which is really an amazing percentage, especially considering that I enjoyed another four quite a bit. It was great to be able to see so many of these performers for the first time and I express my gratitude to all of them for providing us with such wonderful sounds. Overall the venue and the sound were great, the audience respectful and external noise at a minimum. The controversy over several the sets demonstrates the vitality and excitement that this music is still generating.

Additionally it was great to be able to meet so many board members; Mark, Grisha, Ryan, Richard, Alastair, Jon, Chris, Elky, Brian Olewnick, Michal Schaumann, Chris Wolff and others that I’m forgetting. Getting to talk with Keith, lunch with Bhob and the others at Sean Meehan’s lunch, the roundtable discussion were all fantastic. Additionally the dinners, beers and general hanging out with Richard, Chris and Alastair was a vital element of each day – lets do it again gentleman. Finally a massive thank you to Jon, Chris and Tim for organizing such a packed and wonderful three days.

[grisha]

The controversy over several the sets demonstrates the vitality and excitement that this music is still generating.

i actually see this as one of the main successes of this fest, and is where my main satisfaction comes from. the sets that might not be 'completely successful' and not as openly 'pleasing' (if that's a good word, but i hope you understand), and not to everyone for sure, but that sparked controversy and discussion, and made people think. might the most important part of it in the end.

[p_ano]

thanks for all the reviews of the fest!

are any recordings going to be available?

[jon abbey]

are any recordings going to be available?

Barry Weisblat recorded everything for us, and is currently touring with the Tomas/Toshi etc. crew. after he gets back, we'll see what the recordings sound like, but as of now, I'm personally not planning to release many (maybe any?) of them (Chris may feel differently).

some of the projects have regular CDs in the works (Keith/Toshi, Colley/Lescalleet, nmperign/Lescalleet, Rowe/Korber), some have recently released CDs (Ottavi/Workman, Barnes/Wastell), some I'd like to continue to work with to do regular Ersts (Daniell/Kelley/Meehan, Rowe/Ottavi), some just didn't work that well to my ears.

Korber/Barnes and Rowe/Wastell are probably the best candidates for ErstLives, but until I hear the recordings, it's silly to go farther than that. one idea we had before the fest was to select 10 minutes from each of the 15 sets and make a long double CD, but I'm not sure how I feel about that either. so we'll see.

[Geoff]

here are some photos I took at the concerts.

[Geoff]

another

[Little Dwight]

: )

[user_658]

Great photos. Thanks

[Geoff]

I have some more, but on the second night I didn't have such a great seat, and the photos aren't the best quality.

[Geoff]

Here's another one

[Geoff]