wandelweiser

[yonhosago]

I have played Räume 1 to 4. Can't make an overall impression yet.
Could you, if you want, expand on these two things?

Jürg Frey : Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit : Räume 1-8
So settled within its own presence and refusing to interact with that which receives it.

Maybe it's because there are so many early '00s processing techniques used, but I find these pieces tasteless and struggling for survival.

What's a "early '00s processing technique"?
thanks

[barry]

I have played Räume 1 to 4. Can't make an overall impression yet.
Could you, if you want, expand on these two things?

Jürg Frey : Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit : Räume 1-8
So settled within its own presence and refusing to interact with that which receives it.

Maybe it's because there are so many early '00s processing techniques used, but I find these pieces tasteless and struggling for survival.

What's a "early '00s processing technique"?
thanks

yeah, i didnt understand that either

[fuzzycotton]

Jürg Frey : Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit : Räume 1-8

I have so much respect for Frey's music, so this came as a surprise. Especially after it was written about as being so extraordinary. I mean, seriously, even if this is simply "good", is it really so good as to garner such glistening praise ?

Where is the glistening praise for this set? Yuko gave it some high praise but that's only ONE person's opinion. I had the opportunity to listen to this and I found it interesting at times and very dull at other times. I also felt that it was supposed to be dull, or maybe I'm dull and I wasn't listening closely enough. Either way, I respect the release and will likely add it to my collection asap as I'm also a fan of Jurg Frey.
I'm also not sure what you mean by 00's processing technique. What I noticed in some of the recordings was some primitive digital processing, perhaps slowing down of sounds via software,possibly some granular synthesis. I could be wrong but my guess is Jurg Frey is unaware/unconcerned about what processing tools have gone in or out of fashion over the years and merely uses the tools he has at his disposal to make the music he want's to make. If you heard too much of this process or that process and have grown sick and tired of it than that is your problem. Once, about 10 years ago I played Eric B and Rakim's Paid in Full to a friend who thought he knew everything about rap/hip-hop I thought for sure he would have known this record, he didn't and when i put it on he couldn't take it seriously because the drum machine was cheesy and the keyboards were outdated....

[jon abbey]

more praise for the Frey set came from Brian O and Richard P:

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2010/12/ju ... raume.html

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2010/12/we ... -last.html

http://www.thewatchfulear.com/?p=4475

I'm not quite as high on the set as those two and Yuko, but I do like it a fair amount and I did put it on my year-end recommended list. here's the brief take I gave in the comments on Richard's review:

"my own take on the set is that I enjoy it quite a bit, and I’ve actually never connected with Frey’s music before (I don’t like the string quartet you always cite at all, I’ve tried it quite a bit). Frey is probably the most classical/’romantic’ of the EW crew, and that part tends to put me off. but this one doesn’t have any of that to my ears, as if he’s erased his own tendencies. I’d definitely recommend it to people who already know and enjoy some other music in this area, but not as an initial entry point."

[simon reynell]

I’ve not heard Frey’s Räume 1-8 yet (it’s rather forbiddingly expensive for the moment), but I’d be interested to know what others make of Antoine Beuger’s ‘Keine Fernen Mehr’ EWR 1006/07 – another album that both Brian O and Richard P praised extremely highly. I like it for its boldness and originality, but I certainly wouldn’t have put it in a top 20 for last year. Brian and Richard are both good honest critics who say what they genuinely feel, so there’s no element of bullshit going on, but I wondered what other people thought….?

I did a label swap with Antoine at Christmas, so have been listening to quite a bit of recent Wandelweiser stuff, and for me the hit rate is about 50% - which has been the case pretty much from the start of the label. In general that ratio might deter me, but with Wandelweiser I somehow don’t mind and wouldn’t really want it any different. Though they’ve suddenly become fashionable in some parts, in general – as fuzzycotton suggests – for ages now they have carried on working pretty much oblivious to fashions and to trends in other musics, and you have to admire them for that. There’s a quality of single-mindedly following things through to their logical extremes that is admirable but inevitably leaves some listeners by the wayside (including me on occasions). And the discs that do take you with them are an amazing experience. [And it should also be stated that much of the music on the label is actually nothing like the lazy stereotype of single pianissimo notes amidst long silences]

For what it’s worth, from the cd’s I got recently, the ones that really hit the spot were:
Eva Maria Houben’s ‘Works for Tromba Marina’ (whereas her piano double cd did little for me)
Beuger’s ‘Dedekind Duos’ (whereas the Frey piece on the same disc left me behind)
and parts of Dante Boon’s double piano cd (whereas again other bits left me cold)

[Notice Recordings]

I have played Räume 1 to 4. Can't make an overall impression yet.
Could you, if you want, expand on these two things?

Jürg Frey : Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit : Räume 1-8
So settled within its own presence and refusing to interact with that which receives it.

Maybe it's because there are so many early '00s processing techniques used, but I find these pieces tasteless and struggling for survival.

What's a "early '00s processing technique"?
thanks

I can't explain the first sentence you quoted. Other than whatever you can get from it at face value. Just an initial reaction I wrote down.

Regarding the "early '00 processing techniques". I am not too familiar with processing music using digital means, so maybe I am getting a bit ahead of myself. Simply enough, some of this release reminded me quite a bit of many albums from that period in which I have no interest. There is just something about how the sounds were made that turns me off. The way the sounds on this album are extended, layered, merged, etc, made me think of that time. For me, that is something I dislike, but I am not implying that it is an objective and inherent failiure to the release.

