Beautifully written notes on the evenings, mudd.
Wish I could have been there night 2 and I expect tonight's going to leave me just as saddened by my absence (though matinee, here I hopefully come if I can get out of a scheduled meeting) but I guess I might as well give my two cents about what I heard..
First I'd just like to second that opinion that the Colley/Lescalleet set was the real mindblower of the evening. Didn't know what to expect from that one as I had heard Colley's name a lot but didn't really know his sound. Let me just say that he created a diehard fan then and there.
For me the other real highlight was the Barnes/Wastell duo to which I don't feel you give enough credit. Whereas a set like Rowe/Nakamura, for instance, was exquisitely, almost frighteningly, beautiful, I felt an emotional power in Tim Barnes and Mark Wastell on their gongs and cymbals that I couldn't grasp hold of in much of the evening's electronic works. I found their's and the above to similarly be the most immediately inspiring of the performances.
ErstQuake 2: Sept 23-25, NYC
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user_719
i was in the front row. Unami's setup was max controlled little speaker and 3 motors with different attatchments on each. one had a rod with a flat plat about as big as a 1/2 dollar( which knocked and jumped when cativated), one had a rod with a small "propellar" looking thing on the end(which flipped and jumped when activated), and the last was a thinner rod which sat inside a shot class( which made the "tinkling" sound. all his "percussion" sounds came from these devices vibrtating on the wooden chair, in the glass and different objects in the speaker cone - pcs of glass, small rocks and sea shells. He controlled all this from a wacom drawing tablet in his lap.
i have to agree w/ RFK about Wastell/Barnes and Colley/Lescalleet being the standouts of the 1st night -- especially the latter set, which was one of my most eagerly anticipated of the weekend, and it was somehow still even better than expected. just amazing, as i'm sure everyone will agree.
i thought the 2nd night was much more consistent, i loved pretty much every set. i liked the unami/meehan/nakamura trio a lot, it probably helped that i was close enough to see exactly what unami was doing, which barry described well. it probably isn't a versatile-enough setup for him to use it all the time, but i think he did some pretty interesting things with it in this context, and his little clicks and clatters were a nice complement to the gorgeous drones meehan and nakamura were making. not the most successful set of the night maybe, but i really enjoyed it anyway.
the rest of the 2nd night was as brilliant as mark says. colley's solo set was more totally amazing noise, the guy is incredible at building up compelling, varied walls of sound that are very dynamic and full of energy. korber/barnes was great, barnes was playing in full-on harsh noise mode the way he usually does in duo with mattin, and tomas seemed to be creating some feedback drones and textures and things, though i confess that after seeing tomas play twice now i still don't really get what he's doing -- it sounds great, that's all i know. nmperign & lescalleet was total hive mind synth drones, very enjoyable. no horns! looked like bhob was playing soft-synths on his laptop, controlled by a couple of midi devices, greg had a vintage "Realistic" synth, and jason had four little casio keyboards (and duct tape). i'd agree w/ mark (and i think we're alone here) that rowe/ottavi was a letdown. i couldn't really get behind ottavi's radio work at all, it was lacking the subtlety of rowe's usual sounds. the ending was nice, though a bit awkward in terms of communication b/t the musicians -- ottavi didn't seem to know how he should end it from that point.
been a great fest so far, i'm off to the matinee show now.
i thought the 2nd night was much more consistent, i loved pretty much every set. i liked the unami/meehan/nakamura trio a lot, it probably helped that i was close enough to see exactly what unami was doing, which barry described well. it probably isn't a versatile-enough setup for him to use it all the time, but i think he did some pretty interesting things with it in this context, and his little clicks and clatters were a nice complement to the gorgeous drones meehan and nakamura were making. not the most successful set of the night maybe, but i really enjoyed it anyway.
