i think thats selling mattin short. i've seen him play twice w/ tim barnes, and while ottavi/korber was similar in sound maybe, mattin seems to be a much more sensitive and responsive improviser than ottavi was being during this set - mattin never gave me the impression that he was blaring away w/o listening.lukaz wrote:'Ha Julien behaving like my old pal Mattin might have?
ErstQuake 2: Sept 23-25, NYC
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Richard Pinnell
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- Location: Oxfordshire, England
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My thoughts on their similarity extended beyond this set. I agree Mattin is a very good improvisor. I do see similarities in their general personality, some of their politics and approach to releasing music however.sevenarts wrote:i think thats selling mattin short. i've seen him play twice w/ tim barnes, and while ottavi/korber was similar in sound maybe, mattin seems to be a much more sensitive and responsive improviser than ottavi was being during this set - mattin never gave me the impression that he was blaring away w/o listening.lukaz wrote:'Ha Julien behaving like my old pal Mattin might have?
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user_658
Richard Pinnell wrote:Please Luka, it was 63 not 68. Don't over-exaggerate, you'll give me a bad namelukaz wrote:'' and Richard buying 68 disc (check thread on speakeasy)- you re mad ''old chap'' ...
Richard, you definitely have to find the strenght and time to list all those 63 discs you bought
I need to know what the trend is in NYC these days...-
franz bieberkopf
- Posts: 642
- Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 9:33 pm
can someone summarize for those of us who can't be arsed to register with the NYTimes?dwd wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/health/27prev.htmltomas 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.
uh yeah, maybe i'll share some thoughts later.
sorry.... http://www.bugmenot.com/ is a great resource in those times of need.... but here's the article:Franz Bieberkopf wrote:can someone summarize for those of us who can't be arsed to register with the NYTimes?
September 27, 2005
Prevention: What Amplified Music Is the Loudest? All of It
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
If you are heading out for a concert, you should consider taking a pair of earplugs.
That is the advice of a new study that found that people who attend indoor concerts where the music is amplified show measurable hearing loss afterward.
And while previous research has found a link between loud rock music and at least temporary hearing loss, this study found that it did not much matter what kind of music it was, as long as it was amplified.
"There's a misconception out there that heavy metal is louder than pop, which is louder than country," said the lead researcher, Dr. David A. Opperman of the University of Minnesota Medical Center. "They're all loud," he said.
Oddly, the noise level at a heavy metal concert studied by the researchers tended to be a little lower than the level at other concerts studied, because instead of clapping and shouting, many concertgoers were banging into each other in a mosh pit, the researchers said.
In the study, being presented this week before the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, 29 volunteers attended three kinds of concerts - pop, rockabilly and heavy metal - at the same concert hall.
Afterward, 64 percent of those who did not wear earplugs had hearing loss, compared with 27 percent of those who did wear them.
so i am too lazy to read it all so here is my version (quite short), and as the performances was described already, mostly impressions. i won't go into matenee, cuz i just agree completely with mudd on it.
Mark Wastell/Tim Barnes - well i thought they started somewhat hesitatingly. for me it didn't come together for quite a while, until they started getting louder, maybe it had something to do with a beer i drank before that. it all developed to a beautiful set, though quite slight i from me i guess, the loud parts were pretty awesome though. but it was an usual and interesting setup, would like to hear more of that.
Keith Rowe/Tomas Korber - well it was a nice set, but really i though a bit too easy. probably the approach is quite similar? dunno. for me, it started more interesting (tomas slightly hitting his guitar on the table and such), than it eventually continued. a bit too comfortable for my tastes.
Julien Ottavi/Dion Workman - enjoyed quite a bit. beautiful quiet set. i heard from Workman that was they are doing now is different from Misenlian, and i was really curious what they would do. but i had a definite feeling that it's a direction they still working on. some sounds didn't quite fit into whole picture, maybe being just a bit standart. still, very good overall.
Joe Colley/Jason Lescalleet - shit, so great. best set of the night. and definitely the most fun to watch. the most impressive thing for me was, how both chaotic and coherent it was at the same time. great sounds, great dynamics. i bought the cdr the next day. haven't listened yet.
Keith Rowe/Toshimaru Nakamura - probably the most demanding set of the night. it was a very good set, but i was a bit dissapointed. something just didn't quite come together. i think from this duo i expected more, even though it was a good set and i enjoyed it a lot.
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Joe Colley - great set, and again, a great set to watch. i thought at times that the transitions were a bit abrupt, and it did drag at places for me, but the ending made up for it.
Toshimaru Nakamura/Taku Unami/Sean Meehan - i loved that set. yes, unami's contributions did clash with others' at places, but i liked the tension it created. it was somewhat uncomfortable because i couldn't see at all what unami was doing, but in general, it grabbed my attention and i enjoyed it a lot.
