PITA

[jkudler]

i was just gonna post to say how much "seven tons for free," his first disc, rules, but we don't seem to have a dedicated thread. i mentioned this in that "influences" thread, but that disc really blew me away at the time and opened a lot of doors. put it in yesterday and again today, since it had been a while, and it still sounds great. really simple and economical, but really rich and interesting at the same time. i think the follow-up, get out, holds up better as a purely musical statement, but seven tons was the wake-up, for me. get out was pretty surprising, though: way more depth and variety and new tricks, and the notable introduction of some melody, particularly in the much-ballyhooed third track. someone should write a thesis on the length of tracks in noise and experimental records. this one alternates miniatures that almost have the feel of studies, slightly longer explorations, one or two blissout tracks, and the tour-de-force of aforementioned track 3.

what do people think of subsequent work? i've been slightly disappointed in solo records, which seem a refinement more than anything else. saw an utterly killer live set a few years ago that couldn't have been more than. . . 12 minutes? the KTL, what little i've heard, to me shows a disappointing influence in all the things that irritate me from the sunn/o'malley axis - too many similar releases mining a somewhat shallow aesthetic area. live, it was bone-shakingly physical, but i felt a slight paucity of musical ideas (perhaps besides the point anyways).

how are those discs under his own name that were done for dance? any other "lost" items in the discog? i need to get a copy of that great second fenn'o'berg disc. i like r/s a lot. recently dug out some rehberg & bauer cd's with ian and found them to still be pretty damn enjoyable, if slightly dated sounding and less definitive than pita solo.

-j.

[jon abbey]

it's easy to forget, but he's also on EL004, the quartet with otomo/sachiko/fennesz, which shows the other end of his range.

and he's in MIMEO, but I don't think you can learn much, if anything, about any individual from their records (except tilbury on 'caravaggio'). although every time I've played 'sight', yuko has come flying downstairs about halfway through saying 'pita!' and sat and listened closely to the rest. she's a huge fan of his, I'll try to get her to chime in if this thread keeps going.

[Jesse]

Nothing for me to add about the breadth of Pita's work, Jesse, I still need to hear those early releases you cited. I have praised EL004 since it's release, great dynamics on that one.

[jkudler]

it's easy to forget, but he's also on EL004, the quartet with otomo/sachiko/fennesz, which shows the other end of his range.

perhaps, but you just brought it up on the other thread i mentioned!

and he's in MIMEO, but I don't think you can learn much, if anything, about any individual from their records (except tilbury on 'caravaggio'). although every time I've played 'sight', yuko has come flying downstairs about halfway through saying 'pita!' and sat and listened closely to the rest. she's a huge fan of his, I'll try to get her to chime in if this thread keeps going.

yeah, i deliberately elided stuff like MIMEO, since it's not really "his" major work, if that makes sense.

jesse - seriously, track down seven tons and get out!

-j.

[Jesse]

jesse - seriously, track down seven tons and get out!

-j.

In print?
I'm on it (referring to his ever lengthening, frequently pruned short list).

[jkudler]

yeah, get out was reissued recently with the tracks from pita's split with kevin drumm, which i meant to mention. those are great pieces (drumm's side too)! though you'll miss out on the weird format of the original, with half mastered at 33 and half mastered at 45, separated by a bunch of un-grooved vinyl.

not sure on seven tons, but i noticed when i googled it just now that there's torrents and probably blogs, etc.

-j.

[mudd]

i don't think seven tons is still in print, but definitely hunt down get out. i'm really fond of get down as well, especially the cover art



(jon used it as an avatar for some time. the back is great too, i'm looking for an image)

fenn o'berg is also worth a listen, though i had a hard time playing them again after 5 or so years on the shelf. the dance stiff (under the name D.A.C.M. is good, but not great. better than the hapna album "get off", though the track "like watching shit on a shelf" nearly justifies the album, even if its a milder re-imagining of the mythical 'track 3' off "get out".

the only other obscure pita release i can think of are the original "fridge trax" with general magic (or indeed any of the collab stuff with general magic, a lot more techno-oriented but i quite like it. something of a techno parody, really) and the 3" on alku (home of a recent drumm tape) "early works" which i haven't played in a few years but remember as a spiky little thing along the lines of pan sonic. i'll try to give it a relisten soon (well, next weekend i guess) and confirm that it's worth thinking about.

