Keith Rowe

[jon abbey]

i dig the archery comparison.

yeah, I've heard that story before, that was a really formative expeience for him, and one of the specific 'rooms' making up 'the room'. actually, maybe he talked about that in the initial draft of the aborted notes to 'the room', maybe I can get him to revisit those sometime.

[jon abbey]

Sat, March 20, 9 PM, $15

again via Robert hatta, Keith solo on Wed in Boston:

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Right now I'm so sorry I don't live in the States.

[jkudler]

Right now I'm so sorry I don't live in the States.

you obviously haven't been following the contemporaneous developments in politics/legislating then. . .

[kcorcoran]

He also talked extensively about how he classifies the objects he uses to generate sound on the guitar, how they are divided by the traditional use of the hands on the instrument, and how he thinks he uses 230 parameters of information to determine whether a sound is unique and useful.

(From Joe Morris' blog via Jon's link here)

Interested to hear an expansion of these aspects.
Unfortunate to miss all of this by a few thousand miles!

[jon abbey]

[simon reynell]

How was Lexer/Rowe? I'd have loved to be there....

[Red]

I'm sure others more well-versed in criticism will chime in soon, but I'll offer a few thoughts.

I thought the show was excellent.

All three of the sets -- Lexer solo, Rowe solo, duo -- were fascinating. I was surprised that I often found Lexer's purely or primarily acoustic sounds more compelling than his computer-processed sounds, which says a great deal about the wide variety of the sounds he coaxes out of the piano. OTOH, the computer processing allowed him to match up with Rowe's louder and more abrasive passages.

Rowe spent much of his solo set using a fan and another motor device (perhaps someone here knows exactly what it was), often as sonically varying and rich drone elements. He also prominently used a fuzz pedal (a ZVex Fuzz Factory or something similar, perhaps?), which introduced square-wavey glitch sounds. His solo set ended on a beautiful, long, sustained, chord, fading into nothingness. A lovely ending to a great set.

I also thought that was was a great counterexample to those who would suggest that an EAI performance is visually uninteresting. Both performers were quite compelling to watch, Lexer picking and choosing among his many bows, friction mallets, eBows, and other implements or throwing magnets at the strings, Rowe carefully using his varied objects and pedals. I thought the listening each performer was doing was made manifest visually, also.

I'm curious to hear what others thought.

Thanks for helping to make this happen, Jon.

[jon abbey]

my pleasure, Red, glad you enjoyed it!

some more pix here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13715378@N ... 661319638/

[littlebear]

My first time seeing Keith (and of course Sebastian - his first show in the US, right?) play, and in fact one of my first EAI gigs really... so huge bow to everyone involved. It's great to have the chance to be "there" to see people in action, potentially put a source to the sounds and realise just what doesn't make it onto a CD.

During the performance I was thinking the same thing as Red - specifically in response to an indie-music-fan friend of mine who had complained that they never went to see laptop shows as they were so boring to watch. There was plenty of real-time physical playing of instruments to enjoy, albeit in a very modern/unconventional way. Plus, the crazy glowing red changing-pattern LED fan/spinny thing (somewhat visible as an orange glow in the first Keith pic in Jon's link) made for a cheery and hypnotic visual accompaniment, while itself providing some great drones - truly an audiovisual instrument!

In my limited (non-comparative) experience, I thought the duo set went well... Sebastian didn't show any sign of being daunted at playing with Keith (just saying I would!) and while at times it felt like he was sensitively accompanying him, which sounded great, at other times he let rip with some more intense sounds of his own. Still, Keith's sound-world was much grungier coming from his two guitar amps than the clean and digitally processed piano, which heightened the impression of separate (yet internally cohesive) instruments in each side of the room (rather than, say, a mixed soundscape coming from a PA system.) This seemed appropriate. Out of interest, was either person processing the other's sounds at all? I thought I heard some cross-pollination between them, perhaps just because of live microphones.

Overall I thought Keith's music sounded like the city around us (perhaps as an extension of the Room?): busy and dense with the low rumbles, drones and hiss of engines grinding and the myriad sounds of people living their lives. As I left this carried with me through the industrial building, past the highway outside and along my subway journey home.

Deeply enjoyed it, thanks - looking forward to tonight!

PS. I have no idea how this works, but is it too early to start asking about recordings of this stuff?

[jon abbey]

is it too early to start asking about recordings of this stuff?

yes.

[simon reynell]

thanks for the reports; sounds great.

littlebear wrote: "Sebastian didn't show any sign of being daunted at playing with Keith"

yes I didn't think he would, but did Keith show signs of being daunted by playing with Sebastian?