Tomas Korber/Tim Barnes - yes, a surprising set, maybe it was me, but i didn't like it as much as others did. i thought the first part was just noisy. there wasn't anything behind it. just lacking in dimension and depth. for me, it was mostly barnes' fault, because even in that part i could say i enjoyed tomas' contributions much more than barnes', and as far as hearing tomas, it was my favourite set. the set started to gain momentum in the second part, becoming more layered, and something just clicked for me from then on.
nmperign/Jason Lescalleet - yeah, a bit bland. nice set, but not much more. i expected a lot, and was quite disappointed. i just was pretty much unmoved by it, and only when they started fading out, i though 'hm, that wasn't that bad'. maybe it was my favourite part of the set?
Keith Rowe/Julien Ottavi - yes i liked it. i though it was a really dynamic set. subtlety? guts! they just went and did a set that was probably just grating for most of the crowd, trying different stuff, and even if it didn't always work, that fact definitely made it up for me. it wasn't just noisy, it was completely different. and ottavi pushing rowe that much. who else does that? and does it always have to be fully successful? it's hard for me to put my feelings on this set to words somehow, but it was just braver than most of the stuff i saw on that fest. and if anything i walked off from this fest, is a great apressiation of Ottavi. i didn't buy his cd (chris was out of it til i finally decided), but i'm sure he is one of the artist i will keep and eye in the future. really enormously talented guy.
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Greg Kelley/David Daniell/Sean Meehan - beautiful set, excellent trio. just so good together. nothing much to say about it except that i enjoyed it a lot. and as i never heard daniell before, i really loved his contributions. other's playing was excellent too.
Keith Rowe/Mark Wastell - the most satisfying Rowe set of the fest. so dynamic, and they played so well together, at the same time not slipping into someting that i would call too comfortable or predictable. very good set, and a one that i would like to have a recording of (no hinting here, i just though that aspect of seeing it live didn't feel as important as in other sets).
Taku Unami/Margarida Garcia - awesome. and might be my favourite of the fest. just so gripping, didn't let me for a second, and my mind tends to wander quite a bit. i'm still thinking about it, and mudd's thoughts seemed interesting to me, because i just didn't hear, or didn't listen to it that way at all. it did work as a duo, it just was a duo that was working from a different aspect, just like Rowe said, time. great, great set. the most memorable for me. nothing else to say.
Tomas Korber/Julien Ottavi - well i guess i wasn't the only one who jumped in his chair when Ottavi hit the keys, heh. i thought he was quite mean to tomas, not leaving him much choice, but about that, maybe we should ask tomas himself. i wasn't brave enought to ask Ottavi what was it that made him do such a set when i was talking to him and Workman in the end of the night, so i am still curious. oh, and yes, i did enjoy this set a lot. in my top 3 or 4 of the fest.
Toshimaru Nakamura/Mark Wastell/Tim Barnes - yes, it was a beautiful set, but i will admit, i was dead tired, and half-slept through a significant part of it, still, somewhat what subconciously, probably, sistening to it, hearing it. i thought it was a great set to end the fest, because it was such a beautiful set, a perfect ending, for the fest, and for me, too.
Mark Wastell/Tim Barnes - well i thought they started somewhat hesitatingly. for me it didn't come together for quite a while, until they started getting louder, maybe it had something to do with a beer i drank before that. it all developed to a beautiful set, though quite slight i from me i guess, the loud parts were pretty awesome though. but it was an usual and interesting setup, would like to hear more of that.
Keith Rowe/Tomas Korber - well it was a nice set, but really i though a bit too easy. probably the approach is quite similar? dunno. for me, it started more interesting (tomas slightly hitting his guitar on the table and such), than it eventually continued. a bit too comfortable for my tastes.
Julien Ottavi/Dion Workman - enjoyed quite a bit. beautiful quiet set. i heard from Workman that was they are doing now is different from Misenlian, and i was really curious what they would do. but i had a definite feeling that it's a direction they still working on. some sounds didn't quite fit into whole picture, maybe being just a bit standart. still, very good overall.
Joe Colley/Jason Lescalleet - shit, so great. best set of the night. and definitely the most fun to watch. the most impressive thing for me was, how both chaotic and coherent it was at the same time. great sounds, great dynamics. i bought the cdr the next day. haven't listened yet.
Keith Rowe/Toshimaru Nakamura - probably the most demanding set of the night. it was a very good set, but i was a bit dissapointed. something just didn't quite come together. i think from this duo i expected more, even though it was a good set and i enjoyed it a lot.
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Joe Colley - great set, and again, a great set to watch. i thought at times that the transitions were a bit abrupt, and it did drag at places for me, but the ending made up for it.
Toshimaru Nakamura/Taku Unami/Sean Meehan - i loved that set. yes, unami's contributions did clash with others' at places, but i liked the tension it created. it was somewhat uncomfortable because i couldn't see at all what unami was doing, but in general, it grabbed my attention and i enjoyed it a lot.