the rest of the 2nd night was as brilliant as mark says. colley's solo set was more totally amazing noise, the guy is incredible at building up compelling, varied walls of sound that are very dynamic and full of energy. korber/barnes was great, barnes was playing in full-on harsh noise mode the way he usually does in duo with mattin, and tomas seemed to be creating some feedback drones and textures and things, though i confess that after seeing tomas play twice now i still don't really get what he's doing -- it sounds great, that's all i know. nmperign & lescalleet was total hive mind synth drones, very enjoyable. no horns! looked like bhob was playing soft-synths on his laptop, controlled by a couple of midi devices, greg had a vintage "Realistic" synth, and jason had four little casio keyboards (and duct tape). i'd agree w/ mark (and i think we're alone here) that rowe/ottavi was a letdown. i couldn't really get behind ottavi's radio work at all, it was lacking the subtlety of rowe's usual sounds. the ending was nice, though a bit awkward in terms of communication b/t the musicians -- ottavi didn't seem to know how he should end it from that point.
been a great fest so far, i'm off to the matinee show now.
I really loved the Keith and Julien set, both for the dynamic between them and for the contrast. Julien has been very influenced by Keith (not so obvious in his music maybe), but is also quite obviously his own person. anyone at the discussion session yesterday afternoon got a preview of the dynamic, I really hope they continue working as a duo in addition to their N:Q quartet.
off to the matinee in a bit, I'm predicting that the Korber/Ottavi set today will explode heads.
off to the matinee in a bit, I'm predicting that the Korber/Ottavi set today will explode heads.
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user_183
I had to leave early tonight, but I wanted to go on the record first and foremost saying that Margarida Garcia and Taku Unami put a huge smile on my face by the end of their set (which, like everything tonight, seemed very long to me, but thank god!).
'm excited for the various perceptions to roll in. I had one hallucination on Friday during the fabulous Korber/Rowe set, right after one of you set up that fatty bass loop, and that was of a slow-motion video loop of a Fender Rhodes being sucked into a black hole.
If the half of the weekend I missed was a great as what I saw, the highest congratulations to Jon and all the musicians are in order. What else happened tonight?
'm excited for the various perceptions to roll in. I had one hallucination on Friday during the fabulous Korber/Rowe set, right after one of you set up that fatty bass loop, and that was of a slow-motion video loop of a Fender Rhodes being sucked into a black hole.
If the half of the weekend I missed was a great as what I saw, the highest congratulations to Jon and all the musicians are in order. What else happened tonight?
yeah, not the whole PA, but the woofer in the right channel. there was only one set left after that, Barnes/Wastell/Nakamura, and we used small Boses that they had on hand, I think it worked out fine in the end, they were going to play quietly anyway.shiflet wrote:word on the japanese streets is that ottavi blew the pa tonight... details should be interesting.
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user_265
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user_265
dude, i'm just repeating what i heard... info that travels that quick around the globe is bound to be a bit jumbled. you know, um, translation and all.tomas wrote:WTF ottavi?? i think i had a hand in that too...shiflet wrote:word on the japanese streets is that ottavi blew the pa tonight... details should be interesting.
PS: come to japan.
matinee time...
1 hive mind: i guess it should have been obvious, since most hive mind records i've heard are post-processing-free and all, but hive mind sounded exactly like... hive mind. thick layered dronescapes, building into a nice thick mass. a bit of a letdown because he didn't really beat on the sound system very much, but it was still good stuff.
2 menche: awesome set. his set up was really simple, just two ipods, some knobs, and a contact mic. the beginning of the set was the pulses created by striking himself on the chest with the contact mic, and eventually trapping the sounds into loops that built their way into a massive, pulsating droney mass. the ipods added at least one rhythmic track that ended up smothered in its own feedback. loud and almost punishing, but really fantastic.
m
1 hive mind: i guess it should have been obvious, since most hive mind records i've heard are post-processing-free and all, but hive mind sounded exactly like... hive mind. thick layered dronescapes, building into a nice thick mass. a bit of a letdown because he didn't really beat on the sound system very much, but it was still good stuff.