[anasara]

quite the evening tonight... hopefully i can write more later, but in short:

sean and keith worked wonderfully together. the set was under an hour, i believe, though it really did touch a lot of ground. the interplay between them was very impressive and, recalling the summary of keith's recent seminar, nicely emphasized their attention and sensitivity to the room/environment. it's interesting that poster littlebear mentioned the sounds of the city, as at several points during this performance it was difficult to tell where exactly some of the sounds were coming from - meehan/rowe vs. brooklyn/audience... all of the ambient sounds (street noise, squeaking chairs, rustling sleeves) tended to blend together pretty well, however, and seemed to be something which both sean and keith were playing off of. the set largely consisted of subdued, careful gesture, spattered with dynamic bursts - it was considerably percussive, though both musicians utilized a fair amount of tonal hums and scrapes.

jason and keith were equally fantastic (and much more intense). jason's ability to synthesize the variety of media he used is admirable... seamlessly moving between tape manipulation, laptop processing, controlled feedback and a handful of other electronics/objects, he tended to elevate the set to its most dramatic intensities. the performance swelled in and out of walls of noise, piercing sine waves, and low-end rumbling. it was within the quieter sections that keith's movements dominated, the acute gestures having often served as a welcomed respite from the aural lashings of lescalleet.

i think my favorite moment of the night, however, was jason casually removing the bottle cap from his beer with his teeth.

edit: also, there appeared to be several posters from the board in attendance, so it was nice to (potentially) put some faces with usernames.

[jon abbey]

sean and keith worked wonderfully together. the set was under an hour, i believe

29 or 30 minutes.

and yeah, a good chunk of the audience either posts or lurks here, I only really announced the shows here and on facebook, because I was worried about too many people showing up for that room.

[RFKorp]

i think my favorite moment of the night, however, was jason casually removing the bottle cap from his beer with his teeth.

for serious! made even better by the series of confused/amazed looks that rippled through the audience as a result. Meant to ask Jason how he developed this skill.

edit: also, there appeared to be several posters from the board in attendance, so it was nice to (potentially) put some faces with usernames.

Should have tried to introduce yourself around a bit! Which of the unfamiliar looking members of our younger generation were you?

[jon abbey]

jason/keith



sean/keith (lit solely by the dim lamp on keith's table)

more pix from the two nights here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13715378@N ... 661319638/

[leroysghost]

i think my favorite moment of the night, however, was jason casually removing the bottle cap from his beer with his teeth.

ha, i've seen him do this a couple of times now (once he even went as far as to subsequently pour it into a pint glass). along with performing without shoes i guess it's kind of his trademark.

both nights were very very strong, but the Rowe/Lescalleet was absolutely fucking perfect. this and the 2008 Rainey/Lescalleet set in chinatown are decidedly the best shows i have seen in my entire life! in contrast with their set last week, which was more of a "typical" improv meeting, this sounded like they were both building towards the same place as if they knew where each sound was going be placed before they even started. even my philistinic younger brother (who had a lot of trouble getting past the lack of an obvious, beat-driven rhythm in the other sets) was impressed by this. as far as favorite moments go, i gotta give it up for the "revenge of the slinkies" ending, with Jason swinging them around Keith and making a maelstrom of noise before the sound cut out abruptly. really though, the entire thing was just a constant highlight for me.


elsewhere, the pairing of Keith Rowe and Sebastian Lexer was spot on because they have what i think is the most interesting aspects of their recent solo work in common: an exciting kind of sparseness that could suddenly erupt into surprisingly spiky areas. in their set last night, Rowe cultivated some really nice moments of high pitched feedback and Lexer wisely did not let some of his electronic treatments go on for too long (his tendency to do this is the only thing that has been keeping me from completely getting behind his excellently structured solo stuff). this pairing has the potential to create a brilliant record together, and i am very intrigued to see what they decide to do in the future.

i'm too tired to write much more, suffice to say that the Rowe/Meehan set had remarkable focus and the Rowe solo had a great balance of all the elements that i've seen him display in the last week.

[Dan Warburton]

i think my favorite moment of the night, however, was jason casually removing the bottle cap from his beer with his teeth.

for serious! made even better by the series of confused/amazed looks that rippled through the audience as a result. Meant to ask Jason how he developed this skill.

This thread is descending to the level of people.com gossip - you sound like a gaggle of Robbie Williams groupies. Why not mention tight trousers while you're at it.

[jkudler]

sounds like a pretty legit/useful/interesting observation of the performance to me. . .

[Dan Warburton]

Wow, you think so? You surprise me.