Tomas Korber/Tim Barnes - yes, a surprising set, maybe it was me, but i didn't like it as much as others did. i thought the first part was just noisy. there wasn't anything behind it. just lacking in dimension and depth. for me, it was mostly barnes' fault, because even in that part i could say i enjoyed tomas' contributions much more than barnes', and as far as hearing tomas, it was my favourite set. the set started to gain momentum in the second part, becoming more layered, and something just clicked for me from then on.
nmperign/Jason Lescalleet - yeah, a bit bland. nice set, but not much more. i expected a lot, and was quite disappointed. i just was pretty much unmoved by it, and only when they started fading out, i though 'hm, that wasn't that bad'. maybe it was my favourite part of the set?
Keith Rowe/Julien Ottavi - yes i liked it. i though it was a really dynamic set. subtlety? guts! they just went and did a set that was probably just grating for most of the crowd, trying different stuff, and even if it didn't always work, that fact definitely made it up for me. it wasn't just noisy, it was completely different. and ottavi pushing rowe that much. who else does that? and does it always have to be fully successful? it's hard for me to put my feelings on this set to words somehow, but it was just braver than most of the stuff i saw on that fest. and if anything i walked off from this fest, is a great apressiation of Ottavi. i didn't buy his cd (chris was out of it til i finally decided), but i'm sure he is one of the artist i will keep and eye in the future. really enormously talented guy.
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Greg Kelley/David Daniell/Sean Meehan - beautiful set, excellent trio. just so good together. nothing much to say about it except that i enjoyed it a lot. and as i never heard daniell before, i really loved his contributions. other's playing was excellent too.
Keith Rowe/Mark Wastell - the most satisfying Rowe set of the fest. so dynamic, and they played so well together, at the same time not slipping into someting that i would call too comfortable or predictable. very good set, and a one that i would like to have a recording of (no hinting here, i just though that aspect of seeing it live didn't feel as important as in other sets).
Taku Unami/Margarida Garcia - awesome. and might be my favourite of the fest. just so gripping, didn't let me for a second, and my mind tends to wander quite a bit. i'm still thinking about it, and mudd's thoughts seemed interesting to me, because i just didn't hear, or didn't listen to it that way at all. it did work as a duo, it just was a duo that was working from a different aspect, just like Rowe said, time. great, great set. the most memorable for me. nothing else to say.
Tomas Korber/Julien Ottavi - well i guess i wasn't the only one who jumped in his chair when Ottavi hit the keys, heh. i thought he was quite mean to tomas, not leaving him much choice, but about that, maybe we should ask tomas himself. i wasn't brave enought to ask Ottavi what was it that made him do such a set when i was talking to him and Workman in the end of the night, so i am still curious. oh, and yes, i did enjoy this set a lot. in my top 3 or 4 of the fest.
Toshimaru Nakamura/Mark Wastell/Tim Barnes - yes, it was a beautiful set, but i will admit, i was dead tired, and half-slept through a significant part of it, still, somewhat what subconciously, probably, sistening to it, hearing it. i thought it was a great set to end the fest, because it was such a beautiful set, a perfect ending, for the fest, and for me, too.
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bombinthebeehive
- Posts: 327
- Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 1:18 am
as a musician, performer and confrontational young thinker he definitely possesses talent, though i'm not quite sure how to react to him as an improvisor... it was fairly apparent that he flat out ignored korber during their set (still enjoyed it though, guess i'm a sucker for anything loud and caustic).. and all i've been able to make out of the rowe/ottavi set was that perhaps it was intended to be a duo version of this mysterious N:Q radio quartet which i know next to nothing about (http://www.apo33.org/records/wakka.php?wiki=NaQ)grisha wrote: ....and if anything i walked off from this fest, is a great apressiation of Ottavi. i didn't buy his cd (chris was out of it til i finally decided), but i'm sure he is one of the artist i will keep and eye in the future. really enormously talented guy.
oh and it was great to finally meet all of you
Holld yr horses my friends what i had on my mind was that i actually witnessed the situation mentioned by Brian in EQ in Vienna when Mattin performed w Dieb 13. I don't think that the situation is bad or anything like that in fact when it happened it was one of the most exctinig thing on that festival (it was in Vienna w C.Kurzmann w one girl cello player that i foregt, the SSSD quatet, Noid, etc ...). Anyway what i was thiking bout was not to diss Mattin sensibility but his anarhic (and oposite direction) personality that is legendary among the people who worked with him ...
