EAI in 2007

schiksalgemeinschaft · Sat May 19, 2007 8:07 am

Dan Warburton wrote:Haha, nice rule bending there. So a codpiece is a piece made by cod, is it? Or are you just codding us?

A codpiece !

Now that's what I like about the net, learning new words in a spontaneous, organic manner!

schiksalgemeinschaft · Sat May 19, 2007 8:19 am

Btw, a few nights ago I decided to write my impressions down of the record, more or less as an experiment for myself.
I pressed play and tried to describe what I heard. I only did the first track, 'Nachervor', wich is about 26 minutes long. This is the result, pretty generic I guess, but yeah, there's no critical vocabulary at hand.

start - a strange softness - a tinkling pulse (micropulse) - a whirling, fastlane slipstream - chrystals - mudbubbling, paced - sputters, turning into sputters - turning into inhaling exhaling inhaling - gasped, stutter - electrical fire - swoops roars - ultra razors - a lamp and a fly - cuttelry - flashing beam - scratching lice - scraping grease - waterbongs - an electrical saw of some kind - an airoplain - a smooth human engine - Dark Vader monkey laugh - odonata and a Harley - ventlilating systems - passing trains - tinnitus - a warm tone - 12'27'' cymbal, bowl, bel - (chaircrack) - trimming, buzzing, humming - for a long long time, what's long? - the kettle's on - the microwave and the telly as well - they're singing - baffled - 20'22'' - hungry animals - feeding animals - a wind, the surface - a glutonous fading - matches - preparation for silence - a gentle drop

anyhow, the sheer range of this album is amazing. anyone else heard it yet?

user_4759 · Post by **user_4759** » Sat May 19, 2007 9:07 am

I guess what I am describing is "systems music" -- music where the composition is the system itself, and the performance is a sort of playing freely within the system.

you mean like Non-Idiomatic free improvisation? or, like, the current EAI scene? that is another system. many of them do try to develop the systems further..

Yii · Post by **Yii** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 2:04 am

hooray, taku unami's brand new EAI-ish easy listening music comes out! i could not wait to l i s t e n

http://hose.hibarimusic.com/" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

hose

Taku Unami (guitar)
Reiji Hattori (bodhran, percussion)
Tomoya Izumi (bass, vocal)
Toshihiro Koike (trombone)
and Masafumi Ezaki (trumpet)

AlbionMoonlight · Post by **AlbionMoonlight** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:17 am

By the looks of the cover art, I think hose has been reading too much manga.

fearandpanic · Post by **fearandpanic** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:31 am

Unami's been doing those for ages. I like 'em.

tadk · Post by **tadk** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 5:22 am

I don't know and don't care if it's EAI, but I really like this one: http://www.almaslakh.org/catalog_mslkh07.php.

fearandpanic · Post by **fearandpanic** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:10 pm

Bumped, because a summer has passed with no comments here. The thread itself was framed (I think) in an unfortunate way, asking for weekly cutting-edge developments, and the backlash against that seems to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. But it'd be good to have a dedicated (open-ended) thread for this area on the board, nonetheless?unless interest in and discussion about it has now dried up completely or emigrated to blogs. I don't think it should.

So what new things have you been enjoying? Some musicians have moved away from my interests (no need to go there), and others continue to work at a good pace; I'm thinking of D?rner solo, duo and trio recordings; Rhodri Davies has been in trios that I thought were okay (Muta), and has a solo one I haven't heard; there's discs out on Erstwhile, Manual and Formed that haven't been discussed much at all except as anonymously inventoried in "Recent Purchases."

I've heard the Lucio Capece & Nakamura duo Ij just once, this afternoon, and didn't really enjoy it too much first time through, despite some okay moments of sparks of breath and electronics. A little earlier in the year I was really impressed by the Phono_Phono trio's (Michael Renkel, Madga Mayas, Sabine Vogel) record on Absinth; an intriguing mixture of instruments and good squiggly electronics all bubbling up together.

How about the rest of yiz?

Post by **mudd** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:18 pm

backlogged as always, but i've really enjoyed the manual material these last weeks. i've discovered i have a lot of listening time to devote to the septet on ftarri, too, without really having decided if i like it.

i'd need to dig through stacks to come up with more.

m

Richard Pinnell · Post by **Richard Pinnell** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:24 am

I think there has been a slowing of the good releases this summer, but I don't think thats any indication that the genre is in poor health. There does seem to have been a period of taking stock occur and a lot of thought out there about where individuals may take their music next, which is good.