2 menche: awesome set. his set up was really simple, just two ipods, some knobs, and a contact mic. the beginning of the set was the pulses created by striking himself on the chest with the contact mic, and eventually trapping the sounds into loops that built their way into a massive, pulsating droney mass. the ipods added at least one rhythmic track that ended up smothered in its own feedback. loud and almost punishing, but really fantastic.
m
and day 3.
1. meehan/daniel/kelley - this is the only repeat performance from last year's festival, and since it was a highlight of last year's festival, i was really looking forward to it. and i wasn't disappointed in the slightest. this trio needs records, and preferrably lots of them. sean and greg can match scrapy drones perfect when they choose to, but for the most part they stayed free of overlap. greg played breathy, flowing passages and scraped a sheet of metal against his horn (yes, he had a horn tonight). he also dropped his mute at some point, but who cares about that sort of thing? sean played mostly rod-on-cymbal drones, bringing out a fork only briefly to scrape the rim of the drum. and david daniell was there all throughout, bubbling and rumbling between and around them. just great.
2. rowe/wastell - another mind-destroyer of a set. rowe on his full set up, vs. mark on 'amplified textures' and apparently some other electronics. i wish i had notes on the details of this set, because there were so damn many of them. first keith built a wall of quiet noise under mark's scrapy textures. then mark joined the noise wall, and then they tore it down and built more, and more still. i hope the recording of this one comes out, it was way, way too much stuff to gather my thoughts on in paragraph form.
3. garcia/unami - another controversial set from taku unami, again armed with his set of strange toys matched with margarida garcia on bass. the set started with just garcia, bowing and tapping and scrapping, while unami listened carefully. eventually, slowly, he started bringing out his sounds, eventually building them into a pattering later of clicky taps. unfortunately, i never really felt that the duo coalesced into a duo - i heard an excellent solo set from garcia, and a fascinating demonstration from unami, but nothing i could really get my teeth around as a collaboration. i'm a lot more excited about unami's range with his apparatus now, even though i consider the set unsuccessful.
4. ottavi/korber - blam. julien got up and warned us before they began. and good thing, too, because after maybe a minute of building rumble, he slapped his laptop like an angry pianist and then the walls started shaking. ok, so the walls didn't really shake, but the wall of sound was enough to make me jump. and even though his crush receded when he took his hands away, tomas build up the underpinning dronescape into a monster of it's own, so julien's further dramatic gestures were peaks in a mountain range more than volcanos on their own. just a monstrous set of thick thick crush, but even at the high volumes the textures it was built from were easy to focus on. and yeah, those buggers killed a speaker, and the delay in setting up a replacement (some tiny little toy things, in fact, that sounded good) helped me miss my 12PM train. oh well, i made it home. i'll sleep on the plane.
5. nakamura/wastell/barnes - how could this go wrong? don't ask me, because i didn't see anything go wrong here. each musician moved smoothly between droning narrow beams and crackily textures, never really in unison but always totally together. again, i can't really describe this, except that it was lovely.
overall, the noisiness of the first two days was both one-upped and evaded today. a wonderful finally to a really great show. i feel bad for running off without shaking a ton of hands on my way out, so if anyone feels offended they are welcome to have it out with me next time around. i'll bring boxing gloves, or something.
m
1. meehan/daniel/kelley - this is the only repeat performance from last year's festival, and since it was a highlight of last year's festival, i was really looking forward to it. and i wasn't disappointed in the slightest. this trio needs records, and preferrably lots of them. sean and greg can match scrapy drones perfect when they choose to, but for the most part they stayed free of overlap. greg played breathy, flowing passages and scraped a sheet of metal against his horn (yes, he had a horn tonight). he also dropped his mute at some point, but who cares about that sort of thing? sean played mostly rod-on-cymbal drones, bringing out a fork only briefly to scrape the rim of the drum. and david daniell was there all throughout, bubbling and rumbling between and around them. just great.
2. rowe/wastell - another mind-destroyer of a set. rowe on his full set up, vs. mark on 'amplified textures' and apparently some other electronics. i wish i had notes on the details of this set, because there were so damn many of them. first keith built a wall of quiet noise under mark's scrapy textures. then mark joined the noise wall, and then they tore it down and built more, and more still. i hope the recording of this one comes out, it was way, way too much stuff to gather my thoughts on in paragraph form.