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letchhausen
- Posts: 327
- Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:45 pm
HAHAHAHA.....I was wondering how that disc was gonna be. The word vocal on that and the Andrea Neumann disc scared me off. Man, if I hadn't spent Monday in Bay Ridge Brooklyn with no record stores, well, I still wouldn't have bought eleven more discs to beat you Richard. Sigh, still the 53 I did buy is a respectable number, I shoulda bought more Jeph Jerman discs like you did. Thanks to Chris Wolff and Jon who got the bulk of my money. Of course, DMG, Other Music and Mondo Kim's got some too.Richard Pinnell wrote:Please Luka, it was 63 not 68. Don't over-exaggerate, you'll give me a bad namelukaz wrote:'' and Richard buying 68 disc (check thread on speakeasy)- you re mad ''old chap'' ...
And talking of Mattin, I can see the similarity with Ottavi on many levels. His new guitar and vocals disc on Hibari is truly dreadful however....
Here's some of my faves shows at the 'quake:
Rowe/Wastell
Nakamura/Unami/Meehan
Rowe/Nakamura
Barnes/Nakamura/Wastell
Colley/Lescalleet
Kelly/Daniel/Meehan
I wasn't thrilled with the Rowe/Ottavi set but appreciate it's political statement. I bailed on the Ottavi/Korber set due to tinnitus. It doesn't sound like I missed anything. For extreme volume that was interesting, I caught Daniel Menche's set that afternoon which was excellent. I was disappointed in Hive Minds set since I find his CD's to be much better than that performance. I thought the Garcia/Unami show to be a set that I wanted to like and had some problems with the lack of interaction. It seemed that Unami didn't want to interact and while I can appreciate the sort of call and response that resulted I felt that it could of been much better. At one point Garcia was playing some nice grainy textures and I thought that a little more of that and a little less of the sonorities of bowing might have complemented Unami more. However, it was still a very nice set and it was nice to see people working this area. I would love to hear a recording of it with the visual aspect of my expectations removed. I would like to hear all these sets recorded but perhaps that's just me. It would be a wonderful record of the event.
This was a great time and it was cool to meet many of the people here. However now I have to go to sleep since I am.....so.....very.....very......tired........
I was at those same two sets (mattin/tim), the first one might as well have been a solo set by mattin with tim next to him (this is the one that was released, it sounds better as a record than it did as a concert), which was confirmed when mattin played an almost identical solo set at tonic the next night. I had more of a problem (personally) with mattin's behavior in these sets than I did with julien's in the set under discussion. I thought mattin was disrespectful to both the audience and tim (in the first set, the one this year worked much better, at the end of a tour for them), whereas if julien was disrespectful to anyone (which I'm not convinced of, given the discussions julien/tomas had beforehand), it was to tomas, he made a point of specifically warning the audience beforehand in a nice way, something I'd be shocked if mattin would ever do.sevenarts wrote:i think thats selling mattin short. i've seen him play twice w/ tim barnes, and while ottavi/korber was similar in sound maybe, mattin seems to be a much more sensitive and responsive improviser than ottavi was being during this set - mattin never gave me the impression that he was blaring away w/o listening.
so the short answer, Luka, is "yes".
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William Hutson
- Posts: 627
- Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 12:10 am
I saw Jurg Frey play clarinet (and two uneven pieces of limestone) at UC San Diego about four years ago. A percussion ensemble then played a composition of his that was incredibly beautiful. Everyone should check out his CDs on the Edition Wandelweiser label.Brian Olewnick wrote:World Music Institute Interpretations
Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble
Gamelan Son of Lion
World Music Institute
Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble: Jurg Frey clarinet; Radu Malfatti trombone; Michael Pisaro electric guitar
Program Wandelweiser: Three Backgrounds; Gamelan: works by Barbara Benary, Laura Liben, Jody Kruskal, Lisa Karrer, David J Simons
Oh, and at that same show, I saw the premiere of a Radu Malfatti piece. It was performed at about 2:30 in the morning and was seventy minutes long. Needless to say, I and the performers were among the very few who stayed awake for its entirety.
here.
i don't think we're talking about the same 2 sets, i wasn't at the 1 that was released -- i'm just going off the two sets they did a week apart earlier this year, which to me both seemed like mattin was loud w/o trying to drown out tim; they seemed to be working together very well in those sets at least. of course, this is all subjective on my part... julien & mattin are definitely similar in that both inhabit the extremes -- they're either very quiet or very loud, and they both have confrontational attitudes and ideas. but i can only compare their improvisation based on the few shows i've seen by each, and at least when i saw mattin he seemed much more considerate of his playing partner than julien was.jon abbey wrote:I was at those same two sets (mattin/tim), the first one might as well have been a solo set by mattin with tim next to him (this is the one that was released, it sounds better as a record than it did as a concert), which was confirmed when mattin played an almost identical solo set at tonic the next night. I had more of a problem (personally) with mattin's behavior in these sets than I did with julien's in the set under discussion. I thought mattin was disrespectful to both the audience and tim (in the first set, the one this year worked much better, at the end of a tour for them), whereas if julien was disrespectful to anyone (which I'm not convinced of, given the discussions julien/tomas had beforehand), it was to tomas, he made a point of specifically warning the audience beforehand in a nice way, something I'd be shocked if mattin would ever do.
i also don't think loud volume is really a disrespect to the audience, so theres no need in my opinion for either mattin or julien to warn anybody if they're going to play loudly.
anyway, for the record i did enjoy the julien/tomas set a lot, certainly much more than either of julien's other sets this weekend.