Fuzzycotton, I completely understand that Frey is probably not concerned with what processing techniques are popular or which ones are no longer trendy. (Hopefully most worthwhile musicians are not concerned with this.) I am not accusing him of anything. Furthermore, it's not "[my] problem" if I've heard too much of a certain technique and it affects how I listen to new albums. It's simply a reality and is not negative. I can handle it. None of this is a "problem". I'm simply posting my reactions, and they happen to be influenced by music I've heard in my past, which is inevitable.

You also questioned to which "praise" I was referring. In addition to the positive remarks on this forum regarding the release, I was also referring to the positive reviews to which Jon linked, as well as Yuko's review. I think that's a fair amount.

I will revisit these discs. This was my initial reaction. As of now, it does not function on any levels for me: background, integrative, demanding, pretty, ambient, or challenging. Maybe upon future listens, one of these terms will become applicable.

[jkudler]

(I'm also really fascinated by the way the Michael Pisaro and Antoine Beuger respond to poetry in their work.)

I'd like to hear more about this.I know Pisaro and Beuger reference poetry, but I'd love to hear about the way they do it. Any insight?

just to echo a bit of what will m said, a lot of pisaro's work that i've seen deals fairly literally with poems, either their structures or their specific imagery, often relating to sound. he usually talks about this in liner notes, or in online notes, or with scores (i've seen all the harmony series ones). for instance, here's stevens' "july mountain":
http://julymountain.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... ns-we.html

i have to say, i find his treatment of poems way way less contrived and forced than eg a lot of contemporary composition. where i've seen plenty of horrible concerts where "the music evokes the summer's day described in the text," only to hear some typical bland tonal music, pisaro would just give you a recording of a summer's day, treated -ahem- poetically.

-jesse

[surfer]

http://julymountain.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... ns-we.html

Wow, what is that blog you linked to (I realize you just linked to it for the poem), :

the story of an upstanding Southern Baptist woman who goes on a mission to apologize to the three people she hurt the most in her former life as an alcoholic stripper.

fuck Wallace Stevens, I want to read THAT.

(and if it's optioned into a movie, it sure as hell better star Jennifer Lawrence)

[jkudler]

heh, i did not linger.

did stumble on this interesting blog, though. are people familiar?:
http://some-landscapes.blogspot.com/201 ... ntain.html

-jesse

[leroysghost]

(and if it's optioned into a movie, it sure as hell better star Jennifer Lawrence)

...or Michelle Williams with yet another belabored accent

[faster]

just to echo a bit of what will m said, a lot of pisaro's work that i've seen deals fairly literally with poems, either their structures or their specific imagery, often relating to sound. he usually talks about this in liner notes, or in online notes, or with scores (i've seen all the harmony series ones). for instance, here's stevens' "july mountain":
http://julymountain.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... ns-we.html

Okay, that's more like what I was looking for.

[yonhosago]

For those interested, here is the link to our page about the performace of Michael Pisaro's an unrhymed chord we did last january 28th at Santo Domingo church, here in Santiago:

http://www.arsomnis.com/artesmusicales/ ... ---pisaro/



as always, a brief text, pictures and the audio. As you will listen, the church is located in a corner in old downtown Santiago, so there's a lot of activity around it. Besides, the church is stone made, two hundred+ years old (it's the third version of the church, the original was built in 1595), so there's a lot of reverb. In between those sounds, or buried in them, it's an unrhymed chord, of the sounds of it the recording took: some of us took the "almost inaudible" part in the score too far.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

is the audio not working, or is it cauz I'm on Mac, or? I'd very much like to hear it...

[yonhosago]

is the audio not working, or is it cauz I'm on Mac, or? I'd very much like to hear it...

heh...was just talking to Mac-user friend who had the same problem..dunno why, damn

Meanwhile check the direct link in archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/MichaelP ... hymedChord, it worked for him

[simon reynell]

Very good realisation. Thanks for posting this.

[Herb Levy]

Nice recording.

& Ars Omnis looks like a great organization; I'm downloading some of the other recordings now.

[yonhosago]

thanks for the feedback

next March, Manfred Werder is coming to town. We'll do three activities: a walk in and through a sector of the city, with an arranged route, playing some scores, some pointed in advance, some decided in spot; an extended concert (12-hour, maybe): from solos to a 16+ musicians ensemble; and a little concert and talk in an appartment or atelier. Some of the recordings are going to be uploaded at arsomnis, and I hope some of the others, with Manfred's work, will get published.

[jkudler]

not sure where this goes, but just stumbled on this conversation between pisaro and aaron cassidy:
http://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/20 ... versation/

[leroysghost]

my take on Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit is that it is enjoyable enough but not something i'd want to listen to more then the half dozen times i already have. there is little in it that distinguishes it from, say, Music On A Long Thin Wire with the volume down so low that it sounds like the music is coming out of the back of your head. i prefer Frey's previous B-Boim L’âme Est Sans Retenue III, which was from roughly the same time period and struck me as a subtler and less utilitarian take on similar themes. Weites Land, like the majority of Wandelweiser records, just frustrates me that i wasn't able to experience it in a live context (even more so in this case seeing as it was originally intended as part of an art installation).

[jkudler]

another MP piece i stumbled on randomly. a concert review from 1999:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/in ... oid=898425