also i think it's important, when discussing peter rehberg, to talk about the curation behind the MEGO label. i certainly can't speak for everything they've ever released, but a bunch of amazing music that's a lot harder to categorize than it seems at first glance.

m

[snailed]

I am unfortunately not as familiar with Pita's work as I should be (though I know and love Get Out and Seven Tons...) What is good to check out beyond that? Besides EL004, R/S, and the FennOBerg discs, all of which I like. (The new FennOBerg reissue looks really nice, I have to check that out). But I just haven't heard anything beyond that. What's good when digging deeper into his catalog?

I have to say that his duet with Lasse Marhaug at No Fun Fest (I forget which year it was... maybe the 2nd or 3rd No Fun?) was the first laptop set that really blew me away. I had seen and enjoyed plenty before that, but that was the first time I realized it could be a powerful and expressive instrument on that level. I know Jon has talked about this set and it's been covered on the board before, but personally, it was a really important thing to see for someone coming somewhat late to this music.

edit: some of mudd's post covers this, thanks! (posted while I wrote this up) i'm checking out get down right now.

[mudd]

i should really repunctuate that entire post. what a mess.

m

[jon abbey]

jon used it as an avatar for some time.

yeah, I still use it some places, and the LP is on display in my listening room. still very bummed I somehow missed the briefly available t-shirt...

fenn o'berg is also worth a listen, though i had a hard time playing them again after 5 or so years on the shelf.

I thought they sounded dated even when they first came out, I'd be afraid to revisit them now, although I know many people love them. they're working on a new record now, I guess.

that pita/lasse set was probably one of the best ten sets I've ever seen of any kind, easily the best set I've ever seen at a No Fun and easily the best laptop improv set I've ever seen. such a shame it didn't record right, although it probably wouldn't have done it justice anyway. the R/S was an attempt to make a record in a similar direction, quite happy with how that turned out.

and, to second mark, mego was a mindblowing, crucial label in its initial years, influential on any number of other musicians and scenes. I'm not so into most of their recent releases, but I love that pita has managed to get to the point where he can release whatever he wants, with no overarching theme except that he likes it, and be successful with it.

[horaflora]

I wasn't particuarly taken with 'works for G.V.' (pieces for dance), as the tracks all seemed to adhere to a somewhat formulaic industrial drone template, loads of metal clangs and too much reverb (I tend to dislike reverb and post effects in general).

Should be noted that I was so untaken with this one that I only listened to it once or twice...

[carlos]

yeah, Mego certainly blew my mind back in the mid to late 90s- especially Pita and Farmers Manual. around 1998 i was buying anything even vaguely Mego-related. still have all of it, i think.

that General Magic & Pita CD "Live and Final Fridge" (1995)- not sure i would call it a techno "parody"- but maybe that's how they saw it. it still sounds pretty good to me today. there are beats- they are mostly slow and simple, but the shifting sounds under the rhythm are really well done. but if you don't like techno this might not be for you. btw- this CD is much more sonically interesting than the General Magic stuff i have.

[nicenick]

"seven tons for free" and "get out" were hugely influential to me. i agree he's been pretty hit-and-miss (mostly miss) since then and i've pretty much stopped paying attention the past few years. but there are some other releases that i really like that i don't see mentioned above:

- "break" 3" cd for fallt circa 2000 (?) - in the vein of the spikier "get out" era, and available for free download: http://www.fallt.com/invalidobject/break

- "ri.ci.cle" 3" cd - not solo work but a DJ set of mostly musique concrete; definitely worth a listen though

- boxmedia 12" split with kevin drumm

you mentioned thinking rehberg & bauer sounded dated, but i'd say "passt" is a high watermark of this genre. also some of his work on compilations is good too - the thing on rkk13 is nice brutalist noise. also the one of the nanoloop comp, mainly because it's funny (i think).

this thread inspired me to re-listen to "seven tons" for the first time in ages - so good!