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user_642
what a great weekend...
thanks to jon and everyone involved.
it's very intimidating, and probably a misguided effort at heart,
to point out a "favorite" set, but here's a few thoughts --
I thought Barnes/Wastell was a great choice for an opening set;
an emetic in the best way possible... (no other terminology would really do) ...after hours of negotiating traffic and noxious Soho culture, it sort of sloughed away the day; still and sharp around the edges. perfect. The Rowe/Korber set is a little smudged by the memory; but excellent, looked forward to. Started out like the 'erstquake' version of a set painting from a Nick Ray western, I remember thinking. Ottavi/Workman was another I looked forward to, having heard some of "misenlien"...
the silences of polanski or kubrick. wonderful.
joe colley! jason lescalleet!! The only time I actually leapt out of my seat momentarily was when colley, after standing aloof for a fraction of a second, suddenly lunged at the mixing board from six feet away like a longshoreman strangling a dyke.
(we also did not fail to notice the bottle of jim beam on Joe's table during setup.) The joe/jason set was incredible -- and the hair tousling was just absurdly Rockwell-esque. Joe's solo set as well.... I don't want to make this much longer, so I'l just mention a few ... Rowe/Wastell; kelley/daniell/barnes and the closing sets: Ottavi/Korber and t.n./mw/tb. I missed Menche and Hive Mind
cause I was stuck at the cloisters. oh man!!
it was really nice to meet everyone -- I didn't get to see much of anyone outside of the shows; maybe next time -- ersts '06?
theresa s.
thanks to jon and everyone involved.
it's very intimidating, and probably a misguided effort at heart,
to point out a "favorite" set, but here's a few thoughts --
I thought Barnes/Wastell was a great choice for an opening set;
an emetic in the best way possible... (no other terminology would really do) ...after hours of negotiating traffic and noxious Soho culture, it sort of sloughed away the day; still and sharp around the edges. perfect. The Rowe/Korber set is a little smudged by the memory; but excellent, looked forward to. Started out like the 'erstquake' version of a set painting from a Nick Ray western, I remember thinking. Ottavi/Workman was another I looked forward to, having heard some of "misenlien"...
the silences of polanski or kubrick. wonderful.
joe colley! jason lescalleet!! The only time I actually leapt out of my seat momentarily was when colley, after standing aloof for a fraction of a second, suddenly lunged at the mixing board from six feet away like a longshoreman strangling a dyke.
(we also did not fail to notice the bottle of jim beam on Joe's table during setup.) The joe/jason set was incredible -- and the hair tousling was just absurdly Rockwell-esque. Joe's solo set as well.... I don't want to make this much longer, so I'l just mention a few ... Rowe/Wastell; kelley/daniell/barnes and the closing sets: Ottavi/Korber and t.n./mw/tb. I missed Menche and Hive Mind
cause I was stuck at the cloisters. oh man!!
it was really nice to meet everyone -- I didn't get to see much of anyone outside of the shows; maybe next time -- ersts '06?
theresa s.
Thursday, September 22
Pre-Festival
Pita at the Tonic
I missed the openers for this show, arriving at the Tonic about 5 minutes before Pita’s set. He was up on the stage with two laptops on a table. He started off with washes of sound building in volume quickly. The sounds were typically solo laptop; washes of sounds, hums and clicks. Never any silence but going more towards pure tones later in the set. There were some buried samples, voices and sounds but none recognizable nor overtly engaging. Overall a standard laptop set that was nice but nothing special.
Friday, September 23
ErstQuake Day I
Mark Wastell/Tim Barnes
Barnes and Wastell were setup with two large gongs facing each other with an arsenal of percussion items at their side. They started off quiet with some gentle bowing and tapping but soon building up to greater volume with both of them pummeling their gongs. They backed off from this and returned toward quieter territory still primarily working the gongs. Barnes then brought it up to the loudest volume yet, beating the gong with two mallets in one hand while he held a metal object against the gong. Wastell laid out completely during this, which due to the setup Barnes was ignorant of. Eventually he brought it back down and began a gentle, jingling sound in which Wastell returned to the field with rare strikes on a smaller secondary gong. This increased in sparseness till they ended.
While kicking the festival off with a fanfare I felt that this set was a mixed bag. The beginning and the first ascension into intensity as well as the ending were excellent music but the solo gong assault from Barnes just seemed out of place and rather excessive.