From a live concert point of view I've seen some very strong music this year, including a set from Keith Rowe and Toshimaru Nakamura this summer that might rank as the most powerful "EAI" set I've ever witnessed if such things could really be measured. Away from Keith and Toshi a few others have sparkled live in recent months for me, Lucio Capece for one has been doing great things, Angharad Davies continues to evolve into a fantastic musician and we will finally get to see Lee Patterson's music begin to get translated to a few CDs over coming weeks and months, which I am very pleased about.

I think its very important to remember that the standard of CDs being released at any one time has never been a good reflection of the current health of the "EAI" scene as they are inevitably a reflection of where things were six to eighteen months ago. Two great solo discs came out from Rhodri Davies and Mark Wastell this summer, yet both were recorded over a year ago. (The latter actually two and a half years ago) so you can never judge the current health of this fast moving music by its recent releases.

There are probably a dozen CDs queued up for release out there I am looking forward to; the Angharad Davies/Tisha Mukarji album, the SLW disc, the new Trio Sowari (who were also great live this summer), a stream of releases on L'innomable starting with a great looking disc by Adam Sonderberg and Katherine Young, two thirds of the excellent Civil War... At least a couple of the forthcoming Erstwhle catalogue look good, the Guthrie/Rowe album should get recorded this winter, and a solo Sachiko sans sinewaves is an intriguing one.
It'll be interesting to hear a rumoured Polwechsel/Tilbury album, and if the talked about releases from Mitsuhiro Yoshimura happen then there should be some interesting music from Japan to join the very good recent Ftarri and Meena releases and another forthcoming Sachiko M solo. I've probably forgotten a load more, and I hope to add to the Cathnor catalogue as soon as I can with my own contributions.

So for me the future is looking really rosy, but yeah a slow summer, though there have been a few very strong stand-out discs for me this year. Keith Rowe's The Room is absolutely spellbinding. I personally have found it hard to write anything on this disc simply because I don't think my writing skills are up to it, though I may get around to something soon.
The series of discs revolving around Axel Dorner, Lucio Capece and Toshi Nakamura have all been very stong, the Formed disc the best of the bunch for me, though the Axel/Toshi on Ftarri is also great.
Whilst I didn't enjoy the Signal Quintet disc very much I thought the Korber/Weber/Yamauchi release on for4Ears was excellent, very different to much of the other material coming from that Japanese tour.
I would also be cheating myself if I didn't say that I think sight by MIMEO is a project that turned out really well.

Talking with musicians there seems to be a lot of evaluation of the music happening out there right now, almost a sense of "now we know what we can do, what shall we do with it?" A generalisation of course, but something of a reoccurring theme I've found.

Thats me, anyone else?

Cornelis · Post by **Cornelis** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:39 am

Richard Pinnell wrote:I think there has been a slowing of the good releases this summer, but I don't think thats any indication that the genre is in poor health. There does seem to have been a period of taking stock occur and a lot of thought out there about where individuals may take their music next, which is good.

Talking with musicians there seems to be a lot of evaluation of the music happening out there right now, almost a sense of "now we know what we can do, what shall we do with it?" A generalisation of course, but something of a reoccurring theme I've found.

Thats me, anyone else?

That's my feeling too
people are also more cautious in releasing cds (and that is VERY good IMO)
This weekend I recorded with someone, and we both where from the beginning very reserved; first let's do it, then see if we like it, if so, we start to edit/mix, if then we still like it, we leave it for a bit, if then we still think the world is better with other people hearing it, then let's find a lable and go from there, and if no one wants it, then we'll see from there.

Cor

will · Post by **will** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:51 am

I'm not super-good at these "(thing) in (year)" threads because I don't care overmuch when things are released and tend to think that recording dates are more important than "street dates", and also, as usual, Richard nailed it: there's now something of a land for people to get the lay of, so a lot of good work is examining what's been going on and mulling it over.
I'm not sure how many people have heard it, but some of Annette Krebs' work with Robin Hayward is pretty great, it sounds as if they have a good language going, and I'm eager to hear more of their work together. I'm obviously biased on this one, but the Dorner / Capece / Nakamura stuff does indeed totally rule. There's a crispness to their approach to music-making that I really like.
the 5 Modules (II) album on Manual (that's the trio, yeah?) is great as well, they layer things impressively, and really juxtaopse things that sound good with other things that sound good, but not in ways that you'd initially expect.
This might be a 2006 release, but the Fulman / Meehan on Cut is great, it's not an area of music I necessarily love, but they fill the big drones with the many small details, which really makes me focus intently as I listen, it's a good figure-ground pairing, without falling into the more conventional "wash of sound in background with little clicky noises in foreground" thing that less impressive music in this area sometimes does.