[jon abbey]

a list of most of the shows he's ever done:

http://www.editionsmego.com/twiki/bin/v ... istoryPage

on a quick count, I think I've seen about 20, this was the first one:

01.08.1998 Pita PS1, Queens, NY USA

I think the bill was him solo, Russell Haswell solo (I think he curated that first summer of PS1?), and one of the Farmer's Manual combos. I have a 4400 word piece that Gil Gershman wrote about the event, talking to the musicians and putting it all in context as best he could at the time. I don't remember who he did it for, it doesn't look like it's anywhere on the web, and I kind of doubt he even has a copy of it anymore, but maybe I could post that somewhere here, the coding needs to be fixed up.

[mrhaljam]

Pita DJing, a solo set from Hecker, and a FM set by Mathias Gmachl and Hecker (in for absent Oswald Berthold). memorable enough that i still can. sort of. i could be completely wrong. did Haswell perform? wasn't he just curating the event?

I don't remember who he did it for, it doesn't look like it's anywhere on the web, and I kind of doubt he even has a copy of it anymore,

pretty certain he doesn't. how many computers ago would that have been?!

but maybe I could post that somewhere here, the coding needs to be fixed up.

would you mind sending him a copy before you do? juvenilia. heh.

[jon abbey]

heh, I should threaten to post more of your stuff if it brings you out of hiding, I'll send it on now. as for the personnel at that show, though, from your piece:

"This past August saw a spirited, if disjointed, triple header of power-noise improv staring Mego founder Peter “Pita” Rehberg and one of Farmers Manual’s numerous configurations, both fresh off the plane from Vienna, joined by Disobey figurehead and Londonite-on-holiday Russell Haswell for a midsummer Saturday night matinee in the heart of the Bronx. "

although it was the edge of Queens, not the heart of the Bronx, but I think the players are correct.

[fearandpanic]

He seems to have built up a strong relationship with experimental writers and directors for the theatre. I remember reading on Dennis Cooper's blog about a number of theatre projects with Pita's music involving Cooper, Catherine Robbe-Grillet (both writers I admire) and the director Gisèle Vienne, but I'm not sure if the music is interesting by itself. These include Une Belle Enfant Blonde, Kindertotenlieder, I Apologize, and Jerk. I'd like to see these staged, but I doubt there's much chance of that where I am.

edit: having looked it up, I guess this is collected on the Work for GV (Gisèle Vienne) set, but they were referred to in this thread as being "dance" projects. I think these recent ones are actually more literary. Horaflora's description of the music doesn't exactly make me want to rush out and buy it.

[Stephen]

Has anyone heard the recent (2007?) a bas la culture marchande LP for No Fun?

[jcg]

He seems to have built up a strong relationship with experimental writers and directors for the theatre. I remember reading on Dennis Cooper's blog about a number of theatre projects with Pita's music involving Cooper, Catherine Robbe-Grillet (both writers I admire) and the director Gisele Vienne, but I'm not sure if the music is interesting by itself. These include Une Belle Enfant Blonde, Kindertotenlieder, I Apologize, and Jerk. I'd like to see these staged, but I doubt there's much chance of that where I am.

edit: having looked it up, I guess this is collected on the Works for GV (Gisele Vienne) set, but they were referred to in this thread as being "dance" projects. I think these recent ones are actually more literary. Horaflora's description of the music doesn't exactly make me want to rush out and buy it.

You're correct, Rehberg and Vienne (no pun intended) have a longstanding partnership. Music for Showroom Dummies and Stereotypie were also composed by Rehberg and the Kindertotenlieder thing is obviously their most well-known collab. Some (lots of?) people don't always realize that KTL was initially a project to accompany the corresponding GV show...

Work for GV 2004-2008 is a mixed bag indeed. Out of the three pieces/plays/shows documented: I Apologize (2004), Une Belle Enfant Blonde (2005) and Jerk (2008), the first one is the most interesting sonically speaking. The text-based pieces featuring some scary reading by Dennis Cooper are especially interesting. The rest not so much. I have no idea what Catherine Robbe-Grillet (Alain's wife) is really up to, in the GV spectacles, on this disc and in general.

[fearandpanic]

Thanks for the info.

I have no idea what Catherine Robbe-Grillet (Alain's wife) is really up to, in the GV spectacles, on this disc and in general.

I believe she wrote Une Belle Enfant Blonde with Cooper, also appearing on stage in the multimedia-style production. Not on topic here, but her book The Image (published under the name Jean de Berg) is a classic and subversive bit of sadomasochistic literary modernism.