Keith Rowe/Tomas Korber
Two tables, side by side with their respective guitar analogs along with their supporting electronics and tools replaced the dueling gongs. The set begins softly with a buzzing static that builds into a louder feedback as Korber waves his guitar around in the air. This becomes gentler as he lays down the guitar and begins to manipulate his electronics. Rowe activates a fan which he hovers over the guitar and then sets into the tangle of wires at the end of the guitar. He moves on to manipulating the guitar with files, and bringing the headphones over the pickups, generating more feedback. During this there was this infrequent, but repeating whirring sound that was like the beauty of a far away bird call. I was certain that there were repeated gestures from Rowe that was generating this, but it continued on as he moved to another technique, making it clear that it was from Korber. Eventually, things fade out and becomes a thicker drone as Rowe places first one and then another fan on the guitar. Much more digital sounding, but corresponding sounds from Korber. This continues for some time until Korber lays out and then Rowe looks at him and then stops.
A droney set, with some beautiful moments, but was ultimately not very challenging. I enjoyed it, but I think it could have benefited from some clash in the participants.
Julien Ottavi/Dion Workman
With the recent release of Misenlian there was a lot of speculation as to what this set would bring. It began with silence that brought into sharp relief, the rustling of the audience, the movement of chairs and a repetitive knocking from somewhere else. Some digital pops appear and quickly cease, a wash of white noise is brought up and then faded out. Slowly a background hum becomes apparent and increases in volume of the course of long minutes. Added to this is digital static and pops and clicks. This all fades away into the room noise again.
The nature of this set makes it hard to comment on, more then almost any other set this is one I’d like to hear a board recording of. Regardless, I enjoyed this set, which I approached from a Cage-ian perspective working the external sounds into the performance. The knocking at the beginning was an item of much discussion as to whether it was a sample or from next door. When queried Julian claimed it was an externality.
Joe Colley/Jason Lescalleet
A smaller table toward the front of the room held Colley’s mixer, mics and small tape recorders, while scattered across the floor are Lescalleet’s four reel-to-reel’s with their tape stretched out between them. They begin with Colley’s contact mics dragging across the floor creating a scrabbling sound, as Lescalleet fires up his loops which become an intense wash of sound, with loud pops and clicks. The room feed becomes very loud, very visceral – you can feel it cut right through you. At this point a stream of dust falls from the ceiling onto Colley’s gear, startling me at first as I thought it might be water. Lescalleet’s tape loop breaks and the washes of sound drop out, revealing intense cuts, clicks and pierce noise from Colley’s setup Lescalleet repairs his loop and checking up on him Colley moves away from his station and pats Lescalleet on the head. Lescalleet gets the loop running again and picks up his mics and tosses one in the audience and another into the far corner of the room. They back down the volume and then as suddenly as it began it was over.
This set was one of the loudest and most intense and featured artists whom I am not very familiar with. It was by far the most theatrical, with Lescalleet scrabbling around the floor, adjusting loops and volumes and Colley, who is more than 6 feet tall, hunched over his table and shaking and swaying to the noise. Musically it is much harder to qualify, the powerful washes of sound certainly could be felt and there was a noticable layer of detail to them. Ultimately it’s lack of subtly worked against it I think, and while it worked as a piece of entertainment it isn’t something that I necessarily would want to listen to again.
Keith Rowe/Toshimaru Nakamura
The music on the PA prior to this set was John Cage’s Sonata’s and Interludes for Prepared Piano as performed by John Tilbury, which kept playing for a bit as Keith first tested out some sounds and then began to play. Rowe applied the fan right from the start creating that guttering hum as pops and bursts from Nakamura found their way in. Nakamura builds a layer of feedback and a gentle but increasingly insistent drone develops. Rowe, fiddles with plugs and transformers, eventually prompting first Barry Weisblat (who was recording) and then the sound man try to fix the problem. With an announcement of technical difficulties the sound ceases. Rowe’s transformer had blown and he had to replace it.
The lights dim again and the resume where they left off, the drone there but a new dynamic and tension. This builds in intensity and Nakamura begins to ply sine tones against Rowes ominous wash of sound. Eventually this heads into this crazy beaten driven radio grab, buried in the static so that only its rhythmic pounding comes through. Against this increasing staticy pops from Nakamura and slowly the beats disappear and things begin to fade out. During this is a brief sample of the earlier Tilbury piece and then it fades out to just a couple of pops from Nakamura.
No set at this festival was more anticipated by me and it did not disappoint. Nakamura seemed more active and upfront while Rowe explored a wider space and allowed a dominating role for the radio. Both the segments of this improv were very rewarding and while one would not ask for the interruption, who can say what would have come without it. While I do think that there were a couple of more successful sets this was still a highlight of the weekend.
After the set I and a couple other people talked to Rowe for a bit. We got into some discussion of the layout of Rowe’s setup and he mentioned the cubist nature of it. I had spent the day previous at MoMA and had noticed the large amount of guitars in the Picasso’s and other Spanish cubist paintings. There was one sculpture of a guitar by Picasso in particular that made me think of Rowe’s setup at the time of viewing it.