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:10 pm

Will wrote:the 5 Modules (II) album on Manual (that's the trio, yeah?) is great as well, they layer things impressively, and really juxtaopse things that sound good with other things that sound good, but not in ways that you'd initially expect.

no, you mean the first one, definitely the pick of the series so far. the third one is also pretty interesting (the one with Unami and Mattin), surprised there hasn't been a bit more discussion about that yet.

upcoming releases: there are just-out releases from Sedimental (Murray/Nehil and Feeney/Rawlings), a couple new Cut titles en route, and new sets of Hibari and skiti titles out now or imminently.

as for Erst, I have so many releases in the works, including a couple I haven't announced yet, that one or two will probably have to be bumped to 2009. if possible (meaning if they all get finished to everyone's satisfaction plus the money is there), I'm hoping to put out seven new releases in 2008, the most I've done in one year in quite some time, plus two more still coming this fall. two that haven't been mentioned yet that I'm especially excited about are the out-in-October Rehberg/Schmickler melt-your-head showdown, and the Rainey/Lescalleet, third in the series of Forlorn Green and Love Me Two Times, this probably won't be out before fall 2008 (not as far away as it sounds).

and let's not forget the Stephenson/Barnes disc, two young IHMers (free math/dave quam) ripping shit up. seriously, one of the better releases of the year, I have copies for $8.

fearandpanic · Post by **fearandpanic** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 1:06 pm

Will wrote:I'm not super-good at these "(thing) in (year)" threads because I don't care overmuch when things are released and tend to think that recording dates are more important than "street dates", and also, as usual, Richard nailed it: there's now something of a land for people to get the lay of, so a lot of good work is examining what's been going on and mulling it over.

Yeah, I agree, I was hesitant to bump this thread for that reason. What's actually lacking (I think) is a thread like that open-ended one in the archives "Otomo, Sachiko, Muller, Rowe and related music" that provided a context for discussion of new stuff as well as for ranging back and forth over its short history. So I suppose I'll start one.

Alastair · Post by **Alastair** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:19 pm

jon abbey wrote: one of the better releases of the year, I have copies for $8.

One of the most blatant shills I've seen for a while

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:30 pm

someone's got to spread the word.

free math · Post by **free math** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:36 pm

as far as 2007, i've been following my general strategy of waiting to see if new releases maintain their buzz factor after a few months on the shelves. but of the two discs i made sure to pick up right away, The Room was instantly a top-shelf classic on first listen (cranked it!) and it keeps living up to that. Vorhernacht, though, is a tougher cookie in a way. nothing immediately grabs me and says "this is great music" but i've managed to be somewhat puzzled by it every time. those are the only things that were high-profile enough to require my immediate purchase, it doesn't seem like too many other releases have been getting enough widespread attention.

schiksalgemeinschaft · Wed Sep 12, 2007 4:04 am

Sight maybe ?

faster · Post by **faster** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 4:42 am

I don't actually like it, but I think 5 Modules III (the one with Mattin & Unami along with Jin Sangtae/Ryu Hankil) is doing something sorta new. It's a new sort of realization of Unami-music and definitely points to a direction that a significant subset of musicians in this field are turning: toward a perverse kind of frustration of listener expectations, toward a stone-faced autonomy and inflexibility, and toward "art" and "concept".

This is reductive, but I don't really have a better way of putting it right now.

user_3091 · Post by **user_3091** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 5:03 am

"nothing immediately grabs me and says "this is great music" but i've managed to be somewhat puzzled by it every time"

it's that kind of "puzzlement" that I really enjoy in this music. I'm still digesting a whole bunch of Hibari CDs from a good few years back that I bought secondhand recently. They all manifest a similar curiosity and perversity ? an attitude to what a consonant response actually is in improvistaion that is sometimes capricious, sometimes studied, but almost always unlikely and unexpected. A lot of that down to Taku Unami's personal tastes and interests, I guess.

This kind of thinking about expectations, about responses, about interaction, is far from exhausted ? it probably never can be. I'll be happy if I continue to hear more "attitudinous" musicians playing together in the rest of 2008 ? it's rarer than it ought to be. Possibly because the emphasis in this music is often on novelty (he's doing these amazing noises on a saxophone!!; he's doing these amazing noises on a pair of headphones!!) Well, it has been in the past at any rate. Maybe that's starting to change as these noises have become as much of a lingua franca as the major scale. (Hence Sugimoto's recent interests in exactly that?)