3. garcia/unami - another controversial set from taku unami, again armed with his set of strange toys matched with margarida garcia on bass. the set started with just garcia, bowing and tapping and scrapping, while unami listened carefully. eventually, slowly, he started bringing out his sounds, eventually building them into a pattering later of clicky taps. unfortunately, i never really felt that the duo coalesced into a duo - i heard an excellent solo set from garcia, and a fascinating demonstration from unami, but nothing i could really get my teeth around as a collaboration. i'm a lot more excited about unami's range with his apparatus now, even though i consider the set unsuccessful.
4. ottavi/korber - blam. julien got up and warned us before they began. and good thing, too, because after maybe a minute of building rumble, he slapped his laptop like an angry pianist and then the walls started shaking. ok, so the walls didn't really shake, but the wall of sound was enough to make me jump. and even though his crush receded when he took his hands away, tomas build up the underpinning dronescape into a monster of it's own, so julien's further dramatic gestures were peaks in a mountain range more than volcanos on their own. just a monstrous set of thick thick crush, but even at the high volumes the textures it was built from were easy to focus on. and yeah, those buggers killed a speaker, and the delay in setting up a replacement (some tiny little toy things, in fact, that sounded good) helped me miss my 12PM train. oh well, i made it home. i'll sleep on the plane.
5. nakamura/wastell/barnes - how could this go wrong? don't ask me, because i didn't see anything go wrong here. each musician moved smoothly between droning narrow beams and crackily textures, never really in unison but always totally together. again, i can't really describe this, except that it was lovely.
overall, the noisiness of the first two days was both one-upped and evaded today. a wonderful finally to a really great show. i feel bad for running off without shaking a ton of hands on my way out, so if anyone feels offended they are welcome to have it out with me next time around. i'll bring boxing gloves, or something.
m
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"rocking back and forth" doens't do it justice
he was doing the same thing when I was talking to him after his solo piece at the bar next door to "Have a Cigar", just priceless
will report later on an indelible three days of music, the train continues tonight with Carol Genetti, Jon Mueller and Jack Wright at Lemp Arts
mudd: A+
he was doing the same thing when I was talking to him after his solo piece at the bar next door to "Have a Cigar", just priceless
will report later on an indelible three days of music, the train continues tonight with Carol Genetti, Jon Mueller and Jack Wright at Lemp Arts
mudd: A+
I thought the glitch led to a more assertive delivery from both, i.e. I liked the second 'half' much better, they got pissed (in an intestinal fortitude kind of way)mudd wrote:
5. rowe/nakamura. was this the north american debut of keith's laptop? marred briefly by technical difficulties, we got our first taste of the 'new' duo sound jon has referred to. the biggest changes are from toshi, though it really effects the entire dynamic of the duo. he's playing louder, with leaps of static and thumpy beats. his solo work is finding its way back into his collaborations, and both are feeling stronger for it. as expected, keith responded excellently, though i'm not 100% sure they ever recovered their presence after keith blew a transformer.
Pan S,
I caught the trio you're seeing tonight, last night.
It was high level low volume high intensity, glad you're going to catch this.
Tell Mueller Jesse in Mpls says hi, flip him out [I hung around awhle, he's a sweet guy to chat with, came home with his collab w/Kahn, papercuts, which is very cool...].
I caught the trio you're seeing tonight, last night.
It was high level low volume high intensity, glad you're going to catch this.
Tell Mueller Jesse in Mpls says hi, flip him out [I hung around awhle, he's a sweet guy to chat with, came home with his collab w/Kahn, papercuts, which is very cool...].
http://crowwithnomouth.wordpress.com/
Experimental music should be something that suggests a way of organizing your thinking, your attitude toward the world, which suggests that the world could be different.
Christian Wolff 2014
Experimental music should be something that suggests a way of organizing your thinking, your attitude toward the world, which suggests that the world could be different.
Christian Wolff 2014