Pre-Festival
Pita at the Tonic
I missed the openers for this show, arriving at the Tonic about 5 minutes before Pita’s set. He was up on the stage with two laptops on a table. He started off with washes of sound building in volume quickly. The sounds were typically solo laptop; washes of sounds, hums and clicks. Never any silence but going more towards pure tones later in the set. There were some buried samples, voices and sounds but none recognizable nor overtly engaging. Overall a standard laptop set that was nice but nothing special.
Friday, September 23
ErstQuake Day I
Mark Wastell/Tim Barnes
Barnes and Wastell were setup with two large gongs facing each other with an arsenal of percussion items at their side. They started off quiet with some gentle bowing and tapping but soon building up to greater volume with both of them pummeling their gongs. They backed off from this and returned toward quieter territory still primarily working the gongs. Barnes then brought it up to the loudest volume yet, beating the gong with two mallets in one hand while he held a metal object against the gong. Wastell laid out completely during this, which due to the setup Barnes was ignorant of. Eventually he brought it back down and began a gentle, jingling sound in which Wastell returned to the field with rare strikes on a smaller secondary gong. This increased in sparseness till they ended.
While kicking the festival off with a fanfare I felt that this set was a mixed bag. The beginning and the first ascension into intensity as well as the ending were excellent music but the solo gong assault from Barnes just seemed out of place and rather excessive.
Keith Rowe/Tomas Korber
Two tables, side by side with their respective guitar analogs along with their supporting electronics and tools replaced the dueling gongs. The set begins softly with a buzzing static that builds into a louder feedback as Korber waves his guitar around in the air. This becomes gentler as he lays down the guitar and begins to manipulate his electronics. Rowe activates a fan which he hovers over the guitar and then sets into the tangle of wires at the end of the guitar. He moves on to manipulating the guitar with files, and bringing the headphones over the pickups, generating more feedback. During this there was this infrequent, but repeating whirring sound that was like the beauty of a far away bird call. I was certain that there were repeated gestures from Rowe that was generating this, but it continued on as he moved to another technique, making it clear that it was from Korber. Eventually, things fade out and becomes a thicker drone as Rowe places first one and then another fan on the guitar. Much more digital sounding, but corresponding sounds from Korber. This continues for some time until Korber lays out and then Rowe looks at him and then stops.
A droney set, with some beautiful moments, but was ultimately not very challenging. I enjoyed it, but I think it could have benefited from some clash in the participants.
Julien Ottavi/Dion Workman
With the recent release of Misenlian there was a lot of speculation as to what this set would bring. It began with silence that brought into sharp relief, the rustling of the audience, the movement of chairs and a repetitive knocking from somewhere else. Some digital pops appear and quickly cease, a wash of white noise is brought up and then faded out. Slowly a background hum becomes apparent and increases in volume of the course of long minutes. Added to this is digital static and pops and clicks. This all fades away into the room noise again.
The nature of this set makes it hard to comment on, more then almost any other set this is one I’d like to hear a board recording of. Regardless, I enjoyed this set, which I approached from a Cage-ian perspective working the external sounds into the performance. The knocking at the beginning was an item of much discussion as to whether it was a sample or from next door. When queried Julian claimed it was an externality.
Joe Colley/Jason Lescalleet
A smaller table toward the front of the room held Colley’s mixer, mics and small tape recorders, while scattered across the floor are Lescalleet’s four reel-to-reel’s with their tape stretched out between them. They begin with Colley’s contact mics dragging across the floor creating a scrabbling sound, as Lescalleet fires up his loops which become an intense wash of sound, with loud pops and clicks. The room feed becomes very loud, very visceral – you can feel it cut right through you. At this point a stream of dust falls from the ceiling onto Colley’s gear, startling me at first as I thought it might be water. Lescalleet’s tape loop breaks and the washes of sound drop out, revealing intense cuts, clicks and pierce noise from Colley’s setup Lescalleet repairs his loop and checking up on him Colley moves away from his station and pats Lescalleet on the head. Lescalleet gets the loop running again and picks up his mics and tosses one in the audience and another into the far corner of the room. They back down the volume and then as suddenly as it began it was over.
This set was one of the loudest and most intense and featured artists whom I am not very familiar with. It was by far the most theatrical, with Lescalleet scrabbling around the floor, adjusting loops and volumes and Colley, who is more than 6 feet tall, hunched over his table and shaking and swaying to the noise. Musically it is much harder to qualify, the powerful washes of sound certainly could be felt and there was a noticable layer of detail to them. Ultimately it’s lack of subtly worked against it I think, and while it worked as a piece of entertainment it isn’t something that I necessarily would want to listen to again.
