Keith Rowe/Graham Lambkin - "Making A"

[laughter_CS]

posted today at Brainwashed.com:

If Keith Rowe and Graham Lambkin haven't produced one of the most mind-bending records of 2013, they're at least high in the running. Making A shares its name with one of Cornelius Cardew's Schooltime Compositions. Written in 1967, these pieces were designed to help musicians and non-musicians develop their own methods of interpretation and music-making. They emphasize process over finished products and personal development over pretty results. Rowe and Lambkin's unusual recording emphasizes process too, but turns the spotlight on the listener. The album changes color and shape with the light. Sometimes improvised, sometimes structured; it constantly reflects its audience and hides its perpetrators. Few other records like it come to mind.

more after the link: http://t.co/aNmE5h3xbB

[Dan Warburton]

You go out in style there:
"What are the musicians trying to say by making noise like this? Is it even music? Cardew can't tell you that; neither can Keith Rowe, nor Graham Lambkin. And neither can I."
That makes five of us!
(On an unrelated subject, thanks for posting that Stockhausen Mantra lecture on your blog - a great discovery!)

[laughter_CS]

I hope it's clear what I mean! Cardew wouldn't want to answer that question for anyone and I don't think Rowe would want to either. And I didn't want to tell anyone that I thought the music was pretty, or that it had emotive powers, or that I thought it was all about place/gesture/discipline in improv, etc. etc. etc. I genuinely think the point is to have the audience approach the music and react as freely as possible (with as few indicators about the music as possible if that makes more sense?).

Glad you like that Stockhausen video. Lots of great insight there, even though at some point I lose the thread. Karlheinz was a great presenter though, at least in that case.