Keith Rowe/Toshimaru Nakamura
The music on the PA prior to this set was John Cage’s Sonata’s and Interludes for Prepared Piano as performed by John Tilbury, which kept playing for a bit as Keith first tested out some sounds and then began to play. Rowe applied the fan right from the start creating that guttering hum as pops and bursts from Nakamura found their way in. Nakamura builds a layer of feedback and a gentle but increasingly insistent drone develops. Rowe, fiddles with plugs and transformers, eventually prompting first Barry Weisblat (who was recording) and then the sound man try to fix the problem. With an announcement of technical difficulties the sound ceases. Rowe’s transformer had blown and he had to replace it.
The lights dim again and the resume where they left off, the drone there but a new dynamic and tension. This builds in intensity and Nakamura begins to ply sine tones against Rowes ominous wash of sound. Eventually this heads into this crazy beaten driven radio grab, buried in the static so that only its rhythmic pounding comes through. Against this increasing staticy pops from Nakamura and slowly the beats disappear and things begin to fade out. During this is a brief sample of the earlier Tilbury piece and then it fades out to just a couple of pops from Nakamura.
No set at this festival was more anticipated by me and it did not disappoint. Nakamura seemed more active and upfront while Rowe explored a wider space and allowed a dominating role for the radio. Both the segments of this improv were very rewarding and while one would not ask for the interruption, who can say what would have come without it. While I do think that there were a couple of more successful sets this was still a highlight of the weekend.
After the set I and a couple other people talked to Rowe for a bit. We got into some discussion of the layout of Rowe’s setup and he mentioned the cubist nature of it. I had spent the day previous at MoMA and had noticed the large amount of guitars in the Picasso’s and other Spanish cubist paintings. There was one sculpture of a guitar by Picasso in particular that made me think of Rowe’s setup at the time of viewing it.
"Please everybody, if we haven't done what we could have done, we've tried"
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William Hutson
- Posts: 627
- Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 12:10 am
The fact that Julien knew, far enough in advance to warn the audience, that his set was going to be loud suggests that he was playing a "piece" rather than improvising. He was going to play what he was going to play, whether Tomas was there or not. He'd built his patch (to be controlled by his glow-stickless pop 'n lock routine) pushed "play," and when it was over, it was over. It was as if he hadn't programmed himself any interface capable of reacting to Tomas (let alone hear him). What we saw was a Julien Ottavi solo composition played adjacent to (and much louder than) a Tomas Korber improvisation.sevenarts wrote:anyway, for the record i did enjoy the julien/tomas set a lot, certainly much more than either of julien's other sets this weekend.
This is, of course, just an opinion, and I very well could have misread the whole situation.
here.
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Brian Olewnick
- Posts: 287
- Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 12:14 pm
Just wanted to mention a few "moments" that have lingered. One was the oft-commented on closing of Rowe/Ottavi, the string quartet on Julien's radio. Very, very beautiful the way it was handled and (our) David made some good points about the questions it raised for the audience member on how (or whether) to consider it the end of the set. Second was a moment toward the end of the Daniel/Kelley/Meehan set where David brought in a relatively loudish drone that had an almost identical sonority to Reich's "Four Organs". Coincidental, I'm sure, but elicited a smile from me. Finally, the closing ten or so minutes of the final set from Tim, Toshi and Mark. Perfect, lovely stasis; great way to end.
oh, ok. I'm talking about the one last year at issue project, I didn't see the tonic one this year.sevenarts wrote:i don't think we're talking about the same 2 sets, i wasn't at the 1 that was released -- i'm just going off the two sets they did a week apart earlier this year
yes, I agree. what I think is disrepectful is extremely quick dynamic shifts past the threshold of ear pain/damage.i also don't think loud volume is really a disrespect to the audience, so theres no need in my opinion for either mattin or julien to warn anybody if they're going to play loudly.
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William Hutson
- Posts: 627
- Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 12:10 am
I would like to point out, though, that I thought much more of Ottavi's other two sets. His set with Dion Workman was quite surprising after my unenthusiastic reaction to Misenlian. Also, I was one of the few people I talked to who really enjoyed his set with Keith Rowe. His playing was a little heavy handed compared to Keith's, but, for the most part, it worked very well. Somehow I've always felt that radios are the only honest way to incorporate sampled material into improvisation. Also: I loved the ending-- it was as if Keith had slipped back into the nostalgia of the fluxus-type process pieces he had referred to earlier in the day regarding the Scratch Orchestra.
here.
yes, when building the back, he copied a couple of the curves directly from a Braque painting. when he's back here for a day next week, he wants to hang it on my wall like a painting, so Yuko can take pix of it.hatta wrote:After the set I and a couple other people talked to Rowe for a bit. We got into some discussion of the layout of Rowe’s setup and he mentioned the cubist nature of it. I had spent the day previous at MoMa and had noticed the large amount of guitars in the Picasso’s and other Spanish cubist paintings. There was one sculpture of a guitar by Picasso in particular that made me think of Rowe’s setup at the time of viewing it.